A Real Hoot | Princess of Persia | 1

The Arabian Light in a Lover’s Eyes

Women over Oman — Carrie

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The mountains streamed past, tall and grey and jagged, reaching up to the Airbus as it banked and straightened towards Dubai.

Three women sat or stood in one of the suites in the First Class cabin, each at a window, the dawn light creating a glowing island in the dimness.

Carrielle Watson aimed her Leica down at the peaks, and yipped with pleasure as the great airliner’s lowered wingtip gave her a superb picture.

Mountains in Arabia. Who knew?

The plane levelled out, and the mountains sank to a less photogenic angle.

The two Emirates flight attendants, standing together in the narrow space, had a better view, and Carrie admired the way the light played on their beautiful faces. Elegantly made up — now how had they done that at the end of a long flight? — they had their own radiance. She pretended not to notice that the two were holding hands, but she lifted her camera and focused on the “catchlights” in the eyes of the nearest.

Judith, tall and dark, enchanted by the ruggedy range outside, and enchanting in her gentle smile. Beyond her, Eva, blonde and Scandinavian and exquisite in every atom, glanced at Carrie and her own face dimpled into a grin.

There, that was the shot. The mountains could wait. Carrie clicked the aperture ring to widen the focus, and took another picture, the two faces lit in an interesting way, the twinkling eyes, the light and dark skin, the textures of hair, the sparkle of a tiny stud against Judith’s ebony earlobe…

Judith turned at the sound of the camera, one eyebrow raised, and Carrie clicked off another.

She checked the screen at the back and showed the two women, her heart jumping as they examined the image and their faces creased in delight.

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” Judith sighed, a trace of London in her voice, “could you send us a copy?”

“No worries,” Carrie said, “just give me your email addresses. One thing, but…..”

“Anything,” Eva said, her eyes still on the picture.

“Can you get the captain to take us around for another go at those mountains? The way the wingtip dipped was fabulous.”

Judith chuckled. “I think he’d do it all by himself, plane or no plane, if we asked him nicely.”

“But we’ll be landing in an hour, and he’s probably busy,” Eva said, shooting her colleague a glance.

“Yeah, hauling on his joystick or sumfin’ technical like that.”

There was a noise from further down the cabin.

“Oh, that will be Brad,” Carrie said. “Look!”

She scrolled back on her camera screen and showed them a picture of her travelling companion, blissful in slumber, lips slightly open. “He snores!”

“Probably wore him out,” Judith said, with the trace of a wink.

“Oh,” Carrie raised her own eyebrows. “How did you know?”

“No secrets on this bus. Don’t worry, we won’t tell.”

Carrie was glad that the salmon glow of the light outside was hiding what must surely be an epic blush. She and Brad had contrived to explore the delights of one of the shower suites — and each other — last night when the cabin crew seemed to be off duty.

“You should both get changed out of your flight pyjamas,” Eva said, all business. “We can make you coffee and a croissant, but there’s no time for the full breakfast.”

“I think we can get something in the lounge. There’s a couple of hours until our Tehran flight.”

“Enough time for another shower — oof!” Judith glared at Eva pulling her elbow back for another jab. “Just sayin’.”

“Nothing so good as a shower between the legs of a long trip,” Carrie said. “You two flying anywhere after this?”

“I get a rest day, then Lisbon tomorrow.”

“Moscow for me,” Judith said, frowning. “Early flight.”

Carrie emerged from the bathroom, ten minutes later, feeling ready to face the world. Back into her adventure clobber: quick-drying micro-merino wool skirt, drill shirt with the pockets and snaps and zips, stout walking shoes. Brad had called them combat boots when they met in the Qantas First Class Lounge in Sydney yesterday, but Carrie had always found she needed some ankle support when clambering about the landscape looking for a good camera position, and there was no sense bulking up the luggage with shoes for every occasion.

But she’d keep the Emirates slippers and loose comfortable pyjamas they had given her. She probably wasn’t going to be flying First again for a while. This trip had cost her a year’s worth of frequent flyer points, and that was with some serious bonus points on top of her regular flying.

There was Judith with a coffee — a good attempt at a flat white; they must have an espresso machine in their magic galley — a croissant with all the trimmings, an elegant foil-wrapped chocolate, and a sheet of notepaper with two email addresses on it.

“Oooh, you’ll spoil me! I’ll never fly Economy again! Here, you have the chockie.” She offered it to the flight attendant.

“No fear! I daren’t stuff anything else in, otherwise I’ll bust my uniform. Again. Get too big in this firm and you’re out of a job. You keep it for later.”

Brad dropped into his seat beside her, freshly shaven, looking crisp, smiling and whistling. Evidently first-class travel agreed with him. He reached his arm over the divider between their suites and squeezed her hand.

“Sleep well?”

“Somebody was snoring. I got up early and made some photographs.”

She passed over her camera.

“Wow. You should have woken me. I’ve never seen anything around here but desert. Oh, thank you Eva, coffee’s exactly what I need! And two chocolates! Yum!”

It was a Qatar flight last year for me on my way to Germany, not Emirates, and I wasn’t anywhere near the front of the plane, but I risked a peek out of the window, sending a shaft of blinding light through the dark cabin.

And then I hoisted the shade all the way up. I was gobsmacked to see a jagged landscape seeming just under our wing. Real mountains made of raw rock; nothing like the endless wastes I was used to seeing over the Arabian Peninsula.

The Al Hajar range in the Omani hinterland may not be the highest I’ve seen, but it has to be one of the most spectacular.

This is the first chapter of the next segment of our flight to adventure. Yes, we’re heading to the fabled land of Persia, and grappling with a religious dictatorship is going to be a challenge for some of our characters, particularly if all they are really interested in is a bit of a good time between two consenting but unmarried adults.

Strap in, and let’s see how they handle themselves!

Britni

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