"Will you just stop faffing and hurry up.  Please!"

"All right, all right, I'm coming.  Just give me some more time."

Howard sighed and looked nervously at his watch again.  If they didn't hurry up they might miss the flight.

"Come on Alma, get a move on!"

Alma finally appeared, chewing her lip and looking worried.  "Howard, I just checked the flight number and it's 1556", she said with a gulp.

"Oh, God", thought Howard.  "This is all my fault."

Today was meant to be the first day of their dream holiday, a trip of a lifetime and he might have spoiled everything for the sake of a practical joke.

"Alma, please, we have to go now."

Alma stomped off out of the room, but at least she was heading in the general direction of the hall, which was a good sign.  Howard followed after her to make sure she was actually putting on her jacket and collecting her bag.

She still looked agitated and worried when he caught her up.

"I don't think I want to go on this holiday now", she said almost in tears.  "We might never come home again."

Howard grunted and put on his jacket.  Hope this isn't the tone for the whole two weeks, he thought as he buttoned up his tweed coat.

Just then the doorbell rang signalling the arrival of their taxi and a temporary respite to arguing.  Howard answered the door to the driver and, after having stowed their luggage away safely in the car, Howard and Alma made themselves comfortable on the back seat of the black minicab and set off for the airport.

As the car sped along the motorway towards the airport the couple sat in silence and looked out of the window.  Howard couldn't believe his bad luck.  He hadn't meant to completely scare Alma out of her wits, just wind her up a bit, the way she wound him up about his fear of escalators.  At least he had a reason.  When he was eight his mum had taken him on one of these god-forsaken moving stairways in Marks and Spencer.  Too lazy to take the stairs she was then.  Howard, being so young at the time had thought that it would be fun to try to run back down the up escalator to see if he could beat it and run faster than the machinery.  Suffice to say he couldn't and when he arrived at the top, first floor, ladies clothes he was flung backward across the shop and landed squarely among the rails of summer fashion skirts.  "That's hardly a trauma", Alma would say to him.  "You weren't even hurt."  Yes, thought Howard, but I was eight at the time and at least I have an excuse.

Alma was still looking close to tears when he glanced across at her.

"Nearly there now", said the taxi driver breezily.  "Off to somewhere nice?" 

"The States", they both replied in unison although with differing enthusiasm. 

The cab pulled up outside terminal one and they paid the driver and got out of the car.  As the car sped off round the terminal, Howard had to virtually drag Alma and her bags through the door of the airport and over to the check-in desk.

The clerk smiled gaily at them as they stopped before her and Howard slid their tickets across the check-in desk.

As the clerk tapped their details into her computer, Howard decided to put Alma's mind at rest by enquiring as to the safety of the flight and the aircraft in which they would be travelling.

"Oh, it's quite, quite safe I can assure you madam", the clerk chirped without even looking up.  "I flew back from a lovely week in New York in the self same plane only last week, and here I am today."  She looked up then and beamed radiantly.

"See", said Howard.  "Nothing to be afraid of, is there?"

"No dear, I guess not", replied Alma, forcing a sort of smiley grimace back out at the clerk who was now tagging their luggage.

Her fear of flying was indeed irrational but it's not like it was something uncommon, not like Howard's bloody fear of escalators.  She had only flown a couple of times before and hated every minute of it.  The last time she flew long-haul she had to take pills to calm her down and they had gone and shown some disaster film about a submarine where the sailors are trapped on board with a leaking nuclear reactor and they have to try and save themselves.  At the time she could have become almost hysterical; imagine showing a film about thirty men trapped in a tin can two hundred metres below the sea to two hundred and fifty people trapped in a tin can 30, 000 feet above the earth.  Genius.  Not.

Tickets checked, bags tagged and boarding passes allocated, Howard slipped his hand into Alma's and took her to the airport bar for some light nerve-calming, pre-flight refreshment.  She had insisted on having her medication with a brandy this time as it might make the effect more lasting and Howard felt inclined to agree.  He could do with some sedation himself at this rate.

Standing at the bar waiting for the brandies, Howard was mentally kicking himself for taking things too far this time.  He knew fine that Alma was scared witless of flying already, so why had he paid that fortune teller to tell her that something dreadful was going to come Alma's way next time she flew?  He had originally asked her to say something about "impending flights" and "something to fear" but instead, according to Alma, the bloody woman had told her that there would be a death and that 1556 was of great significance.  Just what I need, thought Howard at the time, she's worked out the flight number and added some real spice to the prediction.  Still, he handed over his money and picked up the brandies, it does serve her right for laughing at his phobia for all these years.

By now Alma was looking a teetering wreck.  This was supposed to be their tenth wedding anniversary treat and it was turning into Alma's pre-funeral wake.  She gulped down her brandy with two ‘No Fear' tablets.

By the time the flight had boarded and they had settled into their seats waiting for the safety brief, Alma had swallowed at least three flights' worth of ‘No Fear'.  Howard had joked that this was enough to calm the entire membership of the Nervous Flyers UK Branch and sure enough, Alma was drifting into a deep slumber.  Bliss.  As the flight took off, Alma was indeed fast asleep and Howard settled himself into a seven-hour flight of movies and snacking.

About three hours and most of The Fellowship of the Ring into the flight, even Howard began to feel uneasy.  The lunch of the journey had been cleared very quickly, too quickly for his liking and the ping pong had sounded for everyone to return to their seats and buckle up.  Turbulence, he had smiled as he folded the tray in front of him onto the seat in front and clasped his seatbelt.  Now he was less smug as thirty minutes later the plane felt like it was being picked up by the hand of God himself and shaken like a glass snowstorm.  He gulped and looked over at Alma, curled up with a contented, blissfully unawares smile on her face.  Thankfully she was still asleep or else she would have been screaming the place down by now.  He really didn't want to wake her but he so wanted to tell her that he loved her.  Just in case by some cruel twist of fate this really was the end.  For both of them.

No.  He was being silly.  Alma was the one who was into astrology and fortune telling and all that business.  She was always reading him out his horoscope from the newspaper each morning and it had been a special birthday treat for her to visit Madame Rosy Polyanthus.  What an awful name.  He couldn't believe she actually wanted to hear what this woman had to say, and pay for it.  As a birthday present.  Howard knew paying off R Polyanthus was a tad cruel (although he wasn't at all surprised that the old fraud was up for it) but at least this would give her something to say he had figured at the time.  The old dear probably said the same thing to all her punters.  

Now, with the plane pitching and rolling and being tossed about like a penny in a spin cycle he was nearly turning into a believer.  He tried to calm his breathing and waited.  And waited.  And shut his eyes and waited some more.  He held onto the thought that this was the end for them all for another agonising thirty minutes before the turbulence ended and order was once more restored to the aircraft.  After such prolonged and severe turbulence the inside of the aircraft was a mess of dishevelled, almost war torn passengers getting up to wobble off to the toilet and walking around like the walking wounded.  Full sick bags were being collected on a trolley with a squeaky back wheel driven by a trolley dolly with a perma-tan and painted on smile.  The back of her hair stuck out at a funny angle where it must have become dishevelled in the chaos.  Alma gave a grunt and a sigh and turned over, apparently oblivious to the panic that had taken place around her.  How bloody ironic, thought Howard, feeling green but happy to be alive.

Three hours later the Boeing touched down in New York and taxied to the terminal building.  Howard woke Alma, who jumped in her seat and was almost surprised to find herself still in the god-forsaken aircraft.  She had dreamt she was in their plush hotel already.  Still, at least they were now on terra firma.

Safely on the ground now, Alma broke into a wide smile and beamed at Howard.  They had crossed the Atlantic on flight 1556 and nothing, absolutely nothing had happened.  She kissed Howard on the cheek.

"That fortune teller", she said ruefully.  "And to think I actually believed her!"

Howard feigned a smile back. Should he confess to the fear he had felt during the turbulence?  Should he confess to bribing Madame Polyester or whatever her name was?  No way.  Then Alma would probably kill him!

Inside the terminal Alma was made up as they collected their luggage.  When Howard recounted the tale of the turbulence she thanked her lucky stars that she had slept like a baby throughout the entire ordeal. 

"So tell me again about how you helped to calm down the passengers?" she asked Howard as they made their way towards the stairs to the exit.

Howard beamed.  She actually believed he had been a hero.  He was loving this.  He had got his own back on her for laughing at the escalator phobia and she thought he was superman into the bargain.  Boy did he feel good.  As the couple walked down the stairs, their suitcases thud thudding behind them, Howard so was pleased with himself that he didn't notice little Lucas Barshaw in front of him.  Didn't notice the boy drop some of his gobstoppers by accident and his father pull him away from the now dirty sweets.  As Howard went flying up, up into the air and down the stair, Alma gave a shriek of fear.  And the last thing Howard saw on his way to his dramatic exit was the clock on the terminal wall.  It was 15.56.

Copyright Eliza Drummond 2005