There’s only a minuscule chance I’ll need them, but not as minuscule as you might imagine. I’m a five-foot-five-inch-tall, twenty-two-year-old, seven-stone-two woman flying alone to the USA. It’s not just hijackers I need to be watchful of, it’s also troubled people who decide they’ll open an emergency exit door mid-air, and people who go berserk for any one of a thousand different reasons owing to the stress and anxiety of long-haul flying. Not everyone is as level-headed as I am.
My sister was as level-headed as I am. The woman is still watching her Christmas movie. That’s something I’ll never again celebrate with her. We used to hang up our stockings together. We used to wrap presents together while listening to Christmas carols on the radio. That’s all over now. I’ll never take her to a casual pre-vetted pizza restaurant and spend the night laughing about the stupid things she did when we were kids.
The guy next to me starts snoring so I move around in my seat and cough and eventually he stirs and turns the other way.
I am alone in the world. Trapped on a plane, and my twin is gone. What is a remaining twin called? A survivor? I don’t even know. But I do know that statistically most identical twins die within two years of each other.
The woman in front of me reclines her seat, and that makes me want to smack her with my monkey fist.
I worry about Mum. She’s aged since Grandma died last year and I’m not sure how she’ll deal with all this. For your mother and your daughter to die in the same year is too much for anyone to bear.
I pull my knitting needles out of my sock but keep them under my blanket. I take a folded piece of duct tape from my jeans pocket and tape the needles together – honestly, I was stunned when I found out they’re permitted in the cabin – and then I push them back down into my sock. I’m not a hero or a brave person; I just believe that preparation and mindfulness can skew unexpected risks in your favour.
We fly over the white vastness of Greenland. Imagine crash-landing here. If you survived the impact and the probable fireball you’d have to cope with extreme hypothermia and famished polar bears with razor-sharp teeth. I’d rather crash somewhere else. Almost anywhere else. Our plane is heading towards Canada. That means grizzly bears and packs of wolves. My knitting needles won’t help much in that kind of environment.
The flight attendants take away empty food trays and wine bottles, and then they start their next drinks service.
We enter US air space and fly over the dark, endless forests of Maine. We approach JFK. My entire body is stiff, and I am holding my seat armrests so hard the tendons in my forearms ache.
The wheels touch down on the runway.
I walk off the plane and start to feel queasy. I need food and hydration and I need rest. I need a hug from my broken parents. They’ll need one back from me.
The airport is different from Heathrow. The accents of the officials and the people making public announcements. The signs and the fonts. The type of carpets here in the United States of America.
I reach Immigration and the police officers all carry guns. I found this sight reassuring at Heathrow, but here they seem dangerous. Menacing. I know they’re here to keep order inside the terminal, and protect regular people like me, but I am ill at ease.
‘US citizens queue over there,’ says a woman. ‘If you’ve been to the United States before on your ESTA, then queue over there.’
Then a man shouts, ‘First time visiting the United States, you need to be over here.’ He points to a long queue and I join it. I am gripping my pristine passport so hard it’s starting to bend, and my palms are sweating.
When I reach the front of the line I say, ‘Hello.’
The man says, ‘Passport, ma’am.’
I hand it over.
He looks at me, taking in my features, my unwashed brown hair and my narrow face and my green eyes. ‘Business or pleasure?’
My twin is dead. No one seems to know what happened to her.
‘Pleasure.’
Far from pleasure. The furthest thing from it.
‘Place your thumb here.’
I do as he says.
‘Stick it in further, follow the diagram.’
I do it.
‘Fingers.’
I do it.
‘Other thumb.’
I do it.
‘Fingers.’
He looks at me and at my passport one last time then he stamps it and hands it back.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Have a nice day.’
Chapter 4
I run to the restroom and break down. Tears and dry-heaving. Have a nice day. I doubt I’ll ever have another nice day in my lifetime. A kind woman from the next stall asks in a thick Spanish accent if I’m OK. I rub my eyes. Afterwards I douse my hands and arms and face in alcohol sanitiser gel.