On top of all of that, I’m still in complete disbelief that Joel is on the same plane as I am, so you’ll forgive me for questioning whether he’s actually here or not.
‘Yes, of course it’s me!’ he snaps back, his brow lowering rapidly to convey his displeasure at this horrific turn of events. I’m sure my brow is equally as low. They could probably start a limbo competition with one another. ‘Are you going to the Maldives?’ he asks me.
What a crushingly stupid question. It’s perfectly okay for me to doubt the evidence of my own eyes, but for him to actually come out and ask me whether I’m going to the same destination as the plane I’m on is idiotic.
The two things are completely different, I’m sure you’d agree.
‘Of course I bloody am!’ I snap back.
Behind Joel, the other passengers are starting to get understandably tetchy that he’s holding them up. ‘Could we get by, please?’ a middle-aged man in a sky blue hat says, indicating to Joel that he’d like to move around him.
‘Yes, Joel,’ I say to him, ‘you should probably go and find your own seat, so this poor man can get by.’
Joel gives me a look that could sink a thousand ships. And then he does something that makes my toes curl. He steps backwards, so he’s in front of the bulkhead seats next to the window. Joel is sitting in the same bloody row of the plane as we are.
‘Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,’ I say in a hoarse, horrified whisper.
Joel points at my seat as the old boy in his sky-blue hat moves past us. ‘Are you . . . are you sat there?’
This is another blindingly stupid question from my ex-husband. One that I don’t have time to answer, because at this point Joel’s travelling companion emerges from behind Sky Blue Hat Man’s wife, as she hurries to keep up with her husband.
Good grief.
It’s bloody Cara Rowntree.
Joel is going on holiday with my old boss’s granddaughter.
You couldn’t make it up. You honestly couldn’t.
Are they dating?
Is Joel actually with a woman who’s well over a decade younger than him? The one who used to parade around the office like she owned the place, and was indulged so thoroughly by Roland Rowntree that it made the rest of us all want to throw up – especially Joel?
‘Hello, Amy,’ Cara says in a flat voice. She’s not surprised to see me, evidently. I wish I could say the same thing.
Cara and I never really spoke that much. Her boobs never impressed me the way they did most of the men in the offices of Rowntree Land & Home. Even if I wanted to talk to her more, I wouldn’t have been able to get past the small throng of estate agents hovering around them like bees around a pair of particularly scrumptious sunflowers. She knew how to manipulate more or less every man at the agency, up to and including her grandfather.
Joel was never one of them, I should add. Not that I ever noticed. Which makes it all the more remarkable that they appear to be going on holiday together.
‘Cara,’ I reply, my voice, if anything, even flatter.
‘Shall we, er, sit down, Amy?’ Ray says in a worried tone from behind me. I look around to see that his eyes are out on stalks, and his face has gone very red.
Looking back, I see that Joel has retreated to the seat by the window, and is now attempting to look everywhere but at me. He’s gripping a black rucksack for what looks like dear life, and is holding it in such a way that suggests he’s ready to parry away any more ballistic pillows I choose to chuck at him. Lucky for him, I’m fresh out.
As Cara Rowntree joins him, two muscular young men with blond hair, blue eyes and wide, open smiles interrupt my view of my ex-husband and his (hah!) girlfriend by claiming the two seats next to the ones Ray and I are sat in.
They are Australian.
Neither have said a word yet but they are most definitely Australian. Only that country breeds enormous, tanned and good-natured kids like this.
Now my confrontation with Joel has been interrupted, I slowly take my seat, my brain afire with disbelief and horror. I have to resist the urge to crane my head past Sydney’s finest, just to check that Joel and Cara are still there, and that I haven’t imagined the whole thing.
Ray parks himself in the seat next to me and rests a hand on my leg. ‘Is that . . . Is that—’
‘Yes,’ I snap at him, and immediately curse myself. It isn’t Ray’s fault this turn of events has taken place. I shouldn’t take my frustration out on him. ‘Sorry, Ray,’ I add quickly, ‘I just wasn’t expecting to see him here, that’s all.’
‘No, I bet,’ he replies. ‘What are the odds, eh?’
‘I wouldn’t like to imagine.’
‘Quite incredible, really.’
‘Yes, it is.’
Please don’t say it’s a small world, Ray. I don’t think I could take that.
‘Will you be okay?’
I attempt to unclench my fists. I’m only partially successful. ‘Yes. I think so. At least they’re not sitting right next to us. I won’t have to look at him the whole flight.’
To confirm this, I look back across the plane to where Joel is sat, and am pleased to discover that his seat, along with Cara Rowntree’s, are set a little back from mine, and my view of them is indeed obscured by both of the strapping young men.
‘How ya going?’ the one closest to me says, as he notices that I’m looking in his direction.
‘Fine, thanks,’ I lie, affecting a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes.
‘Oh right . . . That’s, er, that’s good then,’ he replies in a thick New South Wales accent, looking slightly perturbed as he does so.
You think you’re perturbed, my antipodean friend? You haven’t just come face to face – for the first time in years – with the man who ruined your life and got you fired from the job you loved.
My new Australian friend then makes a concerted effort to turn away from me and talk to his associate, which suits me fine, as I’m not really in the mood to chat right now.
‘Do you want to swap seats with me?’ Ray then asks. For a moment I am extremely tempted to take him up on his offer, but if I do it’ll be obvious to Joel what I’m doing, won’t it?
And I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me move just so I can get further away from him. I won’t.
The wall of Australians between me and his seat should be more than enough of a psychological barrier. I don’t need Ray to join it.
‘No, it’s okay,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll be fine here.’ As I say this, I subconsciously sink down into my seat a little. It is something I will find myself doing an awful lot over the next eleven hours.
As the rest of the passengers get themselves settled into their seats, I sit in mine, staring at the bulkhead in front of me, trying to properly process the unlikely turn of the events that have occurred.
My fears over flying have completely evaporated in light of what’s just transpired, but that hasn’t slowed my heart rate down, or relieved my feelings of anxiety one little bit. It’s just that instead of feeling anxious about plummeting to my death from thirty thousand feet, I’m now stressed out by the prospect of travelling along at thirty thousand feet with my least favourite person in the world, who is going to the same place as me.
I honestly couldn’t tell you for certain which prospect is worse.
The next several hours of my life are spent in a permanent state of tension. I have never really given the qualities of my peripheral vision that much thought, but now I realise that I must have the best peripheral vision in human history, because Joel can’t make one single move out of his seat without me seeing it.
Every time he shifts himself, stands up, goes to the toilet, leans forward to tap on the TV screen affixed to the bulkhead in front of him, or opens up the overhead compartment to get something out, I can see his every move – despite my concerted attempts not to.
And the horrible thing is I know damn well he’s doing the exact same thing with me.
You’d think that over the course of eleven hours, it would be quite easy to move about the plane cabin without them also doing the same thing at the same time as you. It turns out, though, that it’s completely impossible.
If I need to get up for a pee, Joel apparently feels the need to go rummaging around in his rucksack for something. If I sit forward to turn the volume up on my TV screen, he gets up to go to the loo himself. If I call the air steward over to ask for a glass of water, he is standing up to stretch his legs.
It’s interminable.
Hour after hour of trying your damned hardest to avoid another human being, and failing over and over again, leaves you with a headache, a backache and suffering from the kind of insomnia that people are committed to asylums over.
I usually manage to get a few hours’ sleep on a plane when I’m on a long-haul flight. I remember that the last time I took this trip, I got a good six hours. This time, though, sleep is about as likely as Superman flying past and giving me a thumbs up.
I just can’t forget about the arsehole sat four seats away from me.
I’m not keen on the rest of him, either.
I’m not one to drop into maudlin thought, given that it generally accomplishes nothing, but with little else to do other than watch movies I’ve already seen or listen to music I’ve heard a thousand times, I can’t help but sit and dwell on the sheer bad luck I’ve been presented with.
What exactly are the odds of getting on the same plane as the ex-husband you haven’t seen in two years?
A thousand to one? A million to one?
Of all the planes, in all the airports, in all the world he has to get on to mine . . .
Casablanca isn’t in the selection of movies available to me unfortunately, so instead of watching that I’m just going to have to get drunk.
It’s the only way I can think to get some bloody sleep.
My eyes feel sandy and sore, I can’t stop yawning and I’m getting that horrible sicky feeling you always do when you haven’t had any sleep.
I call the passing air steward over to ask him to get me a glass of wine. At virtually the same time I do this, Joel also gestures towards him.
There’s a horrible moment where both Joel and I have our hands up like eager school children, both attempting to grab the steward’s attention. We’re also desperately trying not to look at each other, which is especially hard when we’re also trying to catch the steward’s eye.
I end up jerking my eyeballs about like someone’s just squirted raw amphetamines into both of them, while simultaneously trying to keep my head low and away enough not to look at Joel, but also high and forward enough to hold the steward’s attention. Joel is pretty much doing the exact same thing, so we now both look like bobbleheads of eager school children with their hands up. Bobbleheads that are attached to the dashboard of a car driving across large sheets of corrugated iron.
The poor steward looks at both of us for a moment before deciding to do the traditionally polite thing and serve the lady first.
I’d like to say I didn’t feel a small sense of victory about this, but I’d be lying.
The first glass of wine is downed in about five seconds, with the second and third being consumed slightly slower, at one minute and ten minutes respectively.
So, now I’m drunk . . . and still fucking wide awake.
This is the most miserable flight I can ever remember being on.
All because of one bloody person.
I sit and watch the minutes to our destination tick down on the flight display. The little graphic of the plane we’re on slowly shifts towards the Indian Ocean at a snail’s pace. And all the time I do this, I can see him: right there in my peripheral vision, every time he so much as moves slightly out of his seat. The two Australian oak trees next to me have both fallen fast asleep, slumped in their seats, so don’t offer me the barrier they did earlier in the flight.
Oh God in heaven, this is absolute hell.
Sheer, thirty-thousand-feet-in-the-air hell. I think I’d welcome a vast and destructive blow out of one of the engines right now. Mind you, the way my luck is going, I’d end up surviving the crash . . . along with only one other person.
Joel and I would be set adrift together in an inflatable raft, and there’s no way I’d be able to avoid him then, is there?
I could probably eat him, if I had to, though. I wouldn’t have a problem with that.
The plane shifts another inch towards the Maldives on the screen in front of me, and I have to stop myself from biting down hard on my own lip.
Beside me, Ray is snoring softly. He went out like a light hours ago. I could wake him up and have a chat with him to break up the monotony, but he drove us all the way to the airport this morning, in awful traffic. He deserves the rest.
So instead I just sit there and stare at the screen, as the pixelated plane edges closer to the Maldives at the speed of shifting continental plates.
After ten minutes or so of this, I feel an uncomfortable fullness in my bladder. Time to get up for another pee. That should keep me occupied for a good three or four minutes. I’m pretty sure I don’t need a poo, but I might sit there for a bit anyway, just to see if anything happens. That’ll waste another five minutes, if I’m very lucky.
No sooner am I out of my seat though than Joel is also unbuckling his seat belt.
It’s like the bastard is doing it deliberately.
This time we can’t help but lock eyes. I can see that he looks as tired and haggard as I must. I don’t think he’s managed a wink of sleep either. Joel was never a good sleeper while travelling, though. I remember that about him.
Part of me wants to sit right back down again and ignore him. I can hold my bladder for a few more minutes. But then, another part of me – the bit that’s just downed three small plastic glasses’ worth of cheap white wine – is feeling a lot more defiant.
I am not going to sit back down again. Not this time. Joel can be the one to cringe back into his seat. I am going to the toilet! I am going to have a pee – and possibly a small, time-wasting poo – and nobody and nothing is going to stop me!
I will just fucking stand here like this until Joel sits back down again!
He doesn’t do this.
Instead, he also stands there, in a clearly obstinate fashion, waiting for me to be the one to slink back into my seat.
Therefore we now enter a Mexican stand-off. One apparently conducted by two zombies. The nine hours we’ve been on this plane have not been kind.
‘I’m going to the toilet,’ Joel says to me in an ice-cold tone.
I lift my chin. ‘So am I,’ I reply, my voice nearly a sibilant rasp thanks to the lack of sleep – and probable dehydration from only consuming white wine for the past few hours.
Neither of us move.
Quite why, I have no idea.
There are four toilets just past the bulkhead. All of which are empty right now. There’s literally no reason for my ex-husband and I to be locked in this stare-down.
And yet, it continues.
Perhaps it’s the alcohol, perhaps it’s the lack of sleep, perhaps it’s the mutual loathing.
Whatever it is, it’s apparently going to go on until one of us breaks the stare.
Everyone else is pretty much asleep in the darkened cabin, so there’s no audience for this bizarre, silent exchange.
The air fairly crackles between us. You can almost feel the wall of resentment. If I reached out my hand right now, I’m half convinced it would meet a solid object.
The stare goes on . . . and on.
It’s probably only been about ten seconds in reality, but in my frazzled state of mind it feels like a lifetime.
And I can’t stop it. I can’t break out of it.
He must be the one to break. Joel must be the one to look away!
&n
bsp; And so it goes on.
Nothing will end it.
We will be stood here when they tell us to buckle up because the plane has to land – and I’m not even sure that’ll move me.
Nothing can bring this stand-off to a conclusion!
Other than a long, sonorous fart emanating from one of the two Australians, the one closest to Joel, who is fast asleep with his head tipped back on the seat.
No stare-down between hated enemies can survive a long, sonorous fart, especially when its stench starts to be circulated by the plane’s air conditioning.
‘I am going to the toilet again,’ I declare to Joel, trying my hardest to shut off my olfactory senses by sheer will alone.
‘As am I,’ Joel replies.
It’s as if the Australian fart was a toilet-based clarion call. A trumpet of permission to end this stand-off and proceed forthwith to the convenience.
I manage to break the stare with Joel, and climb over Ray’s legs to get out into the aisle. I don’t see what Joel is up to. I no longer care.
I spend a good ten minutes in the loo, just to make sure that I won’t have to enter into a second stare-down, and leave hoping against hope that Joel has already taken his seat.
Thank God in heaven . . . he has. And looks to have fallen fast asleep.
I know he hasn’t, though. Joel was never a man who could get to sleep quickly. I know he’s faking it just to avoid looking at me.
That’s fine. Fine and dandy. I don’t want to look at him, either.
I climb back into my seat, noting that the flight has less than two hours remaining.
That’s good.
That’s excellent.
Only two more hours of having to be in that man’s enforced company.
Then we will be off this plane, and Joel can disappear off to whatever Maldivian island he may be visiting, and Ray and I can get on the speedboat to Wimbufushi, and I can forget all about this horrible bloody flight and my run-in with my least favourite person.
There’s no chance Joel and Cara Rowntree can also be going to Wimbufushi. None at all. That would be patently ridiculous. There are hundreds of Maldivian islands. Hundreds of them.
You Again? Page 4