Air Babylon

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  ‘It’s just that we need you to make a statement about your husband,’ Shirley persists.

  ‘A statement?’ says the blonde. ‘Fuck off! All I want is a fag.’

  ‘If you could make a statement first,’ tries Shirley, her voice growing weak.

  ‘I want a fucking fag,’ says the woman. ‘I’ve been seventy fucking hours without one.’ She starts rattling around in her handbag.

  ‘Perhaps I could help you, madam?’ I ask, trying to back Shirley up.

  ‘Not unless you’ve got a fucking light,’ she replies.

  ‘We do need you to make a statement otherwise we can’t charge your husband with the assault,’ I explain as pleasantly as I can.

  ‘What?’ she says, looking up from her handbag, a cigarette balanced on her bottom lip.

  ‘We can’t charge him otherwise,’ I say, with a smile.

  ‘Like I fucking give a shit,’ she says, the cigarette moving in time with her speech. ‘I don’t care what happens to him. I’m having a fag and I’m out of here. As far as I’m concerned he’s your fucking problem.’ She sparks up her cigarette with a Sydney Opera House lighter.

  ‘Excuse me, madam,’ says one of the policemen. ‘You can’t smoke here.’

  ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’ she exclaims, hurling the cigarette to the floor and stubbing it out with her white high-heeled sandal. ‘I’m fucking out of here.’

  And with that, she marches off along the corridor towards the terminal. No-one tries to stop her. We all just turn and watch her go.

  ‘I think I might’ve punched her,’ concludes Andy, ‘if I had to sit next to her all the way from Sydney to London. No wonder he lost it in Singapore.’

  At that moment the brawling husband in question is escorted out of the plane. He has a policeman at each armpit and his hands are tied in front of him with the same plastic handcuffs they used to restrain him on the plane. Red-faced and dry-mouthed, he smells like a pub carpet and looks slept in. Behind him comes a small, mousey flight attendant with an obvious slap mark across her face.

  This man is in serious trouble. Air rage incidents are viewed dimly by the courts. I remember an Essex man who was recently sentenced to four years for slashing an attendant with a vodka bottle across the face, leaving her needing eighteen stitches. Also there was this extended Irish family who started a brawl on a Jamaica flight and were given twelve months and six months for endangering the flight and affray. So this bloke will get something like six months in prison with or without his wife’s testimony, after his trip to Uxbridge Magistrates Court.

  You have to feel sorry for the flight attendants who have to deal with it all. Air rage is on the rise: incidents increased by a factor of six worldwide between 1994 and 2002, from 1,132 to 6,500, and over half the incidents involved alcohol. Even celebrities aren’t immune. I remember hearing about REM guitarist Peter Buck who was accused of attacking a member of the British Airways staff with a yoghurt pot, but was acquitted at trial. Then there’s the more horrific story of the Stone Roses singer Ian Brown, who threatened to cut off a flight attendant’s hands and was sentenced to four months in jail as a result. Coronation Street’s Tracy Shaw was an apparent victim of tiredness and lack of nicotine when she fought with her husband during a flight to the Cayman Islands. And a mate of mine had to deal with a northern rock band when they were threatened with handcuffing after they started throwing fruit at the air hostess on the plane. Fortunately the captain and the first officer managed to calm down the situation and prevent anything too unpleasant from happening.

  But any air rage situation is enough to make you shit scared. Fights in confined places are no laughing matter, which is why the courts hand out such stiff penalties. Our flight attendants are now trained in how to restrain difficult passengers, and we supposedly have what is known as a ‘sensible drinking’ policy. Although no-one knows if that applies to the staff or the passengers. Having said that, judging by their appearance, I bet half the people coming off this flight have a hangover of some description. They all look a bit dishevelled.

  ‘Morning,’ says Andy, with amazing breeziness.

  ‘Morning,’ they mutter back as they file past.

  If you’ve been in this business as long as I have you can begin to predict which passengers are going on to or coming off which flights. Affluent couples with Louis Vuitton weekend luggage go to Paris or Rome. Families with children and bright pink inflatables go to Spain. Backpackers and elderly trip-of-a-lifetime couples go to Australia. And this flight, so far, seems to be proving the point.

  ‘Morning.’

  A blue-rinse granny in pistachio slacks and yellow jumper who walks at a snail’s pace.

  ‘Hello.’

  A flushed-looking middle-aged couple who’ve gone to either a wedding or the christening of their first grandchild.

  ‘Morning.’

  A young bloke the colour of mahogany, with sun-bleached hair, open-toed sandals and a didgeridoo.

  ‘Morning.’

  Another young bloke with a scarlet face and a didgeridoo.

  ‘Hello.’

  Yet another honey-tinged chap and a didgeridoo.

  We must get about fifteen to twenty didgeridoos coming off any one Australia flight. I have no idea what you are supposed to do with them once you get them home. Leave them to gather dust in your bedroom? You could just leave them to travel round and round on the carousel, which is how at least two or three of them per flight end their lives when they get to the UK.

  ‘Hello there,’ says a young freckled flight attendant carrying a clipboard. ‘Which one of you two is here for the unaccompanied minor?’

  Both Andy and I look at each other and I can see his shoulders slump slightly. He knows that if he doesn’t offer to take the minor then I’m quite likely to pull rank. Given a choice between a dead body and an unaccompanied minor, the body wins every time. Unaccompanied minors are a right pain in the backside. Not only do you have to sign for them at every stage of the game, like some very expensive parcel, making absolutely sure that you hand them over to the correct parents/guardians in arrivals, but they also seem to want to make it their business to run away from you. Just as you are looking out for their luggage, making sure you get their passport back or sorting out a visa, they piss off. They hide in the shops, squirrel themselves away in the toilets; they make it their business to give you a full coronary by the time you get to Customs. I’ve had my fair share of minors; quite honestly, give me a corpse every time.

  ‘I’ll swap you the stiff for the child,’ mutters Andy out of the side of his mouth, knowing he is on the road to nowhere.

  ‘No way,’ I say.

  ‘Come on,’ says the attendant. ‘He’s not that bad.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Andy and I say at the same time.

  ‘No,’ she insists, ‘he’s really very sweet. Aren’t you?’ she adds, looking down at this short, rotund boy, squeezed into a pair of navy shorts. He has a rucksack on his back and a large plastic killing toy in each hand.

  ‘Yes, Kathy,’ says the child, smiling sweetly at Kathy before turning to look at Andy. ‘I’m Jamie,’ he says, his expression hardening, his eyes narrowing as a pair of horns seem to spring from the top of his head. ‘Bet you my dad’s richer than yours.’

  ‘Probably,’ says Andy, brusquely taking Jamie’s dimpled hand. ‘But I had mine killed.’

  As Andy walks towards the terminal with his now mute charge, Terry, Derek and I get the nod to go aboard the plane.

  Inside, the place is a mess. There are newspapers all over the floor, magazines lie curled up on the seats, and hundreds of bits of plastic ripped off complimentary terry socks or warm face flannels litter the length of the two aisles. It is amazing how much chaos nearly 400 people can create when flying from the other side of the world.

  Terry and Derek go ahead of me. It’s up to them actually to check that the passenger is really dead. I walk up the aisle behind Shirley, as she checks for anything left behind on the p
lane. You would be amazed by the sort of stuff they find. Dentures, spectacles and for some reason panties are the things most left behind on a plane, plus, of course, the odd coat, bag, book, magazine and stash of duty free. Shirley already has a coat over one arm and a child’s brace in her hand and we’re only halfway through economy.

  Another couple of rows back and we reach the corpse. Terry and Derek are both nodding their heads, confirming that the man is dead; meanwhile a woman I presume to be his wife is still sitting next to the body. Her face is as white as a sheet and she is mincing her hands as she stares ahead, muttering under her breath. You can’t help but feel for her sitting there, next to her dead husband. She must be in terrible shock.

  I have to admit I don’t feel that great myself. I know Andy and I sound quite blasé about these things, but you never quite get used to having to deal with the dead. The body has a blanket tucked around it and an oxygen mask pushed to the top of its bald head. The man’s face is white and waxy, his mouth is slightly open, and his eyes don’t appear to be totally closed. He looks as if he was in his late sixties. His wife appears to be about ten years younger.

  ‘It happened so quickly, it happened so quickly,’ she says over and over. ‘One minute he was fine and the next he was dead. It happened so quickly . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, madam,’ says Derek, ‘there is nothing you could have done. He wouldn’t have suffered a thing.’

  The captain arrives behind me.

  ‘Heart attack?’ he asks, in what sounds like a pseudo-concerned voice.

  ‘Looks like it,’ says Derek. ‘It would have been very quick,’ he adds, catching the widow’s eye.

  ‘That’s what Shirley said,’ says the captain with a nod, his tight, dark curls shining with some sort of hair product. He leans forward towards the widow and pats her on the shoulder. ‘I am terribly sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers.

  ‘I know the hostesses did what they could.’ He smiles and pats some more.

  ‘They have been amazing,’ confirms the widow.

  ‘So, he died just as we landed,’ he says quickly, turning to Terry, who is beginning to fill in the paperwork. Jesus, this man moves fast.

  ‘No,’ says the widow. ‘It was somewhere over India.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ agrees the captain, all smiles. ‘Just as we landed? Mate?’ he says to Terry.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ confirms Terry. ‘On touching down.’

  Officially, when a passenger is taken ill or dies the captain is supposed to put down at the nearest available airport. But this almost never happens. Captains hate doing it as it ruins their schedules and costs the airline thousands in fuel and delays. This is also the reason behind the airlines’ reluctance to fly anyone who looks a bit peaky, as if they might peg it halfway across the Atlantic. Captains like their passengers to die on terra firma in the UK, as getting a death certificate out of, say, the Indian authorities is often more trouble than it is worth.

  ‘How long for the coroner and the undertakers?’ asks the captain, checking his watch. He is supposed to be the last person off his plane, and this one is obviously keen to get the corpse shifted so that he can get off home.

  ‘Not long now,’ says Terry.

  ‘Right,’ says the captain. ‘Tell me when they’re here. I’ll be on the ramp talking to the engineers. Goodbye, um, Mrs . . .?’

  ‘Mrs Fletcher,’ says Mrs Fletcher.

  ‘I am terribly sorry for your loss, Mrs Fletcher,’ he says again, giving her shoulder another squeeze before disappearing up the aisle.

  ‘Um, madam,’ I say to Mrs Fletcher, who is watching the captain walk away. ‘Would you like to come with me?’

  ‘What?’ she says, looking vacantly around to see who’s speaking to her.

  ‘Would you like to come with me?’

  ‘Oh, right,’ she says.

  ‘Do you have anyone to call?’ I ask, as she gets out of her seat.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, fumbling about in her handbag. ‘Um, our daughter lives in Hammersmith.’

  ‘Let’s get you out of here, give you a cup of tea and call your daughter,’ I suggest.

  ‘I don’t want to leave Albert,’ she says.

  ‘I know,’ I say, ‘but let’s just let these guys get on with their job and you’ll see your husband in a minute. It is for the best, I promise you.’

  It really is for the best. The last thing she needs to see is her husband’s corpse being hauled out of his dirty seat, placed on top of a drinks/dinner trolley and wheeled out of the plane. It is not the most dignified of exits and certainly not something that a wife should witness. But it is usually the only way to get a corpse out of a plane, especially when they’ve died this far back. If they’re in first, club or further up the front you can put them on a stretcher, but this far back it’s too heavy and difficult to get them out without using the drinks trolley.

  I walk Mrs Fletcher very slowly through the terminal. She doesn’t say a word as I take her through passport control and Customs. I tell her not to worry about her bags, saying that they’ll be collected off the carousel and delivered to where she wants them to go. It is an odd feeling taking somebody so shrouded in grief through an airport of holidaymakers. The noise, the lights, the laughter and the music seem so wholly inappropriate. I only hope that she doesn’t really notice. She is quite unsteady on her feet by the time I get her to the Quiet Room. It’s a place where we take the bereaved and distressed so they can calm down and be alone.

  Just as I settle her down into a comfortable chair and explain that I am about to get her a cup of tea and phone her daughter, my radio goes again.

  ‘Hi, it’s me,’ says Andy.

  ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to take this,’ I say to Mrs Fletcher, whose eyes only vaguely seem to register the interruption. ‘Go ahead, Andy.’

  ‘Houston, we’ve got a problem,’ says Andy.

  ‘Can’t you deal with it?’

  ‘No, not really, mate,’ he says. ‘I’m waiting for my minor’s parents to arrive.’

  ‘I’m still with Mrs Fletcher.’

  ‘We’ve got an illegal,’ he says.

  ‘Oh no,’ I say. My heart sinks. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  I tell you, now we’re in the shit.

  7–8 AM

  I LEAVE MRS Fletcher in the hopefully capable hands of Janet. Well, there is no-one else to call on this early in the morning and, as a grounded flight attendant, she is sort of trained for trauma. I suppose I could call up Barry, the chaplain, on his mobile, but he doesn’t come in until eight a.m. and it seems a bit unfair to call him in just to hold someone’s hand for an hour, until their daughter arrives. Although, Barry’s such a lovely bloke he’ll probably be a bit pissed off I haven’t disturbed him. Grief counselling is one of his fortes. He’s the first person any of us calls in a disaster. I remember when they flew seven bodies home from the Australian hostel fire a few years ago, he was there, counselling all the relatives, making sure all the coffins came off the flights OK. He’s a great bloke, but I do think Janet can manage the catatonic Mrs Fletcher until her daughter gets here from Hammersmith. All she really has to do is help her decide where to send her husband’s body once the coroner has signed it off on the plane. There are funeral directors here in the airport to help her if she needs them.

  Having settled Mrs Fletcher into Janet’s care, I have to admit I’m hardly rushing towards passport control. Truth be told, I am rather steeling myself for an encounter with Immigration. I don’t really like the bastards at the best of times. They’re surly jobsworths. Employed by the Home Office, they are as unionized as the baggage boys and just as uncooperative. Woe betide any airline whose plane lands early before the beginning of Immigration’s shift because their passengers will be left standing in passport control until those clock-watchers decide it is time to start work. They also blame the arrival of illegals on the airlines, like it’s our fault that someone decides
to rip up their passport, shove it down the toilet and claim political asylum. We’re charged £2,000 for every illegal who makes it into the country and it is up to each airline to shell out for their deportation.

  As I approach passport control my heart sinks further. All my hopes for one of those elderly customs officials who has seen it all before and cares a little less are dashed. Over in the far corner of the area, underneath the yellow sign, stand two rather lonely-looking figures. The first, in baggy, beige cotton trousers and a thin checked short-sleeved shirt, appearing all stooped and defeated, is my illegal. The second is equally slim but waspish, young and exuding so much officious authority that I can smell it from here.

  ‘You took your time,’ he says.

  ‘I had a corpse to deal with,’ I explain, irritatedly.

  ‘Yes, well,’ he bristles. You can tell this man went into Immigration because no-one was nice to him at school. ‘Next time . . .’

  Next time what? I feel like saying, but I don’t. Things are bad enough for this illegal guy without me winding up the passport Nazi.

  ‘Of course,’ I smile instead. ‘Anyway, who have we here?’

  I nod in the direction of the illegal and try to catch his eye, but his head is lowered, his eyes fixed on his shiny new shoes. They look a little large for him. We get that a lot – illegals arriving in big new shoes. They come inappropriately dressed in summer clothes, their only concession to the inclement UK a pair of lace-up shoes. There can’t be that many on sale in the Far East because they never seem to fit.

  ‘No idea,’ says the immigration officer, ‘but my guess is he’s from Indonesia.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Has he said anything?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Except “political asylum”,’ he adds. ‘They all know how to say that as soon as they step off the plane.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Are you sure he’s one of ours?’

  ‘Don’t try that one on me,’ sniffs the officer.

  ‘It’s just that Qantas and BA have flights coming in at the same time as us—’