It was him. Tall, dark and handsome. I drew closer, maniacally counting off the row numbers until I was standing at the empty seat next to him – 52C. He turned, looked up at me and smiled.
‘Hi,’ he drawled. He proffered his hand. ‘I’m Tom.’ That explains great-granny’s intervention – he had a beautiful Irish accent.
‘Carly Cooper,’ I smiled, hoping that I had no foodstuffs stuck in between my teeth. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
I don’t know how it happened. It was fate, destiny, kismet, Tequila. I stuck to coffee and water from the drinks trolley, gradually working my way back to semi-sobriety as we spent the first four hours talking, laughing and swapping stories of our lives and our trip. He had just spent a month in Canada before travelling to New York for a few days. Spookily, he was detouring via Scotland because he’d missed his flight to Dublin that morning due to a traffic jam on the Verrazano Bridge. Thank you, traffic gods.
My mind was working overtime. I was sitting so close to him that I could hear his heartbeat. Or was that mine? Our shoulders were touching, our legs were touching, our hands occasionally brushed against each other’s. It had been a year since Doug and I split up. Surely I was up for parole by now?
Feigning tiredness with big yawns and rubbing of the eyes, I supposedly closed my eyes for forty winks. After a respectable time lag, I slowly let my head fall on to his shoulders. He didn’t move it. Progress! I then turned a few degrees, throwing my arm across his toast rack stomach and snuggled into his chest. I made what I hoped were gentle sleep noises.
Still no defensive moves from the target.
Hold on, a counter-attack coming up.
He moved his arm.
Don’t push me the other way, I thought, having a vision of me landing sprawled in the aisle.
He lifted his arm higher. I waited for an all-out assault, but his arm came slowly around my shoulders and cuddled me close.
I waited another ten minutes or so before making a gradual awakening. Through half-shut eyes, I looked up at his face and grinned apologetically.
‘Sorry,’ I murmured, ‘I seem to have got caught up in you somehow.’
He returned my smile. His lips were inches away from mine. He stared into my bloodshot eyes, and slowly, slowly leaned down and kissed me. The surrounding passengers had stopped watching the in-flight movie and were now openly staring at the romance unfolding in front of them.
We remained suctioned at the mouth until the seat-belt sign came on to signal our descent.
‘Where are you going from here?’ I asked.
He explained that he had to transfer from Prestwick Airport to Glasgow Airport, an hour away, for his flight to Dublin three hours later.
‘I live not far from there.’ I offered, ‘You’re welcome to stop at my house for a shower and a bite of lunch.’ I was just being hospitable. We Scots are renowned for our friendliness to foreigners. He agreed, thanking me for being so thoughtful.
If only he’d known what was ahead of him. Tom McCallum came to my house for a shower… and stayed for a month.
Kate was waiting to collect us and her reaction when I alighted from the arrivals hall went something like joy (she saw me), to excitement (she waved frantically), to confusion (hang on, who was the guy beside me), to shock (and why did he have his arm slung over my shoulder) to crap, what’s she done? We almost crashed at least four times on the way back from the airport, as she got distracted by staring, open mouthed at Tom in the rear view mirror. We stopped at the local deli on the way home and picked up French bread, pâté, cheeses and fruit, before miraculously making it home in one piece. We invited her to join us for lunch, but she refused. Instead, she politely shook Tom’s hand and then hugged me for just long enough to hiss in my ear, ‘If you don’t call me with details by dinner time, I’m calling the police and telling them it’s a hostage situation.’
I made lunch, feeling proud that I had been shrewd enough to buy foods that required no contact with a cooker. No point in terrifying the poor man with a hot plate disaster. I poured two glasses of wine and we sat at the dining table, feeling like we’d known each other for years. Plates cleared and glasses empty, I looked at the clock.
‘Tom, it’s time for you to go or you’ll miss your flight,’ I sighed.
He stood up, came round to my side of the table and pulled me to my feet. He kissed my mouth, my neck, the tip of my nose.
‘I don’t think I’m going anywhere,’ he murmured.
Now, common sense should have kicked in at any point around that time. I had only met this guy twelve hours ago. He could have been a psychopath on the run from the FBI, a con man or a thief. So, did I ask him for proof of identity and a CV? Did I grill him for evidence of a criminal past? Did I push him up against a wall and frisk him? (Well, actually I did, but not in a searching way). No, I whisked him to my bedroom quicker than you could say ‘Have you got more skeletons in your closet than the nearest morgue?’
Hours later, it was getting dark outside as we sank back on to the pillows, exhausted. I was covered in sweat, hair stuck to my scalp, mascara streaking my cheeks. Thank God for the louvre blinds which threw the room into a state of semi-darkness. We cuddled for hours, reflecting on the day.
‘This has been the craziest day of my life,’ he whispered.
I was going to agree with him, but I hate to tell lies. I’d dinged much higher bells on the crazy day scale.
‘Do you believe
