“Right then, let’s be off!”
She pushed back some loose strands of hair, then parked her sizeable rear on the pilot’s seat – all the while trying to calm the wriggling baby on her back. Once in position, she started fiddling with the switches, throttle lever and other controls, displaying a clumsy, heavy-handed touch. Hatayama and I held our breath as we stared in disbelief. The two farmers behind us, meanwhile, were calmly discussing the price of beans.
The aeroplane slowly started to move. It turned until its tail faced the hut, then started to travel along the runway. The plane shook and creaked noisily, making us jump up in our seats.
“We should have sat further back,” moaned Hatayama.
Not only were there no seat belts, but because we were sitting at the front, there was nothing for us to hold on to either.
“Be quiet! Or I’ll rip your bloody tongue out!” I shouted.
The plane bounced once, then picked up speed. The fuselage shook so violently that it seemed likely to fall apart at any moment. But still it continued to taxi along the runway.
“We can’t get off the ground,” said Hatayama, cowering in terror. “Oh no! We’re not going to make it!”
The runway ended at the top of a cliff looking out to sea. And the end was approaching fast. The plane bounced again, nearly sending us into the roof.
As it flew off the end of the runway, the plane was buffeted by a gust of wind and tilted to one side. We started to plummet towards the sea, the white crests of the waves rushing towards us through the front window. Hatayama let out a feeble cry. “We’re done for,” he whined. “We’re done for. I knew it.”
“Come on, you bugger!” Gorohachi’s wife cursed as she yanked the control stick upwards. The baby cried loudly.
The nose of the plane lifted, and we gradually returned to a more agreeable angle. Then we started to climb, swaying all the while. Hatayama and I both relaxed our shoulders and let out great sighs of relief at the same time.
“Oy, Yone,” called Sticky Eye. “Is it just me, or were that a bit dangerous back there?”
“A bit’s not the word!” answered Gorohachi’s wife, cackling hysterically. “Normally, you’d have been saying your prayers!”
“Normally we’d have been saying our prayers,” Hatayama repeated to me.
“But I’ve got willpower, see,” she continued. “Not like Gorohachi. So it’s a good job I’m flying today.”
“She says this plane flies on willpower,” Hatayama called over to me in a tearful voice. “Did you hear? Willpower!”
“They’re just making fun of you because you’re such a baby,” I replied.
We were now surrounded by dark clouds. The aeroplane was creaking and shaking again. Drops of water started to drip down, from a join in the aluminium shell of the roof, onto the straw matting on the floor. Hatayama stared at me. Knowing he was about to start again, I pretended not to notice. So he brought his mouth right up to my ear.
“Er, did you know this plane’s leaking. The rain’s coming in,” he whispered.
“What about it.”
“Oh. Nothing.”
Suddenly, the plane took a huge dive.
“Oh no!” Hatayama wailed.
My tightly clenched palms were clammy with perspiration and cold sweat ran down my back.
Outside, a seagull was flying beside the aeroplane next to my window.
“That must be Jonathan Livingston,” Hatayama said loudly. “He’s the only seagull fast enough to keep up with an aeroplane.”
“Bah. It’s not him that’s fast. It’s us that’s slow,” said Gorohachi’s wife. “We’re flying into the wind, see.”
Hatayama was visibly frightened now. “But if we’re going that slow, we could stall, couldn’t we?!”
She laughed. “Ha! I suppose you mean we could do a nosedive. That hasn’t happened at all, recently.”
“You mean it happened before?!” Hatayama ejected a nasal projectile onto the floor.
“What a fantastic trick!” Sticky Eye was impressed again. “How do you do it?”
“We should be nearly there now,” I said. “Whereabouts are we?”
“Yes, whereabouts are we.” Gorohachi’s wife tilted her head. “We should have arrived long since. But I can’t see the ground for the clouds. I wonder if we’ve gone off course.”
“She wonders if we’ve gone off course,” Hatayama repeated to me with ever-widening eyes.
“Aw, shut your trap,” Gorohachi’s wife shouted as she hoisted the crying baby further up her back.
Thinking she meant him, Hatayama ducked his head again.
“Could someone take over for a mo? I need to feed the baby,” said Gorohachi’s wife.
“Right-o,” answered Red Nose, standing up nonchalantly.
Hatayama blew his nose again. “Let me out.” He started to cry. “I want to get out. Where are the parachutes?”
“There aren’t any. But there’s a broken old umbrella over there in the corner,” answered Sticky Eye, laughing heartily.
Gorohachi’s wife handed the controls to Red Nose and squatted down on one of the passenger seats. She opened the front of her overalls, slipped out a breast the size of a softball, and thrust a chocolate-brown nipple into her baby’s mouth.
“You’ll get mad again if I say anything now, won’t you,” Hatayama said to me with tears in his eyes.
“Too right,” I replied, staring him out before he could go on. “So don’t say it.”
“I can say what I like, can’t I?” He squirmed in his seat. “Why do you have to get so angry at everything I say? You’re worried about getting a rollicking from the Chief, aren’t you. You’re trying to forget your fear by thinking about that. Aren’t you.” He looked over at me with bloodshot eyes. “But really, you’re scared too, aren’t you. Just a bit.”
“What if I am?” I screeched. “Is that going to change anything?!”
“I’m more scared of losing my life than what the Chief will say. All right?!” he screeched back. “Because me, I’m just a photographer! See? If it came to that, I could earn my living freelance. What do I care if the Chief gets mad and fires me?! But not you. It’s not that you love your job, mind. You’re just scared of the Chief. You’re scared of him because you don’t want to lose your job.”
“Shut it!” I screamed, standing up. “One more word and I’ll punch your face in!”
Trembling under my fearsome gaze, Hatayama put his hand to his crotch.
“I need a wee,” he whimpered.
“Loo’s at the back,” said Gorohachi’s wife, still feeding her baby. “But it’s full of junk. We use it as a cupboard. So you can’t go in there.”
“Where can I go, then?!”
Sticky Eye stamped on the straw matting in the aisle. “There’s a gap in the floor under here,” he said. “Why not do it through that?”
Red Nose looked round from the pilot’s seat. “Hold on. We might be going over Fox Hill. You’d better wait. It’s bad luck to piss on the Fox.”
“I can’t hold it any longer!” cried Hatayama. He pulled back the straw matting and, lying face down, hastily thrust his member through a hole measuring a couple of inches in the floor. “Bad luck, Fox,” he groaned.
The sound of the engine suddenly dropped. Then the whole plane lurched to one side, making a strange sputtering noise. I looked out of the window. The propeller on the left side had stopped moving.
I pointed to the propeller. “Augh. Augh.” No words would come out.
“Aw, has it stopped again?” asked Gorohachi’s wife. She’d finished her feeding, and hoisted the sleeping baby up onto her back again. Then she heaved herself out of her seat with a “Hey-oop” and returned to the controls. “Move yourself. I’ll take over,” she said to Red Nose.
“Has something happened?” asked Hatayama, still squatting there in the aisle.
“One of the propellers has stopped,” I replied as if it were nothing.
He started to laugh a dark, demonic laugh. “Heheheh. Hahahah. I told you. Didn’t I tell you? I told you.” Then he started to sing. “And now, the end is nigh…”
