have come from either side of the aisle. Thandi paused, staring at Brenda’s irritable face framed by the pleated curtains. Thandi kept walking. She was used to this sort of incidental touch, the brushes she chose to brush off. She was nineteen years old but she had looked like this from the age of thirteen. She was well trained by now to unsee any look, unfeel any touch if it meant keeping her job.
Thandi had dreamt of becoming a Zambia Airways stewardess ever since she first saw that Flying Chair ad on TV as a girl: the orange Z in the logo that reclined into an airline seat that zipped a contented white man around the world, while a graceful black woman materialised like an apparition and served him a glass of whisky and a plate of fine cuisine. An infectious, optimistic jingle played at the end: Zambia Airways…We’re getting better in every way…We’re getting better every day. What elegance, young Thandi had thought, what adventure!
As soon as she reached the kitchenette, Brenda started whisper-shouting, accusing her of flirting. Thandi estimated that this was two parts jealousy to one part genuine irritation.
‘Okay,’ she cut Brenda off. ‘Can we clear, please?’
Thandi shoved her empty cart towards the aisle, but it stuck on something. Brenda clucked and squatted, grimacing as she reached her manicured nails under the wheel and pulled a thin white thing off the textured floor with an unsticking sound and held it up to the light. It was brownish in places and twisted, like a dead frangipani petal.
‘It is…it is your pantyliner,’ Brenda said with horror.
It was not Thandi’s pantyliner. She could still feel the much thicker sanitary pad between her legs, already sodden with blood from the last half hour – Thandi’s MP was way too heavy for a mere pantyliner. But if it wasn’t hers, then it was Brenda’s and the older woman clearly felt so humiliated that it had slipped and fallen from under her skirt that she was trying to fob it off.
‘That’s not mine,’ Thandi said quietly. ‘It must be a passenger’s.’
‘Oh please,’ Brenda said, her lip curling. ‘Sies, Thandi. There hasn’t even been passengers back here. Why are you denying? You know this thing came from your brookies.’
‘Are you serious?’ Thandi tilted her head.
Ding. A soft one. They glared at each other. Ding. Thandi parted the curtain and together they looked down the aisle. Another ding, and another, a commotion – passengers murmuring, trays clack-eting. Thandi’s heart rose up and beat in her throat: was the plane about to crash? A woman around row 20 stood and turned to them, gesticulating.
‘Doctor!’ she shouted. ‘We need a doctor!’
Time split. Later, Thandi would think of it as a series of stills, like the paintings depicting the Stations of the Cross that she had once seen at the British Museum during a stopover in London. Here were legions of eyes watching her race down the aisle. Here was Dr Phiri – apparently not a medical doctor – hands up as if under arrest. Here was a woman stretched out in the aisle, bucking wildly, skirt hitched, petticoat plastered to her thighs, eyes closed, spittle in a lacy pile on her chin. Here was Brenda, mouth wide, lipstick cracking, dogteeth glinting, shouting for everyone to calm down. Here were Thandi’s hands shackled around the woman’s ankles, trying to hold her still.
And there – Thandi looked up – there was the young man from 23C, crouched with his hands cupping the woman’s skull, the crotch of his baggy jeans spread like a skirt, his fancy tackies on either side of her head.
‘She’s having a seizure,’ he said matter-of-factly and time moved smoothly again. The woman jerked and frothed. The young man gently rotated her skull to one side, took his wallet from his pocket and wedged it between her teeth. Thandi made a sound of protest.
‘Trust me,’ he winked (winked!). ‘I’m a doctor.’
As the other passengers crowded around Brenda, a natural mother hen in the storm, Thandi kept her hands on the woman’s ankles.
‘You’re good at this,’ he smiled at her. ‘Steady. What’s your name?’ He reached his hand over the woman’s flailing body, like it was a plate of sadza or a cup of tea. Thandi looked at his hand and giggled, then stopped, shocked at herself. He nodded reassuringly.
‘Thandiwe,’ she said and let go of one of the woman’s ankles to shake his hand.
‘Nice to meet you, Thandiwe,’ he said. ‘I’m Lionel.’
‘Lionel? Like Richie?’
‘Ya,’ he winced,