Girl on a Plane Read online

  The plane circles over the gray-gold desert, spotted with date palms, and climbs into the blue. When it drops in a pocket of thin air, everyone gasps—​then there’s a ripple of nervous laughter.

  I think of Marni standing below in her silk scarf and dark glasses. She’ll wait till the plane is a tiny speck, then she’ll take the boys’ hands. They’ll ask for a Pepsi on the way home, and she’ll say yes because she’ll be waving them off soon.

  I sit back, resigned to being on my own for the next seven hours. It’ll be early afternoon when we land. London’s two hours behind Bahrain. The pretty stewardess who greeted us as we boarded comes to offer the little boy on my right a child’s pack of crayons and a coloring book. Her badge says Rosemary.

  They’ve obviously put the kids traveling alone all together. I’m about four rows back from the curtain into first class, between two boys. On my other side is the one who was in front of me in the line. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than on the way out, when I was squeezed next to a massively overweight man with bad breath.

  I pull the safety card from the seat pocket in front of me and look at the diagrams: the emergency position, how to break open the windows, how to slide down the chutes into the ocean—​only, obviously, after removing your high heels. I shove it back in my seat pocket and stare out the little round porthole at the empty sky. God, I really am on my way. No going back now. No more bikinis and flip-flops. No more water-skiing or skinny-dipping off dhows, or barbecues on sandbanks in the middle of the sea.

  But this is grim. I need to think about something uplifting. Marni has a habit of throwing negative thoughts away. Literally. She did a classic yesterday after I’d packed. She came into my room, jangling the car keys, and said it was time to go shoe shopping, compensation for going back to school. I jumped up and followed her to the car. “Imagine having to wear my hideous school lace-ups for the next three years,” I said as we drove.

  “Awful,” she agreed. “They really wouldn’t look out of place on a parade ground. But, come on, let’s not think about school lace-ups, let’s throw the thought of them away.” So we both wound down our windows and threw the imaginary shoes out. It’s what Marni always does to get rid of troublesome things like coughs, annoying thoughts, bad-tempered people.

  Not easy in here, though . . .

  I pull the flight magazine out of the seat pocket and start flicking through it.

  “It’s full of crap,” the boy on my left says suddenly. “I just looked.”

  I smile quickly at him. Glossy brown hair, sporty, seventeen?

  “Going back to school?” His voice is almost a drawl.

  “Yes. Just to catch up on some sleep.”

  He laughs. Strong white teeth. Not sure I want this right now.

  “Which school?” he says, pushing his bangs out of his eyes.

  I grimace. “St. Saviour’s, Barchester. All girls.”

  “Sounds great.” His hands lie relaxed on his thighs.

  “For you, maybe,” I say. I’ve met ones like this before. A charmer.

  “Mine’s all boys, in Bristol.” He brushes the end of his nose with his fingers, as if a fly had just landed there.

  “Nice.”

  I look over at the small boy on my other side. He’s about nine, the same age as Sam, wearing an Unaccompanied Child badge and staring out the window, a big square cake tin cradled on his lap. I nod at the tin. “That your lunch box?” It has holly and a snow scene on it.

  He looks up at me with solemn brown eyes. “No. It’s my terrapin.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” His nose is sprinkled with freckles, and he has short ginger hair with an off-center cowlick.

  “You taking it back to school?”

  “Yes.” He says it quickly before looking back out the window.

  “Can I see it?” I ask gently.

  He hesitates, then prizes off the lid. Inside, in a slop of water filled with pondweed, is a little striped green and yellow terrapin about the size of his hand. It tilts its pointed snout and stares crossly at me.

  “Oh,” I say. “Nice markings.” The boy looks up at me gratefully. There’s something fragile about his heart-shaped face.

  “Will it be OK in there?”

  “There are holes in the top”—​he points to them—​“so he can breathe. Dad made them.”

  I smile. “What’s his name? I mean the terrapin, not your dad.”

  “Fred.”

  I lean down. “Hello, Fred,” I whisper at the fierce little snout. Fred slowly lifts one striped leg free of weed, his slit eyes brimming with disdain.

  “You’re so lucky,” I say. “I wish I could have my dog here on board. I had to leave him . . .” I trail off, overwhelmed.

  But then, not wanting to upset the little boy, I pull myself together. “Did anyone say anything when you checked in?”

  “Dad asked them. They said it was all right.”

  “That’s good. I saw an Arab at the airport once with a bird of prey on his arm, you know, with a hood on, and a bell . . .”

  “Christ!” The older boy next to me is staring rigidly ahead. The curtain between first class and the main cabin has been thrust aside by a young Arab.

  He’s holding a gun.

  4

  1130h

  The plane’s roar fills my head.

  The man’s eyes are wild. The gun in his hand shakes. “Sit in your seats!” he screams. We sit, still as stone.

  I’m in a film, on a movie set. I must be. It can’t be real . . . I . . .

  The man is sweating. He twists his mouth to wipe it with the back of his free hand.

  But the gun, the gun . . .

  Someone behind me cries out. The man waves his gun wildly in his direction.

  I shrink down in my seat, stare at the hands in my lap. They’re my hands, my real hands. There’s the freckle on my finger. If the gun goes off, we’ll all be sucked out. Oh my God! Oh my God!

  My heart thunders. I close my eyes, hear shallow breathing.

  Suddenly the intercom crackles overhead: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Gregory speaking. I’m sorry to have to inform you that we’ve been hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.” There’s murmuring, then silence.

  Hijacked? Like those other planes. But one of them blew up. Tom said so at the party on Monday night. Fear rages in my gut. We’re all going to die.

  A deep Arab voice takes over. “Your captain says he is sorry! But we are not sorry! We are the PFLP. We are trying to free Palestine!” There’s a pause.

  The captain returns, talking slowly, as if speaking to foreigners. “Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’re all all right. I have been asked to tell you that we have a hijacker in the cockpit as well as the one in the cabin. They’re insisting we fly to Beirut to refuel, then to their Revolutionary Airstrip in the Jordanian desert.” He pauses. “It’s very important that we all stay calm and obey these people. So please stay in your seats. It’ll take about an hour to get to Beirut. I’ll keep you informed of developments, I promise, as soon as I know more. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I repeat, please stay calm. I’ll speak to you again shortly.”

  Sweat trickles from the gunman’s temple. His hand still shakes as he waves the gun over and back.

  I mustn’t move. No one must move.

  The boys on either side are dead still, the little one curled up against the window. The silence in the cabin is all wrong. The color of bile. He’s going to kill someone. I close my eyes. Try not to panic. My mind flits and darts—​and then begins to drift . . .

  This has nothing to do with me . . . I’m in a dream . . . I know it’s a dream . . . I don’t know how I know . . . I don’t care. Somewhere inside . . . a tidal wave of fear . . . it hasn’t hit yet . . . but it’s coming.

  And in the stillness, in the yawning, white silence, I feel a terrible calm.

  So this is what happens when you’re going to die . . .

&n
bsp; Die?

  I snap back.

  He’s still there, turning his head like a tortoise, this way and that, his close-set eyes flicking around the cabin. The gun swings and points. Fear fills my throat. Tears rise. The boys on either side are hardly breathing. I don’t move my head. I just see their hands in their laps, the edges of my maroon shoes. The ones Marni bought yesterday. I’m going to die in them.

  Oh God. Marni.

  A woman behind me starts to sob.

  The little boy leans very slowly toward me and says quietly, “Where did the captain say we’re going?”

  I keep my eyes on the gun. “Jordan,” I whisper. “He said Jordan. You all right?”

  He nods but moves his arm close to mine. It’s trembling.

  “What’s your name?” I say, staring ahead.

  “Tim.”

  “I’m Anna. Don’t worry. I’m sure this will all be over soon.” I feel the boy on the other side tense.

  Huge sweat rings bloom under the hijacker’s arms. His black hair lies slicked down over his forehead.

  Suddenly his bulging eyes stare directly at me. I go hot, cold, concentrate on the cream chair back that’s in front of me. There’s a stain there shaped like a boot.

  “Who is that man?” Tim asks. “What does he want?”

  I wait till the hijacker looks the other way, then lean forward and duck below the seat so that he can’t see my head. “He’s a Palestinian, Tim,” I whisper. “They were chucked off their land in a war, and I think they’re trying to get it back. They’re taking us to an airstrip in the desert.” And I remember my friend Samir taking me into his dad’s study a few days ago to show me pictures of where he used to live in Palestine, in a white house surrounded by olive groves.

  “I have a friend,” I whisper, “who used to live in Palestine.”

  The little boy looks at me. “Is your friend a hijacker too?”

  “No,” I say. “Not all Palestinians are hijackers. His family fled during the war with Israel when he was younger. Luckily, his dad got a job in Bahrain.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. This is Captain Gregory again. Thank you for remaining calm. I’ve been asked by the two hijackers to tell you that there’s another member of the PFLP sitting in the aisle seat in row twenty, holding a black briefcase full of explosives.”

  I hear gasps. People look around, trying to spot the hijacker. A bolt of panic shoots through me. I feel cold, sick.

  Tim touches my arm. “Why has he got explosives? Is he going to blow us up?”

  Coils of fear squirm in my gut. I try to keep my voice steady. “He’d be blowing himself up too, then. So I expect it’s just a threat to make us do as they say.”

  I can’t do this. I can’t. Please, let me put my head down on my table. Let me close my eyes. Let me go to sleep.

  “Are you scared?” Tim asks, with the ghost of a breath.

  “Yes,” I say. “I am, a bit.”

  “Me too.” He stares ahead. He’s very good at being quiet. Must be practice. Boarding school after lights-out.

  “We’ll be all right,” I say. I turn a little and look at him, attempt a smile.

  I try not to look at the jittery hijacker again. Instead I stare through the gap in the seats in front of me. It’s only a few inches wide, but I can see the armrests, each with a metal flip-top ashtray cut into it, all the way to the bulkhead at the front. The arms resting on them are all still.

  I glance quickly at the boy on my other side. He’s sitting stiffly with his head back, his eyes closed. An Arab man sitting across the aisle with his wife and child twists around a little in his seat, looking down the aisle for the man with the explosives, I suspect. But then he glances up at Sweaty and thinks better of it.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” It’s the captain again. “If we are to stay safe, we must remain calm, keep quiet, and do exactly what the hijackers say—​or, they say, they will detonate the bomb. Now, in a minute the hijackers will come through the cabin. They want you to hand in your passports, open at your picture for them to check. After they’ve been stamped with the Revolutionary Airstrip stamp, they say they will be returned to you. Please cooperate with them, and please remain quiet and calm. I’ll speak to you all again soon.”

  A giant of a man suddenly pushes through the curtain with a machine gun slung over one shoulder. His broad face, framed with thick, curly hair and a dark beard, is tense. Businesslike, he begins collecting passports from the passengers at the front, piling them up in his huge hands. He looks strangely detached, as if he’s just going through the motions.

  As he begins to make his way down the cabin, we all scrabble around, looking for our passports, and it feels good to be doing something. I drag my shoulder bag from where it lies slumped at my feet. The older boy is already turning his passport over and over in his hands. He puts it down on his lap, picks it up again, opens it at the photo. I read his name.

  “David,” I say.

  “Yes.” He turns and looks through me, his voice miles away.

  “I’m Anna,” I say quietly. “He’s Tim.” Tim raises his hand in a half wave.

  David looks at us as if perplexed, then looks back down at his passport.

  “Have you found yours?” I ask Tim. He nods. “And Fred’s?”

  He looks up at me, his eyes bright. “He hasn’t got one, silly!”

  Suddenly the hijacker’s machine gun clunks against David’s seat. He’s wearing a bullet belt. I’ve never seen one so close-up. The bullets look polished, contained. And sharp, and puncturing. I see shards of twisted metal in bloody flesh, in shattered bones.

  The giant hijacker stops to tidy his pile of passports. I’m shocked by his immaculately clean hands, his square fingernails, the dark wrist hair curling around his metal watch strap. His jeans and white T-shirt look so ordinary. Washed and ironed. He’s made of flesh and blood. And yet he might kill us.

  He takes David’s passport, looks straight at me, smiles grimly, and holds out a huge hand. As I give him my passport, my fingers brush his, and I pull back, electrified.

  He takes Tim’s and moves on down through the cabin.

  “Did you see?” Tim whispers. “His head nearly touched the ceiling.”

  “Yes,” I say. “One’s a giant, and the other one is seriously sweaty.”

  “Charming pair,” David mutters.

  We fall silent as the sweaty one brushes past to go to the back of the plane. When it’s clear again, I ask David if he can see the man with the bomb.

  “It’s row twenty,” I say. “About ten back.”

  David twists around and looks down the aisle. “There’s just a foot sticking out. A black lace-up.” He turns to me. “He’s probably wearing a suit.”

  “The boss, you think?”

  He shrugs. The Giant and Sweaty walk back up into first class, loaded with passports.

  “Weird,” David says. “Everyone was talking about hijackings, but I never thought it would happen to me. Stupid, really.”

  “I know,” I say. “People were teasing me about it too, but I didn’t think it could actually happen. Why do you think they want our passports?”

  “To find out who we all are, where we come from, I suppose. They’re probably looking for Israelis.”

  “Why?” Tim asks.

  David leans forward. “The PFLP hijacked four planes on Sunday, all heading for America. Two of them have been taken to a place in the Jordanian desert. Another one, a Pan Am flight, got blown up in Cairo after everyone had gotten off.”

  “And the fourth?” I ask.

  “That was an Israeli plane, El Al. The two hijackers on that one were overcome by the crew. The plane made an emergency landing at Heathrow. One hijacker was killed; the other’s in prison in London. But that’s the plane the PFLP really wanted, the one from Israel.”

  “Why?” Tim asks again.

  “It was the Israelis, they say, who drove them off their land.”

  5

  12
30h

  As our plane hums on and on toward Beirut, David takes a battered James Bond paperback from the webbed seat pocket in front of him. Tim follows suit, pulling a Paddington Bear story from his satchel. I look at them in disbelief. How can they think of reading with all this going on? But they do.

  In the end, and reluctantly, I take Wuthering Heights from my bag. It’s a required text, and I should have read it and taken notes over the holidays. But, of course, I was too busy having a good time. That was then.

  I try hard to concentrate, but my eyes keep glazing over. I’m reading the same line again and again. So instead I listen to the throb of the plane, to David turning a page, to the man talking quietly to the woman behind me. She’s stopped sobbing now and only occasionally gives a great, juddering sigh.

  The hijackers have allowed the crew to get up. They’ve tied back the blue curtain between us and first class, so now I can see a few of the passengers in the left aisle seats there. They’re being tended to by the chief steward. He’s handing a whiskey to a large bald man smoking a cigar. The girl behind him has red-blond hair and a cropped top and is frantically filing her nails with an emery board. I stare at the two red and white Exit signs on either side of the curtains. Exit. What a strange word. And where precisely can we exit to? There is no exit now. Not that kind.

  I might die up here, walled in between rows and rows of seats.

  The thought makes me feel sick and panicky again, so I push it away and watch the man and woman directly in front of me turning to whisper to each other. I can see the color of her eyes (blue) and the black hairs in his nostrils. If I put out my hand, I could touch her cheekbone.

  I’m feeling restless and claustrophobic. The chair fabric is hot and prickly under my bare legs, and my arms are cramped in to my body. David’s taking up most of the space on our armrest, and Tim’s resting Fred’s tin on the other one. I long to stretch out. If I did, one arm would touch the window and the other, the far edge of David’s seat. Instead I reach up toward the low ceiling as if to change the nozzle on the air-conditioner cone. My fingertips only just graze the light button. Next I push my legs out and swing them up under the seat in front of me. I can feel the soft life jacket. It’s crazy, but knowing it’s there makes me feel a little better.