Birthday Bride. Jessica Hart

don’t think he’ll sack me before the meetings, do you?’

      There was a look in David’s eye that Claudia didn’t quite like, and she tossed her head. ‘I would have thought that depended on you,’ she said tartly.

      ‘So if I’m nice to you for the rest of the journey he might let me stay?’

      ‘I wouldn’t want to put you to so much effort,’ she snapped. ‘Being nice obviously doesn’t come naturally!’

      ‘That rather depends on who I have to be nice to,’ said David, but before Claudia could frame a suitably crushing retort her attention was caught by a spluttering noise from the silver wing stretching out from below the window.

      ‘You know, I’m sure there’s something wrong with that engine,’ she said worriedly. ‘It keeps making funny noises.’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said David. ‘What could possibly be wrong with it?’

      ‘I don’t know!’ she snapped. ‘I don’t know anything about engines.’

      ‘Then what makes you think you know whether it’s making a funny noise or not?’ He made a great show of leaning forward and cupping a hand to his ear. ‘It sounds fine to me.’

      ‘That’s what they always say,’ said Claudia darkly. ‘It’s just like a disaster film. They always start off showing people doing ordinary things, just like us.’

      ‘There’s nothing ordinary about the way you’ve been behaving since you got on the plane,’ David put in, but she ignored him.

      ‘They’re all having cups of coffee and chatting, and none of them realise that something terrible is about to happen—but they’re all right because they’ve got Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise or some other hunk to spring into action and save them, and all I’ve got is a paper-pushing engineer whose only advice is to sit still and keep quiet!’

      David had been listening to her with mounting exasperation. ‘I have never met anybody who could whip themselves up into a frenzy about absolutely nothing before!’

      ‘It’s not nothing! I’m telling you, there’s something wrong, I can feel it!’

      ‘For the last time,’ said David between his teeth, ‘there is nothing the matter with the engine!’

      With that the engine spluttered and cut out, and the plane veered sharply to one side. Immediately there was a babble of panic-stricken voices in Arabic as the other passengers were caught unawares by the sudden deceleration.

      Instinctively, Claudia clutched at David’s hand. He winced as her fingers dug into his flesh, her eyes wide and dark with terror as he enfolded her hand in a warm, strong clasp to forestall any hysterics. ‘There’s no need to panic,’ he said firmly. ‘The pilot’s bringing the plane round now. Everything’s under control.’

      The plane had straightened, and the pilot opened the throttle to increase the power to the remaining engine so that it picked up speed once more. There was a burst of Arabic over the intercom and to Claudia, not understanding a word, it sounded terrifying. David was listening closely, and she noted with detached surprise that he spoke Arabic.

      ‘What’s he saying?’ she whispered.

      ‘He says there’s nothing to worry about. We’ve lost an engine, but there’s no problem about flying with one engine, so he’s going to head for the nearest airstrip as a precaution and try and sort out the problem there.’ David’s voice was calm, infinitely reassuring. ‘Now you can relax and say “I told you so”.’

      Claudia moistened her lips. ‘I don’t think I’ll relax until I’ve got two feet firmly on the ground,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I’ll say it then.’

      Afterwards David told her that it had only taken twenty minutes for the pilot to make a long, straight approach and land at a dusty airstrip in the middle of the desert, but for Claudia it seemed that they sat there for an eternity. David kept talking in the same quiet, steady voice, and she clutched at the immeasurable reassurance of his cool presence without hearing a word that he was saying. All she could think about was how much time she had wasted agonising about turning thirty when she might never make it after all.

      When the undercarriage went down with a clunk, she jerked and braced herself for an emergency landing, but in the end the plane touched down so lightly that it was only when the screaming engines quieted and they turned to taxi slowly back down the runway that Claudia let herself believe that they had landed safely. Closing her eyes and letting out a long breath, she slumped back in her seat.

      When she opened them again, the plane had stopped. Outside, the heat wavered over the tarmac and bounced off the silver wings. There were a couple of prefabricated buildings, a ramshackle control tower and a few dusty buildings straggling along the road that led off into the heat haze.

      Claudia licked her lips and tried her voice very cautiously. ‘Where are we?’

      ‘A place called Al Mishrah,’ said David, looking out of the window with a jaundiced eye. ‘There used to be a big gas terminal here, hence the airport, but it’s disused now and they only get the occasional flight serving what’s left of the town.’

      ‘Not your ideal stopover, then,’ said Claudia with an effort.

      The corner of David’s mouth lifted as if in acknowledgement of her feeble attempt at a joke. ‘You could say that.’

      ‘Wh-what happens now?’

      He sighed. ‘On past experience of Shofrar, I’d say nothing much.’

      He was right. Some of the other passengers were standing up, shouting and gesticulating, but it was several minutes before a set of steps were produced and wheeled across the tarmac towards the waiting plane. It was suffocatingly hot, and Claudia longed for some fresh air, but as soon as the door swung open the smell of fuel rolled on a wave of heat through the cabin, and she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

      Immediately there was a scrum of passengers pushing to get out, but there seemed little point in hurrying, and it was not until the first crush had subsided that David turned to Claudia. ‘Do you feel OK now?’

      ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

      ‘In that case, do you think I could have my hand back?’

      ‘Oh!’ Claudia dropped his hand as if it had stung her and her cheeks flamed with mortification. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered, flustered. ‘I didn’t realise; that is...I forgot...’

      ‘It’s all right.’ David’s cool voice broke across her embarrassed stutterings as he tucked his report back into his briefcase and stood up.

      Claudia hesitated, cringing at the thought that she had sat for so long clinging to his hand like a little girl. He must think she was absolutely pathetic, but she could hardly ignore his patience. ‘You’ve been very kind,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘Thank you.’

      David was conscious of a feeling of surprise as he followed her down the aisle. He had expected her to take any attention as her due and he was disconcerted to find how pleased he was that he had misjudged her.

      Inside the prefabricated hut that obviously served as a terminal it was hardly much cooler than outside. A single ceiling fan slapped at the air without enthusiasm and the room resonated with the aggrieved clamour of angry passengers. David and Claudia sat on orange plastic chairs that were cracked and dusty with neglect and waited.

      At first Claudia was too relieved to find herself alive and back on solid ground again to fret much at the lack of action and she was content just to sit next to David, intimidated more than she wanted to admit by the heat and the glare and this dingy building where nothing seemed to work and she had no idea what was going on.

      Claudia didn’t like feeling out of control, and she was uncomfortably aware that, arrogant and unpleasant as David might be, his cool, contained presence was immeasurably reassuring.