Страница 6

'He's wonderful. Co

me how great he is. He's sweet, and he's good, and he's successful and everyone calls us the

perfect couple…'

'… I'd never tell anyone this in a million years. But sometimes I think he's almost too goodlooking.

A bit like one of those dolls? Like Ken. Like a blond Ken.'

And now I'm on the subject of Co

never even realized were in my head.

'… gave him this lovely leather watch for Christmas, but he wears this orange digital thing

because it can tell him the temperature in Poland or something stupid…'

'… took me to all these jazz concerts and I pretended to enjoy them to be polite, so now he

thinks I love jazz…'

'… every single Woody Allen film off by heart and says each line before it comes and it

drives me crackers…'

'… just looks at me as though I'm speaking some foreign language…'

'… determined to find my G spot, so we spent the whole weekend doing it in different

positions, and by the end I was just knackered, all I wanted was a pizza and Friends …'

'… he kept saying, what was it like, what was it like? So in the end I just made some stuff up,

I said it was absolutely amazing, and it felt as though my whole body was opening up like a

flower, and he said, what sort of flower, so I said a begonia…'

'… can't expect the initial passion to last. But how do you tell if the passion's faded in a good,

long-term-commitment way or in a crap, we-don't-fancy-each-other-any-more way…'

'… knight in shining armour is not a realistic option. But there's a part of me that wants a huge,

amazing romance. I want passion. I want to be swept off my feet. I want an earthquake, or a

… I don't know, a huge whirlwind… something exciting. Sometimes I feel as if there's this

whole new, thrilling life waiting for me out there, and if I can just-'

'Excuse me, miss?'

'What?' I look up dazedly. 'What is it?' The air hostess with the French plait is smiling down at

me.

'We've landed.' I stare at her.

'We've landed?'

This doesn't make sense. How can we have landed? I look around — and sure enough, the

plane's still. We're on the ground.

I feel like Dorothy. A second ago I was swirling around in Oz, clicking my heels together, and

now I've woken up all flat and quiet and normal again.

'We aren't bumping any more,' I say stupidly.

'We stopped bumping quite a while ago,' says the American man.

'We're… we're not going to die.'

'We're not going to die,' he agrees.

I look at him as though for the first time — and it hits me. I've been blabbering non-stop for an

hour to this complete stranger. God alone knows what I've been saying.

I think I want to get off this plane right now.

'I'm sorry,' I say awkwardly. 'You should have stopped me.'

'That would have been a little difficult.' There's a tiny smile at his lips. 'You were on a bit of a

roll.'

'I'm so embarrassed!' I try to smile, but I can't even look this guy in the eye. I mean, I told him

about my knickers. I told him about my G spot.

'Don't worry about it. We were all stressed out. That was some flight.' He picks up his

knapsack and gets up from his seat — then looks back at me. 'Will you be OK getting back

home?'

'Yes. I'll be fine. Thanks. Enjoy your visit!' I call after him, but I don't think he hears.

Slowly I gather my things together and make my way off the plane. I feel sweaty, my hair's all

over the place, and my head is starting to throb.