“Or we could sedate you for the next flight…”
She scowled harder.
I laughed.
“Fucking arsehole.” She squeezed harder, this time I doubted it was out of fear.
“It will be fine though. I can give you the statistics of flying on this plane.” I reeled them off. I wasn’t a nervous flyer. I was the opposite of a nervous flyer. Anything that involved a risk was an aphrodisiac for me, the more dangerous the better when I was in a certain frame of mind. I’d gotten better at it; minimising risk, finding my adrenaline shots from elsewhere. Working with big cats helped.
She groaned, still holding my hand, her colour slightly less deathly. “I know. It’s irrational. I should have more therapy for it.”
“Maybe.” I didn’t know where to start, or where I could start that wouldn’t make her hate me. We were on this plane together for six hours. The next few months were going to be pretty intense. Avoiding each other successfully for ten years wasn’t going to be on the cards for the foreseeable. “How’s life been?”
“Good.” She moved her hand away, the aircraft having steadied.
We were back to one word answers.
“Where’ve you been working?”
“India. Thailand. Russia.”
“Have you been to Africa before?”
She shook her head.
“You’ll fall in love with it. Part of the reason I agreed to do the programme was because it was an excuse to come back.”
I felt her looking at me.
“You sound serious.”
My jaw clenched. “I am.”
“I don’t remember you as being serious. Not unless you were operating or examining.”
Because humour was a great way to keep people away. The joker. The superficial, cocky twat who people wanted to be with but not forever.
“Yeah, well. Not much has changed.”
“Tell me more about Africa. Which countries have you been to?” She took the menu and started to look through it, avoiding my eyes.
“South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Somalia – that was interesting – Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Morocco… I think that’s it. I’ve done two years there in total.”
She nodded. “Favourite?”
“Anywhere there.”
The air hostess reached us, taking drinks orders. We were in first class, courtesy of the production company, and normally I’d have ordered something alcoholic. But we were flying to Dubai and it was still early, so I went for coffee. Black. Strong.
Wren ordered tea. Nothing new there. She had never been one for alcohol. In all the nights out we’d had when we’d been at college I’d never seen her drunk.
And then we were back to silence, that horrible silence that hangs like a thick fog, almost palpable.
Fucking awful.
It was going to be a long flight.
Wren
