Jessica Hart - Birthday Bride

When she opened them again, the plane had stopped. Outside, the heat wavered over the tarmac and bounced off the silver wings. There were a couple of prefabricated buildings, a ramshackle control tower and a few dusty buildings straggling along the road that led off into the heat haze.

Claudia licked her lips and tried her voice very cautiously. ‘Where are we?’

‘A place called Al Mishrah,’ said David, looking out of the window with a jaundiced eye. ‘There used to be a big gas terminal here, hence the airport, but it’s disused now and they only get the occasional flight serving what’s left of the town.’

‘Not your ideal stopover, then,’ said Claudia with an effort.

The corner of David’s mouth lifted as if in acknowledgement of her feeble attempt at a joke. ‘You could say that.’

‘Wh-what happens now?’

He sighed. ‘On past experience of Shofrar, I’d say nothing much.’

He was right. Some of the other passengers were standing up, shouting and gesticulating, but it was several minutes before a set of steps were produced and wheeled across the tarmac towards the waiting plane. It was suffocatingly hot, and Claudia longed for some fresh air, but as soon as the door swung open the smell of fuel rolled on a wave of heat through the cabin, and she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

Immediately there was a scrum of passengers pushing to get out, but there seemed little point in hurrying, and it was not until the first crush had subsided that David turned to Claudia. ‘Do you feel OK now?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘In that case, do you think I could have my hand back?’

‘Oh!’ Claudia dropped his hand as if it had stung her and her cheeks flamed with mortification. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered, flustered. ‘I didn’t realise; that is...I forgot...’

‘It’s all right.’ David’s cool voice broke across her embarrassed stutterings as he tucked his report back into his briefcase and stood up.

Claudia hesitated, cringing at the thought that she had sat for so long clinging to his hand like a little girl. He must think she was absolutely pathetic, but she could hardly ignore his patience. ‘You’ve been very kind,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘Thank you.’

David was conscious of a feeling of surprise as he followed her down the aisle. He had expected her to take any attention as her due and he was disconcerted to find how pleased he was that he had misjudged her.

Inside the prefabricated hut that obviously served as a terminal it was hardly much cooler than outside. A single ceiling fan slapped at the air without enthusiasm and the room resonated with the aggrieved clamour of angry passengers. David and Claudia sat on orange plastic chairs that were cracked and dusty with neglect and waited.

At first Claudia was too relieved to find herself alive and back on solid ground again to fret much at the lack of action and she was content just to sit next to David, intimidated more than she wanted to admit by the heat and the glare and this dingy building where nothing seemed to work and she had no idea what was going on.

Claudia didn’t like feeling out of control, and she was uncomfortably aware that, arrogant and unpleasant as David might be, his cool, contained presence was immeasurably reassuring.

The long minutes ticked slowly by. Claudia sat and looked at a poster advertising what she guessed to be some kind of soft drink that had faded in the harsh light to a pale, washed-out blue. Flies zoomed through the oppressive heat and buzzed frantically near her ears until she waved them away in disgust, and she could feel the plastic, sticky and uncomfortable through her thin trousers.

As her impatience grew, she shifted irritably in the chair and glanced at her watch for the umpteenth time. They had been sitting there for nearly an hour. ‘What’s happening?’ she burst out at last.

David, who had just been thinking that a severe fright considerably improved her, sighed. He might have known that she wouldn’t be able to sit still and silent much longer. ‘The pilot and a couple of local ground crew are looking at the engine. We’re waiting for him to come back and tell us what’s going to happen—’ He broke off as a stir of expectation marked the entrance of the harassed-looking pilot. ‘Ah, here he is now.’

Claudia jumped to her feet. ‘Let’s go and see what’s going on!’

‘I’ll go and talk to him,’ said David firmly. ‘You wait here.’

She opened her mouth to object, but something in his face made her close it again, and subside back onto her seat.

She watched David as he walked over to the pilot. He was tall and lean, and he moved easily, with a sort of balanced, economical grace that made her think queerly of a cat, or an athlete focusing on the race ahead. The other men seemed to recognise the authority of his presence, for they parted instinctively to let him through.

Claudia could only see his back as he stood talking to the pilot, but judging by the other man’s frustrated gestures and the reactions of those listening the news was not good, and David’s expression was grim when he turned at last and made his way back to her.

‘The plane’s being taken out of service,’ he said as he came up. ‘They’re going to divert the next flight to pick us up.’

‘Oh, well, that’s something, I suppose,’ said Claudia, who had been expecting much worse. ‘When’s it arriving?’

‘Not for another two days.’

‘Two days?’ She stared at him in gathering wrath as his words sank in. ‘Two days?’

David shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed with frustration. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your hearing, anyway,’ he said.

‘But...but they can’t expect us to spend two days in this dump!’

‘There’s some kind of hotel in the town, apparently, probably left over from the boom days, so it’s likely to be a bit run-down.’

‘I don’t care if they’ve got the Ritz,’ snapped Claudia. ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m not staying here! Why can’t they send another plane now?’

‘Shofrar isn’t geared up for tourism. This is just a small internal airline, and all their other planes have got scheduled flights of their own.’

‘Great!’ Claudia leapt to her feet and began pacing up and down with her arms folded. ‘There must be something we can do! What about a bus?’

‘I think it’s highly unlikely that there would be much of a service between here and Telama’an. We’ve had to divert way off course to land here.’

‘All right, a taxi, then?’

‘This isn’t Piccadilly, Claudia. You can’t just flag down a taxi and ask it to drive you off into the desert. There aren’t even any metal roads around here.’

‘What, then?’ she demanded impatiently. ‘How can you just stand there and do nothing?’

David looked down his nose. He much preferred her when she was scared. ‘I can’t see that working myself up into a frenzy, as you seem to do at the slightest provocation, would magically produce a plane,’ he said repressively.

‘You mean you’re not going to do anything?’ said Claudia in disgust. ‘What about your meeting? I thought you wanted to get to Telaa’an as much as I do!’

‘I’ve got every intention of getting there as soon as possible,’ he said with a cool look. ‘If you were prepared to shut up and just listen for a change, you would have heard me say that I was going to try and get hold of a vehicle. I doubt very much if there will be anything suitable to hire, but it might be possible to buy something.’

‘Buy a car?’ She looked at him blankly. ‘But—’

‘But what?’

‘Well...’ She hesitated. ‘You can’t just set out across the desert in a car, can you?’