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In the Air
Only an idiot would travel without a book. Only a fool, thought Claire, would prioritise clean knickers and kitten heels ahead of reading material in The Great 10kg Baggage Challenge. And yet, here she was, flipping from the front to the back of the flight safety card. It didn’t even have words, only line drawings of people calmly flinging themselves out of planes.
A woman standing in the aisle tugged theatrically on an oxygen mask, its disconnected tubing dangling loose at her hip.
‘If you are travelling with a child, secure your own mask first,’ she said. ‘Breathe normally.’
Watching from 6A, the window seat, Claire wondered how many parents obeyed that rule. When it came to it, when the plane was falling out of the sky, when alarms were ringing and hearts exploding, how many parents put on their own mask first? And did putting on their own mask first make them a better parent or a worse one?
‘In the event of an emergency, assume the brace position.’
The flight attendant was old school: sensible court shoes, lacquered chignon, make-up guaranteed to survive a sea landing. Her name was Imelda, according to the name tag on her Kenmare green lapel. Imelda was not, Claire thought, a woman who would welcome philosophical questions from her audience.
‘Crew, arm doors and cross check.’
Claire turned away. Leaning her forehead against the aeroplane window, she stared into a film of light mist. A persistentboing boingsounded. Her stomach was drawn downwards as Aer Lingus flight EI822 Cork to Paris, with an unnerving shudder, powered up and up, and broke through to a lucid blue sky. With her lips pressed closed, Claire inhaled through her nose for a count of four, held the breath for a count of seven, then let it all out in awhoosh. As far as she could tell, the exercise did nothing at all to quell the jittery feelings rising inside her. She tried again.
It wasn’t, to be honest, that Claire wasn’t excited about a weekend in Paris. It was just that she hadn’t really wanted to go anywhere. For weeks, she’d been ducking even the thought of their fifth wedding anniversary. She’d hoped for an escape route – the funeral of a distantly related centenarian would have been ideal – and then she felt guilty and ungrateful, and all the time she felt undeniably sad.
* * *
‘We deserve this,’ Ronan had said, the previous Sunday, when he handed her the printed-out tickets. ‘We haven’t had a break since .?.?.’ He looked down at his cornflakes and carried on, ‘for ages.’
Claire ignored his hesitation.
‘But these are for next Friday. I mean, that’s mad.’
‘Claire, we need this.’
She was so tired. That was the only thought in her head, but she couldn’t say it out loud, not again. He would run out of patience one of these times. Honesty, as a policy, got boring.
She bit her bottom lip and looked up to the ceiling, as if that old trick ever made tears flow backwards. He was probably right: they did need something, some sort of jolt to get them back on track. It would be more dangerous not to do it.
She nodded, raised a watery smile and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you.’
‘I tried to get flights to Casablanca, but it was impossible.’
Thank God for that, she thought. They’d spent their honeymoon in Morocco.
‘You were good to try,’ she said, holding in her relief.
‘Anyway, you always said you wanted to see Paris in September.’
She let her breath out in a laugh. ‘I think I said springtime.’
‘Really?’
‘I’m sure Paris will be lovely in September, too.’
‘Worth a try anyway?’ He raised an eyebrow.
She smiled and nodded. ‘If you insist.’
Claire had pushed her anxiety into its box and made a deliberate decision to enjoy the weekend. She thought it was possible, if she put her heart into it, that they could hit the reset button in Paris. She would, if she could, make it work – make it good – for Ronan’s sake.
The next day, Monday, she made a deal with Sam, the most easy-going of her colleagues at the City Library. He agreed to swap holidays with her – ‘pas de problemo, sweetheart’ – just as long as she promised to have loads of sex and bring him back an Hermès scarf. She bought him lunch and promised a fridge magnet.
On Tuesday, she booked an appointment at the hairdresser, her first since before Christmas, and read an online article entitled ‘20 Crêpe Parlours Not to Miss in Paris’. That evening, they dined on a spartan salad. Claire believed that life held a balance sheet, that you had to pay down some measure of abstinence ahead of any planned gluttony.
