Air Babylon

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  At least you could argue they got a room. Some passengers don’t even bother to do that, particularly in first class. Kylie Minogue once famously got rather fruity with Michael Hutchence in the confines of first, and I know of one actor who woke up in the second row of the plane to find his producer’s mouth latched onto the end of his cock. And it’s not just the famous. Passengers are always fiddling and fondling each other underneath the blankets, thinking that if they are quiet enough they can get away with it. But no-one is fooled. There’s a particularly gruesome tale of a fifty-year-old woman who drank so much that she was pawing every businessman in sight. An hour into the flight she was discovered with her tits out and a bloke on each nipple. She only brought herself under control when she was told she would be arrested at the other end. Blokes on their own can be just as bad, wanking away to Demi Moore in Striptease like their lives depended on it. I’m sure it’s the combination of alcohol, lack of oxygen and boredom that makes some people so horny.

  Our toilet lovers have been at it for ten minutes now and the chiming bell shows no signs of abating. A small queue is beginning to develop outside. Its most insistent member appears to be the surly, shouting businessman whose meal Tom laced with Dulcolax. It’s obviously working because I have rarely seen a man more desperate. He is pacing up and down outside the door, occasionally pausing for breath as he appears to ride some form of contraction. His face is white and damp with sweat, and every now and then he hammers on the toilet door, urging them to get a move on.

  ‘Does anyone know who the couple are?’ asks Gareth, who has been called to the economy galley to deal with the situation.

  ‘No,’ says Tom, fresh from spraying club class with Poison, ‘but I have a feeling it’s that young couple near the front who were tucking into the brandy.’

  ‘I think it’s gone on long enough,’ sighs Gareth, with the jaded air of someone who was last laid in the seventies. ‘How long can a couple keep going for?’

  ‘Well . . .’ says Tom, who is sporting his recent handcuff marks with pride.

  ‘Oh shut up,’ says Gareth, leaving the galley and heading for the occupied toilet.

  We all watch as he goes to the front of the queue and raps on the door.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he says, loudly. ‘Could you hurry up in there? There are quite a few people waiting for the toilet.’

  ‘Yes, we’re desperate,’ urges the surly laxative man, hunching forward.

  Back in the galley, the amber light pauses for a second, as if trying to make up its mind what to do. But the silence is short-lived. The rhythm starts up again. But this time it’s quicker, slicker and has more purpose.

  ‘Jesus!’ says Tom, whistling slightly through the back of his teeth. ‘I want what he’s on.’

  At the toilet door, Gareth is undeterred. The laxative man is increasingly desperate.

  ‘Excuse me!’ Gareth raps harder this time. ‘It’s the cabin service director here. Will you stop what you are doing, vacate the toilet and let some other people use it, please!’ What little sense of humour he has left is rapidly disappearing.

  ‘Yes please,’ adds the former nutter, rather weakly.

  This time there is no pause to the quick-fire amber rhythm. If anything, it sounds all the more determined.

  ‘Right,’ announces Gareth with a determined clap, ‘that’s it.’ He walks up to the intercom system. The plane’s Tannoy springs to life. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he says, ‘I am terribly sorry to disturb you this late into your flight. But as some of you who are queuing here at the front for the toilet might be aware, the front right-hand toilet has been occupied for some time. This is not some sort of emergency, only a rather selfish couple having sex. They have been at it for some time now. I have asked them to leave the toilet but to no avail. So when they do eventually come out of the toilet, I would like the whole of the plane, if you can, to give them a round of applause. Thank you.’

  The announcement plays out in the toilet too. The amber light stops. The whole galley stares, waiting for it to start up again.

  Tom giggles. ‘That’s poured water on his ardour.’ The light flashes again. ‘Oh no, here we go . . .’

  ‘No,’ says Angela, ‘I think that’s just them moving around.’

  We all stand and wait to see what the lovers are going to do next.

  Gareth raps on the door again. ‘Come on now,’ he says. ‘The show really is over.’

  Then, slowly but surely, the toilet door is opened. The first to show, after much shoving and whispering, is the bloke. His red face and ravaged neck poke through the door.

  ‘Um, hello,’ he says to Gareth, sounding rather sheepish. ‘Sorry about that.’

  The girl follows swiftly behind. Her cheeks are flushed, her white blouse is unbuttoned and her suede skirt is covered in some unpleasant-looking stains. She says nothing; instead she tugs at her hair, looks at the floor and hunches her shoulders in embarrassment.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ says Gareth, ‘I give you the toilet lovers!’ He raises his hand in the air like some circus ringmaster. A ripple of applause drifts down the plane. Someone wolf whistles.

  ‘I hope they knew each other before they joined the toilet queue,’ says Tom.

  ‘Of course they did,’ says Angela.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ says Tom. ‘I had a couple just the other day who met in the queue, fucked, and went back to their seats ten minutes later. I don’t think they even knew each other’s names. She went into the toilet and he just followed her in.’

  ‘Really?’ says Angela.

  ‘Yup. When you’ve been flying as long as I have, honey, nothing surprises you any more.’

  The toilet couple walk back to their seats, which are fortunately together, and the lavatory is reopened. The laxative man is the first in. He is in no position to let the smell of sex and other people’s bodily fluids bother him. He lets out a loud sigh almost as soon as he closes the door. Tom smiles; a couple of the other hosties giggle. The shared joke has gone down well. But they all quickly fall silent as soon as Gareth walks back onto the galley.

  ‘Thank God that’s over,’ he says, leaning back against a trolley. ‘I have no idea why anyone would want to shag in those toilets.’ He shivers. ‘They are so disgustingly filthy, especially after that man’s emptied his bowels in there.’ Gareth’s been in the business long enough that nothing gets by him.

  Just as I am thinking about wandering back to club to have another drink with Andy and brave the eau de Poison and colostomy that fills the air, the hugely fat man next to whom I had deliberately placed the laxative nutter man keels over in the toilet queue.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I say.

  ‘Oh shit,’ echoes Gareth, stepping away from the trolley. ‘Here we fucking go.’

  12–1 AM

  ALL HELL SUDDENLY breaks loose. Gareth ushers the toilet queue to a facility up at the other end of the plane. Tom squats over the body and starts thumping the heart with his clasped hands, trying to administer mouth-to-mouth. Angela looks for the resuscitation machine. I call through to the captain to tell him what’s going on. And Edith just stands there, arms stiffly by her sides, staring rather catatonically ahead, unable to do anything.

  Richard seems quite unfazed when he hears of the drama. His first question is do I think the man will die. I’m afraid, I say, that due to my lack of medical training I’m not prepared to make that call. He is undeterred. He tells me to contact him if the situation deteriorates. I say I don’t think it can get much worse. And then he tells me that whatever happens we are not going to land the plane. We have no landing light. We have no option but to carry on to Dubai. We will have to treat the fat bloke on the plane. He suggests I page a doctor. I pick up the Tannoy.

  ‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,’ I say, trying to sound calm. ‘We have a small situation at the front of the plane and we are looking for a doctor. If there is a doctor on board could they make themselves known to one of the cabin crew.’

&nb
sp; I stand in the aisle, scanning economy, looking left and then right, searching for a raised hand. There’s nothing. I return to the Tannoy.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, ladies and gentlemen, but if there is a doctor on board, could they make themselves known to a member of the cabin crew.’

  I look down the plane again. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the fat man flailing around and fitting on the floor. His face is turning blue. Tom looks panicked. Angela is fumbling with the resuscitation machine, unravelling the panels and the wires. Her unpractised hands are shaking. And still no-one in the body of the plane puts up a hand.

  ‘Right,’ I bark down the Tannoy. ‘We have a suspected heart attack here. I know there’s a group of doctors on the plane, headed for some sort of convention in Dubai. Will one of you bastards make yourselves known to a member of the cabin crew now!’

  I put the Tannoy down and look up. Five hands are slowly raised. I march down the aisle and grab the nearest by the arm, practically dragging the bloke out of his seat towards the front of the plane.

  ‘We’re all ear, nose and throat,’ mutters the doctor as he trots along behind me. ‘Cardiac stuff is not our forte.’

  ‘You know more than we do,’ I say.

  ‘Um, and I’ve had a few drinks,’ he declares.

  ‘Haven’t we all,’ I say, giving him a shove towards the body.

  ‘Right,’ says the doctor, standing above the body, rubbing his hands together, ‘what seems to be the problem?’

  Tom and Angela look up, their flustered pink faces exuding terror and confusion.

  ‘Um,’ says Tom, an electrical panel in each hand, ‘the heart.’

  ‘Good . . . right,’ says the doctor, tweaking the legs of his suit trousers as he makes to squat down.

  ‘Yeah,’ agrees Angela. ‘According to the first-aid course I did the other week he is displaying all the signs of a heart attack. The blue lips, the convulsions . . .’

  ‘Good . . . right,’ says the doctor, looking down at the man who is now just lying there, flat on his back with his mouth open, looking very blue and very dead.

  The doctor leans in to check his pulse. Blood starts to ooze from the man’s nose, ears and eyes.

  ‘Oh dear,’ says the doctor, releasing the man’s hand, ‘that doesn’t look awfully good, does it? The heart has definitely stopped. I think we should use those panels right away. Are they charged?’

  ‘They seem to be,’ says Angela, looking at the machine.

  ‘OK then. Stand back everyone.’

  We all flatten ourselves against the wall as the doctor places the panels either side of the man’s heart. There’s a high-pitched squeal as the machine lurches into action.

  ‘And, shock!’ The fat man’s body arches a millimetre off the floor. ‘These things aren’t terribly strong, are they? We need a bit more power. Can you turn them up?’

  ‘Um, I think so,’ says Angela, fiddling with a few buttons.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I say, looking down the plane. ‘We seem to have an audience.’

  There is a sea of faces staring up the plane. Rows of eyes and open mouths are all pointing in our direction.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ mutters Gareth. ‘Someone get a blanket.’

  I walk straight through into club and find the comfort princess fast asleep on my right. Wearing an eye mask and ear plugs, and swaddled in a pashmina, she is covered in three blankets. I pull two off, muttering something about emergencies, and come straight back into economy. I stand between the body and the crowd and, in order to block their view, hold out the blankets like a matador waiting for a charging bull. I can hear the drama unfolding behind me. The doctor keeps asking for more power, Angela keeps turning up the machine, and still the man just lies there. After about another seven minutes of shocking with no result, the doctor decides to call it a day.

  ‘I think that’s it,’ he says. ‘I really do. I honestly don’t think there is anything else we can do.’

  ‘Right,’ I hear Gareth saying.

  ‘Do you want me to call time of death?’

  ‘No, no, don’t worry about that,’ says Gareth, ‘we’ll sort all that out. Thank you for your help. Could you just return to your seat and not tell anyone what has happened. We can take it from here.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ says the doctor, sounding uncertain. ‘If you’re sure . . .’

  ‘We’re sure,’ says Gareth. ‘We’re quite used to this. There’s a certain procedure to be followed.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ says the doctor again, edging backwards towards me and the blanket.

  ‘If you just slip through here,’ I say, trying to shield the view of the corpse. ‘Please don’t tell anyone the full story.’ I smile. ‘We don’t want panic to spread through the plane.’

  ‘Oh Lord, no,’ says the doctor. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ I suggest.

  ‘Oh,’ he replies, a little disorientated and confused. ‘Urn, a whisky would be nice.’

  ‘Shall I make it a double?’

  ‘Um, yes, right, that would be lovely.’

  ‘I’ll send a stewardess up with one right away.’

  Edith seems relieved to be given an order, something to do that does not actually involve the corpse. She sets about getting the doctor his double whisky with a deliberate efficiency. Meanwhile, Gareth, Angela, Tom and I stand and stare at the dead fat bloke and wonder what to do. My arms are beginning to ache; holding the blankets across the aisle is becoming hard work.

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen a dead person,’ says Angela, looking down. Her voice is quiet and her attitude distinctly muted.

  ‘Plenty more where that came from, darling,’ says Tom, pretending to be an old hand.

  ‘What the fuck are we going to do with him?’ sighs Gareth, absolutely an old hand. ‘We can barely move him. He weighs about thirty stone. He had to have a specially extended seat belt to fly in the first place. We could drag him up the aisle and put him back in his seat, but he’s next to the psycho whose food you laced with laxative.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ asks Tom.

  ‘Oh pur-lease,’ says Gareth. ‘D’you think I came down in the last fucking shower? I was poncing up and down the aisles of planes before you were born.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘There isn’t a trick I haven’t seen, or a scam I haven’t pulled. You, my friend, are amateur hour.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Tom.

  ‘Oh,’ mimics Gareth.

  We all look back down at the body. The man is dressed in a grey T-shirt and navy blue jogging pants, white trainers and grey zip-up top with ‘fuck’ misspelt across the front. For some reason, standing there, looking at him, still holding the blankets, I don’t feel the same sort of sadness that I did for Mr Fletcher earlier this morning. Perhaps it’s because there is no weeping wife with whom to empathize. Or maybe because it happened so quickly and in such a surreal place, just outside the toilet. But I have to admit I feel nothing. He is simply a big fat dead bloke who is causing us problems.

  ‘Does anyone know if he is flying with anyone?’ asks Gareth.

  ‘No,’ I say, numbly. ‘I checked him in and he is on his own.’

  ‘Right.’ Gareth nods, his brain ticking over, trying to come up with a solution.

  ‘What are we going to do with him?’ asks Angela, stating the obvious.

  ‘Shush,’ says Gareth.

  ‘What about first?’ asks Tom. ‘Are there some spare seats up there?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Gareth, pulling his bottom lip as he thinks. ‘We could try and drag him there.’

  ‘What, all the way through club?’ I say.

  ‘No, you’re right. There’s no way we could squeeze him through there.’

  ‘I meant the other passengers,’ I say.

  ‘Ye-e-s,’ says Gareth, staring at the body. ‘Fuck it!’ he declares suddenly.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘We’ll put him here, in the galley.’

  ‘Where?’ asks Angela, soundi
ng horrified.

  ‘On the floor,’ says Gareth.

  ‘But we’ve got breakfast to get out.’

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to step over him, won’t you?’

  ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘That’s the only solution.’

  ‘Can’t we put him somewhere else?’ Angela is becoming somewhat hysterical at the idea of having to spend the rest of the flight sitting, working and eating next to a corpse.

  ‘Angela,’ says Gareth, rather slowly, ‘there is nowhere else to put him, do you understand? The man is too fat to move. Short of picking him up by the legs and dragging him through club class on his arse, there is nothing else we can do. D’you get it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispers.

  ‘OK then. On the count of three. Tom, you take the arms. Angela, you take a leg, I’ll take the other leg and we’ll drag him into the galley. You,’ he says to me, ‘keep going with the blanket thing so no-one can see this fiasco.’

  ‘OK,’ I say.

  ‘Ready? One . . . two . . . three!’

  They all take hold of a limb and with great difficulty drag the corpse across the corridor into the galley. I follow, shielding the body from view.

  ‘Keep going, keep going . . . just a bit further. To me . . . to me . . . to me . . . And here . . . we . . . go!’

  Tom, Angela and Gareth drop the body on the floor of the galley and all the other flight attendants look on in horror as they realize the full extent of the situation.

  ‘Right, that will do,’ says Gareth, exhaling with exhaustion, his hands clasping the small of his back. ‘There’s no way we could have dragged him any further.’