Marina refused to say what kind of knickers she’d packed, even to Tiff, but she had popped into the M&S at Hayle the day before their trip. Before she knew it, it was time to go. Marina could sense that Lachlan was on edge but wasn’t sure if she should ask him if he was OK or try to distract him. So, it was with a mixture of excitement and slight apprehension that she waited with him in the departure lounge at Land’s End airport on a scorching July Friday morning.
She enjoyed flying, although she’d only done it a few times, on the occasional holiday abroad with her parents and on a backpacking adventure to the Far East with student friends immediately after her degree. She and Nate hadn’t flown anywhere at all.
She assumed Lachlan was a veteran of many types of aircraft, but this morning, you’d think he was the most nervous of first-timers. It was totally understandable and there was really nothing she could do about it.
Perhaps, she thought, when she saw the six-seater prop plane parked right outside the departure lounge, it might have been better to have chosen a bigger aircraft for Lachlan’s first time back in the air. This one had to be ‘trimmed’ or balanced, and that meant all the passengers and their luggage had to be weighed on a baggage scale when they checked in. Although Marina was fascinated by watching the planes taking off and landing so close to the windows, she was worried about Lachlan.
There was also a helicopter service to and from the isles and at one point one of the helicopters owned by Trinity House, the organisation that looked after the lighthouses around the coast, took off from right outside the lounge windows.
‘OK?’ she asked, squeezing his hand. ‘I’m here for you.’
He took a breath. ‘Is it too early for a wee dram?’
She smiled. ‘I don’t think they’ve opened the bar yet. Should have brought a hip flask,’ she added.
‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
He settled for a herbal tea and the passengers for their flight were summoned to a safety briefing in the terminal, because there was no room for a demonstration in the plane itself.
He sat ramrod straight throughout, and, in his defence, Marina had to admit even she was a little freaked out by the talk of ditching in the sea and how to remove the aircraft windows. The moment it was over, Lachlan sprang up from his seat, looking white.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, and strode off towards the gents.
The airport staff called for the passengers to assemble by the door to the runway, but there was still no sign of Lachlan. Marina hurried over to the loo, pacing up and down, half-fearing a call from the car park to say he couldn’t go through with the flight after all.
She let out an inner sigh of relief when he emerged from the gents. His face was pale and his hair damp as if he’d had to splash his face with water. She suspected he might even have thrown up.
‘How are you doing?’ she murmured when he joined her.
‘Not great,’ he said. ‘But I’m going through with this no matter what.’ He grasped her hand tightly. ‘I don’t think I’d even have made it this far without you.’
There was another call for passengers. ‘It’s now or never,’ she said, with her other hand on his arm.
His expression was that of a man being led to the scaffold. Marina was proud of him for trying to overcome his fears but wondered if they’d actually make it onto the aircraft.
Calling passengers McKinnon and Hudson. Please go to the gate now.
Tiny beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead.
‘Then it has to be now,’ he said.
They walked hand in hand out onto the breezy airfield. Up close the plane was even tinier than she’d dreamed and they had to duck under its wings to climb up the steps.
It was cosy inside the cabin, and that was putting it mildly. Lachlan followed her in and had to bend low to reach his seat. Marina tried not to think that this scrap of metal and the pilot, whom she recognised as a graduate of her college, was all that was keeping her from the same fate as Nate. She only hoped that the pilot had calmed down since the days he’d almost been thrown off his degree course for riding a shopping trolley through the campus and crashing into the principal’s Lexus.
‘Oh hello, Mrs Hudson. Lovely to see you again,’ he said cheerfully, greeting each passenger as they squeezed into their seats.
‘You know the pilot?’ Lachlan asked, looking greener than ever. ‘He looks about twelve.’
‘He was a very responsible student,’ she lied. ‘And much older than he looks.’
She decided not to share her real knowledge with Lachlan, especially when the first officer reiterated how to remove the windows in the event of an emergency before ‘Captain Stokes’ wished them a pleasant flight and took control of their lives.
When Lachlan pulled out a pair of dark sunglasses and put them on, Marina guessed he was trying to blot out his surroundings. His shoulders were rigid, his palms flat on his knees when the ground crew waved the plane onto the airstrip. She took his hand while the plane taxied along, its engines a dull rumble before they roared into full life. His grip on her fingers tightened as the plane hurtled down the runway. She saw his lips move, whether in a prayer or a curse, she didn’t know and, in a few seconds, the ground fell away.
Cornwall was a patchwork of green fields and brown moorland and a minute later, they were climbing steeply out over the sea towards the Longships lighthouse. Lachlan stayed upright, staring straight ahead behind the safety of his shades. She could only imagine the fear in his eyes but his face was almost as white as the foam on the sea, hundreds of feet below.
She had to gently release his grip to avoid having her fingers crushed.
‘Jesus. I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s fine …’ She placed her hand over his. ‘And you did it. OK?’ she said, close to his ear.
He nodded, lifting his aviators a fraction to show her that his eyes were tightly shut. At least he had a sense of humour, even when he was clearly terrified. Holding his hand, she wondered if he’d see anything of their flight as the plane left Cornwall behind. Within a few minutes, scores of tiny islands set around a turquoise lagoon came into view.
She was proud that he’d even made it there as they came in to land, and he let out an audible gasp when the plane flew low over the cliff and onto the runway at St Mary’s.
The fact that he’d been willing to face his fears to make this trip, for her, caused her heart to soar. Whether they made it home again was another matter, but at least for the next few days they could forget the past and focus on getting to know each other a whole lot better.