by Lynda Renham
‘I need to tell you something. I’m flying to Cambodia tonight,’ I say narrowly avoiding an airborne chop.
She gasps and then claps her hands.
‘Ooh how exciting. That is very daring of you darling, but why? Don’t they have drug barons and things like that there?’
Drug barons? I didn’t know about them.
‘I made up with Toby, but then broke up with him again,’ I say miserably.
She clucks.
‘Really, Libby, most women can keep a boyfriend for twenty-four hours. I do wonder if you should see one of those counsellors. Robin, you know, daddy’s golf friend, he has been marvellous after seeing that doctor in Reading.’
‘He’s on lithium.’
‘Well perhaps you should get some. It has done marvels for him.’
‘I’ll just pop to Boots shall I?’
‘Just trying to help darling,’ she replies in a hurt voice. ‘It helped him.’
‘He’s a recovering alcoholic and total nutcase.’
I shriek as I accidentally touch the dead animal that hugs her hips. God, I’m sure it moved. This is the grossest thing I have seen at my parent’s house, and let me tell you, I have seen some gross things.
‘Don’t raise your voice to your mother,’ says father pushing open the door. Thank God neither of us is perched on the toilet. Things are getting a little cramped in the smallest room now.
‘I just thought you should know that I am flying to Cambodia, where there is an uprising and the rebels are completely out of control. Just so you know I could be killed,’ I say dramatically.
‘Perhaps you’ll meet someone there,’ says mother calmly, ‘and maybe even lose some weight. I certainly think you have gained some more.’
She suddenly jumps up and grabs me by the hands.
‘Are you going with that dashing brawny heart-throb, Alex Bryant?’ she says breathlessly.
Dad holds his breath.
‘Yes, I am.’
Next she’ll be telling me to shag him in the plane’s loo.
‘You should join that mile club,’ she giggles.
What did I tell you?
‘Are we members?’ asks my dad curiously, collecting wayward feathers out of the bathroom sink.
God, I bloody hope not.
‘No you’re not and it’s the Mile High Club,’ I snap. ‘And he is the last man on earth I would shag on a plane,’ I say loudly, walking out of the loo to curious eyes.
Not that I would ever shag any man on a plane, of course, let alone Alex Bryant. After all, I do have principles. Issy rolls her eyes and pops another olive.
‘Darling, you must visit this divine village that your father and I saw on telly. We had thought about going there ourselves but it is pretty dire out there right now, what with the political situation and all that,’ says mother, trying to rearrange her meat dress.
Oh, I see. It’s too dangerous for my parents to visit but perfectly okay for me.
‘But you’re going with Alex Bryant darling. You’ll be fine with him.’
She makes him sound like Indiana Jones. I am handed a scrap of paper with an almost illegible address on it.
‘It’s in Cambodian language. Give it to one of the taxi drivers, they’ll know. You must go darling, it looked fabulous, and it has a beautiful temple with a huge bell. Apparently, when the monks sound the bell all of the villagers go to the temple. How amazing is that? You must bring back a silk shawl from there. And try and lose some weight while away, darling.’
‘You mean Khmer don’t you, there is no such thing as Cambodian language.’
‘Do I? Well, whatever they speak out there, it certainly isn’t English is it?’
Lady Gaga sings loudly in the background and mother is encouraged by her friends to impersonate her. This is all I need. I look at Issy who winks. I rack my brain to think of some excuse to escape.
‘Anyway, I’m not fat as such. I’m a bit curvy, that’s all,’ I say, kissing mother on the cheek and moving towards the door. ‘I only need to lose a few pounds.’
‘A healthy lifestyle is what you need. Lots of sex and rock and roll,’ yells Flash Gordon, rolling his hips towards my mother. Someone hand me a bucket.
‘Curvy is just another word for fat darling and don’t forget, we are off to Kilimanjaro,’ calls mother, excitedly.
Thanks mother, as if I could forget that they are off to Kilimanjaro. I make a quick exit with Issy and rush out into the now heavy falling snow.
‘What a cheek. I do live a healthy life style. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink and I don’t exercise, how much healthier can I be,’ I say, skidding on the snow.
‘I wish I was coming with you,’ says Issy sadly. ‘You make me laugh.’
I hug her tightly, wishing so very much she could come with me too. I really don’t want to go out there with just Alex-I-can-save-the-sodding-world-Bryant. In fact, I don’t actually want to go at all. It had all happened on impulse. I’d walked back into the kitchen to find Toby talking all soppy to Serena on his mobile and had seen red. How dare he come into my kitchen for tea and cake and talk to her. Jamie had just reached his car when I had called him back and said with more confidence than I felt,
‘Book my flight. I am going to Cambodia. How soon can I leave?’
Of course Jamie’s face had lit up while Toby’s had dropped. I instantly regretted it. Maybe I should have given Toby a chance to explain himself. Instead, I demanded that he leave and threw the sponge cake at him. To give him his due he had attempted to explain but I wouldn’t listen. What am I doing flying to Cambodia and just before Christmas too? Someone is bound to blow up the plane. They do that sort of thing at Christmas time don’t they? That would be just my luck.
‘Can’t you fly out after Christmas? Maybe do a story on the fashion of Cambodia? After all, I imagine it is very exotic there,’ I ask hopefully, feeling my own tears well up.
‘What sodding fashion. Libs, you are a clown. Oh fuck a duck, I wish you weren’t going. I will miss you.’ She leans towards me awkwardly and we hug tightly.
I tuck my arm into Issy’s and shiver. At least I will get some sunshine and who knows maybe I will meet someone. After all, stranger things have happened.
Chapter Ten
Alex walks towards me and for some stupid reason I blush. I quickly recheck the hotel address and pop it into my bag along with the address of the village that mother had said must be visited.
‘It sounds glorious, and the silk shawls they make are astounding. Promise to bring me one back and take lots of photos. It’s in the middle of nowhere so you can escape old Bryant although God knows why you would want to,’ she had said on the phone.
Looking at his stiff arrogant back as he speaks to a security guard, I can think of a hundred reasons why I would want to escape him. I watch as he finally extradites himself from several admirers and strolls towards me, or should I say swaggers. This man brings out the worst in me. He drops a rucksack at my feet and stares wide-eyed at my two large suitcases. He lifts his steely blue eyes to meet mine.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘It really is sensible when visiting a country like Cambodia to travel light,’ he says in a cool voice.
Here we go.
‘A country like what exactly?’ I snap, revealing my hand luggage from behind my back.
He sighs.
‘We’re entering a country where there is an uprising. I’m not popular with the government there and there may be situations where we may have to move quickly. We won’t have hours for you to pack each time we do.’
He watches as I struggle and heave to get the cases up to the counter. After minutes of panting and heaving and giving myself a hernia, he gently lifts them for me. Without effort he plonks them onto the conveyer belt.
‘Now, if this were a life and death situation you wouldn’t get away would you?’ he says in that arrogant voice which I am growing to detest. ‘In a hostile conflict situation you would never make it.’
Is he intense or what? He moves closer to hand over his passport and I feel my heart quicken as the fresh clean smell of him reaches my nostrils.
‘Well thank God I put my machine guns in there then,’ I snap. ‘I’ll just shoot everyone if they get in my way.’
The check-in clerk stares at me with her hand hovering over my cases. Oh shit. I hand her my passport with my sweetest smile.
‘Did you pack your suitcases yourself?’ she asks suspiciously.
I nod. It’s all going well so far I don’t think.
‘Yes, even the machine guns,’ I say jokingly, attempting to ease some tension.
Bryant sighs. Her expression doesn’t change but her eyes flick from me to Alex Bryant, where it hovers for longer than it should and then back again.
‘I will need to get security to check your bags madam.’
‘No really, there is no need. It was just a joke. Of course there aren’t machine guns in there,’ I protest.
Damn, they will mess up my neatly folded clothes. I turn angrily to Alex-courage-under-fire-Bryant and am about to let rip, when mother calls me and Michael Jackson’s Thriller blares from my Blackberry, almost as if I had choreographed the music to add effect to the increasingly tense situation. Alex Bryant gives me a despairing look. I click it off and turn to the clerk.
‘It really isn’t appropriate to joke about machine guns in this present climate,’ she says in a solemn voice and manages to get her face to match. A quick glance at my ticket gives her more ammunition.
‘I see you’re going to Cambodia,’ she says, raising her eyebrows.
‘Miss Holmes is accompanying me,’ says Alex in a hot sexy voice while giving her a smile that is enough to melt any woman’s heart. It certainly makes mine flip which makes me angrier than ever.
‘What flight is she on?’ calls someone from the waiting queue. ‘I hope you’re going to check those bags. I don’t want to get on a plane that may be hijacked.’
For heaven’s sake, do I look like someone who would hijack a plane?
‘Really, you only have to look at me to see I’m not a hijacker,’ I say, forcing a laugh and wishing it sounded more authentic.
No one else laughs. Not even sodding Alex Bryant, to whom I now look at pleadingly.
‘We’re travelling together,’ he says, draping an arm around me, ‘and I think you can rest assured that I would not travel with a terrorist.’
I shrug his arm off me.
‘Excuse me, I’m a hijacker,’ I correct. ‘They think I am a hijacker, not a terrorist.’
‘It is the same thing isn’t it?’ he says dismissively turning to the clerk with a wide grin. How dare he make me look foolish?
‘It’s quite different actually. I might hijack the plane but may not necessarily want to blow it up.’
What am I saying?
He turns from the clerk and gives me an odd look. His mouth moves but he doesn’t speak. I wait expectantly as does the clerk. After what seems to be something of an internal struggle his steely blue eyes bore into mine, and he says in a smug voice,
‘And your point is?’
That is just the kind of question he would ask isn’t it. You know the kind that you just find impossible to answer.
‘My point is that I would never ever consider being a terrorist because they blow people up whereas a hijacker just hijacks and doesn’t actually kill people…’
Christ, I’m just getting in deeper and deeper. Why do I feel this overwhelming need to somehow get the better of Alex-always-right-Bryant?
‘Lady, you are killing me right now. Just how long do you intend to hijack that counter? Some of us would actually like to get on our flight,’ yells another passenger.
‘Merry Christmas to you too,’ I snap.
‘So, what you are saying is you wouldn’t consider being a terrorist, but you would consider being a hijacker?’ says a smug Alex leaning close to me. I blush furiously and hate him for it.
‘No of course not,’ I say defensively. ‘What I meant was if I had to choose, I would obviously choose to be a hijacker and not a terrorist…’
He nods knowingly.
‘That is what I just said.’
What a smug irritating arsehole.
‘This is when they do it isn’t it, at Christmas time. They are such bastards. Someone arrest her. I don’t want to be on a plane that is going to be hijacked,’ shouts a woman from the queue.
‘I’m not going to hijack the plane, have you all gone mad?’
Jesus Christ, all I did was crack a silly joke about machine guns and now all eyes are on me and everyone has gone nuts.
‘I think you would be wise to stay quiet,’ whispers Alex.
He leans forward and says something to the check-in clerk which I can’t hear. I really do not know what I am doing here. It is almost Christmas and Toby is probably all cosy round a tree with Serena, and chestnuts roasting on an open fire, while mum and dad are preparing for their Kilimanjaro Christmas extravaganza. Issy will be late-night Christmas shopping, while Jamie is probably shagging for England with his Filipino lover. And me, well I am attempting to convince people I am neither a hijacker nor a terrorist and that I really don’t have machine guns in my suitcase. To make matters worse my sodding button just popped on my skirt and I can feel the zipper slowly creeping undone. I see my suitcases gliding through a curtain like two little coffins on their way to cremation. That means I am stuck with this skirt for the duration of the journey. Alex hands me my hand luggage and with a tilt of his head indicates that I should follow him to the departure lounge. He gives me my boarding pass, in case we get separated. Honestly, anyone would think I was five years old. I ring mother fearing my plane, or God forbid, hers, may crash and we may never speak again. She instructs me to buy Imodium for my stomach as ‘You never know,’ and asks casually if I have packed condoms.
‘You might get lucky, as long as it isn’t some Cambodian man with a leg missing.’
‘What?’
‘You know all those land mines and everything.’
My mother is a national embarrassment with zero political correctness. I suppress my gasp and wish her a good flight. I am about to hang up when she says,
‘By the way, your father read they don’t have toilet paper out there. Can you imagine?’
‘In Kilimanjaro?’
‘No silly, in Cambodia. You had better get some.’
I blink rapidly. I will never get a toilet roll into my hand luggage.
‘But they must use something,’ I say, not really wanting to know what.
‘Apparently they use their hands darling. Oh, your father’s calling, must dash. Have a super time.’
I shudder and look at Alex. My God, surely he doesn’t? A graphic picture of Alex Bryant wiping his bum enters my head and I quickly shake the thought away. Holding my skirt together I amble into Boots for some safety pins. I take another sneaky look at him. He is extraordinarily good looking. Don’t get me wrong, I could never fancy such an arrogant man but I can see the attraction, and there is something safe about him. If only he wasn’t such an arsehole. Admittedly Toby’s articles haven’t always been as well researched as they could have been but nevertheless they are powerful and well written. My mind wanders to Toby, and I wonder if he is thinking about me. This would have been our first Christmas together and I was so looking forward to it. Instead I’m flying to Cambodia and won’t really have a Christmas at all. After dropping safety pins and a box of Imodium into my basket I find myself hovering around the toilet roll section. ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas’ screeches into my ears from a nearby speaker as I stare longingly at the rolls. How can they not have any in Cambodia? I see the security guard looking at me strangely and move onto the tissues and throw several packs into my basket. That should do it. I am about to edge my way into the queue when a scruffy young man blocks my way. I attempt to edge round him. He makes no effort to move and I am about to kindly ask him if he would when
he leans forward, his alcohol breath wafting into my face.
‘Listen up fatty, if you’re on my flight and try anything stupid I’ll knock you’re fucking head off, got it?’ he spits.
Before I can spit anything back he is escorted outside the shop by Alex Bryant. I quickly follow. I can hear shouting behind me but am oblivious to it. The only thing reverberating in my head is the word fatty. Did he really call me that? God, I must be really fat if people are starting to call me names. I stare bewildered as Alex leans close to him.
‘You’re going to apologise now aren’t you, because if you don’t I will come after you when it’s dark and slice your tongue out,’ says Alex-don’t-mess-with-me-Bryant in an evil voice.
Okay, he didn’t quite say that, but from the tight mean look on his face you could easily be forgiven in thinking that he had. He is quite frightening when angry. I must admit to feeling a small thrill at having him stand up for me.
‘Both you and I know that is no way to talk to a lady. I want you to apologise right now.’ Is what he actually says.
‘And you’ll do fucking what if I don’t,’ spits the youth, struggling to free himself from Alex’s tight grasp.
‘Let’s just say you don’t want to refuse my request.’
Good Lord, he sounds like ‘The Godfather’. He will be making him an offer he can’t refuse next which will be a bit extreme to say the least. Although, it is nice to have someone protect me. I can’t remember Toby being protective.
‘He’s fucking ex-SAS,’ squeals the man’s friend, making Alex sound more terrifying than he already is.
I see the Boots security guard pointing at me and I realise I have rushed from the store with the goods still in the basket, and the basket still in my hand.
‘I’m not fucking apologising to that fat terrorist cow.’
Does he really have to shout so loudly? And honestly, he really doesn’t have to have such a look of disgust on his face. Even I know I am not that fat. Of course everyone looks at the fat cow and I just want the floor to open up and swallow me. In a moment of quick thinking I unashamedly look behind me for the fat cow myself. It is all very well having a few people think you’re fat, like your mother and your boyfriend, but when a whole bloody airport does it is something else.
