More Confessions of a Hostie (17 page)

It must be hard being a female pilot in a male-dominated field. As cabin crew, women need exceptionally thick skin to deal with often chauvinist passengers and occasionally sexist crew. This must be ten times as difficult for a woman sitting up the front with pilots, who are usually men, in the aptly named cockpit.

After several hours and several more drinks, we come to the conclusion that no other crew are turning up. Some said they would, but they did say that before jetlag and fatigue had set in. Peter is going to bed so the remaining four of us decide to go to Bellavista and grab a bite to eat before hitting a jazz club. As the sexual attraction between them builds with every sip of alcohol, Mary and Nick become more and more oblivious to Fiona and me. Thank goodness I have Fiona to talk to as Mary has tunnel vision now.

Fiona and I drink probably half as many drinks as the lovers-to-be do. Even at the jazz bar, Nick barely sits down long enough to drink each drink before returning from the bar with two more full glasses. Note the two glasses, not four. When Nick and Mary stagger away from the jazz club, I barely notice they are gone. Mary does say goodbye and gabbles something about seeing me in the morning. It is not the first time Mary has fobbed me off for a guy. The truth be told, I am not overly perturbed. I don't particularly like Nick anyway, and I will be seeing a lot more of Mary I am sure. At least this time I don't have to carry Mary home.

Fiona is quite happy to stay at the jazz club a while longer. She is now totally relaxed and having a really good time. I have been meaning to ask her some questions about being a female pilot; I chose not to ask her this when he was around. Nick is not around now. ‘What is it like being up there in the flight deck with usually an all-male crew?' I ask.

Fiona is diplomatic and articulates that it varies from crew to crew. She then says something that takes me aback.

‘This trip is a different story though. We have one complete a-hole on the flight deck.'

‘I have heard that the Poison Dwarf has a bit of a reputation.'

Fiona is frank in interjecting, ‘I am not talking about the captain. I am talking about Nick.'

This statement resonates in my head long after we leave the club and even during our cab ride back to the hotel. Fiona seems a little regretful that she had made the declaration, so she has failed to explain herself. She knows Mary is my friend and is also very much aware that Mary had just left with Nick. I am now extraordinarily tired, so I simply bid goodnight (it's morning already though) to Fiona and then climb into bed, hoping for a long, restful sleep.

I sit up with a jolt. The room is pitch-black except for the glow from the bedside clock: 2.15 a.m. Where the hell am I?

I quickly realise that I am in Chile, and I am in fact still drunk. I have been asleep for like an hour. I can't take a sleeping tablet because I have been drinking, and I'm afraid of what might happen when I mix the two. I try to get back to sleep, but I can't.

I switch on the TV but see that all the twenty-two channels are in Spanish. I can only wish to myself that I had learnt to speak Spanish when I was younger. Ironically an old episode of ‘The Bold And The Beautiful' is being aired on one of the channels, and it stars a much younger Ronn Moss than the one I had met onboard last week. Watching Ronn's character Ridge Forrester speak in dubbed Spanish should have been too weird to watch, but when you are tried, jetlagged and have had too many glasses of wine then everything looks and seems just about normal. I eventually fall asleep just after the sun rises. I have seen more sunrises than anyone else I know and seen more of them than I care to remember.

I manage to nod off for a couple of hours before getting up. I know Mary won't be awake yet. Her room is on the same floor as mine, so I write her a note and slide it under her door. I decide to go to the gym. Some of the crew members are already in the gym, including Peter and Fiona.

We hosties talk a lot about sleep – especially when we are away on trips, for it is all the more important to us then. When we see someone from our crew the next morning, the first thing we ask each other is ‘How did you sleep?'.

Peter got a good night's sleep. Fiona has just spent a night and morning of insomnia like I have.

After a good workout, at least by my standards, I decide to join Peter and Fiona for breakfast in the hotel restaurant; I know that Mary is still some hours away from seeing daylight. As it is Fiona's first time to Santiago she plans on doing a day tour around the city and invites me to join her. However, I have seen most of the tourist locations in her itinerary, and although I enjoy her company, I explain that I have made plans with Mary. I tell her that I am keen to catch up tonight though.

After breakfast I return to my room, and I see that the message light on the phone is flashing. It is Mary, and she needs to see me as soon as possible. She sounds distraught.

When I knock on Mary's door, she opens the door and bursts into tears. She doesn't speak, but lifts up her top to reveal the most shocking bruising I have ever seen.

I am aghast, rendered speechless.

Apparently Nick and Mary went back to his room. He told Mary that he likes his sex a little rough and kinky. Mary is usually up for anything and agreed to be tied up. Nick lied when he said he likes it ‘a little rough'. He likes it a lot rough.

He belted Mary severely, and she was unable to do anything about it. Poor Mary was slapped and hit on almost every part of her upper body with the exception of her face. She tells me that he did pull out clumps of her hair though and degraded her in ways I cannot describe here.

Mary was already emotionally battered and bruised, and now she has the body to match.

beware the fury of a patient woman

I walk to a local supermarket and get Mary some creams to help soothe the pain. I know from experience they don't really work, but Mary is an emotional and physical mess and this might help her feel better. Mary knows she cannot take the matter to the authorities or the company for that matter. It would be his word against hers, and she already has some bruising from turbulence on the flight over. She was also very drunk, and he would simply say that she fell over (repeatedly).

Mary's bruising, as severe as it is, will subside, but the mental scars and the hatred for Nick will not. The worst part is that we have to work with and might even have to serve this monster on the flight back.

When we do get back on the aircraft Mary and Nick do not speak. I avoid talking to him as well. I do, however, give him a look of death. I make sure that he knows that I know.

Mary and I are in the same work positions as the flight over, with Mary in the galley and thus in charge of the cooking. When Nick walks past us on the way to the flight deck, Mary cringes in anger.

She waits for him to be out of earshot. ‘Never mess with someone who cooks your food,' she then hisses. I can see the rage in her eyes.

Mary then asks me, ‘Should I do one lap or two?'

I don't know what she means.

She still speaks in riddles, ‘One lap or two?'

‘What are you talking about Mary?' I finally ask.

She explains that she is in charge of cooking Nick's meals throughout the flight. That I already know.

‘But what does one lap or two mean?'

Mary replies, ‘One lap or two around the inside of the toilet bowl.'

Mary intends to rub into the toilet whatever Nick orders
before
she cooks it. At least, I'm presuming she meant before she cooks it.

As much as I despise Nick for what he has done to Mary, I remind her that it is probably not the wisest of ideas to poison one of the pilots, especially while we are still flying. Mary still appears intent on revenge – and who can blame her. I personally don't think that even Mary would do something so foolish. I cannot allow her to risk her job and the safety of all onboard by tampering with Nick's food. Mary informs me that food poisoning normally takes five hours or so to kick in. Even so, I urge Mary to reconsider her line of thinking, even if they may only be words said in anger.

I know Mary well, and although she is still trying to plot, scheme and talk about it, I interject with, ‘I really don't want to know anything about it.' And I make sure I don't get involved in whatever plan she's cooking up for Nick.

I know for a fact that Nick will not eat anything from our galley at the start of the flight. He might be a monster, but he is not stupid. He does however eat a meal several hours before landing. Since I was busy in the cabin, I did not see Mary prepare his meal nor did I see if she had compromised his food. I can only trust that she would do the sensible thing.

When we land I say farewell to Fiona. Nick walks briskly past both Mary and me. He has his head down and cannot get off the plane quick enough. It may or may not be my imagination, but I swear that Nick looks decidedly off-colour.

Mary is still stiff and sore with the bruising, but she seems decidedly happier. I never did ask Mary whether she tampered with his food. When I said I didn't want to know, I meant it.

I help her with her bags because some of the bruising is around her shoulder area and she finds it quite painful to lift her suitcases. I also help her through the customs area and onto our crew bus, which takes us to where our cars are parked.

As I wave goodbye to Mary I feel incredibly sad for her. Apart from revenge issues, she doesn't have a bad heart. She didn't deserve the treatment she received. In all fairness, not all pilots, or all men, for that matter, are as cruel and sadistic as Nick. What he did was a rarity. I am sure Mary will not be silent about his actions, and although our airline is quite large, the word spreads. Nick will ultimately get what he deserves and a shattered reputation will be far more painful than one bout of possible food poisoning.

When I finally arrive back to my apartment it is mid-morning, and I am in my usual world of jetlag and fatigue. Helen and I catch up for our customary coffee later in the day. Since our Hawaii trip she certainly has a new appreciation for my job and more interest in my onboard dramas. I don't have any onboard stories from this last trip to rival the dramas we had on our flight to and from Honolulu, but I do tell Helen about Mary-go-round.

When I first started flying I would tell Helen about some of the outrageous parties and things I saw. The sexual escapades of Mary are about the only current day risqué stories I get to talk about. I am sure some shenanigans still occur; it is just that I rarely get to see it. In my first year or two of flying I saw more wild events than most people would not see in a lifetime. I remember one such party that took place in a hotel crew room. Some hotels have a special room just for crew or crews. In this instance several different airlines shared the same crew room. By the end of this particular night, the room resembled a multicultural orgy. There is a term called ‘cross-crewing', which generally refers to several different crews from the same airline working together. This party gave ‘cross-crewing' a whole new meaning.

In another such party in the same crew room, which I didn't have a chance to attend, a girl from another airline was apparently naked and her posterior was covered in strawberry jam. She was then lifted up in the air and pressed against the ceiling. Apparently there were butt-shaped imprints all over the ceiling.

That hotel subsequently took the crew room away from us. Who can blame them? Sometimes people push the boundaries too far. The minority often ruin things for the majority.

Things do get a little crazy with us hosties sometimes. On a trip I had done a few years ago, I was working with a lovely Thai man called David. He was very effeminate and obviously gay. We were in Bangkok, and I met up with some of the crew in a nightclub in the hotel. Late in the night, a Thai girl came up to me and said hello. My first instinct is that she was a prostitute and was going to proposition me. The prostitutes are often just as attentive toward women as they are toward men, sometimes more attentive.

I turned to her to say that I was not interested, when she said, ‘No, Danielle, it's me David, from the crew.'

David was not ‘cross-crewing'; he was ‘cross-dressing'.

next time i am on a beach and see a starfish …

Dean and I are excited about our forthcoming trip to Indonesia. Sure, we are doing the trip for charitable reasons, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun while we are at it. I have done some charity work with the company in Jakarta before, and the children we help are beautiful. It feels gut-wrenching to see the poverty and the hardship they endure, but the fact that we are making a difference helps ease their pain a little.

The charity house we assist is like an orphanage, except the kids have not lost their parents, but were abandoned by them. We still refer to it as an orphanage as the children are very much in need of support. In poor countries like Indonesia, when some parents or a parent cannot financially raise their children they sometimes are forced to abandon them. It is sad, but fortunately charity work and the subsequent donations are able to provide some of these kids with a roof over their heads and an education. These children are immensely grateful, and I feel privileged that I have the chance to make a difference in their lives.

I remember reading a story once, about a young girl who was walking along a beach. The sands of the beach were strewn with thousands of starfish that had washed up during a storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, ‘Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can't save all these starfish. You can't begin to make a difference.'

The girl seemed crushed on hearing this, but after a few moments she bent down, picked up another starfish and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied, ‘Well, I made a difference to that one.'