A Crossword in Pen, or Doing Things Scared
For twenty years I didn't fly. I drove nine hours to things instead, or took a ferry and two trains, and what I couldn't get to I saw in photos afterwards. That's how I saw a christening and two big birthdays. And every plane that went over the house, I watched until it was out of sight, in case it needed me to keep it up.
I said it was the planes. It was more that I couldn't stand being frightened in front of people. So I was frightened at home instead, every time one went over, for twenty years.
This August my cousin got married abroad, three hours away by plane and two days by anything else. I booked the flight in March so I couldn't back out, and spent March to August backing out in my head.
At the airport the check in machine asked me something about seats. I was too nervous to read it, so I pressed the green button. That's how I got 14A, the window. The window is for people who want to see how far down it is.
In 14B there was already a woman of about eighty in a cardigan, with the newspaper folded down to the crossword. She was doing it in pen. I did up my belt, read the safety card twice and counted the rows to the exit. Five. She filled in an answer.
At take off I held both armrests, including the one she was using. She let me.
About ten minutes up we went into cloud and the plane dropped. The lockers rattled, and I made a noise I had never made before, in front of thirty rows of people.
Without looking up, she took my hand with her left and kept writing with her right.
"I've been frightened of everything for eighty years, love," she said. "None of it's had me yet."
Then she did eleven across. And I laughed, out loud, at a height I hadn't asked about.
I told her all of it, the nine hours, the ferry, the christening in photos. She listened the whole way through and filled in three answers. When the trolley came round she put the pen down for her tea. She didn't let go of me. I drank mine left handed, which I'm not.
I'm not cured. A week later I flew home anyway, in an aisle seat, frightened from the gate to the ground, with nobody's hand.
Halfway home I saw what I'd done on the way out. I'd booked it in March so I couldn't back out, and let a stranger hold my hand, and when we dropped I'd made the noise and laughed at it. Scared, the whole way. For twenty years I'd waited for that to stop first. She'd had eighty years of it and never waited once. That's all I know about how to do things when you're scared. I hadn't got rid of it. I'd given it the next seat and gone anyway.
But on the way out, in 14A, she held on until the wheels touched and bumped and stayed down. Then she let go, looked at me for the first time, and turned the paper round.
"Seven down," she said.
I didn't know. I'd been busy keeping the wing up.
