(presumably chosen as ringing tone in more optimistic mood) rang out with increasing urgency and volume in the quiet carriage. At first the woman ignored it, pretending it had nothing to do with her, then as its insistence grew more obtrusive she pounced on her bag, rummaged, found the phone and, instead of switching it off, wrapped it in her scarf and buried it at the bottom of the bag. Rossini’s electronic masterpiece diminuendoed to an angry and still audible squeak. When at last it stopped the woman delved back into her bag, retrieved her phone, punched in a short number and returned it to its place. Two angry spots of colour had flared over her cheekbones. At the next stop she got off, leaving Amanda agog with curiosity. Presumably the number she had put into the phone would block the call from that person? But why not switch off the phone? And if not switch it off, who was it whose call she was hoping for? Who? What? Where?
As she settled into the seat of the 767, peering down over the dull panorama of West London, she reached automatically for her notebook.
Unless you have had a chance to study them in the departure lounge before you leave it is hard to get an overview of your fellow passengers on a plane. The one sitting next to you is of crucial importance – particularly if their personal habits are unpleasant or if they turn out to be an Olympic talker. Or if they are under the age of reasonable restraint. The rest are only glimpsed in tiny cameos if they stand up or move about or as they sit in serried ranks facing you as you pick your way to the loo, making the most of every second of blessed freedom before slotting yourself carefully back into place.
Amanda, on this the longest flight she had as yet made, unbelievably, grew bored. It was not as though she had a holiday to look forward to. The journey would end in a series of meetings. And tricky ones she was fronting for her cowardly boss. She was tired of the view of the seat in front. She could not see the screen with the film – which at any rate seemed to be about delinquent baseball players, not her favourite subject. She ate. She slept. She read. She studied cloud formations and she looked down at the beauty of the deep blue crepe which stretched on every side far below as they flew west over the Atlantic Ocean.
Her somnolent boredom was interrupted by the pilot. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are just flying in across the coast of Labrador. It might interest you to know the temperature down there now is minus twenty-eight degrees.’
Amanda’s eyes flew open. She leaned towards the window and peered down. The endless shining blue had disappeared. Far, far below the sea was grey and white and broken with ice and rock. Very soon there was no sea at all. All was ice. She shivered despite the fact that the temperature in the cabin must have been approaching plus twenty-eight degrees. The emptiness, the bleakness, the purity and wildness of that endless landscape was breathtakingly beautiful.
Across the aisle Amanda’s neighbour stood up, stretching. Unnoticed he had been studying her on and off from behind his newspaper. He cleared his throat and hovered. ‘Excuse me.’
She did not hear him. She was totally absorbed in the landscape below.
Smiling, he turned back to his seat nodding to himself. She was in a world of her own. The perfect place to be.
The plane was lower now. If there had been people there to see, she would have seen them as small black dots, indistinguishable from the stumps of felled trees or, she thought suddenly, bears. She craned closer to the window. She could see a road now, dead straight, cutting like a ruler across the landscape below. Lower and she could see that there was only one car in that whole desolate scene and near it she could see two small specks moving away from it. Who? Why? Where? The familiar mantra echoed in her brain. They were too far apart to be together and yet in that whole vast landscape how could they be separate?
In the seat across the gangway Amanda’s neighbour glanced towards her seat and frowned suddenly. He hadn’t seen her get up and leave her place. He turned, craning towards the back of the plane. No sign. Excellent! Smiling, he faced the front once more, wondering where she had gone and how long she would be.
The bite of the cold air and the crunch of snow beneath her feet, was so sudden, the moan of the wind so desolate, she was for a moment incapable of reacting. Near her she could see the woman. She was wearing a fur- trimmed parka and thick trousers but her gloves were gone, her hands like her face, chapped and raw. ‘Help me!’ Her breath was coming in tight raw gasps.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Amanda could feel the ice riming her eyelashes. The wind tore the words from her lips.
‘He’s going to kill me!’ The woman looked over her shoulder and following her gaze Amanda saw a figure in the distance labouring through the snow.
‘Help me!’
There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide, just one chance as the wind whipped the top coat of snow from the road like spume from the sea. ‘Down here – maybe we can hide in the snow.’ She caught the woman’s arm and pushed her down into a drift at the side of the road. A few frantic scoops and she was hidden.
No time to hide herself. Trembling she turned to face him; saw the angry, blotched features, the snarling mouth, the hair whipped free of his hood, beaded with ice. There was a gun in his gloved hand.
‘Where are you, Mary-Anne?’
He ran towards Amanda without seeing her. ‘All I wanted was that you loved me!’ She could see the tears freezing on his cheeks, hear the despair in his voice. ‘Was that too much to ask?’ He staggered to a stop, staring round the empty landscape, still not seeing Amanda. His lungs were heaving, his sobs coming in raw anguished gulps. Suddenly hurling the gun out into the whirling whiteness he collapsed onto his knees.
Beside her there was a flurry of snow. ‘Andy!’ The woman was clawing her way back towards him. ‘Andy, I’m sorry. I love you. I love you!’
He was holding out his arms. They were both crying now. The wind grew stronger. Behind them the car was out of sight.
‘Go back! Get in the car!’ Amanda pleaded. She squinted through narrowed eyes up at the sky. Was that her plane up there, silver against the billowing snow cloud? Panic knifed through her stomach. The couple were staggering up the road into the wind away from her. In a moment they would be out of sight and she would be alone. ‘Wait!’ Her voice was torn to shreds by the wind and spun away to nothing. ‘Wait – ’
She couldn’t breathe. The air was hot. Stale. Her out-flung hand caught against the window next to her ear. She had been asleep. Dreaming! Disorientated she pulled herself to her feet and clambered over the empty seat next to her, intent on finding the loo. It may have been a dream, an imaginary interlude, but her hands and face were chapped and frozen, her breath still rasping in her chest.
The man across the aisle smiled. ‘So, where did you get to then?’
She stared at him, puzzled.
‘Looks as though you popped out for a breath of air.’ He was looking at her feet.
Following his gaze she gasped. Her shoes were wet with melting snow. Snags of ice clung to the bottom of her trousers.
Looking up she met his eyes and he saw the first dawning hints of fear. ‘Go and freshen up,’ he said. ‘I’ll order you a drink.’
When she came back to her seat he had ordered her a whisky and ginger but he did not move to the seat next to her. Instead he leaned across the aisle. ‘OK?’ His smile was gentle. Unthreatening.
‘What happened to me?’ Her hands had begun to shake.
He shrugged. ‘A dream? Out of body experience? Lucid trance? Writing your own script?’ He nodded at her book of snippets still lying open on the seat beside her, the pen cradled against the wire spiral at its centre.
‘You make it sound quite normal!’
‘Who is to say it isn’t?’
‘It’s never happened to me before.’ She was still very shaken.
‘Perhaps only in your dreams.’
She took a sip from her glass, feeling the bite of warmth through her veins and looked at him properly for the first time. Before, she had noticed him of course. Had seen he was about her own age – good-looking – had assumed he was trying to pick her up. Now she saw he was older than she had thought and she sensed genuine interest, kindness, in his glance.
‘Was I really not here. Out of my seat?’ She glanced down at her still-damp shoes.
He nodded.
‘I don’t want it to happen again.’
