September 1976

by Carolyn Butcher

Is it real love if you were only together for 12 hours but 33 years later the memory is bright and viscerally delicious?

He was from Bahrain, but it was 1976 when being an Arab on an airplane was exotic and fascinating. 

I have heard that back then, when the skies truly were friendly, the airline ground staff would match-make when they made the seat assignments.  Perhaps they did not notice my wedding ring; perhaps they just saw an attractive 25-year-old English woman about to embark on the tedious 10-hour overnight flight from LA to London and thought I would enjoy sleeping in a seat beside the handsome Arab who smelled of Aramis cologne.

Perhaps they DID notice my ring and decided to play the devil.

In those days I was always apprehensive before a flight, but I wasn't scared of crashing.  I was scared I would end up sitting beside a puker who would have his face in a paper bag for the entire night.  I would go into panic-attack mode when my seat-mate reached forward toward the pocket of the seat in front of him, and I would hold my breath as I watched to see whether it was a magazine or a white bag in his hand as he sat back.

The importance of seat-mates on those long transatlantic flights cannot be overstated.  Let's face it, no matter how much you love children you would not choose to sit beside someone traveling with a baby for 10 hours.  I know.  I have been that lone flying mother with small children and I have seen your stink-eyed looks.  I have heard your silent prayers as you stood in the aisle looking for your seat, and checked and double-checked your boarding pass stub hoping against hope that that unoccupied seat beside my 2-year-old was not yours.

But this was long before I was accompanied by babies on my flights home.

There is much in the memory of that night that remains not in reminiscence, but within scars of sensations.  I use the word "scars" advisedly, not to suggest disfigurement, but because they are an enduring record of a significant event.  The scars I have on my body make me unique, and each one is incomplete without its accompanying narrative.  I have one on my right wrist that looks like it might be a knife cut, however, it happened when my dog suddenly took off after a squirrel and the rope of his leash ripped a fine line into my skin.  Then there are several surgical scars on my abdomen (two C-sections, and a few 'ectomies and 'oscopies) and, of course, I have the usual selection of scars on my knees from childhood spills.  But, I can tell you the story of how each one got there because for every permanent mark on my body there is a story behind its creation.

Thinking back to that night on the British Airways jet, I do remember that the man was already in his seat when I walked up the aisle; I remember the confusion I felt when I saw him.  After all, our past life experience prepares us to read the world of our present, and I had had few previous associations to help me create an understanding of the man I encountered in the window seat.  He did not look like any other man I had ever seen or spoken to.  He was very dark and I could tell he was tall because his knees were touching the back of the seat in front of him.  I smiled politely and tried to exude an air of the well-travelled jet-setter as I settled into the space around my aisle seat.

Almost immediately I smelled his Aramis cologne and it was the familiarity of that scent that connected him to me first. 

Four years before, just before I left England to go to Canada for six months, I had fallen madly in love with a man who wore Aramis.  Chris had taught me that I was beautiful and sexy and had helped me to see that, despite what my mother had told me, I was not an unwanted, "used" woman because I had slept with my previous boyfriend.  Before him, it was my fear of being alone for the rest of my life that had kept me loyal to a man who rarely took me out on a proper date, who made me drop all of my friends (because our relationship had to be a secret), and who hit me more than once when I made him angry.

Six weeks after we met, Chris wanted me to cancel my long-planned trip to Canada, but I refused.  I did not want to let down my friend, Margot, who was to come with me, and I thought that if he truly loved me he would wait for me.  Many years would go by before it occurred to me that he might have been thinking that if I truly loved him, I would call off my trip.  Twenty-five years later, Margot bumped into him at a party and in the course of conversation asked him if he remembered me. 

He smiled and said: "Oh yes, I remember her."

After noting the Aramis, I busied myself with being occupied.  I kept my nose in a book, and I did not look up until the meal arrived.

This is always the awkward part of traveling alone on an airplane.  In the days before in-flight entertainment, there were only two choices of what to do while you ate.  You could keep your eyes on your food tray or you could make an effort at polite conversation with your neighbor.  It didn't have to be long or involved.  Perhaps:

"Are you on your way home?"

Then, in response to the answer and polite return of question:

"I live in LA and I'm on my way to visit my family for a few weeks."

I'm sure it began that way.

I know that we were curious about each other's cultures and asked questions and offered nuances about our lives--free in the certainty of anonymity.  After all, when the plane landed in London we would never see each other again and so the boundaries of convention were lifted.  I liked having raised boundaries.  In my mind it was one of the perks of being married.  I could have free conversations with men without having to wonder if they were coming on to me or, even worse, having to keep up my guard in case I inadvertently gave them the impression that I was coming on to them.  After all, I was spoken for; I was married.  Of course, I know now that not everyone has that philosophy, but I only realized how wrong I was after having to extricate myself from some tricky situations.

After all these years, I don't remember the details of my conversation with the man on the airplane that night...except one thing that, while its recall fills me with chagrin, it all at once encapsulates the man's personality and the ease with which we conversed for the entire 10 hours of the flight.  I remember saying:

"Ah Yes, but then you lot live in tents in the desert and eat sheep eyes."

We must have been swopping stereotypes.  I know I wasn't being serious (its recollection has a teasing, mischievous quality to it), but his immediate response was to laugh until his eyes watered. 

I think that was the moment we fell in love.

There is deep intimacy in the feeling that everyone in the world is asleep except you.  I have felt it since.  When my babies were new, the breast feedings at 2 in the morning were always a joy for me.  Sometimes, I would sit in the rocking chair for just a little while longer than necessary as my child with its full belly slumped asleep in my arms.  I would listen to the silence thinking of all the people I knew and loved who at that moment were unconscious in bed. 

I was sure that they were the ones missing out, not me.

Of course that night my world was encapsulated within aluminum, 35,000 feet above the earth, and was moving at 500 miles an hour.  But I do remember that same awareness of intimacy as the man and I talked in the dimly lit cabin with the sounds of our fellow travelers' deep-breathing in the background. 

After the plane landed in London, we said our goodbyes while we were still sitting in our seats.  We thanked each other for a delightful journey.  I knew my parents would already be waiting by the barrier outside baggage claim, and I knew that walking out in the company of a handsome Arab would be, well, confusing for them.  And I am sure he preferred a private, rather than a public, farewell too.

Then, rather shyly, he asked if he might telephone me the next day.  He knew he shouldn't ask for my number; I knew I shouldn't give it.  But I did.  I knew closure doesn't happen sitting in an airplane seat, and I knew it would go no further than one call.  And it didn't.

In the bustle of deplaning we became separated.  I think we may each have orchestrated it in our own way; after all, we had said our goodbyes.  But we saw each other once again in the baggage claim area, and he kissed me on the cheek.  It was one last moment amongst strangers before each of us walked through the doors into the familiar crowds and noise and smells of London.

I do not remember his name.

 

Carolyn Butcher emigrated from London to Toronto, Canada, in 1973 and from there to California in 1975. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California Santa Barbara and is currently a lecturer at Santa Barbara City College while she finishes writing her memoir, The Posterity Box, under the mentorship of Maureen Murdock. Carolyn has presented numerous academic papers at James Joyce conferences in Europe and the USA, but September 1976 is her first published non-academic work. She is also the President of Speaking of Stories, a not-for-profit organization in Santa Barbara that was founded in 1995 to promote the appreciation of literature through live theatrical readings and through educational programs for at-risk youth.