Part Two, Chapter Nine

[back to the start]

A little later, inside the airport terminal, Emily still felt almost lonely. She was standing in the middle of a crowd, waiting for her baggage, but she felt strangely isolated from everyone nearby, the same way as she had in the plane.

It had been an hour since the plane landed, and everyone had been disembarked safely and then moved inside the terminal. It had been efficient. There had been stairs to walk down, and buses to transport people, and food and drink and medical attention for anyone who needed those, once they had arrived inside the terminal building. There had been camera crews in the distance outside, from the big TV channels Emily thought, and there were other people with cameras actually inside the terminal, in the rooms the passengers were taken to, official people with badges, who Emily assumed were air accident investigators there to ask people to describe what had happened. The aircrew had said investigators would be around, but Emily didn’t talk to any of them, so she didn’t know for sure.

She and Ian had left the plane together, walking down the stairs one after the other, but then they had become separated while they waited to board a bus. Emily had been standing vaguely near Ian, but not too close, wanting to stay nearby but also keeping her distance a little, and probably not trying as hard as she could have to stay together now that real life and relief were beginning to take over her thoughts. She had stood on the tarmac, waiting in the crowd, and there were flashing lights and the stingy sharp smell of airplane fuel, and people asking questions all around her. She stood there, and waited, feeling relieved and very tired, and she had thought Ian was beside her, but when she next looked around, he had gone.

They had been being jostled and bumped by other people moving around, and somehow had got bumped apart, and then ended up in queues for different buses. By the time Emily realized what was happening they were already getting into buses, and Emily had felt a little strange about changing queues and running after Ian. So she hadn’t.

Ian hadn’t said anything, hadn’t said goodbye, but it had been crowded and confusing and people were pushing past each other and moving around. He might have just become separated from her, shifted a little away in the crowd without realizing. He might have assumed they would all end up in the same place, inside, and he could say it there. He might have, Emily supposed, but on the other hand, it was starting to feel a little awkward staying together, and like their moment of closeness was over, and now they had nothing to say, and she thought that perhaps a neat and tidy ending on different buses would be better. So she didn’t try as hard as she could have to find him.

She had looked around, and not seen Ian, but there were buses nearby, blocking her view, and she wasn’t tall enough to see over most of the people, and was still in the middle of the crowd, near the plane. Then someone started telling her to get on the next bus, and Ian still didn’t seem to be anywhere nearby, so she decided to just let him go, and not to worry about saying goodbye.

She got on the bus, and sat down, and honestly didn’t expect to see him ever again.

It was strange, she thought. They had that little moment of closeness, a fleeting moment when their lives touched, and then, quite suddenly, it was done and now they would probably never meet again. It was odd, she thought, but it probably wasn’t rare. All around her other people must be doing the same thing. She would adjust, and everyone else would too, and mostly it didn’t matter, and she was just pleased to be on the ground, and still alive, and so she wasn’t especially bothered about what had happened to Ian, even though she wished she could have said goodbye properly.

They went to the terminal on buses, and were taken inside to a separate area where someone from the airline said sorry for the nuisance and they hoped everyone was all right, and that there was food and coffee here, that it wouldn’t be much longer, now, and they could arrange for new connecting flights to replace any that anyone had missed. Someone asked why there was a delay, and the airline rep explained that they had to wait around for their baggage to be specially unloaded from the plane, because it was still out on the runway being inspected, and not at the terminal where the usual unloading process could happen, and that not having their baggage meant they couldn’t go through customs yet either. So they waited. They all sat around in several different rooms, and didn’t really say much to each other, and Emily looked for Ian again, but didn’t see him, but that wasn’t especially surprising when people were so spread out.

It took an hour, which wasn’t really that long, given what had happened, and then some more airline staff collected them and asked them to come through to the baggage claim area.

Emily stood up, and walked with everyone else. The arrivals area of Sydney airport was a little dingy, she thought. She had always thought that, travelling through it. It was dark and crowded and windowless, with ceilings that always seemed a little too low. She had always found it odd that the departures area was spacious and quite nice, with lots of glass and tiles and the huge tidy row of check-in counters all along the front, but that the arrivals area was dim and dingy. It meant that when you were flying off somewhere else you got quite a nice place to leave from, but arriving, coming home, you just wandered around in what felt like a service area, along dark tunnels and around odd corners to the baggage claims area, and you didn’t see a single pane of glass or a view. They tried to make it seem cheerful, at least the duty-free shops did, but it didn’t really work. The arrivals area was still dark, and the ceiling was too low, but Emily was still glad to be there, anyway.

She followed the crowd, and then stood around with everyone else while they wanted for their luggage. She was standing on her own, feeling worn out and a little glum, being bumped by other people’s trolleys and elbows, wondering why they were bothering to jostle each other when the conveyors hadn’t ever started yet. She was standing there thinking, when she realised that Ian was standing a few people along from her.

She looked. She stared. She almost called out, and then she hesitated. She didn’t know if she should bother him.

She wondered whether to say something, and decided she probably should. To be polite, at least. She waved, but Ian didn’t see her. He seemed to be looking down at his phone. She decided to actually go over and speak, and pushed her way through the crowd to him. She got a couple of snotty looks from people who perhaps hadn’t bonded so intensely on the flight, but she got herself beside Ian and said to him, “Hey.”

Ian looked up, and grinned, and said, “Hi.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and Emily didn’t know what else to say, but hi seemed to be enough. After hi they just stood there, side by side, quietly waiting for the conveyor to start, while Ian fiddled with his phone.

Chapter Eight

[back to the start]

Emily nodded, and felt awkward, and looked around instead of staring at Ian. Nearby, people were asking each other, asking total strangers, if they were all right, and if anyone was hurt. A few heads were popping up over the seats, looking around, the way Emily was about to.

She started to sit up, but Ian was still holding her hand. He held on, and didn’t move his arm, so she couldn’t move either.

“What?” she said, surprised.

“Stay there. Stay down and keep leaning forwards. Just a little longer. Until they say we’re safe.”

“We’ve landed.”

“And we’re still moving. Something might still go wrong.”

Emily looked at him, and realised he was serious. Then she thought, and decided he might be right. The plane might have hit the ground too fast or hard, so the wheels were weakened, and still working, but about to snap off. Or the pilot might still brake too hard, too suddenly, so everything got thrown around inside the plane.

She suddenly remembered how any time a plane landed the cabin crew always warned the passengers to stay seated until the plane had stopped moving, and were pretty much always ignored. She supposed people always ought to stay seated, even though they never did. But Ian was right. It was probably important to stay in her seat now. She bent back down again, and leaned on the seat-back in front of her, and as she did, she realised that most of the other people in the plane were doing the same. Only a few were sitting up and looking around.

“Sorry,” Ian said. “I don’t meant to…”

“No, it’s fine. You’re right. And thank you.”

Ian nodded.

Emily kept glancing around, as best she could with her head against the seat in front of her. Most of the other people were still leaning, the way she was.

“You know what?” she said. “I think that’s the first time I’ve been in a plane and this long after it landed everyone wasn’t already standing up.”

Ian smiled.

Emily waited, pressing her face against her splinted arm, and against the seat-back in front of her. She was starting to wonder how clean the seat was, something she hadn’t cared about a few moments ago.

She sat, and waited, and there was another half-minute of the engines roaring loudly, and then the plane slowed down even further, and came to a complete standstill. Ian let go of Emily’s hand, so Emily decided he thought it was safe, and sat up, and looked around. She peered out the window, and realised they were out in the middle of the runway, still nowhere near the airport buildings.

“We’re still out on the runway,” she said to Ian.

“Probably just to check everything’s all right with the plane.”

“Oh,” Emily said, thinking. Then, “Why?”

Ian didn’t answer.

“In case we explode?” she said, suddenly nervous.

“No,” Ian said.

“That’s it isn’t it?”

Ian made a face, and glanced around.

“Oh yeah,” Emily said, thinking of everyone else listening. “Sorry,” she said, quietly. “But is it?”

“I really doubt it. They’re just checking.”

Emily nodded, but was still a little worried. She tried not to be. She looked at the other passengers nearby, but none seemed to have heard her mention explosions. Or at least, if they had, no-one cared enough to be worried now that they were on the ground. Everyone in the plane seemed relieved, and happy to have landed. They seemed to feel mostly how Emily did.

People’s heads were up, looking around now. Everyone felt safe, Emily thought.

She looked out the window, and could see flashing lights, a lot of lights, coming closer as vehicles drove up. She could see different colours, red and blue and orange, as if fire engines and ambulances were both on their way, and if Ian was right, probably mechanics too.

She looked around, inside the plane. People were cheering and clapping and there were announcements being made about staying in their seats and that the airport was bringing stairs and buses out to get them. The people in the rows ahead and behind them were wanting to talk, and shake hands, and be happy they’d all survived, and Emily smiled at them, and felt the last of that private moment with Ian slip away.

It wasn’t unexpected, but it still almost made her a little sad.

Chapter Seven

[back to the start]

The plane kept moving, but slowed down a lot, so much that Emily thought it was probably only taxiing now. She stayed bent over against the seat in front of her, though, until she was sure the plane had actually landed safely.

Only then did she look up.

“Can I breathe yet?” she said to Ian, trying to be funny, and Ian smiled back, so perhaps she actually was.

She grinned at him for a moment, pleased with herself, her head tilted sideways so she could see him.

She looked at him, thinking, wondering what would happen now. She felt strangely close to him, and it was a very odd feeling, to be sitting there, holding his hand, making jokes like they actually knew one another, when in reality they didn’t, not at all. She felt close to him because she’d been scared, and because of what had happened up in the air. He felt like someone she actually knew. But he wasn’t, not really, and she was already starting to remember that, and so to wonder whether now she would find their odd, artificial closeness a little awkward. Whether they both would.

It was like accidentally touching someone in an elevator, she thought. A touch then was more uncomfortable than usual because of the unnaturalness of forced proximity. That was what had happened with Ian, in the plane, in that an unusual circumstance had pushed them together into an accidental touching of emotions rather than their physical selves. They had made a kind of contact. They had told each other things, and shown each other their fear. They had become momentarily close, and reassured one another, and probably had actually both needed each other and that reassurance, too. And it had helped, all of that reaching out to each other, which was a very strange part of it all.

It had helped, but now it was over. Now they were on the ground, and taxiing to the terminal, and it was like any other flight landing where people went their separate ways. Now it was just them both realizing that they had exposed themselves uncomfortably freely, as if they had both been whispering secrets they hadn’t meant to tell. In a way they had both seen who the other actually was, for a brief moment, because of their fear. They had done that, and shared that, and had needed to do so at the time, but now they were on the ground and safe, knowing that they had was going to feel a little uncomfortable. Now they were safe, and the plane had landed, and they knew the scare was over, now it was a little uncomfortable remembering that unsettling closeness, as they began realizing once again that in reality, they were actually both strangers to each other.

Emily looked at Ian, unsure what to say. She was uncomfortable with that almost-naked sense of exposure, but was feeling a slight sense of dismay at losing it, too. It had been nice to feel that close to someone, but now it was over, and she understood that, while feeling a little sad about it, too.

“Thank you,” she said quickly, before that odd intimacy was completely gone.

“You too.”

“I mean it,” Emily said. “I’m really grateful.”

“I also,” Ian said, and seem to mean it too.

Chapter Six

[back to the start]

A steward came past and told Emily and Ian to lean forward against the seats in front, then saw Emily’s arm and stopped and said, “Are you going to be okay if we need to do an emergency evacuation?”

Emily looked at him. “What, on the inflatable slides?”

The steward wasn’t listening. “Will you look after her?” he said to Ian.

“Of course,” Ian said.

“Make sure she gets off the aircraft,” the steward said.

“I will,” Ian said.

“Please,” the steward said, and by then someone a couple of rows ahead had started waving and got his attention. The steward disappeared to help them.

“Should I be worried by how worried he is?” Emily said.

“He’s just busy,” Ian said. “Doing too much at once.”

“You hope.”

Ian smiled slightly.

Another one of the cabin crew went past, and told them to bend forward, again, so they did, still holding hands.

They leaned there for a while, pressing against the seats in front of them, but very little seemed to be happening. The plane flew, and the engines kept working, and they seemed to be getting to wherever it was they were going. Emily couldn’t see where the ground was now, how close it was, or whether they were still over the sea, and she needed to know. Not being able to see was making her nervous.

She sat up and looked around. The cabin crew had disappeared. They must all be in their own seats up the front of the plane, now, belted in. She leaned over to the window and looked out, despite Ian’s startled glare. Outside, she saw waves, very close to the aircraft. They were flying low, and travelling fast, as if they were about to land. She thought she could see a shoreline up ahead, too, not very far away. Shallow water and mud, like at the edge of an estuary. She couldn’t remember what coming into Sydney normally looked like, and whether this was the way planes usually flew.

“Hey,” Ian said quietly. “Get back down.”

“It’s fine. We’re still out at sea.”

“Please.”

Emily hesitated, and then did. She bent forwards again. She held out her hand towards Ian, too. They’d let go of each other when she moved. Ian hesitated, then unfolded one of his arms from the seat-back he was bracing himself on, and took hers. He had an odd expression as he did, as if he was thinking about the last time they’d touched hands and what had been going on then, and was feeling a little nervous.

“Are you okay?” Emily said.

He nodded, slowly.

“Are you sure?”

“We’ll be fine,” he said.

“We’ll see,” Emily said. Then, feeling bad in case he’d been trying to reassure himself, rather than her, she added, “Honestly, I’m sure we will be.”

He didn’t answer.

Not that I know, Emily wanted to say, but she made herself keep quiet. Being clever right now wouldn’t help anyone feel any better. She smiled, instead. She tried to look reassuring, with no real idea how reassuring would look.

“Thank you,” she said, after a moment. “For trying to calm me down. Just to say that now, in case this doesn’t work out well.”

“Yeah,” Ian said. “Same.”

“I appreciate that you tried,” she said.

“No problem. It’s fine.”

“So,” she said, thinking. “If I make it and you don’t, is there anything you want me to say to someone?”

Ian looked at her. He just looked, and she had no idea what his expression meant.

“What?” she said. “Was that not what I should have…?”

“It’s fine,” Ian said. “And no, there’s nothing I can think of. You?”

Emily shook her head.

“Parents?” he said. “Family?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could tell them something.”

“What should I say?”

Emily thought. She really thought. “I have absolutely no idea,” she said in the end. “I can’t think right now. Could you maybe make something up? You know, once you’ve had a couple of days to think about it. Something really, you know, dramatic and touching?”

Ian seemed to be trying to decide whether to grin or not.

“I’m serious,” Emily said, even though she couldn’t quite decide if she was.

“All right,” Ian said. “Yes, I will.”

“And make it good. Tell them how I was helping old ladies out the plane and shit. Tell them I was all heroic. Or actually, say it was orphans. That’d probably sound better, wouldn’t it. Tragic little orphan refugee kids?”

Ian squeezed her hand.

“You’ll think something up?” Emily said.

“I’ll try. I’ll tell them something.”

“Something good?”

“Yes, something good.”

“Thanks,” she said. “And for you, I can…”

There was a sudden, hard thud, and a few stifled screams, and then the engines made the loud roaring noise a landing plane makes. Emily was just about to panic and shriek and jump out of her seat until she realised they’d landed while she was distracted.

The plane was rolling along the runway, and slowing down.

Chapter Five

[back to the start]

Ian grinned. “We’ll be fine,” he said. “And you’re pretty calm about this, anyway. If you really think we’re about to crash.”

“I’m not calm, I’m…” Emily stopped. She was actually quite calm. “Yeah,” she said, surprised. “I suppose I am. I suppose I don’t mind, really. There’s no-one to miss me right now.”

She simply meant that she’d always felt it was bad to die in a relationship, that it was something to feel a little guilty about, because it seemed unfair to the other person. Which was quite irrational, which she knew perfectly well, but she felt it anyway. Right now, though, she didn’t need to worry, because she had left Luke, and so could be in as many plane crashes as she wished.

That was all she had meant, but Ian didn’t know that. He just heard her say that no-one would miss her, and seemed to think that was awful. He looked at her, suddenly grave. “That’s terrible,” he said.

“Well, someone would miss me…”

“That’s awful. Don’t say it.”

Emily nodded slowly. She supposed it was. She changed the subject, and said, “We haven’t dropped for a couple of minutes.”

“And everyone’s stopped screaming, too.”

Emily listened, and only then realised that there had been a fairly steady chorus of screams and swearing from all around them, and that now it had stopped. She had been distracted by talking to Ian, she supposed. She felt like she was in a bubble with him, a pocket of calm while all around them strangers panicked and screamed and said they didn’t want to die, not yet. Now, though, that had stopped. Now, mostly, the people around them were quiet. Strangers were looking at each other, as she and Ian were, a little nervously, wondering what was going on. People were speaking what might be their last words to strangers, and deciding whether they were ready to die.

Emily wasn’t nearly as scared as she thought she ought to be, and strangely, a lot of the other people around her didn’t seem to be either. People were screaming with surprise whenever the plane dropped, but then stopping again after each jolt. They weren’t screaming in uncontrolled terror, Emily thought. She was a little surprised, at herself as much as everyone else. She was quite calm about the idea of a plane crash. Calm enough, she supposed, that she was watching other people nearby make these little connections, the same way as she was with Ian, and thinking it was odd that if everything worked out, if they survived, then they’d all be strangers again on the ground.

It was odd, but she felt a connection too. She wanted to swap phone numbers with Ian, to tell him she’d stay in touch, but she didn’t know how to say that without it sounding wrong. And he had a wedding ring, too, she thought. His wife might have a problem with the idea.

So instead she just sat there, silently waiting for the plane to plunge downwards again, bracing herself to drop, expecting it to happen.

It didn’t. The plane just kept flying.

Finally, one of the cabin crew came on the intercom and began to explain. He said the turbulence had stalled one of the engines, and the pilots were having trouble restarting it, but there was nothing to worry about.

“Yeah right,” Emily said quietly to Ian. She was relieved though. Hearing the announcement, she did actually believe they’d be safe. She just didn’t want to let herself believe it completely, and then be disappointed when they crashed. If they crashed. Which didn’t make very much sense.

“Told you,” Ian said.

“Yeah,” Emily said. “We’ll see.”

They were going to make an emergency landing in about ten minutes, the announcement said. So everyone should put their seatbelts on, secure loose items, sit in the brace position, and oh, and that should be the last of the turbulence too, by the way, because the plane was lower now, and in a different kind of air.

“Say the most important bit last,” Emily muttered, and Ian grinned.

Emily looked out the window and saw they were out over the ocean. “We’re out at sea.”

“Yes,” Ian said. Just yes, and nothing more.

“Oh right,” Emily said, thinking. “In case we explode or something.”

“So they can dump fuel,” Ian said. Then, “You really are a cheerful person.”

“Sorry,” Emily said. “I am really. The engine over here’s going again, by the way.”

Ian leaned over her and looked out the window again, being careful of her arm this time. He looked, and then seemed relieved.

“Does that mean we’re okay, do you think?” Emily said.

“Probably. Unless all the banging around broke something.”

“Who’s being cheerful now?”

“Yes,” Ian said. “Sorry.”

“I was just starting to feel better.”

“Sorry,” Ian said again. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. I really am.”

“You keep saying that, and yet…”

Ian grinned. “We’ll be all right.”

Chapter Four

[back to the start]

Emily kept staring at the man beside her. There was something in the expression on his face, something like what must be on hers. Uncertainty. Worry. Almost fear. Not fear quite yet, she thought, but the beginning of a decision about whether fear was needed.

She wondered if she looked the same.

She wondered how to know when it was time to be scared, and wondered if it was now.

Looking at each other probably helped them both stay calm, she thought. They were both smiling, a little self-consciously, because even in the middle of what was apparently a plane crash it was still a little odd to be holding a stranger’s hand, and staring at each other from as close as they were. Emily understood why she was doing this. She needed to make some human connection, if the next few minutes were all she had left of her life, and she thought the man beside her felt that way too. All the same, she felt slightly uncomfortable staring right into his face, and looked down instead, at their entwined hands.

She looked at his hand. She felt his hand. It was cool in hers, and his skin was dry. He had long slender fingers, like a musician’s hands, and a strong grip, but not painfully strong. She was glad of that, actually, that he wasn’t squeezing her hand too tightly. She might as well be comfortable if she was going to hold hands with him all the way down to the ocean.

After a moment, she noticed he was wearing a wedding ring. She felt it digging into her skin slightly, and glanced at his finger to check, and yes, it was a wedding ring. She thought about that. She felt a little bad for his wife. She hoped he wouldn’t be missed too badly if they all died, and was glad, in a way, that there wasn’t anyone much to miss her. She thought about Luke, and wondered how guilty Luke would feel if the plane actually crashed. Luke had hit her, and she’d run off, only to die in a plane crash. Luke would feel awful, Emily thought, and a nasty little part of her was almost glad. It would show him, she thought. Even if the price was fairly high for her.

“It’ll be all right,” the man beside her said. “We’ll be fine.”

He was still watching her face, and might have caught something of her dark thoughts in her expression.

“No, we won’t,” Emily said.

The plane dropped again, as they gripped each others hands.

“What I mean is,” Emily said, as they fell. “You don’t know actually that we’ll be okay, do you?”

“The oxygen masks haven’t come down.”

“Oh,” Emily said and looked upwards. “Well, maybe they’re broken too.”

“Too?” he said, as if he didn’t understand. As if he didn’t know why she had said broken too.

Emily realized he wouldn’t know. “Look,” she said, and pointed to the window.

He leaned over. She pushed herself as far back into her seat as she could so he had room to see past her. He leaned over and looked outside and saw the engine. From his expression, Emily assumed he saw the engine, and assumed it still wasn’t moving.

“Shit,” he said.

“Yeah.”

Looking a little less sure of himself now, he sat back in his seat. “We’re not falling all the time,” he said uncertainly, after a moment. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“Because we’re not falling all the time?”

He shrugged, but didn’t answer.

Emily kept looking at him because she was already looking that way. Close up he actually looked like a cowboy, she decided, not a corporate salesman. It was an odd thing to think right then, but she did. A cowboy, even though he had neat hair. He had a moustache, one of those moustaches like guys had all had in the seventies, which made him seem more cowboyish, and on him the moustache worked. His hair was a bit longer than she’d noticed at first, and his skin more wrinkled than was probably healthy, as if he’d been outside in the sun a little too often before they started telling you not to go outside without covering up.

She looked at him, and tried to think of something to say. She was still thinking when the plane lurched again, sideways as well as down this time, pressing him onto her sharply, hard against her, hard enough it hurt her sore arm.

“Ow fuck,” she said. “Ow.”

He tried to lift himself off her, but had trouble pushing upwards against the force of the plane’s plunge.

“Sorry,” he said, as he tried to push himself backwards. “Shit, I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay,” Emily gasped. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

They were stuck there for a moment, as the plane fell, before he managed to struggle free. His weight had hurt Emily’s arm, but the pills kept it from being too unpleasant. After all the pills she’d taken, she wasn’t feeling very much at all. The pills, and the panic, too, she thought. She hadn’t really thought about her arm for the last few minutes.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, as he pushed himself away from her.

“It’s fine,” Emily said. “It wasn’t your fault.” Her voice sounded a little odd to her, though, slightly tight, and she noticed her jaw was hurting now too, as well as her arm, where she had clenched her teeth against that sudden pain. She noticed, and then, as she did, the pain went away. It seemed to be how the pills worked.

They sat a little longer. They still hadn’t let go of each other’s hands.

“We’re fucked, aren’t we,” Emily said, quite calmly.

“I don’t know.”

“You probably fly more than me. So I’m asking. What do you think? Are we fucked?”

“I’ve never had this happen before,” he said, and Emily looked at him and couldn’t decide if that was meant to be funny, or was just a statement.

“Are you making jokes?” she said, unsure if he was.

He shrugged a little. Then grinned. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

Emily grinned back. “I’m Emily,” she said, and held out her other hand. The sprained arm, the one he wasn’t holding.

“Ian.”

Ian took her hand and shook it gently. He had to reach past himself slightly awkwardly to do so, crossing his arms in front of his chest, but he did. He shook quickly, and then let go, as if quick was his usual way of shaking. And even though Emily was still holding onto his other hand tightly.

“I think we’re going to die,” Emily said calmly.

“Don’t be so gloomy. This kind of thing happens all the time.”

Emily looked at him. “All the time?”

He nodded.

“Really?” Emily said.

“Haven’t you seen it on the news? They say a plane had problems, and made an emergency landing, and everyone’s okay. This is that. They just don’t mention the scared shitless and screaming.”

“Oh,” Emily said, and felt a little better, thinking he might actually be right. “Yeah, I suppose.”

Chapter Three

[back to the start]

Emily watched the engine for a moment, relieved it had only stopped. Relieved it wasn’t on fire or anything worse, and that the plane still seemed to mostly be flying.

It was only an engine problem, she told herself. It wasn’t that bad. There was no reason to panic yet. She should stay calm.

Then, as she watched, the inside part of the engine spun and turned. It turned, briefly, but then stopped again. At the same time, inside the plane, the seatbelt lights came on, perhaps a little belatedly, she thought, and then the cabin crew began telling everyone to put their things away and lift their tables up, speaking with what sounded like an edge of panic in their voices. A few people asked what was wrong, and when they did, the cabin crew said vaguely that everything was fine and not to worry, and then went back to talking about seatbelts. The crew were just trying to be reassuring, Emily supposed, to keep everyone calm, and not actually saying anything useful because they probably knew as little as Emily.

That bothered her, for some reason. The way the crew were nervously trying to calm everyone down actually scared her a little.

If the cabin crew were worried, this might actually be serious.

She stopped looking out the window, because staring at the engine wasn’t going to do any good. She sat and stared straight ahead at the seat-back in front of her instead. She was still trying to work out what to think, and what she was supposed to do now. The plane was still jolting and jerking around in the sky, and people around her were gasping, and some had started screaming again, just a little. The screams didn’t sound as panicked as earlier, though, they were more just of surprise, like screams on a roller-coaster. Someone up the back seemed to be praying in a strong American accent.

After a moment, Emily looked out the window again, despite herself. She looked, then decided she ought to say something about the engine. Just in case no-one actually knew.

“Excuse me,” she called to one of the cabin crew, but he went past and ignored her. He probably hadn’t even heard her call out.

She tried again, and was ignored again, and then decided not to bother. Not when the cabin crew were busy. It wasn’t like the pilot wouldn’t have a dial in the cockpit to say something was wrong with the engine, and loudly pointing out an engine was broken would just scare everyone around her.

She sat and thought. She tried to remember what she knew about planes. She didn’t really know anything about planes, so thinking wasn’t much help, but she decided it was reasonable to assume the pilots could restart an engine from inside the plane, like in a stalled car, and she also thought she remembered reading somewhere that modern planes could fly with only one engine working, which made her feel a little better.

Or it did until she realized that was assuming the other engines, the ones she couldn’t see, were actually okay, but she told herself they were. She had to assume they were. After all, they still seemed to be flying.

Then, the plane dropped downwards again, and there were more gasps and screaming.

Emily glanced at the man next to her, partly just to distract herself. Partly hoping to copy his reaction, and get some hint of what she ought to do now. Whether she should she scream and swear and run up and down the cabin, or just sit there, cool, like she was a regular traveller and this happened every day and she wasn’t especially bothered.

He didn’t seem to know either. He was reasonably calm, and just sitting there without moving, his expression tight but not seeming especially scared. He was holding his laptop tightly, pressing down with his fingers onto the keyboard as if to type, but pressing harder, pressing firmly, holding the computer in place on the tray table, steadying it against the plane’s movement.

Oddly, Emily was relieved he didn’t seem scared. Or that he was pretending he wasn’t. Either one. If someone else wasn’t panicking, she thought, then it made more sense for her not to panic either.

She decided to stay calm too. She sat there, as he was, and waited. She watched his hands on the computer, and watched its screen. A menu was popping open and closed on the screen faster than Emily could see, a hundred times a second.

Eventually, the plane’s swoop stopped. There was some more lurching, but they began flying flat again.

The man beside Emily closed the laptop lid, lifted his seat table up, and put the computer into the seat-back pocket in front of him, with the in-flight magazine, so it was held firmly in place and safe. He did it all quickly and precisely, as if he’d planned it out and had been waiting for the chance, and Emily was impressed. She wished she’d done something as useful while she waited.

The man beside her put his computer away, and then he just sat. He seemed to be looking up towards the front of the plane. From the aisle seat he might be able to see up through first-class to the cockpit door, Emily thought. Suddenly she wanted to ask what he could see, and whether she should worry. She wanted to tell him she didn’t want to die, but she didn’t know how you said that to a stranger. Especially one you’d been ignoring for hours.

It probably wasn’t something he really needed to be told, she decided. He could probably assume as much, and he probably felt the same. It would probably just be awkward to start announcing such things to each other, and best not to, Emily decided.

Instead, she sat there quietly, while it seemed like everyone else in the plane screamed.

The plane lurched again. Lurched, and dropped, and sunk through the sky. Outside the window, the engine rumbled, and spun a little, and then stopped again.

Emily decided she was sick of this.

She was scared, and beginning to wonder where the ground was now, with all this falling, and worried that the engine still hadn’t started properly. She was scared, so she reached over and took the hand of the man beside her.

She didn’t know why. She just took his hand. To touch someone. To feel reassured.

She did it without thinking, and he jumped slightly at her touch. Then he looked down at their hands, and didn’t seem to know what to do. Immediately, Emily regretted reaching over. She started to take her hand away, started to say, “I’m sorry,” but he closed his hand around hers.

He closed his fingers around her hand, and held it tightly, squeezing. Emily looked sideways at him, at his face, and he looked back, and smiled, and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Emily said.

It was so silly she wanted to laugh.

They sat there, silently, looking at each other, holding hands.

Holding hands, while the cabin crew ran around shouting, and the engine out the window stopped and started, and the plane lurched around the sky.

After a while the plane fell downwards again, but this time Emily almost didn’t care.

Chapter Two

[back to the start]

Emily and the man sitting beside her spent fifteen hours ignoring one another. They both seemed happy with that arrangement.

Emily was glad to be left alone, left to try and sleep, and not to have to spend the whole flight being talked to. Not that the man next to her seemed to want to talk. He seemed happy enough being left alone, too, getting on with his work. He was probably glad she wasn’t bothering him, she thought. That she didn’t have her headphones up loud enough for him to hear her music, and that she wasn’t getting up for the toilet every hour.

They ignored each other, except once, when the man took Emily’s meal from the steward and passed it to her, and Emily said thanks, and then a second time when Emily had to ask him to move so she could go to the bathroom.

Otherwise, Emily slept, as the plane roared through the night, waking every so often to take more pain pills. She kept to herself. She was glad to be on the way home.

The flight passed slowly.

*

Half an hour out from Sydney, and without any warning, the plane suddenly dropped through the sky.

It dropped for ten seconds like the fastest elevator in the world, while people screamed and swore and baggage flew around, and the engines made an odd shrieking whining noise outside on the wings.

Emily woke as it happened, and spent a confused few seconds wondering what was going on. She couldn’t move. She had slumped against the side of the plane as she slept, and now, suddenly, she couldn’t sit back upright. The plane was dropping so fast she was being pressed into her seat. She opened her eyes, and looked straight ahead, and wondered if they were all going to die. She didn’t think so, not really, not yet, and not without a lot more fear and panic and screaming first. She didn’t think this was an actual crash, though, not really. This was just falling unexpectedly, the usual kind of lurching around that happened in planes, but much worse. Something that spilled all their coffee and made a mess, but not so bad it plunged them into the ground.

So Emily hoped.

She sat and waited, because she couldn’t do much else. She was scared, so scared she wasn’t really thinking that much about fear. Mostly, she felt sick. Her stomach was already upset from the pills, and the plane’s sudden swooping movements really weren’t helping.

She waited, listening to people scream, with no idea what to do.

They fell for several horrible seconds, for what must have been a mile downwards, before the plane caught itself and stopped dropping. It swooped back to level, and tipped up and down a little, wobbling, and then began flying straight.

Emily looked around, now she was able to. Around her, people seemed to be calming down. A few spoke in relieved voices. A few even laughed nervously, perhaps feeling silly for having panicked. Emily felt a bit the same. She told herself she hadn’t really expected to die, not really, and probably not many other people in the plane had either. The screaming was just from being surprised, that was all. Everything was all right now.

Everything had to be all right.

She thought it was. The plane was level again, and wasn’t falling, but still, she hesitated to think she was completely safe. The plane was still wobbling around, as if whoever was flying the plane was struggling to get back complete control. That worried Emily, but it wasn’t what she’d noticed.

Something else still seemed wrong. Something didn’t sound quite right.

She listened, and concentrated, but still took a moment to realize what.

The engine noise.

It wasn’t there.

It was suddenly strangely quiet outside of the plane.

The engine rumble she’d been feeling for hours, that had been shaking her head as she rested it against the side of the plane, that rumble was suddenly gone. The absence was disorientating, like falling asleep in a moving car and waking up with it quiet and still.

She turned, and looked out the window. She was sitting towards the front of economy class, up ahead of the wing. From her window, she could look out and backwards and see into the engine, and see that the spinning parts inside of it weren’t actually spinning. At least one of the engines had stopped as they fell, and perhaps others too.

She looked again carefully, making sure. She could see the engine very clearly, right beside her out the window, and could also see very clearly that it wasn’t working. It was an odd thing to see, she thought, almost like looking at oncoming death, in an odd way. Almost like that, but not quite. The engine wasn’t working, and Emily wasn’t sure how many other people realized. She sat and looked out the window and tried to decide if she should do something.

She actually had no idea what she should do.

Chapter One

Out of the plane’s window, spread out beneath them as they climbed into the sky, Los Angeles was light. A glowing haze, a glittering sea, a hundred million brittle-bright flecks tracing out orange roads and pale skyscrapers and great soft sweeping curves of highways out towards the ocean. Until you were this high, until you saw it all by night, you lost a sense of scale, of how big the city actually was.

Emily looked out the window, watching the lights, thinking about Los Angeles as they climbed.

The sky was cloudy. There was a layer of haze and cloud above the city. As the plane passed through it, the cloud began to diffuse the city lights. Sharp points of light became wetly blurred, became a colourless, directionless glow, a mist of brightness softly reflecting back from the wings of the plane, and then, soon, even that was gone. Soon, the only lights out the windows were those of the plane itself and then, without any other light behind them, they were suddenly flashing so brightly that they began to hurt Emily’s eyes.

Emily was dazzled, but she kept staring out the window anyway. She kept watching until she was certain the ground below was completely lost in the clouds, and they had climbed through the cloud layer and up into the empty sky beyond, until darkness and night had completely taken the aircraft, and Los Angeles was gone and forgotten far below and behind.

She was glad to be leaving. She had never been so glad. Her arm hurt. Her face was bruised. When she had checked in the airport toilets, while waiting to board, her cheek was turning yellow and it looked as though she was getting a black eye. The emergency room had put her wrist in a white plastic splint, to brace it. They had told her not to use that arm, and to be careful with it, but that it was only sprained and didn’t need a cast.

It still hurt though. It hurt a lot.

She still wasn’t completely sure how everything had gone so wrong, so quickly.

The fight had been coming for a while, seething away between her and Luke. It had been simmering away, and about to erupt, but still, nothing like this had ever happened before. They had always shouted at each other. They had always sworn. They had never actually hit each other, though, but then suddenly Luke had. Suddenly he had changed what Emily thought were the rules. Frustrated and angry, he had hit her, and then immediately said he was sorry. Emily had lain on the floor, where she had landed, and told him to go fuck himself, that she was leaving. He hadn’t seemed to care. He hadn’t actually believed her, she thought. That was actually why. He had just watched quietly, as she packed the things she couldn’t bear to leave behind, and had seemed to think she was just making a point, pretending to pack to prove something. He had only believed her right at the end, as she was actually walking out, but had calmed down enough, by then, that he didn’t try very hard to stop her. He probably felt guilty, she supposed, and might still be a bit shocked at himself. And he was probably sorry, too. He had tried to stop her at the very last minute, had tried to block the doorway and keep her there, but she had faced him down, had told him he could hit her again, if he wanted to, but otherwise she was going, and so he had stepped aside and let her. He hadn’t been ready to hit her again, not then. He might wish he had, later, once he realised she was gone forever, but he’d been ashamed enough right then that he’d just quietly let her go.

She had taken a taxi to the hospital. Because she felt dizzy, from where his fist hit her face, and where she’d hit her head when she fell over, and because she was worried she’d done something to her wrist when she landed on it, too. She’d been looked at, and had lights shone in her eyes, and then told she was okay, that she wasn’t concussed and nothing was broken, but that she should speak to the police right away. She had said she would, but panicked a little at that idea, not wanting anything so legal or complicated. Instead of the police, she’d gone to airport, and just got on the first plane that was heading home.

This plane.

She had waited nervously, and then it had taken off, and now, finally, she was gone. She was up in the air, up in the sky, flying high above the clouds, and Luke was behind her, and gone forever, and she didn’t need to worry about him any more.

She was glad. Sore but glad.

She stopped staring out the window, once there was only a dark sky out there. She sat back in her seat, and looked around.

The plane was half empty. There was no-one sitting next to her. The man in the seat beyond that, on the aisle, was watching her now and then.

When the seatbelt lights went out, while the pilot made a speech telling them all to stay seated and wear their belts anyway, Emily leaned forward, and got her bag out from beneath the seat in front of her, and found the bottle of pills the hospital had given her. She opened the top, and swallowed three. One after the other, swallowing them slightly awkwardly, but managing without anything to drink. Then she coughed. She was supposed to only have two, and with water, but she hurt, and didn’t have any water, and didn’t want to wait while cabin crew found her some. And she might as well take extra pills, she thought, might as well take the pills as not, since she probably couldn’t carry them though customs when she arrived. Or so she assumed.

The guy in the seat beside her watched her swallow, then leaned over and said quietly, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Emily said, without looking at him. She didn’t really feel like talking.

“Do you need some water?” the man said.

“I’m fine.”

“I could call the stewardess if you’d like?”

“I’m fine. It’s done.” She coughed again.

He was still looking at her, so she looked straight ahead, and ignored him. Maybe he was just trying to help, but maybe he was going to hit on her all the way to Sydney, so she didn’t take the chance of encouraging him. She wasn’t in the mood.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he said.

“I said I’m fine.”

He hesitated, then asked, “What happened?”

Emily sat there for a while, thinking, wondering what to say. She’d never been in this situation before, so she had no idea how she was supposed to respond to that question. She hadn’t know in the hospital, either, so she told this guy what she’d told the doctor. “Soccer,” she said, flatly. “A rough tackle.”

The guy got it, that she didn’t want to explain to him. That she didn’t have to explain to him. That neither of their lives were each other’s business.

He sat back in his seat, and seemed willing to leave her alone. He looked like some kind of business traveller, Emily thought, some salesman off to a meeting, or reporting back to head office. He probably spent as much time being talked to by people he didn’t want to know as talking to people he did. Maybe that helped convince him to leave her alone. Maybe that was why he got it. He stopped talking, anyway, and left her be. He stood up and got some papers and a laptop out of a battered briefcase in the overhead locker, and seemed about to settle down to work. He looked at the empty seat between them. He looked, and then carefully said, “Do you mind if I use that?”

He waited until Emily shrugged before spreading his papers out on the seat between them. He spread his papers, but only two-thirds of the way across the spare seat, very neatly, Emily thought, leaving her a little buffer so he wasn’t intruding on her.

Emily glanced down, being nosy. It looked like spreadsheets, she thought, tables of numbers. It could be sales figures, or it could be engineering, Emily wasn’t sure and didn’t really care.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

She was glad to be leaving Los Angeles.