Scare Me To Death

His eyes were the same colour as his sister’s and just as arresting.
‘I have raced, yes.’ I didn’t think it wise to tell him that my last race had been in London’s rush hour, chasing a terrorist suspect who’d been hell-bent on attacking the Underground with ricin poison.
The boy turned the Nissan over and looked at its underside. ‘You’d have this one? Seriously?’
‘It may not look as sporty, but the performance is actually pretty good.’ I held out my hand. The boy put the Nissan in my palm. I don’t know what it was, whether it was his solemn expression, reminding me of my own boyhood and my passion for cars, or if it was simply because I was exhausted after the past few days and needed a mental break, but I moved to take the empty seat next to him, raising my eyebrows at the girl to ask if that would be okay.
The girl looked astonished, then delighted. ‘Be my guest.’ She dropped into my seat fast, burying herself back in her book in case I might change my mind.
As I made to settle next to the boy, the woman on his right, sitting next to the window, sprang up. ‘Bub, get back into your own seat right now.’
‘But, Mum…’
‘This gentleman shouldn’t be hassled into doing what you guys want.’
‘He offered!’ the girl protested at the same time as the boy wailed, ‘Mummy, but he wants to play! He’s a racing driver!’
‘Okay, Josh, Bubbles, just cool it. Both of you.’
Both kids fell silent. I turned to see the man I took to be their father studying me. Sandy hair, freckles and laughter lines edged a pair of eyes the same colour as his kids’. He had the seat across the aisle, which meant the family would have been in the same row if the daughter hadn’t debunked.
‘I don’t mind,’ I told him. ‘Honestly.’
He stared a second longer before giving a shrug. ‘Your funeral.’
‘Yesss!’ Josh punched the air as I sank next to him and gave him his first lesson in the technique of motor racing.
‘What’s the most important quality the would-be driver should have?’ I asked.
‘To drive really fast.’
I looked into his shining face. ‘Absolutely. But it’s more than that. And it’s a quality you already have, which is great enthusiasm. Next, you need courage. And mastery over your nerves…’
As flight attendants began closing overhead lockers and preparing for pushback, we played with our cars, the boy asking me questions while I did my best to answer them, and after a few minutes I noticed the girl had risen and was watching us over the headrest. ‘Are there any female racing drivers?’
‘Some of the best drivers are women.’
‘Ha!’ The father snorted.
I ignored him. ‘Check out Sabine Schmitz. She won twenty-four hours of Nürburgring. Twice. And what about Danica Patrick? She’s one of the best NASCAR drivers around and the only woman to win an IndyCar Series race.’
‘Girl power.’ Bubbles grinned at me, raising a hand for a high-five. We clapped palms. Everyone smiled. Inside my chest, I felt muscles beginning to relax. This was just what I needed. To be part of a normal, happy world, with normal, happy people.
Usually I keep myself to myself. I blend in and make sure I don’t do anything that anyone might remember. But I’d just finished an intense week and not having to think about it felt as good as a holiday on a tropical island. Eight bombers had bombed five places in Marrakech last week and I’d been brought in because one of those bombers had been British. The Moroccans hadn’t taken my appearance kindly and although to my face they’d been perfectly polite, they’d been purposely unhelpful. Even though I’m known for being excessively even-tempered, by the end of the week I was anything but. I could have happily strangled the lot of them.
With a final check from the flight attendants making sure we were buckled up, our tables stowed away, we began rolling down the runway and lifting into the sky.
Minutes later – we were climbing through three thousand feet or so – the plane fell suddenly straight down and gave a shudder.
Someone let out a small scream.
For a moment, I thought we might have suffered a bird strike but then the oxygen masks dropped and at the same time, I smelled smoke.
Quickly I snapped my mask into place. Checked that Josh and his parents had also put theirs on. I couldn’t check on their daughter, Bubs, but since it appeared she’d pulled down her mask, I had to assume she was okay too. Josh looked at me, pale-faced and frightened. I winked.
Smoke began to fill the cabin. Acrid, filled with chemicals, it swept from the front like a black tidal wave. Somewhere, wires were melting. A fire was taking hold.
My pulse increased. This didn’t look good. I forced myself to concentrate on my breathing. In. Pause. Out.
The intercom came on. A female voice told everyone to keep calm, assuring us that we were returning to the airport, that we would be landing safely and that the fire emergency services were already standing by. She sounded breezy and confident and I promised myself that if we came through this okay, I’d shake her hand because there was no way she’d know any of that. There’d been no time. She was improvising. Doing her job.
The smoke thickened until I could no longer see Josh’s mum or dad, Josh or my feet. If the fire had started in the avionics bay, which I suspected, then the pilots would be in an even worse situation. They would have donned their full-face masks straight away, but if they couldn’t see their instruments…
I willed myself to keep calm but my heart was hammering, sweat springing over my body.
I thought of my parents. Pictured us on the skiff sailing across Plymouth harbour, Mum’s hair flying, Dad’s eyes alight. I didn’t want them to hear I’d died. I didn’t want to die either. I was only