First Born(5)

Is this turbulence? We’ve barely reached the Atlantic. I look out of the window and the wing is still attached but it’s shaking violently. What are the engineering tolerances of this aircraft?

The plane settles and levels out. The man beside me is no longer dozing. He looks over at me, confused.

‘Turbulence has never brought down a jet aeroplane,’ I tell him.

He frowns at me.

‘I’d tighten your belt, though. Dozens of people break bones each year from leaping up out of their seats.’

He adjusts his belt.

People go back to their movies and the sleeping pill guy eventually goes back to sleep, his head resting on the person by the emergency exit door.

I imagine how this looks. A cross-section through earth’s atmosphere, the layers as described to me in a geography class ten years ago. The ocean and then thirty-seven thousand feet of air and then an aluminium can with wings crammed full of jet fuel flying at five hundred miles per hour, the rivets and bolts and seatbelts and cockpit safety systems all procured years ago from the lowest bidder.

Passengers settle back into their entertainment systems. There’s a woman sitting diagonally across from me watching a Christmas movie even though it’s only October. My sister would have given me side-eye if she’d been sitting next to me on this plane.

Ideally I’d assemble my anti-hijack devices in private but needs must.

I locate the para cord in my deep pocket. It’s military-grade string really, the type used for parachutes, and the YouTubers I’ve watched swear by it. I take five one-pound coins from my other pocket and start to weave a monkey-fist knot around the coins. You can make it without coins in the centre but it won’t be as effective. I do all of this underneath a British Airways complimentary blanket. My seatbelt is as tight as it will go and my hands are at work and you’d never even know it. Monkey fists are illegal in many places in the world owing to their inherent power, but if you learn to weave one yourself, and you practise enough, train in the dark, then you can make one on board a plane in ten minutes flat. When it’s done I place it in my right pocket and pull out a pair of socks. I take one and fill it with the remaining fifteen pound coins and place that makeshift weapon in my left pocket.

There’s only a minuscule chance I’ll need them, but not as minuscule as you might imagine. I’m a five-foot-five-inch-tall, twenty-two-year-old, seven-stone-two woman flying alone to the USA. It’s not just hijackers I need to be watchful of, it’s also troubled people who decide they’ll open an emergency exit door mid-air, and people who go berserk for any one of a thousand different reasons owing to the stress and anxiety of long-haul flying. Not everyone is as level-headed as I am.

My sister was as level-headed as I am. The woman is still watching her Christmas movie. That’s something I’ll never again celebrate with her. We used to hang up our stockings together. We used to wrap presents together while listening to Christmas carols on the radio. That’s all over now. I’ll never take her to a casual pre-vetted pizza restaurant and spend the night laughing about the stupid things she did when we were kids.

The guy next to me starts snoring so I move around in my seat and cough and eventually he stirs and turns the other way.

I am alone in the world. Trapped on a plane, and my twin is gone. What is a remaining twin called? A survivor? I don’t even know. But I do know that statistically most identical twins die within two years of each other.

The woman in front of me reclines her seat, and that makes me want to smack her with my monkey fist.

I worry about Mum. She’s aged since Grandma died last year and I’m not sure how she’ll deal with all this. For your mother and your daughter to die in the same year is too much for anyone to bear.

I pull my knitting needles out of my sock but keep them under my blanket. I take a folded piece of duct tape from my jeans pocket and tape the needles together – honestly, I was stunned when I found out they’re permitted in the cabin – and then I push them back down into my sock. I’m not a hero or a brave person; I just believe that preparation and mindfulness can skew unexpected risks in your favour.

We fly over the white vastness of Greenland. Imagine crash-landing here. If you survived the impact and the probable fireball you’d have to cope with extreme hypothermia and famished polar bears with razor-sharp teeth. I’d rather crash somewhere else. Almost anywhere else. Our plane is heading towards Canada. That means grizzly bears and packs of wolves. My knitting needles won’t help much in that kind of environment.

The flight attendants take away empty food trays and wine bottles, and then they start their next drinks service.

We enter US air space and fly over the dark, endless forests of Maine. We approach JFK. My entire body is stiff, and I am holding my seat armrests so hard the tendons in my forearms ache.

The wheels touch down on the runway.

I walk off the plane and start to feel queasy. I need food and hydration and I need rest. I need a hug from my broken parents. They’ll need one back from me.

The airport is different from Heathrow. The accents of the officials and the people making public announcements. The signs and the fonts. The type of carpets here in the United States of America.

I reach Immigration and the police officers all carry guns. I found this sight reassuring at Heathrow, but here they seem dangerous. Menacing. I know they’re here to keep order inside the terminal, and protect regular people like me, but I am ill at ease.