Allison Rushby - It's Not You It's Me

Not much—not a big trip. I couldn’t believe they’d said that. Here they were, just having had not one baby but two, and they were paying large sums of money over to travel agents…for me. I had to come right out and say it. I was going to pay for it. I’d give them the money back. I’d meant to book something myself, but kept putting it off.

And that was when Kath spoke up, cutting me off. ‘It’s, um, from your mum, Charlie,’ she said. ‘She gave me some money for incidentals. Things you might need but that you might not know you need, if that makes any sense.’

The three of us had simply looked at each other, blinking, for a bit. Until, that was, Kath’s eyes slid over to Mark and she sighed. ‘And now it’s probably time for Mark to apologise for the trip he chose.’

Mark had got a very sheepish air about him then. ‘I thought you were meant to be having fun. And this looked like fun. To me, anyway.’

I checked the itinerary more closely. London and an open ticket back. Fantastic—just as I thought I’d read. Oh, but there was a tour attached. Wait…

To Oktoberfest?

Kath shrugged. ‘I’m afraid it’s non-refundable. I hope you like beer. And sauerkraut. And big fat sausages. For five days.’ She poked Mark with one finger as she said each sentence.

Now, I’m what I call a sad vegetarian—as in, the kind of person who lusts after large pieces of steak but can’t eat meat directly after seeing actual live cows, lambs, pigs, chickens et cetera. I’d seen a truck full of chickens whizz past me on the highway not long before this, and a feather had landed on the windscreen. So I knew I was going to be vegetarian for at least a week or so. Or until someone offered me a plate of something that just looked far too good to pass up.

So, anyway, the sausage thing. It didn’t sound very appealing. And as for beer—I don’t drink the stuff. Never have. Oh, I’ve tried a few times, but I just don’t seem to like it.

But I waved my hands as if I couldn’t believe what they were saying. No, no. The trip was great. It’d be fun. Educational. I might even learn to like beer. And big fat sausages. And, um, sauerkraut.

Bleh.

Plus, it wouldn’t be all artery-hardening activities like sausage-eating. I’d get to see heaps of other things. Munich, for example. And the ticket home was open. I could do whatever I wanted. It’d be better than great.

And as I picked up the ticket and itinerary and turned them over in my hands, I realised that Kath and Mark knew me better than I knew myself. It didn’t matter where it was—around the corner would have been fine. I just needed to get away. To do something different. And if I had some fun along the way—well, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?

Of course not.

‘Miss, can you fasten your seat belt, please?’ The flight attendant is standing over my seat staring at me as if I’m a loon. By the look on her face I think she might have asked me more than once already. Hastily, I grab the two ends of my seat belt and buckle up. When I’m done, I have one last crane of my neck to check for Kath and Mark and the twins before I concede defeat.

Left with nothing else to do, I get my book out of my backpack and read right up until they begin the safety demonstration. When that starts I put my book down on my lap and listen carefully. I even get the safety card out of the seat pocket and read that too.

Like I said before, the oldest plane in the world…

I’m watching attentively as the flight attendant shows us how to fasten and unfasten our seat belts when I hear it. This clunk…

And something lands on my lap.

I drop my safety card on the floor in fright.

I’m stunned for a moment, unsure of what’s happened. But when I look down, there’s a videotape in my lap. Instinctively I reach my hand up to my head as I realise that one side of it hurts. As I feel around, I notice there’s a little lump on it. No, hang on, a mid-sized lump. Wait a second—quite a big lump, actually. Quite a big lump, which is starting to throb.

‘Hey, are you OK?’ the guy in the seat beside me asks.

I turn to him. No, I want to say. No, I’m not. I’ve got a lump on my head. Not a little lump, not a mid-sized lump, but quite a big lump, actually. But I can’t get the words out. Instead, I bring my hand down off my head to see if there’s any blood.

There’s not. This is probably a good sign.

The flight attendant comes and crouches down beside me. She picks the safety card up off the floor and puts it back in the seat pocket in front of me. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s never done that before.’

I look at her blankly and she picks the videotape out of my lap and holds it up. ‘It’s the safety video. It ejected out of the VCR stored above you. Is your head OK?’

I keep looking at her. ‘I’ve got a lump.’

She feels the side of my head. ‘Oohhh, you do too. Does it hurt? Do you have a headache? Should I see if we have a doctor?’

Too many questions. ‘It doesn’t hurt much,’ I say, before I realise what the implications of what I’ve just said could mean in today’s litigious society, and add a little disclaimer, ‘Yet’.

She pauses, thinking. ‘Well, maybe we should move you up to the front, just so we can keep a better eye on you. We’re about to take off, so I’ll have to leave you for a minute or two, but I’ll come right back, OK? Don’t go anywhere, now.’ She walks down towards the front of the plane.

As I watch her go, I wonder where she thinks I’d run off to. I mean, I’m on a plane, here. I don’t have too many options.

True to her word, she comes back as soon as we’ve levelled off. She gives me her arm to help me get up. ‘Jessica will keep an eye on you up front. Just tell her if your head starts to hurt, all right? Now, do you have anything overhead?’ She gestures at the lockers.

I shake my head, no, and she turns and starts walking back up to the front of the plane. I follow.

We keep going. And going. And going.

Then, suddenly, as she parts the swishy curtain that divides the have and the have-nots, the clean and the unwashed, I realise she’s putting me in business class. Excellent. But, no—wait. We keep going. We pass another swishy curtain. And we enter…first class.

Ta-da!

I look around me in awe. Toto, I don’t think we’re in economy any more.

The people in the few seats around the doorway turn and stare at us. Under their gaze, I try to look as if my head really hurts now. As if it hurts in a first-class-this-seat-reclines-all-the-way-back kind of hurt.

There are about five people in first class, and—I count them—about twenty seats. What a waste.

Another flight attendant—Jessica, I presume—comes over. Yes, it is Jessica. I read her name-tag as she gets closer and note she speaks French and German and Japanese, which I’m sure would come in very handy if I did too. The flight attendant who’s been with me till now, Lisa—the economy-model flight attendant who speaks nothing but plain old English—leaves.

‘Just take a seat here,’ Jessica says, directing me into a seat behind a man and sitting me down. ‘And do tell me if you start to feel sick or you get a headache, won’t you?’

I nod.

‘Would you like a biscuit and some apple juice? Everyone’s just had a snack.’

I nod again, never one to say no to a biscuit. Or apple juice. And certainly never one to say no to first class biscuits or first class apple juice that I can eat in my fully reclined seat, watching my own cable TV all while I’m on my personal phone if I so feel like it.

‘Yes, please,’ I say politely.

Jessica turns around and leaves. I watch her go with interest. I’ve never seen a first class flight attendant before. I inspect her closely. I may never get another chance to see one in captivity. She has really expensive stockings on. I can tell. Because they look nice. All shimmery. And very unlike anything I’ve ever worn waitressing that usually came three in a packet and were holey by the time I left the apartment.