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Flight from Africa

“You’d better not miss your sister’s wedding!” The words of Justin’s Mother rang clearly in his ears – for the umpteenth time. OK, so he’d been told about the wedding months and months ago, and yes, he knew the holiday in France that girlfriend Claire had booked back in February was near to the wedding, but he never guessed that it would fall slap-bang in the middle of the two-weeks of sun and sex on the Cote D’Azur. Not to worry, Mother, he had assured her, I’ll fly back for the wedding – it’ll be fine, I won’t even be late.

So what should he do now then? The furtive dark-skinned figure crouching in the long grass at the edge of the runway approximately thirty yards from the Easy Jet Boeing 727-300 as it waited for clearance from the tower at the top of the main runway to commence the 12.30 Nice to Gatwick flight, was no airport worker. Not only did he wear no logo liveried overalls, nor corporate baseball cap, but he also looked far too frightened. He was crouching low on one knee, with his hands flat on the dusty ground as if trying to keep them dry, his eyes clearly twitching at the sight of the flying behemoth in front of him. His light blue, badly-fitting jeans were filthy and his checked shirt had lost some of its buttons – not even the lowest paid immigrant airport worker would have been allowed to work in that state. Should Justin alert the flight attendant? Was there really anything wrong? Justin looked up the length of the cabin towards the cockpit, but the attendants were nowhere to be seen – they had obviously strapped themselves into their seats near the front with the extra seatbelts in preparation for the take-off. Justin had often wondered why cabin crew had better seatbelts than the passengers – was it saying that if you managed to survive a crash without being sliced in two by your own solitary economy lap strap, then the first class cabin crew would be in fine shape to help you to exit the plane; or was it the air crews’ unions insistence on better working conditions and safety measures for their underpaid staff against those of the fare-paying public.

Just as the pilot made his final indecipherable coded notification over the intercom to the cabin crew, Justin looked again at the figure in the grass. Suddenly, the young man stealthily lifted himself up from the ground; his proud head scarred with fear and his eyes still darting from side to side as if expecting at any moment to be discovered, and he started to run; slowly at first but then with increasing confidence and speed, towards the plane. Justin just stared. What was the dark young man doing? Where was he going? Justin didn’t even know if he should be frightened by the sight of the boggle-eyed native with the tops of his white Y-fronts clearly showing beneath the flapping shirt as his oversized trousers slipped to his hips in the desperate dash towards the plane. Justin just stared.

Claire, the sexual object of Justin fortnight’s sojourn to Antibes, just along the coast from Nice, had been left that morning luxuriating on the sweet-smelling bed in their hotel room that overlooked the flat blue Mediterranean, her body having been earlier sated by Justin’s unexpected post breakfast-in-bed shag, and her mind trying to decide what to do for the next twenty-four hours whilst Justin ‘popped home’ for his stupid sisters wedding. She couldn’t understand why he’d promised to go – he was supposed to be on holiday with her, and as this was her only holiday of the year and their relationship was quite new, she thought he might have made a bigger effort. Perhaps she’d just get pissed by the pool all day – Justin was paying for all the drinks – and then see if the attentions that had been shown to her all week by the handsome, if not a bit short, French waiter actually meant anything. Well, what else was she supposed to do? – it wasn’t as if she knew anyone or could even speak the language. Pierre spoke English beautifully.