Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [7]
The flight is called, and everyone clumps together at the gate, waiting to board the plane. I catch Mum looking at her watch. She collars a passing cabin-crew girl and asks her to keep an eye on me until the plane lands at Knock. The girl smiles and nods, then catches sight of my scowl and pales a little.
‘I’ll ring you,’ Mum says. ‘Sweetheart, don’t let me down this time. Be good. Remember, it’s your last, last chance.’
She hugs me, swiftly, lightly, with an air-kiss on each cheek. Then she steps back, brushing an imaginary speck of dust off her caramel-coloured trousers. ‘Speak to you later, sweetheart. Take care!’ She turns and strides away, tan shoulder bag swinging. I watch until she is out of sight in the crowd, but she doesn’t look back.
The cabin-crew girl is leading me through the corridor, down a flight of steps and out on to the tarmac. I stumble up the steps and on to the plane, taking my seat in a trance. Two elderly ladies who’ve been scooshing themselves with the duty-free perfume squeeze in next to me, offering me a boiled sweet to suck during take-off.
I should have made a run for it while I had the chance, because I’m stuck now, no escape. There’s a sad feeling in my chest, a cold, empty ache that won’t go away.
I crunch my boiled sweet and try to unzip my rucksack, but my fingers feel numb and clumsy. It’s a new rucksack, a red, fun-fur circle with sticky-up ears, googly eyes and a zigzag, growly mouth – a last-minute present from Mum. I’d have loved to throw it back at her, but of course, I didn’t. It’s cool, so I ignore the fact that it’s also a bribe.
The cabin crew show us what to do in case of an emergency, and I find myself wishing the plane would plummet down into the middle of the Irish Sea, because then they’d be sorry they made me go. Maybe.
We taxi along the runway, the cabin crew take their seats and suddenly we’re hurtling along so fast I just about choke on my boiled sweet. The plane tilts upwards, climbing, and just for a minute I forget to be scared because we’re flying now, up through the clouds, higher and higher, until the stuff down below looks tiny and faraway, like toys scattered across a musty green carpet.
I check out the packed lunch Mum’s provided. Rolls, crisps, apple pie and pop, all from the Marks & Spencer food hall. The rolls are chicken salad. Did she really not remember that I’m vegetarian now, or does she think that chicken doesn’t count? ‘Not another silly phase,’ she said when I first told her. ‘I think you do it just to irritate me!’
Mum’s packed a magazine too, one with lots of pictures of ponies and kittens that I haven’t bought since I was ten.
We’re flying over the sea now, and the ladies sitting next to me are reading magazines full of knitting patterns and cake recipes and heartwarming stories about country doctors. The sad feeling in my chest has become an ache. It’s scary, I swear. If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was a big splinter of glass lodged just above my heart, pressing down, making everything hurt. I can barely breathe.
I lean back against the soft plush seat and close my eyes. When I open them again, my neck feels sore, my face stiff, and outside the plane the view has changed to mottled green and grey.
‘A11 right, pet?’ one of the old ladies asks. ‘Nearly there.’
I fish around in the rucksack for my hand mirror. My hair falls round my face in dark red ringlets; my eyes are ringed with smudgy black. It’s a good disguise. I don’t look scared, I look scary, and that’s the way I like it.
The plane is dipping down through the clouds, banking and turning and finally swooping in to land with a roaring, whooshing sound that has my heart pounding.
Then the cabin crew are wishing us a safe onward journey, and we file off the plane and troop across to the terminal building and along to the hall where you get your luggage. It takes ages for the conveyor belt to start up, so I sit on a bench and ring Mum on my mobile. I can’t get a signal for ages, and when I do she has her mobile switched off. I call the office, but Alima, her secretary,