Page 65 of Hot to Go

‘It looks warm at least.’ It’s actually Nike and vintage-looking so she does look quite cool. Well, to my twentysomething eyes at least. She continues down the aisle in her UGGs, socks and polka dot trolley bag. The mention of Mr Shaw’s name makes me peer around from my aisle seat looking for him. Why am I here? Why? I had a whole season ofReachercued up for half term and had planned how many episodes I was goingto watch per day. I was going to laminate more things for my classroom, see my cousins. I guess I’ll still have time for that, but school trips are always draining, eventful, not the reprieve from school life I need. I tell myself I’m here because of my bleeding heart; I didn’t want the kids to miss out and a whole trip to be cancelled. But then there could be another reason why I’m here. Him.

‘Ladies and gents, please keep to the seats you’ve been allocated. No swapping. This really is for your own safety,’ Lee shouts. A couple caught in the melee look at him. ‘Obviously not you, madam, I meant the teens. Ah, Señor Shaw! You will be sitting here with Señorita Callaghan…’ Señor Shaw. That would be him and that señorita would be me. We both look at each other. It’s the most I’ve looked at Charlie all day. We’ve managed not to converse much so far. We sat on different parts of the coach to the airport, we were allocated our own kids to herd and check in, we were even ushered into different security queues. Maybe this doesn’t have to be a trip where we are anything more than colleagues. However, this? This is a possible problem.

Charlie freezes in the aisle, hovering over the seat.

‘You…There are people behind you…’ I tell him, as a queue starts to form, blocking the way. He hesitates then puts his bag in an overhead compartment and I stand to let him squeeze past me to his seat. There’s no easy way to do that with the people waiting. I don’t really want to put my back to him so he’ll brush against my arse, so I let him face me, hands in the air, and he slides himself past me, his face just inches away from me. This is not ideal. I just smile so the kids don’t think it’s weird. Breathe, Suzie.

‘I can swap with Mark, if it’s easier?’ he asks me, still hovering around his middle seat.

‘I don’t think we’re allowed. It’s a safety thing and if the kids see us swap then they’ll want to swap and then…’

‘Bedlam,’ he says.

You can do this, Suzie. We are adults. We have been super professional in how we’ve herded the children this far. It’s a three-hour flight, we can literally just nap, plug in a podcast, read. It could be easy to just ignore each other again for this short time, and then throw ourselves into showing these kids around Seville, helping to improve their conversational Spanish and broaden their cultural horizons.

‘So, kids…I don’t want to have to remind you that there are expectations on this plane. Any disruptive behaviour and we will…’

‘Sell you to the Spanish,’ Mark shouts. Some of the other passengers look at each other, worriedly.

‘Well, we won’t, Mark, but there will be severe consequences,’ Lee continues. That sounds worse. The plane starts to quieten down, air hostesses walking up and down the aisles closing overhead compartments and checking seat belts before the plane starts taxiing away from the terminal. A few of the children cheer. I try to focus on them so I won’t notice Charlie next to me. Across the aisle is some fifteen-year-old I’ve never met before in a full Nike tracksuit and some pretty swish Air Force Ones. Well, we’re now going to be best mates for the next few hours.

‘Do you have one of those emergency card things?’ Charlie asks me.

I turn to face him. I reach around in the pocket in front of me, pulling one out as I see him scanning it and looking at the flight attendant teaching us all how to put a lifejacket on. I like how he’s paying such close attention. ‘You good?’

He nods. ‘I just…every plane is different. It’s good to know things.’

‘Things?’

‘Emergency exits. Like, those lifejackets have whistles. That’s useful.’

I bite my lip. ‘How many times did you have to do the fire safety course at school when you started?’ I ask him.

‘Passed first time, I took notes,’ he tells me.

‘Nerd,’ I say, surprisingly casually.

‘You?’

‘Twice,’ I say, I lie, it was four. I clicked through and didn’t anticipate the surprise questions at the end. ‘I was morally opposed to some of the questions though. That one that asks you to leave children in a burning building if they refuse to come with you? I didn’t like that one.’

‘So what would you do?’ he asks, curiously. ‘You’d put your life in danger?’

‘I’d carry them all out on my back. Emerge a hero, of course,’ I tell him.

He laughs, opening a bag of Maltesers and offering them in my direction. The idea was not to engage with him as much, don’t talk. Don’t look at him, even. However, Maltesers are my kryptonite. Maybe just a couple so I don’t appear rude and maintain some civility between us. I can do this. Just ask very general questions, don’t go down that dangerous Mallorcan road again. I take a deep breath as the plane stutters towards the runway. ‘You managed to get everything packed and sorted in time then?’ he says, keeping the Maltesers packet there in case I’d like more.

‘It was a bit rushed. I probably haven’t packed enough pants but I’ll survive.’ Why am I talking to him about my pants? It’s the quickest I’ve ever packed, going to the back of my drawers to find my summer clothes and then realising I had to self-wax and shave and get my body summer ready in one night. ‘It’s actually quite exciting.’

‘Exciting?’ he says. I side-eye him. We don’t go there anymore. He and I.

‘The last-minute nature of it,’ I explain. ‘I’ve never been to Seville.’ I look down at the sinews of his forearms. I shouldn’treally be looking at those. He reaches down to his bag stowed under the seat in front and pulls out his phone and a notebook. It looks old, weathered but covered in stamps and stickers.

‘You…journal?’ I ask him, admiring all the pretty adornments.

‘Nah, it’s…I spent my year out in Sevilla. This was my diary that I wrote during my time there, all the little notes I made about the language. I used to eat oranges, peel the labels off and stick them on here. Everything from observations to addresses, telephone numbers…’

‘…Of all the señoritas you bedded?’ That was maybe not the right thing to ask.

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