by Miriam Moss
“No.” I frown at him.
“Good,” says Tim. “As we have to swap planes at Cyprus, I’m hoping to count both the flights toward my Junior Jet Club points. The twins think they should give us extra points because we should have been on a BOAC flight. I mean, it’s not our fault we were hijacked, is it?”
“No,” I say. “You should definitely ask both pilots to sign your logbook.”
“Yes, then you’ve got double mileage,” adds David.
Tim looks pleased. “OK, I will.”
It feels so good to see them again.
A Jordanian stewardess offers us a bottled drink from her tray and a slightly greasy doughnut. We take one of each and thank her.
David bites into his doughnut. “Oh, there’s no jam. Has yours?”
Tim breaks his open. “No. Hang on—I’m just going to tell the twins about something.” He gallops off, holding his doughnut in one hand and his bottle in front of him like a sword.
“Funny how the hijackers disappeared.” David takes a swig of his Coke. “Was the Giant or Jamal with you?”
“No,” I say.
“Sweaty?”
“God, no.”
“Wonder where the crew have got to.” He wipes sugar from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I saw them going into a different room at the hotel,” I say.
“Being debriefed, I expect.”
I laugh. “You make it sound like a spy movie!”
“Feels a bit like that. I’m going to really milk it when I get back to school.” I watch him glugging down his Coke. He seems even younger today. “Damn. Where did that drink go so fast?”
“Here.” I hand him mine. I can’t face it.
“Thanks.”
Tim skids to a halt, holding a bag of licorice allsorts. “You told me you liked the blue ones, Anna, so I saved these.” He holds out a handful.
“Wow! Where did they come from?”
“The man we stayed with last night gave them to me, and some pond water for Fred, and new plants, and a new box. I’ll go and get him so you can see.” He runs off again and is back in a flash, carrying a blue plastic box with a lid. He lifts the lid, and there is Fred, looking grumpily up from an exotic array of water plants.
“Fred!” I say. “You’re in the Garden of Eden.”
“I know.” Tim strokes his shell. “He’s really happy. You can tell because he’s smiling.”
“Is he?”
“You can see he is!”
“Oh, OK. If you say so.”
The twins skid across the polished floor in their socks, shrieking and crashing into empty chairs, bumping into bags and strollers. The Jordanian stewardess eventually catches up with them. “Now,” she says, “we’ll be boarding in a moment, so it’s time to put on your shoes and collect your things together.”
The PA system crackles. “The Royal Jordanian flight to Nicosia, Cyprus, is now boarding.” Everyone collects their bits and pieces, and we line up by the door.
The thought of being on another plane feels odd—and unsafe. But somehow, despite my heart thumping with anxiety, and by not thinking about it too much, I manage to cross the tarmac toward the solid white steps leading up to the plane’s open doorway.
There’s no dangling rope here. These steps mean business. They’re clamped against the plane. I grip the handrail and smell the paint, warmed by the sun, and I’m halfway up when there’s a commotion below. The older blond girl is refusing to board. She’s sobbing on her sister’s shoulder. Two of the ground crew come over to see what the holdup is. They beckon to the stewardess up in the doorway. Our embarkation comes to a halt. We all stand frozen, as if in a tableau.
The stewardess pushes down past me with two paper bags in her hand. The older girl is struggling, her breath coming in quick gasps. Now her sister is panicking and crying too. The stewardess sits them both on the bottom step and tells them to breathe slowly into the bags. Gradually their breathing becomes more regular, and the steward at the top of the steps begins quietly to encourage the rest of us up into the plane.
I feel shocked and unsettled, so when I reach the top of the steps, I lean forward to Tim, in front of me, and whisper, “Shall we sit together—for old times’ sake?” Tim nods and gives me a quick, grateful smile. Then he passes the message on to David.
Once inside the plane, I hesitate. It feels unreal. Otherworldly. But I sit, feeling dazed and distant, between Tim and David, waiting for takeoff. The clunk of the door shutting makes me feel powerfully claustrophobic. I try to shut it out, to think about open spaces, the sea, wide, sandy beaches, anything but being shut in again.
As we taxi away from the clutter of buildings, toward the landing strip, I stare out the window at the wire fencing, the runway lights glowing in the gray light, the line of trees, the drooping windsock, and I think of the other Anna, the one who took off from Bahrain those four long days ago. And I don’t know where she is anymore. She feels as light and insubstantial as a dust particle caught in the sun, drifting randomly . . .
I look out at the edge of land and the empty sky. Maybe the cold air of England, and normality, whatever that is, will make sense of things. And Marni. Marni will help. In the meantime, I’m between David and Tim once again, their arms touching mine on the armrests. The engines roar before the takeoff; the plane shudders, shakes as it speeds up, rises and tilts. The Middle East drops away. We’re in the air, climbing once again into the heavens.
50
Flying to Cyprus—0615h
Breakfast comes: half a grapefruit, bacon, and an omelet with grilled tomatoes, a roll, butter and marmalade, orange juice, tea or coffee. I stare at the pale-yellow omelet, steaming slightly; at the soft, subsiding tomatoes; and I break open the bread roll, spread the hard, cold butter. But should I save it for later? The three of us approach the meal with reverence, with held-in elbows, so as not to knock one another in the delicate task. The memory of having no food still hovers over us. We eat terribly slowly, even David, savoring everything, making it all last as long as possible. I cut the slice of bacon into tiny pieces and chew each one separately. When the stewardesses bring the cart, Tim asks for tea and adds all our sugars to his cup until the spoon stands upright. Then he spoons the melting sugar into his mouth. At the end, he puts his uneaten marmalade roll into his satchel, saying, “For later.” Having had so little, everything is important, either eaten or saved. We all keep our plastic cutlery, the salt and pepper. Our trays, when they are collected, hold only empty bowls, wrappings, and an empty grapefruit shell.
Just over an hour after takeoff, we touch down on the island of Cyprus. And when the plane comes to a halt, we’re herded off and immediately redirected across the tarmac toward a BOAC Boeing 707. It looks calm and regal and has a long, thin cloud hanging over it like stretched pastry.
But at the top of the airline steps, I’m alarmed to be greeted not just by stewardesses but also by two nurses and a doctor.
“Do they think we’re sick or something?” I say under my breath.
“No, they think we’ve all gone insane,” David says.
“Well, we probably nearly did.”
As soon as we’re airborne and the seat belt signs have pinged off, we are told we can wander about as we please. There’s an air of celebration. Trays of sweets and endless free drinks and chips are passed around. It all feels a bit forced, as though they need to treat us differently or something awful might happen.
I notice that the doctor and nurses are mingling with the passengers. They spend some time talking quietly to the blond sisters, who managed to board this time without panicking. When they get to us, they ask if we have any aches and pains, or—and they lower their voices—any other worries we’d like to talk about. We all shake our heads solemnly.
When they’re gone, David looks pretend devastated. “Damn. I forgot to tell them that I’ve acquired this awful aversion to food.”
“I dreamed I ate Fred last night,
” Tim says suddenly. “Should I have told them that?”
David and I can hardly hold in our laughter.
“No, Tim, that sounds like a perfectly normal anxiety dream. How is he, by the way?”
“He’s fine. In fact, he’s very fine,” he says happily.
Mrs. Newton keeps one of the nurses occupied with a blow-by-blow account of what she personally went through during the hijacking, especially having had a headache for days on end. When the nurse is finally released from her clutches, I notice Mrs. Newton popping the painkillers she’s been given into her handbag and ordering another double gin and tonic.
The captain announces that we can come up to the cockpit in twos and threes if we’d like. Tim and the twins are the first to go, and return crowing with delight. The captain has written copiously in each of their Junior Jet Club notebooks, confirming the exact mileage from Amman to London.
“That’s fantastic,” I say.
“We’re flying eight miles up, you know,” he says.
“No!”
“Forty-two thousand feet! Traveling at six hundred miles an hour!”
“Amazing! I had no idea!”
The three of them go off to play Scrabble, still talking about Rolls Royce engines and seven tons of thrust.
Throughout the flight, the head steward calls out the names of passengers whose friends and family are already waiting for them at Heathrow. Whenever a new list is announced, a cheer goes up and the cabin goes very quiet. Everyone waits, waits for their name.
“Yessss!” a person behind me says delightedly, and another farther back, and one in front. Then David, then Tim. When will they call out my name? Who’s going to be there for me? Where are they?
Where are they?
Surely I won’t be expected to go straight back to school?
I can’t go straight back! This is horrible, waiting for my name to be called. It’s like a raffle, but where I’m the only one holding a dud ticket.
The intercom goes again. I hold my breath. There’s no Anna on the list. It’s unbearable.
Am I really expected to get on a train at Waterloo and take myself off to school on my own, after all that’s happened? I imagine being greeted by my housemistress. She’ll try to look sympathetic, make me a cup of hot chocolate—and then tell me to get on with it.
I can’t believe that no one is waiting for me! Have they stayed in Bahrain? Or maybe they’ve gone straight to the new house. God, that means that this time tomorrow I’ll be walking through the swinging doors into the hall, sitting cross-legged on the floor under the stage, being stared at by staff on the balcony checking my deportment.
I cannot go straight there.
“Come on, Anna,” David says, finishing his second Coke. “Let’s go and visit the cockpit.”
“Really?”
“Yes, come on.”
I sigh. “OK.” There’s nothing much else to do.
The plane is loud with laughter and high spirits. The adults are celebrating their freedom in style. It feels far more like a wedding party than a flight home. I’m amazed at the amount of champagne washing around. A ruddy Mr. Newton is standing, shouting above the din at Mrs. Green, who looks flushed and embarrassed.
Inside the cramped cockpit, the captain and navigator sit among the hundreds of switches lining the space over their heads. I think of our captain and navigator. I wish they were in here, flying us home.
The maze of dials flickers and twitches above the two men, and they’re friendly enough but clearly a little bored of explaining how everything works. They ask us our names, show us the ejector-seat button and, on the glowing map of the Mediterranean, where France meets the English Channel. I try to look interested, desperately wanting to feel excited, but until I hear that Marni and Dad are waiting for me, it’s difficult.
Why don’t they think before they read out people’s names? Can’t they imagine what it might be like for the ones who have no one waiting for them? Don’t they check?
“You can see that we’re going over France, just east of Paris at the moment,” the navigator is saying.
“It’s amazing,” David says. “Like a giant living map.” But it means nothing to me. These people mean nothing. I’m tired of them. I just want Marni and my dad. I want to get away from everyone else now: the strange captain and navigator, the stewardesses, the doctor and nurses. This plane.
Especially this plane.
After we return to our seats, the steward continues reading out his lists. They are much shorter now, just one or two names each time.
“Are your parents waiting?” David asks.
“Haven’t heard yet,” I say, trying, and failing, to sound unconcerned.
Over the next half hour, my name still doesn’t come up, and the knot in my stomach grows and tightens, until it feels like a great, twisted root.
This is all wrong. I should be celebrating, like everyone else.
I’m wrong.
More than anything else in the world, I want them to be there, waiting. I get up, go down to the toilet, lock myself in, and sob.
51
Approaching London—1050h (British Summer Time)
The seat belt sign in the toilet lights up.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please fasten your seat belts. We will shortly be beginning our final descent into London,” booms the intercom.
I turn the PFLP badge over and over in my pocket. Please, I say, make them be there.
I wash my face, dry it, and scrunch up the paper towel and shove it in the trash. I’ll see them all greeting each other, being emotional, reunited. Like watching everyone else’s parents coming to take them out from school on a Sunday when your parents aren’t.
I take a deep breath and open the door.
The atmosphere in the cabin is electric.
I wander listlessly back to my seat, struggle past David, sit down, and fasten my seat belt one more time.
David hands me a blank piece of paper torn from a notebook. He’s asking for my school address. I write it down automatically. I’ll be there in a few hours.
“Thanks,” he says, taking it from me. Then he raises his eyebrows. “Er . . . hello?” I look at him blankly. “Don’t you want mine?”
“Oh. Sorry. Yes, of course.” I tear the bottom off the piece of paper. He writes his address and hands it to me.
“Where are you going after this?” he says.
“School, I suppose.”
“God, I’m definitely refusing to go straight back. Going to stall for as long as I can.”
“Me too.” Tim has Fred back on his knee. “Me and the twins are going to say that we need time to recover from our nightmares.” Then, seeing my worried expression, his cheeks dimple. “Ha, just pretending.”
“Last night I dreamed Lady Mac blew herself up with the plane,” David says.
When I don’t respond, he stares at me, and then it dawns on him. “Have I missed hearing who’s meeting you?”
“No.”
“Oh.” He looks awkward. “Someone’s bound to be there by the time we arrive, Anna.”
“Course they will,” says Tim.
Easy for you both to say, I think. You just feel sorry for me.
I stare at the ice particles forming on the outside of the window. Above the tiny clouds, another plane draws its thin white line across the sky.
We begin the descent into London, the engine noise changing from a high whine to a gruffer kind of acceptance. The wing dips as we change direction, curving westward, and I’m blinded for a second by the sun. For a moment I glimpse the edge of the world, where pale sunlight pools like moonlight on water.
“There’s just one more message,” the steward’s voice says. “Anna Milton—your parents may be a bit late.”
My parents! My mother and father! Marni and Dad. They will be there!
Tim grins. “See?”
52
London—1100h (British Summer Time)
Do
wn, down we go, slicing through a blanket of cloud resembling newly laid concrete, and the tiny ice crystals on the outside of the window melt away.
I put the badge back in my bag with the other souvenirs of my hijack: the turquoise ticket wallet, the BOAC fan, David’s school address, Wuthering Heights, and even the empty Nivea tin. If I show them when I get back, who will understand how much they mean to me, these treasures?
I open the BOAC fan, with its bright turquoise paper folded in flutes. On one side, between borders of roses, is a Canadian Mountie in breeches, a beefeater from the Tower of London, an African man with a giraffe, a Japanese woman by a pagoda, an Australian with a kangaroo. And there, written in small white capitals across the top of the fan, it says:
ALL OVER THE WORLD BOAC TAKES GOOD CARE OF YOU
I push my feet into my maroon shoes and tie my hair back into a ponytail with my scarf.
I’m going to see my parents.
I follow David and Tim down the plane steps, into a quiet English drizzle, and then across the tarmac toward the tall, gray airport building. A truck reverses on its way to offload the luggage. Another brings the refueling line.
It’s cold. A familiar cold, a sharpness that penetrates the thin cotton of my shirt. Up on the balcony of the building, I can see lots of small figures, too high to make out any faces. I imagine there’ll be hundreds of photographers to battle through and am glad that this bit, this first bit, seems so calm.
We file slowly into the building and up some linoleum stairs. Our shoes clomp on the steps. No one speaks.
“This way, please.” Pale-faced ground crew in navy uniforms lead us into another room. Someone ticks my name off a list. We wait, in limbo. I still feel as though I’ve been unhitched from the real world.
A man speaks to us in a singsong Welsh voice. “Now we have you all here, and before you meet your families and collect your luggage, we’d like to say how very happy we are to have you all back safe in England.” There’s a smattering of applause. “You are all invited to stay here in the hotel tonight, to relax and recover. There will be supper and free accommodation for everyone. Later a few members of the press will be allowed in. This will be carefully monitored. We hope some of you will agree to a short interview and a photo for both the national press and your local papers.”