Hanif Kureishi: Love + Hate: Stories and Essays

He found a bottle of perfume on the floor. The gift trolley had been raided. There was nothing left: empty boxes were strewn about, and Daniel, following the example of another passenger, took the wise decision to douse himself in scent.

He rolled up his trouser legs and was rubbing something called Glory into his calves, when the footballer rose up and padded towards the toilet. He had Daniel’s initial reaction, raising and lowering his cap in concern, before sharply turning his head away in revulsion. Watching this it occurred to Daniel what difficulty they must be in if the footballer’s club had left someone like him hanging in the air. That piece of meat was worth many millions of pounds, far more than everyone else on the flight put together.

He stood in the galley, where Bridget was leaning against the counter with her colleagues. Her work smile was gone, her face was pinched and her lips dry. No one here would seek out their own reflection.

She had never experienced anything like this and was intending to retire when they got back. The air had become too dangerous. Not that they were unsafe exactly. The plane had been refuelled during the night; the authorities couldn’t have it just drop out of the sky into the city or sea. She guessed the reason they weren’t able to use another airport or land in another country was because the computer virus had spread. Perhaps somewhere a plane had already crashed on landing, rendering the runway inoperable. However, Bridget hadn’t lost her habit of reassurance: there was no doubt they would land the next day when normal service had been resumed.

‘How do you know?’ he asked.

‘It must be true,’ she said. ‘Surely? If they can make a computer, they must be able to fix it.’

She said she had acquired something for him. Checking that no one would oversee, she passed him a roll wrapped in cling film. It was the last one ‘ever’. After this they would have to ‘diet’. He hadn’t eaten meat in twenty years, but he smiled and thanked her for the tiny stale ham roll. It was that or nothing.

As he chewed, even as the taste rose in his throat, he noticed an old woman from the back of the plane wobbling up the aisle. He supposed she wanted to use the toilet, but she stopped at his seat, repositioned and plumped his cushion and then flapped his scratchy blanket. She was about to sit in his seat. The Business section was full, other passengers, following the huge man’s revolt, having come up from the rear of the plane.

He hurried to his place, slipping in sideways under her arm just before she could sit down, whispering, ‘So sorry, but I have a bad back,’ as she attacked him in a language he couldn’t understand. He didn’t dare look at the disappointed woman for fear he would be shamed, but instead stared miserably out of the window until she stopped begging him. This seat, he thought, is the last thing I have and I’m staying here.

He leaned over towards the woman with the little dog. She was muttering, ‘Find me, find me, find me,’ and he gave her a small part of the roll, which she pushed into the gobbling mouth of the dog. ‘Thank you.’

Night came for the second time. Daniel walked a little, but never went beyond the area of his seat for fear that someone would steal it. The law, or even decency, no longer applied in this exceptional zone. He urinated in empty water bottles and rolled them behind his seat; he shat in sick bags and tossed them into the toilet. Excrement and urine were seeping down the aisles; the air was fetid, breathing an agony. He yearned for a breeze. He was surprised by how quickly things had deteriorated, and what a thin membrane it was that kept civilisation and hell apart.

Time passed as it does, until in the middle of the night there was some interest when the captain, flanked by a haggard steward for security, left his cockpit once more to stretch his legs and attempt some yoga positions. Both his and the steward’s uniforms were filthy. At the start of this catastrophe, the passengers had looked to the pilot with hope and expectation, considering him to have special knowledge of how things worked up here. He murmured a few words. ‘We’re working on it. We’re trying our damned best — you can be sure everyone in the company is working day and night to get us out of here. As it is, we’re perfectly safe, if a little uncomfortable. Please stay in your seats, be patient and we’ll get you down.’

At the sight of him, the passengers had hastened to the front in a crowd to hear. But when they saw the captain’s ashen face they didn’t listen for a minute before yelling, ‘You know nothing, you asshole. Why are you lying? You’re a disgusting idiot, a total fool, scum,’ and so on, until he scuttled back to his cabin and locked the door.

Since the captain had little to say, many realistic and fantastical explanations went round the plane. The city had broken down irrevocably, its cyber-system destroyed and thousands of people killed; the plane been ‘kidnapped’ by terrorists and the passengers were being used in secret negotiations — some of them would be exchanged for prisoners from elsewhere; the Earth had been partly destroyed by an asteroid. Their lot was ‘fate’, he heard often; it was ‘God’s will’ was the most tiresome of all. He thought, What a lot of jabber tragedy provides an excuse for. His view — that they were hanging from the spittle of a giant lizard — would not have been popular.

Many thought they were done for. They had flown through a storm; the plane had been flung about in the void; lightning flashed around them. Daniel was sick several times, though there was nothing in his stomach. He had no idea how the other passengers were able to make such terrible noises. People called out, ‘Please shut up!’ but it made no difference.

He was lying semi-comatose, neither asleep nor awake, when he heard other noises. Getting to his feet he saw that a blanket had been pinned up around the footballer’s seat. The footballer was the one person on the plane who didn’t complain or speak, but now he was copulating. Daniel moved enough to see that it was Bridget he was copulating with. Their pushing and thrashing brought down the blanket, and Daniel saw Bridget’s breasts were exposed and the man had pulled his trousers down to his knees. What a story this would be for the kids when Daniel got home.

Bridget got up and returned to the galley. Daniel closed his eyes but the footballer was standing over him. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Were you watching me?’

‘Watching what?’ said Daniel.

‘Don’t do that again,’ said the footballer. He reached out and took Daniel by the throat. ‘Do you have any water?’

‘I have just a little left.’

‘Give it.’

Daniel found his bottle concealed under his seat cushion and gave it to the midfielder. The footballer finished the water, crushed the bottle and handed it back.

‘If you come across any more, bring it to me.’

‘Yes,’ said Daniel, thinking, I won’t be found at the bottom of the sea holding hands with you. It wasn’t the right time to ask for a selfie.

He sat in his seat with a soiled blanket around him for some time, before venturing, cowed and hunched, into the galley, where he was surprised to discover that he now had the aspect of a street beggar. ‘Please, Bridget, is there anything else to eat? That’s all I need to know. You can tell me. Please whisper. Have you found anything at all?’

She shook her head. ‘Up here we’re out of everything, including water. But we should be down soon.’

‘How do you know?’ he asked.

‘I feel it,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ he said, adding, ‘Don’t forget me if you find anything.’

As they continued the infinite repetition for hours in the darkness there were many hubbubs, howlings and disputes, over things like the little alcohol that was left, apples, and whose turn it was to lie on the floor and who could attempt to exercise in the restricted space. There was even a vicious fight when a woman grabbed the hair of another woman and tried to smash her face into the fuselage. Daniel had wondered whether someone should attempt to introduce some civility or even democracy into this non-space and non-time. Nevertheless, apart from the morose footballer, everyone did address everyone else, and there was a minimal element of organisation. A couple from the back of the plane brought food for the baby — and so did others — which the parents accepted gratefully, as the woman had stood up several times to scream, ‘My child will die — he’ll die!’