by Dani Atkins
I was still smiling as I cinched the seat belt tightly around me.
We were delayed on the runway, of course we were. Long after every passenger was seated, we still remained on the ground, while a host of ground crew bundled up like Arctic explorers, busied themselves around the exterior of the plane. Despite the captain’s repeated assurances that we would shortly be preparing for take off, the longer we sat and waited, and the harder the snow kept falling, the less likely it looked that we would be leaving any time soon. As an added delight, every time I bent low to try to peer through the small oval window which looked out over the wing of the plane, the young toddler in the seat next to me screamed in my face like a rhesus monkey.
‘I’m so sorry,’ apologised his mother, trying to disentangle his small sticky hand from his death grip hold on a sizeable amount of my hair. ‘He just doesn’t like flying.’
‘I know how he feels,’ I commiserated, pulling back and allowing the youngster to keep the five or so strands that were firmly threaded through his pudgy fingers.
Finally, the captain’s voice came once again through the plane’s communication system. ‘Okay, folks, sorry about the delay. As those of you by a window have probably noticed, we had to wait for the aircraft to be sprayed and cleared of ice and snow. We’re now good to go. There’s a little bumpy air ahead of us, but we’ll do all we can to push through that as quickly as possible and try to make up the lost time. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for take off.’
‘Oh dear,’ muttered the young woman beside me, ‘I hope it doesn’t get too turbulent. Marcus always throws up if its rough.’
‘Me too,’ joined in the large man on my other side. I sat back and closed my eyes and tried really hard to pretend I was somewhere far, far, away.
There’s always that moment during take off when I suddenly remember that I really don’t like flying after all. That’s the time when I normally reach down and find William’s hand waiting in readiness to grip mine. But not tonight. Not on this flight. In fact, who even knew where William’s hands were and what they were gripping right this minute? Not me.
As the plane thundered along the runway, building up speed in preparation for taking to the skies, I forced myself to try to forget every newspaper account I had ever read of some poor doomed flight whose snow-encrusted engines had failed, or where ice had immobilised something that was vital to keeping the plane in the air. That was the downside of having a virtually photographic memory, I retained all sorts of bits of information that I’d really rather not remember as we hurtled through the falling snow at 160 miles an hour. Of course, that same retentive memory had been quite useful when gaining my degree from a prestigious university, so it wasn’t all bad. Instead of thinking of the improbability of air travel and what actually kept a plane in the air anyway – having a good memory didn’t necessarily mean I was super smart – I decided to turn my thoughts to something far less disturbing. Not surprisingly, the distraction that sprang most readily to mind was the passenger I had almost – but not quite – managed to meet on several occasions that day. The man who right now was sitting only twenty metres or so in front of me in the plane, in a compartment where his legs probably weren’t wedged against the seat in front of him, as mine were, and his neighbours were seated far enough away not to present a hazard should the flight actually become as turbulent as the captain had predicted.
It did. In fact the captain’s ‘a little bumpy air’ was a definite understatement. Even before our wheels had left the concrete runway, the plane was hit by speeding crosswinds that buffeted the aluminium fuselage as we bulleted through the snow. Some were violent enough to make the entire cabin shake, as though angry storm-giants were punching their fists at us as we rocketed past them. It wasn’t much better when we were airborne. Instead of the smooth glide upwards through the skies, where the worst thing you have to worry about was the popping of your ears, we were rocked and jolted through the air, like a bag full of marbles. Every bump and dip of the plane was accompanied by a chorus of worried cries and shouts from within the cabin. It probably didn’t last more than a minute or two, but as we torpedoed up through the grey swirling snow, it felt like the plane was riding an angry bucking bronco, that was determined to unseat us. Several of the overhead lockers popped open, showering those unlucky enough to be beneath them with various belongings. I opened my eyes, which I hadn’t even realised I had screwed tightly shut, and glanced across at two of the flight attendants in their jump seats. Although both had their arms braced for support against the curved walls of the aeroplane, I was pleased to see that they still appeared to be holding a relatively normal conversation, and neither of them looked worried. I decided that was a good sign. If they looked scared, that would be the time to panic.
Then, almost as though our plane had punched through a physical membrane in the clouds, the shaking and juddering were suddenly gone. The aircraft levelled out and, a soft ripple of spontaneous applause sounded around the cabin. I’m not ashamed to admit I joined in.
I would never have asked to be moved. I don’t know if that’s a British kind of thing, that intrinsic reticence embedded within us not to make a fuss and complain, or if it’s just me. Either way, thankfully, I didn’t have to. The flight attendant who trundled her drinks trolley to a standstill to serve us must have noticed the way the guy beside me had left virtually no room for my legs, or perhaps it was the way the seat tray had bounced painfully onto my cramped knees when she’d flipped it down to hold my drink. For all I knew, it could even have been the way she’d been forced to bend down low to hear my order, because the toddler on the other side of me was currently voicing his very noisy protest about air travel in general, in the way that only a two-year-old can.
With a courteous smile the attendant had served the man to my left with his double scotch and the two extra bags of peanuts he’d asked for, but before turning to the passengers on the other side of the aisle she had lightly touched my shoulder, and brought her head close enough to mine so that only I could hear her speak.
‘Give me a few minutes and I’ll see if there’s anything I can do about finding you a different seat,’ she promised. She was as good as her word, and before disappearing down the compartment with her drinks trolley, I saw her speak briefly to another attendant, who glanced my way, nodded and then strode off. Less than ten minutes later he was back, helping me unload my belongings from the locker and leading me out of my seat.
‘Excuse me, but are you being upgraded?’ enquired my seat companion. I hesitated, unsure of what to say, while trying very hard not to look stupidly excited at the prospect. An upgrade hadn’t even occurred to me. Was I about to be moved into Business Class? ‘Because, if so, I really don’t have much room here and—’ continued the large man, on a definite mission to join me.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ interjected my rescuer, ‘I’m afraid Business Class is fully booked on this flight.’ He glanced down at the handful of peanuts scattered across the man’s tray table. ‘The young lady is just moving seats. Nut allergy,’ he added succinctly, taking my elbow and gently steering me away from my assigned place.
‘Thank you so much for this,’ I said gratefully as he led me forward, past the small galley and then back down the other aisle towards the tail end of the aircraft. I tried to sneak a quick glance through the minuscule gap in the curtains that separated the two sections of the plane, but annoyingly the ties holding them in place were infuriatingly secure.
The attendant took me past rows and rows of occupied seats until we reached the very back of the plane, and were suddenly faced with three completely empty rows. He passed me my hand luggage and coat, and swept his free arm to encompass the array of vacant places.
‘Take your pick,’ he said with a smile.
I looked left and right in surprise. ‘But I thought this flight was fully booked? I was lucky to get a seat.’
‘We are. We were,’ he corrected. ‘These seats were assigned to a
school party returning from a skiing trip. They got caught out by the weather and missed the flight,’ he explained. ‘Unlucky for them.’ In little under an hour there were going to be twenty sets of parents who would seriously disagree with that statement.
I chose a seat by the window, but even as I was settling into it, the plane once again bucked and rocked as the storm currents bounced and buffeted against us. The overhead sign pinged into life, alerting all passengers to fasten their seat belts. The attendant glanced down to check I was securely buckled up, before saying ruefully, ‘You’d best keep that fastened. I think it’s going to be a rough ride all the way in tonight.’
He had no idea.
I pulled out my book, but it was difficult to read with the ever-increasing turbulence, and eventually I laid it to one side before the jumbled lines began to make me feel sick. I kept darting nervous glances out of the small oval window at the storm, which continued to whirl around the plane, keeping apace with us on our journey through the skies. The swirling flakes made it feel like we were trapped inside the world’s largest snow globe, which had just been given an almighty shake.
It must have been approaching midnight by then, and despite the far-from-smooth passage and the roaring drone of the plane’s engines I could feel my eyelids growing heavy, as my head burrowed against the unyielding headrest. I might even have slept for a minute or two before it happened, and then – obviously – sleep was the last thing on anyone’s mind.
There was no subtle warning that we were in serious trouble. No time to think or acclimatise to the situation. No time to ponder on the improbability that, despite the odds against it, we really were about to be involved in an airline incident. It began with an ear-shattering enormous bang that reverberated through the plane, so loud that it drowned out every one of the voices crying out in alarm. The lights flickered, went out and then came back on. By then everyone knew that something was wrong, seriously wrong. You didn’t need to be an expert in aviation to realise that. A loud roaring sound from somewhere deep within the belly of the plane replaced the thrum of the engines. It sounded like the bleating wail of a fiercely angry animal, an animal that was hungry for blood.
The plane jerked and bucked and then suddenly dropped in altitude, its nose pointing down towards the snow-capped mountains below us. It felt as though we were literally falling out of the sky. I gripped on to the armrests and felt my feet scrabbling for purchase on the floor. Screams and cries filled the air, as well as fragments of hastily remembered prayers, as faiths were rapidly rediscovered in this moment of crisis.
The plane’s dive was brief and terrifying before the pilots brought it under control. Once again we were flying level, but I don’t think anyone was stupid enough to think the danger was over. Isolated as I was at the back of the plane, I could see nothing of my fellow passengers, but I could certainly hear them. And then the captain came onto the intercom, his voice virtually unrecognisable from the man who had warned of some ‘bumpy air’ just a short time earlier. Like a plane full of serpents, a chorus of ‘Ssshh’ sounds were uttered, as people tried to take in and make sense of his dire announcement. Me, I only caught a fraction of what he said, due to the racing panic that kept crashing and breaking over me like a wave. But the parts I did hear were terrifying enough. They were the words of a nightmare. ‘ . . . electrical failure . . . systems malfunction . . . turning back . . . emergency landing . . .’ I joined the dots of his announcement and the picture it revealed was terrifying.
I rose up in my seat as far as my restraint would allow, and saw the panicked aftermath of the captain’s message. Couples sat entwined, many sobbing openly, trying to cram a lifetime of ‘I love yous’ into the few minutes they might have left. The flight attendants were racing up and down the aisles, the training they hoped they would never need finally having to be put into use. Desperate passengers grabbed their hands as they flew past, looking for a reassurance and an answer they simply couldn’t give. Are we going to crash? It almost seemed like a pointless question.
I looked at the empty seats surrounding me, suddenly sorry I’d been moved. I was alone and forgotten at the back of the plane. And then suddenly I wasn’t.
‘There you are,’ a warm voice said with a smile.
I looked up and saw the Business Class passenger, Logan Carter, standing beside my row of seats. Almost in danger of cannoning into him, my former seat-mate ran past, heading for the toilet cubicle at a speed you seldom see in a man of his size.
‘Get back in your seat and buckle up,’ thundered the voice of a flight attendant. Logan Carter looked slightly shamefaced at the reprimand, and slid smoothly into the seat beside me. ‘You don’t mind if I join you back here, do you?’
‘I . . . I . . . what are you doing here?’ I asked brokenly, as he reached down and pulled the lap belt across his body and clicked it into place. I saw him glance down to check that my own belt was securely fastened.
‘Ah, well. I thought I should make good on my offer of buying you that coffee,’ he said lightly. Belying his jesting tone, his hand reached over and gently covered mine, which was still tightly gripping the armrest.
‘What? Coffee?’ I replied in a daze, so overcome with fear and terror that he had to spell out his real intentions to me.
‘I knew you were on my flight and that you were travelling by yourself,’ his arresting eyes were an even deeper shade of green up close. They held mine, inexplicably soothing and calming me in this moment of paralysing dread. ‘I didn’t think either of us should be alone right now. So I walked the length of the plane until I found you.’
I stared back into his warm and compassionate face, which registered only concern for me, a total stranger, and not the crippling fear that surely he too was feeling.
‘To be honest, when I couldn’t find you straight away I was kind of hoping that you hadn’t caught the flight after all.’
The immobilising fear loosened some of its hold on my throat so that I was able to reply. ‘I really wish that I hadn’t too.’
He nodded solemnly, and the hand still covering mine gently squeezed before he removed it.
‘I’m sorry you’re here, but I’m glad I found you. I’m Logan, by the way.’ He swivelled towards me in his seat and held out his hand, as though we were being introduced at a cocktail party. It was a surreal moment and it took me several seconds before I managed to summon up the strength to let go of the armrest to place my hand in his.
‘Hannah. Hannah Truman,’ I said, strangely comforted by his touch. Instead of releasing my fingers, he lowered our joined hands leaving them connected and resting against my legs.
The air of calm he was unknowingly exuding was swept aside like a tornado, as one of the flight attendants suddenly interrupted us. In her arms she held a large black waste sack. They were clearing the cabin of rubbish? Now?
‘Do you have anything sharp on you?’ the woman asked with no preamble.
‘What? No, nothing,’ I answered dumbly, aware of how many years it had been since passengers had been permitted to carry anything sharp into the cabin of a plane.
‘Stilettos?’ the woman shot back, before glancing down and seeing the comfortable trainers I always wore when travelling. I shook my head. ‘Glasses? Contact lenses? Brooches or pins of any kind?’ She was really scaring me now, not because of what she was asking me, but by the fear that was openly written on her own face. This was the trigger I hadn’t wanted to see, a terrified flight crew.
‘What about those?’ asked the woman, pointing at my face. I looked at her blankly.
‘Your earrings,’ said Logan gently. ‘She wants you to take your earrings out.’ He released my hands, allowing them to go to my face and unhook the dangling geometric shaped silver trinkets from my ears. I went to palm the pair, which had been a gift from Kate for my last birthday, but the attendant snatched them from my hand and dropped them into the bag on top of the sharp-heeled shoes, cell phones, electronic devices and the hundred other thi
ngs which the airline apparently thought were going to do us harm in the event of a crash. Personally I thought the aeroplane hitting the ground at around three hundred miles an hour was more than enough to worry about.
Logan had nothing to throw into her bag of potential impaling items, and after casting a swift eye at the empty seats around us, she turned back with one last question. ‘Are you okay back here? Do you want to move further forward?’ I glanced up at Logan, whose eyes said the decision was clearly mine. I turned back to the flight attendant. ‘No. I want to stay here.’ She gave a brief nod, her mind already racing towards her next task.
She jerked open the door of the toilet cubicle and threw the black bag with its multitude of dangers inside it, and then slid the door closed. ‘Just keep listening out for our instructions,’ she said, already heading away from us. ‘And when we say “Brace” . . . make sure you do it straight away.’ My throat was suddenly too tight to speak, and all I could do was nod back at her, with my eyes awash with tears.
‘We will,’ assured Logan calmly.
I waited until she was gone before turning to Logan, aware that tears were still falling down my cheeks. I had boarded this flight with my own future far from clear, but the realisation was finally beginning to dawn that these final moments, might be all the future I was going to be given. From somewhere unseen Logan produced a clean folded handkerchief and passed it to me. I looked down at the folded square of linen, as though I had no idea of its purpose. Very gently he raised my chin with his fingers and lightly dabbed at the edges of my eyes.
