Words are said. He slips a thin gold band onto my finger.
His eyes, his face. His hands on mine. The music. The feel of the cold stone beneath my thin shoes. The scent of incense and flowers. Of eighty people’s best perfume. Happiness. Pure and clean.
We kiss, familiar voices rising loud behind us. And then the bone-shaking organ thundering out Mendelssohn’s titanic “Wedding March.”
And petals, petals fall all around us as we step out into the autumn air of London. Husband and wife.
I’m woken by a gentle knocking. Mark hasn’t woken up yet; he’s still sound asleep, nestled beside me in the vast hotel bed. My husband. My sleeping new husband. The gentle taps continue. I roll out of bed, throw a robe on, and tiptoe into the suite’s sitting room.
It’s coffee. Two tall silver coffee pots on a white-clothed trolley waiting outside in the hall. The room service waiter whispers a “Good morning” and beams.
“Thank you so much,” I whisper back, and wheel the trolley around myself into our thickly carpeted lounge area. I sign and return the bill; there’s a bloody big tip on there. Today I’m officially sharing the joy.
It’s six o’clock on a Sunday morning. I ordered the coffee last night because I thought it might soften the early start. But to be honest, I’m okay. Already wide-awake and raring to go. I’m so glad I didn’t drink too much last night. I didn’t really want to. I wanted to stay clearheaded, stay focused. I wanted to remember and treasure every moment.
I push the trolley around our plush hotel furniture and into the bedroom and leave it to stand while I pop into the shower. Hopefully the pungent aroma of coffee will wake him up naturally. I want everything to be perfect for him today. He loves coffee. I hop into the rainforest shower and soap myself, careful not to wet my hair as I wash. We need to be out of the hotel and on our way to the airport in half an hour.
Today is, technically, going to be the longest day of our lives. We’ll be traveling backward across eleven time zones and the International Date Line, so that after twenty-one hours of air and boat travel we’ll be on the other side of the world and it’ll only be ten o’clock. I let the hot soapy water flow over my shoulder muscles, my arms, the new gold band on my finger.
Snapshots of yesterday shutter through my mind: the church, Fred’s toast, Mark’s toast, Caro talking to Mark’s parents, the first dance. The last dance. Last night, finally alone. Desperate for each other.
I hear the light clink of china on china. He’s up.
And I’m out of the shower in a second and wet in his arms.
“Too early, Erin. Too early,” he protests grouchily as he pours the hot coffee out for us. I cover him in kisses and shower water.
He hands me a cup and I stand there fully nude and soaking wet as I sip it. I’m looking pretty good at the moment, if I do say so myself; I’m in shape. I sort of made a point of it. It’s not every day a girl gets married. He drinks his coffee perched on the end of the bed, his eyes playing lazily across my body as he sips.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, still half asleep.
“Thank you.” I smile.
We’re dressed and checked out in no time. A Mercedes glides into the Sunday morning half-light outside the hotel. The driver introduces himself as Michael but doesn’t say much else during the journey to Heathrow. We sail through the abandoned early morning streets, safely muffled in our leather-scented cocoon; the only people about are the occasional revelers, still stumbling home. Somewhere out there in the half-light, out toward North London, through locked corridors of sleeping bodies, lie Alexa, Eddie, and Holli, in bare, sealed rooms I’ll never see, about to live a day I’ll never really understand. I feel my freedom with renewed clarity.
At Heathrow, Mark leads me past the already-snaking British Airways queues toward the empty check-in desks at the end of the aisle. First. I’ve never traveled first-class before. I have that odd mixed feeling of excitement paired with middle-class guilt at the idea of it. I want it, but I know I shouldn’t want it. Mark has traveled first with clients—he assures me I’ll love it. I shouldn’t overthink it.
At the desk a woman with a dazzling smile greets us like long-lost friends returning home. Fiona, our check-in assistant, the only check-in assistant who has ever introduced herself by name to me, is infinitely hospitable and helpful. I could definitely get used to this. I suppose money buys you time and time buys you attention. It feels great. Don’t overanalyze it, I tell myself. Just enjoy. You’ll be poor again soon.
We glide through security. The guards seem almost embarrassed to check our bags. Once my shoes are back on, Mark points across the security hall to the far right wall. In the wall is a door. Just an ordinary white door. No sign. It looks just like a staff room door. He smiles.
“That’s Millionaire’s Door.” He grins and raises an eyebrow. “Shall we?” he asks.
All I can do is follow. He strides confidently as he crosses the hall, like he knows exactly where he’s going, whereas I feel absolutely certain we’ll be stopped at any moment. As we walk toward its un-signposted archway, I half expect, at any second, a hand to grab my arm, to escort us into some tiny interview room for hours of grueling terrorism questioning. But that doesn’t happen; we make it across the hall unnoticed, through the strange little doorway, and out of the low-level bustle of the concourse into the cool hushed air of the Concorde Room lounge.
It’s a secret shortcut for first-class passengers only. Straight from fast-track security into the private British Airways lounge.
So this is how the other half lives? Well, the other 1 percent, anyway. I had no idea.
British Airways apparently pays one million pounds sterling a year in compensation to Heathrow to make sure their first-class passengers don’t have to suffer the indignity of having to walk past all those duty-free shops full of shit they don’t need. And today neither do we.
It’s heaven inside the lounge. It’s nice to be on this side of the door, not that I even knew there was a door up until five minutes ago. That’s strange, isn’t it? When you think you know what a good thing is and then you suddenly realize that there is a whole other level beyond what you knew even existed? Scary, in a way. How quickly what is good can become not good enough through comparison. Maybe best never to see it. Maybe best not to know that everyone else in the airport is being shepherded through retail units designed to strip them of the very little that they have, while you keep yours safe.
Don’t overthink it, Erin, stop it. Just enjoy it. It’s okay to enjoy having this good thing.
Everything in here is free. We sink down into the leather restaurant booths and order a light breakfast of freshly baked pain au chocolat and English breakfast tea. I look at Mark. Gorgeous Mark reading the paper. He looks happy. I look around at the other people in the lounge. Somehow first class has imbued them all with a kind of mystery, a mystique that drips from every movement, endowing it with a sort of grace. Or perhaps I’ve imbued them with that because I feel like I’ve wandered into a glen of unicorns.
Millionaires don’t really look like millionaires, do they? Elon Musk doesn’t even look like a millionaire, and he’s actually a billionaire.
As I look at them, on their iPhones sipping their espressos, I wonder. I wonder, do they only ever travel first? Do they mix with other people? In their everyday lives? Do they mix with Club Class people? Economy people? I know they employ them, but do they mix with them? And what do they all do for jobs? How do they have so much money? Are they good people? I imagine Alexa flying business for her job before everything happened. I can imagine her here somehow. She’d look the part, even in her powder blue prison uniform. And Eddie. I can easily imagine Eddie here, a ghost lurking in one of the shadowy leather-bound corners, coffee cup in hand, eyes restlessly scanning, missing nothing. I returned his email with a call the day before the wedding. It was an odd call. I felt he wanted to say something but maybe he was being monitored this time. I can definitely imagine him here. But not Holli. I can’t imagine Holli here the way I can Eddie or Alexa. I wonder if she’s ever even left the country. Has she felt the Mediterranean sun? Let alone the wet heat of the tropics? I doubt it. But maybe I’m stereotyping, maybe Holli used to travel all the time. There’s that guilt again. Don’t overthink it, Erin, just enjoy it.
For the first time in my life I board the flight and turn left; everyone else turns right. And if I’m honest it’s hard not to feel special, even though I’m aware I’ve just paid a lot more money than everyone else, money that we only really have by various quirks of fate and birth. But I do. Feel special.
“It’s a Dreamliner,” Mark leans in and whispers.
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“The plane,” he explains.
“Oh, the plane is a Dreamliner.” I give him a teasing look. “I didn’t realize you were so into planes.” I grin.
Mark’s into planes. Weird that I’ve never noticed. I can see why he might want to keep that hobby under wraps. Not the sexiest interest a man can have. But he has lots of other pretty sexy hobbies, so I’m fairly comfortable letting him off on this one. I make a mental note to get him something plane-related for Christmas. Maybe a coffee table book, a nice one. I’ll check out some plane documentaries.
Mark and I have the two front-row center seats and my God it’s not like economy seating. First has only eight seats. Only two rows of seating in the whole cabin. And even they aren’t full. It’s quiet up at this end of the plane. Peaceful.
This is to economy what organic farming is to factory farming. The economy passengers way back there, like industrially farmed chickens cramped in for eleven hours. And us, the corn-fed free-range chickens, happily clucking our way through the tall grass. Maybe that’s the wrong metaphor; maybe we’re actually the farmers?
I sink down into my seat, buttery leather with that fresh new-car smell. The seat walls reach all around us high enough so that I can’t see the other passengers in their seats over it, but low enough that I can see the hostess when she passes. She comes around the five passengers and hands out champagne in tall chilled glasses as people take their seats and stow away hand luggage.
We explore our nests, our homes for the next eleven hours; the electronic wall dividing our seats is lowered and we investigate all our new devices together. A flat-screen TV is mounted on the seat wall in front of me, handy little storage cupboards, noise-canceling headphones. A wash kit squirreled away, embossed with “First,” full of miniature products that weirdly remind me of the Fisher-Price kitchen set I had as a child. When I used to play house. I find a generously sized fold-out one-person dining table in the cupboard above the armrest. And, yes, I am excited by that! I’m drinking champagne at nine forty-five in the morning; of course I’m excited by that. I’m excited by everything! I slide my carry-on bag into a cubbyhole. It was a wedding gift from Fred. He was so happy to be a part of our wedding. To walk me down the aisle. To stand there beside me. I know it meant a lot to him to be asked. Lovely Fred. Fred and Nancy. They never had kids themselves. Perhaps they could be godparents? When the time comes maybe? I think I’d like that. I wonder if Mark would like that.
And just like that we’re in the air.
My mouth is full of champagne when the stewardess pops her head over the wall and asks what size pajamas I’ll need. Caught in the act, I feel my neck warm with embarrassment, breakfast-time lush that I am.
“Small. Thank you very much,” I manage after I’ve swallowed.
She smiles and hands me the small navy pajama set wrapped in white ribbons, a white BA logo emblazoned on the left breast. Soft. Snug.
“Just let me know if you fancy a nap later,” she trills, “and I’ll make up your bed for you, okay?” And she’s gone from view.
I’ve always had a bit of a problem with free champagne. Lovely, lovely free champagne. I find it very hard to turn down. If the glass gets topped up, it gets drunk. It’s the one time that the phrase “You’ll regret not finishing that” actually resonates with me. So three glasses in, and one in-flight movie down, the stewardess and I are having a nap-related chat.
My bed is made up by the time I’m back from brushing my teeth in the cavernous washroom, the basin being a good three-stride walk from the toilet. The bed looks pretty inviting: thick duvet, plump pillow, all made up on the flat cabin bed. Mark laughs at me through the partition wall as I clamber in.
“I can’t believe you’re drunk already. We haven’t even been married a full day yet.”
“I got excited. Now shush, you, I’m going to sleep it off,” I say as the electric divider slowly blocks out his grinning face.
“Night, you old alkie.” He laughs again.
I smile to myself. All tucked up cozy in my nook, I close my eyes.
I manage a fairly impressive seven hours’ sleep on the first flight. And when we land in LAX I’m feeling relatively well rested and thankfully fully sober. I’ve never been a big drinker. A few of glasses of anything and I’m knocked out. Mark stayed up the whole flight watching movies and reading.
At LAX we find our way to the first-class lounge of American Airlines. It’s not quite as impressive as Heathrow, but we’ve got only thirty minutes to kill now until our flight to Tahiti boards. This is the tricky part of the trip. The midway point. The eleven-hour flight to LAX done. The eight-hour flight to Tahiti about to start, followed by a forty-five-minute flight to Bora Bora and then a private boat trip around the atoll to the Four Seasons hotel.
We get an email from Mark’s parents. Family photos they took at the wedding yesterday. There we all are—at least I think it’s us, we’re pretty blurry and we all have red eyes, but it’s definitely us. I suddenly realize I’ve never felt happier than I do at this very moment.
Mark manages six hours’ sleep on the next flight. This time I stay awake, gazing out of my oval window, transfixed by the pinks and purples of the setting sun reflecting off the vast Pacific Ocean beneath us. The clouds: miles and miles of mountainous white, turning peachy in the fading sunlight. And then just blueness, rich, dark velvet blue. And stars.
A wave of hot, wet tropical air slaps us as we step off the plane in Tahiti. The first hint of our honeymoon. We don’t see much of Tahiti itself, just a runway, landing lights, an almost empty airport concourse, another departure gate, and then we’re airborne again.
Our flight to Bora Bora is via a small plane with brightly dressed hostesses. Somehow Mark sleeps on the short, bumpy flight. I manage to finish reading the magazine I picked up from the Concorde lounge at Heathrow; it’s an extremely niche quarterly dressage publication titled Piaffe. I know nothing about dressage—my teenage girl’s basic riding knowledge doesn’t quite stretch to advanced equine showing—but the magazine looked so far removed from anything I’d ever seen before that I had to pick it up. Turns out that “piaffe” is when the horse stands in the middle of the arena and trots up and down on the spot. So there you go. Bet you’re glad we found that out. I do like things like that, though; I’ve always been into reading whatever is lying about, the less I know about it the better. I remember someone at film school suggesting developing that habit: always read outside your comfort zone. That’s where stories come from. That’s where ideas come from. Anyway, I can highly recommend Piaffe. It lost me slightly in the horse-feed section, but, overall, interesting stuff. If not directly for its content, then definitely to wonder at the lifestyles, and habits, of its average reader.
Bora Bora Airport is tiny. Two beaming women garland us upon arrival. The white flowers hang sweet and musky around our necks as a porter leads us toward a jetty in the water outside the terminal. The airport and its runway take up one entire island of their own on the atoll of Bora Bora. The whole airport island is just a long stretch of tarmac, edged with balding dry grass and a terminal building afloat in the blue of the South Pacific. A real-world visual representation of man’s dominance over nature.
A speedboat waits for us, beautiful in understated varnished wood, at the end of the jetty, like a Venetian water taxi. Our water taxi driver takes my hand and helps me down into the deck seating. He offers me a warm blanket for my knees.
“It can get pretty breezy when we get going.” He smiles. He’s got a kind face, like the women in the airport. I suppose there’s not that much to worry about out here, no city life to harden you.
Mark passes our bags down and hops on himself and then we’re off. It’s dark as we speed around the coves and bays. I wish we’d arranged the flights so we could see this in daylight. I bet it’s breathtaking, but right now in the darkness I see only the twinkling lights along the shoreline and the huge moon hanging across the water. The brilliant white moon. I’m certain the moon’s not this bright back in England. But it must be. Maybe we just can’t see how bright it is through all the light pollution back there.
England seems so far away now. Those hedged lanes, the frosty grass. I feel a brief pang for it, nine thousand miles away, misty and cold. My hair whips around my face in the perfumed breeze. We’re slowing down now. Nearly there. I turn back to look at the mainland, the shoreline, and the lights of the Four Seasons. And there it is.
The water all around glows emerald, up-lit through the green lagoon water. Soft candlelight bathes the thatched buildings, the communal areas, restaurants, and bars. Flaming torches flicker along the beachfront. Huts on stilts spill their orange warmth out into the thick darkness of the South Pacific Ocean. And that moon. That moon, shining as bright as a high beam on a country road, shining out from behind the sharp towering silhouette of Mount Otemanu, the extinct volcano at the center of Bora Bora’s atoll. We’re here.
The water laps placidly around us as we slowly put-put in. Candles light up the jetty and a welcome party ties us off and pulls us in. More garlands. Sweetly scented, spicy. Water. Cool towels. A slice of orange. And a golf buggy whisks us along the stilted walkways toward our new home.
We’ve got a fantastic room, Mark made sure of that. The best they have. An overwater lagoon bungalow at the end of the pier. Private plunge pool, private lagoon access, glass-floored bathroom. We pull up to the door and there’s a welcome talk but we’re tired now. I can see through Mark’s smiles to his tired eyes, and the hotel staff must see it too. We’re exhausted. The intro is blessedly brief.
The buggy buzzes away from us back down the walkway, leaving us alone outside our suite. Mark looks at me as the sound of the buggy recedes. He drops his bags and lunges toward me, grabbing my waist with one arm and my thighs with the other and I’m up in the air, cradled in his arms. I kiss the end of his nose. He grins and fumbles us over the threshold.