'Yeah?'
'Let's go to England!'
We walked toward the gate, father and daughter, hand in hand, chatting about nothing. My theory went: if I talked with her, they wouldn't talk to us.
Four or five people were ahead of us in line--like us, families with young children. Passports were being checked by a young Latino; he had an ID card on a chain around his neck, but we were too far way yet for me to make out what it said.
Was he airline security or airport security?
Two uniformed security men came up and stood behind him, talking to each other. It was the kind of chat that looked so casual it probably wasn't. I used my sleeve to mop sweat from the side of my face.
Both of the uniformed men were armed. The black one cracked a joke as the white one laughed and looked around.
Kelly and I shuffled forward.
I held her beside me, the protective parent anxious in a crowd. The laptop was over my shoulder. Kelly held a teddy bear under each arm.
We moved three steps forward; another wait, then it was our turn with the Latino.
I wanted to make it all very easy for him. Smiling, I handed him the boarding passes and the passport. I was convinced the uniformed guys were looking at me. I went into boxer mode: everything was focused on the Latino; everything else was in the distance, muffled, distorted, peripheral. A bead of sweat fell down my cheek, and I knew he'd noticed it. I knew he could see my chest heaving up and down.
Kelly was just behind and to the right of me. I looked at her and smiled.
'Sir?'
I silently exhaled in preparation and looked back at him.
'Just the passport, sir.' He handed me back the boarding passes. I grinned, the inexperienced dickhead traveler.
He flicked through the pages of the passport, stopping at Glazar's photograph. He glanced at me, then back at the passport.
I'm in deep shit.
I let him see I was reading his thoughts.
'Male menopause,' I grinned, rubbing my hand over what was left of my hair. My scalp was drenched.
'The Bruce Willis look!'
The fucker didn't laugh. He was making up his mind. He closed the passport and tapped it in his hand.
'Have a pleasant flight, sir.'
I went to give him a nod, but he was already paying attention to the people behind me.
We moved two paces toward the women from Virgin and handed them our boarding passes. The two security men didn't budge.
We started to walk onto the air bridge I felt as if I'd been trying to run through waist-high water and was suddenly on the shoreline.
The Latino still worried me. I thought about him all the way onto the aircraft. It was only when I'd found our seats, put the laptop in the overhead locker, settled down, and picked up the in-flight magazine that I took a deep breath and let it out very, very slowly. It wasn't a sigh of relief; I was boosting the oxygen levels in my blood. No, the fucker wasn't happy. His suspicions had been aroused, but he hadn't asked any questions, hadn't even asked my name. We might be on the shoreline, but it was far from being dry land.
The aircraft was still filling up. I kept taking deep breaths to try to control my pulse rate.
Officials were moving in and out of the aircraft with manifests. Every time it happened I was expecting to see the two security guys in tow. There was only one entrance, only one exit. There was nowhere to run. As I worked through the scenarios in my mind, I just had to accept that the die was cast. I was a passenger now, and for a fleeting second I had the same feeling that I'd always had on any aircraft, military or civilian I was in the hands of others and powerless to decide my own destiny. I hated it.
People were still filing on. I nearly burst out in nervous laughter as the speakers played Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive ' I looked at Kelly and winked. She thought it was great, sitting there trying to strap in her teddy bears.
One of the male flight attendants came down our aisle, still wearing his Virgin uniform, not yet in shirtsleeves. He came down to our row of seats and stopped. Judging by his line of sight, he seemed to be checking our seat belts. It was too early for that, surely? I nodded and smiled. He turned back and disappeared into the galley.
I watched the entrance, expecting the worst. One of the female flight attendants poked her head out and looked directly at me. Kelly's teddy bears were suddenly very interesting.
I could feel tingling in my feet. My stomach tightened. I looked up again. She was gone.
The male attendant came out again, carrying a garbage bag. He approached us again, stopped, and squatted down in the aisle next to Kelly. He said, 'Hiya!'
'Hello!'
He put his hand into the bag; I waited for him to bring out the .45. Good ploy, letting me think he's a member of the crew doing something for the kid.
He pulled out a little nylon day sack Splattered all over the back was the Virgin logo and the words kids with altitude.
'We forgot to give you one of these,' he said. I nearly hugged him.
'Thank you very much!' I grinned like an asylum inmate, my eyes one hundred percent larger through the lenses of Sarah's glasses.
'Thank you so much!'
He did his best not to look at me, as if I were indeed some sort of weirdo, then offered us a drink before takeoff. I was dying for a beer, but I might have to start performing on the other side and, anyway, I just wanted to lean back and rest.
We each ordered an orange juice instead.
Sharing the in-flight guide with Kelly, I said, 'What film are you going to watch, Louise?'
'Clueless,' she grinned.
'Whatever,' I said.
Twenty minutes later, right on schedule, the aircraft finally lifted off from the runway. Suddenly I didn't mind being in a pilot's hands after all. We went through all the nonsense of the introduction by the captain, how wonderful it was to have us on board, and when we were going to be fed. My body heat was starting to dry out my sweat-drenched shirt. Even my socks had been wet. I looked over at Kelly. She had a sad face on. I nudged her with my arm.
'You OK?'
'I guess. I couldn't even tell Melissa I'm going to England.'
I knew how to get out of this type of thing now.
'Well, all you have to do is think good things about Melissa and that will make you feel happy.' I was waiting for her reply. I knew the sort of thing it was going to be.
'Do you think about David? What do you remember about David?'
Easy; I was prepared.
'Well, nearly twelve years ago, we were rebuilding his house together and it needed a new wooden floor.'
She was enjoying this, stories at bedtime. She certainly looked as if she would go to sleep soon, cuddling up to me.
I continued telling her how we'd both swiped a squash court floor from one of the HQ Security Forces bases in Northern Ireland. We were there at three o'clock in the morning with spades, hammers, and chisels. We put the boards in a van and brought them over to his Welsh cottage. After all, HM Government spent all that time and money training us to break in and steal things. Why not use it for ourselves?
The next three days had been spent laying the hallway and kitchen of the house near Brecon with his nice new flooring.
