by Julie Croft
wrinkled her nose.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m sick of posh food. I’d kill for a pizza right now.”
She polished the majority of it off, though, while they drove quickly across the island and into the airport.
When they arrived, Ahmed, two airport staff and a passport control officer were waiting for them. The officer glanced over Jill and Jackie’s passports and nodded before sauntering off, and the two staff members took them to a van that would whisk them off to the runway. Ahmed accompanied them every step of the way, waving a regal hand at everybody he passed. They drove onto the tarmac and pulled up beside a gold coloured jet that looked as if could possibly carry fifty passengers. Ahmed bade the two women to wait until a member of the jet’s crew hurried down the steps to open the van’s door. A young man dressed in black slacks and a crisp, short-sleeved white shirt slid the van’s door open and bowed to Ahmed, who then spoke to him in French and allowed Jill and Jackie to alight first, and the young flight attendant guided the two women up the steps and onto the jet.
The interior of the jet was decked out in leather in different tones of beige, gold and coffee. There were sixteen seats divided into four sections with a table positioned in the centre of each section. Each seat was fully extendable into a horizontal position and had a stereo system fitted into the head rest. Two thirty-inch screen TV hung on the wall, one at the front of the cabin and one at the back, and a bar with four stools sat underneath the back screen. The male steward positioned himself at the front of the cabin beside a female dressed identically to him, who was standing with her hands behind her back to one side of the TV screen. Jill and Jackie didn’t know what to do or where to go, but Ahmed’s voice drifted up behind them, “Accommodate yourselves where you please, lovely ladies.”
He entered the cabin and the two flight attendants stood to attention. He directed a gentle wave towards them and they stood at ease. “Is my little plane to your liking, lovely ladies?” he asked.
The two lovely ladies smiled stupidly and nodded in unison.
Jackie jumped into one of the seats and laid it out flat then swung it back up again, giggling as she did. Jill tried to retain a little more decorum. She sat elegantly in another seat, but she couldn’t resist pushing a few buttons, and giggled when one button activated the massaging system in her seat. Ahmed positioned himself in a seat in front of Jackie and halted her activities.
“I have a parting gift for you, little one.” He smiled as he placed a box on the table between them.
Jackie opened the box and found a gleaming white mobile phone inside. She took it out and as she did, she noticed that the back of it felt rough to the touch. She turned it over and saw that the entire back cover was encrusted in diamonds. She gawped for a whole thirty seconds at the diamonds, twisting it this way and that and watching, fascinated, how they sparkled under the aircraft’s lights. She counted ten rows of eight tiny diamonds and her eyes widened, and she then lifted her eyes to Ahmed. She carefully extended the phone to him. “I can’t accept this, Ahmed. What on earth would I do with a thing like this? I’d be afraid of it getting nicked in Sainsbury’s or something.”
Ahmed pushed her hand back towards her. “Then do not take it to this Sand Berry place. Keep it at home and only use it when you want to contact me, which is why I am giving it to you. All the phone numbers you need for this purpose are already installed in the address book.” He took out his phone, which was black but also had diamonds encrusted on the back cover. “I have your number installed in my address book here, along with the lovely Jill’s, and I will contact you very soon.”
Jackie had been gratefully surprised at the luxury jet, and it had calmed Jackie down somewhat. She hadn’t expected a jet, actually, and had anticipated a bumpy, four-hour flight in something like a bi-plane, sitting on her suitcase and hanging on the back of the pilot’s seat for dear life. The phone had really knocked her socks off, and she pushed herself out of her seat and went round to Ahmed and threw her arms round his neck.
“Oh, Ahmed! I don’t know what I would have done without you!” she planted a big, noisy kiss on his cheek and beamed at him with twinkling eyes. “How can I thank you enough?” she pulled back a bit, realising what she’d said. “Within reason, of course!”
Ahmed chuckled and patted her arms. “Oh, my little one! The joy on your face is ample payment, I can assure you!” he struggled out of his seat as Jackie still had her arms round him. “Now, make yourself comfortable, and anything you desire you simply have to ask for.” He indicated towards the two stewards. “Eduardo and Claire will only be too happy to assist.”
He waited until Jackie had fastened her seatbelt, then he took Jackie’s hand and pressed the back of it tenderly to his lips. “Bon voyage, mon petite.” He then turned to Jill and took her hand in similar fashion. “We will meet again soon.” With that, he then swept out of the plane without looking back.
Ahmed’s ‘little plane’ landed at Gatwick at ten past six local time, and once it was safely docked in a hangar a passport control officer boarded, took Jill and Jackie’s passports and quickly glanced over them then left with a tip of his hat. The male steward lifted the two women’s cases and Jackie’s boutique bags down the steps where they were taken from him by a smartly uniformed chauffeur and deposited into the boot of yet another Bentley, identical to the two Ahmed had used in Ibiza. He then opened one of the rear doors with a flourish and waited for the two women to climb in.
Jackie hesitated, looking back over her shoulder towards the two stewards who had attended to them during the flight. “Should we tip them or something?” she asked Jill, hoping her friend would know what to do in a situation like this, as if this had happened to her before.
Jill bit her lip. “I don’t think so, love. I doubt anything less than a hundred quid would look reasonable, so we should just say thanks and smile and get on home.”
So they did just that.
The Bentley took Jackie home first, and they arrived outside her house at just after half past seven. The chauffeur got out and pulled her luggage from the boot and took it to her doorstep, then opened the back door of the Bentley and waited for the two women to say their goodbyes.
Jackie looked at Jill and sighed, but couldn’t think of anything to say. “Wow, what a weekend, eh?” she said, not really asking for an opinion, but it was something to say.
“What a weekend, indeed.” Jill agreed. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow, okay?”
Jackie waved a hand and said nonchalantly. “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I’ll probably be tidying up after Mark for most of the day.” She climbed out of the Bentley and leaned in to give Jill a kiss and a hug. “Thanks once again, sweetie.” She smiled.
“You’re very welcome. In fact,” Jill grinned. “Thanks to you. If you hadn’t pulled Ahmed it could have been quite boring.”
Jackie giggled and closed the door, then waited until the Bentley had disappeared round the corner.
Once the car had gone, she noticed the banging rap music emanating from her house. She rolled her eyes and huffed, then made her way to the door and readied herself to give Mark a telling off for playing it so loud, so late and on a Saturday.
When she opened the front door, though, her eyes grew wide and her mouth sagged.
There were two teenagers snogging on her stairs, and another two were leaning up against the wall with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other, but when she inhaled she realised that it wasn’t the kind you could buy at the local newsagent’s. All four were unaware that she’d entered the house, so she dumped her boutique bags and her case with a loud thud and shouted “Oi!” over the music. The snoggers jumped to their feet and stared at her, but the two smokers looked surprised at first, but then burst into giggles. Jackie grabbed the smoker nearest to her by the sleeve and ousted him out the front door and the other followed, and they were still giggling when she slammed the door in their faces.
Jackie glared at
the snoggers and they shimmied past her and into the living room, and she followed. She was greeted to the sight of about another ten teenagers strewn about the room; some were dancing, others were sitting, but nearly all of them were smoking and drinking. She put her hands on her hips and bellowed “Oi!” once again, her eyes bulging and her face the colour of an overcooked beetroot.
She was getting extremely irate, she realised that, but she couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. What the hell did Mark think he was playing at? And where was the little sod? He was nowhere to be seen in the living room, and if he was in the kitchen he would have come running once he’d heard her shouts. Well, that’s what she supposed he’d do, but maybe he’d jumped into the pantry to hide.
Someone turned the music down, and the crowd turned to look at her.
“You!” she pointed to a boy who was sitting on the sofa with an ashtray on his knee because she thought he looked familiar, but she honestly didn’t think she’d ever seen any of them before. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
The boy raised his eyebrows and pointed a finger at his chest. “Yes, you, you little toe-rag!” she swung her finger round the room. “All of you! Get the fuck out of my house right bloody now!”
They took their time