Somewhere over the water I actually practised saying if you’re not using the space, what’s the problem in his voice.
And eighteen inches and four rows behind me, a woman of twenty-six was sitting next to that man with her arm pulled in, and I did not think about her once between take-off of that gin and the seat belt sign.
Not once in four and a half hours.
And the four hours before any of it, which is where I would actually like to go back to.
He started before we left the stand. Not two hours in — the stand.
And I asked him twice. At about the forty-minute mark and at about two hours.
Twice in four hours.
And in between those two there were about nine occasions when I could have pressed the call bell above my own head, which is eleven inches from my hand and which I have pressed on aeroplanes before for a blanket.
