On the Shuttle
by Ronnie Smith
Swearwords: None.
Description: Even on a one-hour flight there is plenty of human interest – or gossip.
While we, the British, generally like to complain about pretty much everything that we find on our rain-soaked rock, there really is no point in denying that Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport is indeed a cathedral-like wonder where the diaspora of all races can briefly worship together. It is a fabulous hub for our globalised consciousness, a Sagrada Aviata if you will, an obvious sign that the old dog still carries some life. Even so, it remains true that most experienced travellers are justifiably grateful to pass through the place and arrive at their final destination with their luggage intact.
British Airways, the hosts of Terminal 5, have kindly created a special place for all of their shuttle flights to Scotland and so there is a distinct corner of the building that echoes to the comforting 'rrrs' and 'ayes' of the ancient mother tongue. Here one can quickly distinguish the surprising differences between Aberdonian, Glaswegian and Edinburgh speech and, of course, temperament. We'll leave all that for another time but it is important to say that those for whom Scotland is a beautiful mystery should spend a day in this glorious steel and glass annexe of Caledonia, even if they are not actually taking a flight. An experience through which much will be revealed without venturing further north.
On this particular occasion I struggled by tube and the express train from Paddington to arrive at the gate just as boarding for the early evening Glasgow flight was being announced. So I was able to join the queue of be-suited men and women returning home after a day or two spent in London or in the identical deserts of commerce and service that surround it. We are good at queuing, orderly and good-humoured, yet simultaneously transmitting a certain impatient menace. Our frustrations are made public en passant, without drama, without any meaningful end product but with a certain satisfaction nonetheless.
I didn't notice the couple until we got on the plane and they took their seats across the aisle from me. So I had to make more of an effort, in the confined space, to see them properly. It takes longer to look people up and down discretely when they are sitting at ninety degrees to you and you can't move around them to get a better view.
They were immediately noisy, that's why they attracted my attention, and while obviously respectable they were irritating other people without either realising or caring. I imagined that they had spent some time filling their glasses in the business class lounge and so could now be described as 'merry'. They were what we have come to describe as 'business casual' which in his case seemed to include his checked shirt-tail hanging out under his brown lambs-wool sweater, giving him a juvenile dynamic even although he was tall and had decided to shave his receding hair. I estimated him to be no more than thirty.
She was older, perhaps forty, thin and worried with long black but dull hair and wearing a too-short skirt and black boots. She had deep blue lively eyes but a strangely drawn face and her sniggering, while he put both their lap-top bags (hers a Mac) into the luggage bin, seemed forced and unnatural. I decided, I do that, that she was his boss and that they had been to London for a meeting in sales or IT. Accountants certainly wouldn't behave so badly. She was single, no ring, perhaps divorced while he may or may not have been in a relationship which had wandered further from his mind the longer he sat in the business class lounge.
I had been going to read on the flight but if you keep up with the headlines all week you know what the weeklies are going to say and sometimes you just don't look forward to the more detailed summaries, features and editorials as much as you should. Anyway, I'd set the scene for the couple across the aisle, for myself, and I was very interested to find out how things would develop. We had reached the critical stage as the plane was pushed away from the terminal.
Sometimes I ask myself why we do this, stick our noses, ears and eyes into the obviously private business of complete strangers but it's an easy question to answer, isn't it? We like soap operas and we must have been watching them long before television was invented. It's fun and compelling and it passes the time and it gives us something to tell our friends. Exactly as I'm doing now.
I've always thought that the seriousness of couples, at the beginning, can be gauged by the extent to which they can quickly create a world of their own. A world that stands apart from everyone and everything around them, no matter where. A unique world with sovereignty established over emotional territory that is unseen but very clearly defined and fiercely defended. That being so, the intentions of my two friends across the aisle were clearly very serious indeed.
They sat not looking ahead but facing each other, very close together. This meant that the bulk of his shoulder continually pressed against the seat in front, tipping the old lady who occupied it up and down and back and forth. She was alone and had no champion to speak up for her, to help her end this intense and very localised turbulence. My besotted friend didn't realise that he was causing such discomfort, so engrossed was he in getting closer to his boss. Their giggling rose to gale force half-way through their first miniature whisky and continued unabated until landing and her hand stayed on his arm, squeezing emphatically, for progressively longer periods as they discussed their colleagues with carefree and disturbing indiscretion.
Something else I know is that when a woman places her face ever closer to yours, you are being asked a direct question. And if you keep your head where it was, and do not move back one millimetre, you have provided the sought-after answer without saying a word. It may be the most thrilling moment in a flirt that is turning into something more. Perhaps there are other signs but I have found this particular one to be the most exciting and conclusive. Anyway, she made the move and he did not flinch and the three of us knew that the next time she did it, their lips would touch.
However, and this is extremely unfortunate, I fell asleep as the captain was cheerily telling us that the lights of Newcastle could normally be seen over on the right if the cloud cover wasn't so thick. He thought this was funny but I finally realised that thick cloud cover meant that we could actually be flying over Jakarta and we would never know. That was my last conscious but hazy thought for around twenty five minutes.
I didn't wake until my ears hurt quite badly as we descended and the hand that I was resting my head on, cutting off its blood supply, had lost all feeling. I had also dribbled down my chin and onto my shirt, giving the delightful impression that I was someone who should not be allowed out in public alone.
We landed without much fuss, there being none of Glasgow's notorious crosswinds this time but still another shower of heavy rain. Our newly hatched couple clapped together at touchdown, like a pair of grateful seals at the end of a show, and so did the old lady in front of them, quietly to herself.
Then I lost interest in them as I concentrated hard on not leaving anything behind on the plane such as my specs and unread weeklies, an expensive habit that I seem to have recently cultivated. However I did hear them agreeing about there being no need for him to take a separate taxi home as it made more sense to share and, 'In any case, perhaps we could have another drink together somewhere'.
I smiled at the Captain as I left his charge, four rings and perfectly coiffed as if his cockpit contained its own little barber's salon. Then I felt the giggling conspirators brush quickly past me on the air bridge in the midst of their rush to get out of the building and into the freedom of night still to come, she hurrying beside him as closely as possible, linking her arm through his.
They had luggage to collect and I caught up with them as they waited impatiently, perhaps even a little nervously, beside the groaning carousel. I stood nearby, watching until she suddenly charged in my direction as she eventually spotted her bag floating on the conveyor belt.
There was no joy on her face, no sign of anticipated pleasure. Instead she seemed tense and preoccupied, more nervous than when I had first seen her at Heathrow, now worried that a victory that seemed so close might yet be snatched from her grasp. The pursuit of happiness can be an extremely unhappy journey.
I have never forgotten my grandfather telling me, 'In the end you have to understand that we chase them until they catch us…'
Born in Glasgow, Ronnie Smith has lived and worked in Romania for the past eight years and is getting back into the writing of fiction after a long break. He publishes in Romania, in English and Romanian, and hopes to be published more in Scotland in the future. He is currently working on a novel set in post-independence Scotland.