the complimentary drinks. But then, as the stewardesses crouched by his side and the pilot asked if there was a doctor on board, it soon became clear that he was sick, very sick.
They lay him in the aisle, stretched out on the floor, right beside me, close enough to touch his terrified face, and two young doctors knelt by his side, pulling his shirt open, talking to him like priests beside a death bed.
We couldn’t fly to Hong Kong. The man needed a hospital and so our flight diverted to Copenhagen where a medical crew was waiting to take him off the plane. And all the passengers were very understanding about the diversion, of course they were, even when they learned that we would have to wait for hours at Copenhagen Airport until we could get another crew. Our pilot explained that our crew could no longer take us to Hong Kong because, with the diversion, they would exceed their permitted hours in the air. So we had to wait. For hours.
Everybody was very understanding. Everybody except me.
I hated that sick man. I didn’t want to divert to Copenhagen so that he could get medical treatment. I wanted the pilot to stick him in with the suitcases and let him take his chances. It was worse than indifference. I felt a rage towards him that I could hardly contain. I didn’t care if he lived or died. It meant nothing to me. I just wanted him out of the way so that I could get back to Hong Kong, back to my girl, back to my life, back to the best thing that had ever happened to me.
That’s what love did to me.
Love messed up my heart.
seven
Rose was beautiful in the water. She had been diving for years, long before she came out to Hong Kong, and she had that still, weightless quality that separates good divers from the rest of us.
We looked like two different creatures when we were underwater. I was always a nervous wreck, struggling to maintain neutral buoyancy, constantly fiddling with the air in my BCD jacket, letting a little out as I started drifing to the surface, letting a little in as I began to sink, never getting it right for very long.
Rose just hung there, floating in space, doing it all with her breathing, doing it all with minor adjustments to the air in her lungs, remaining weightless with what seemed like little more than sighs.
I was never happy with my equipment, forever clearing my mask of water, nervously checking my air gauge to see exactly how much was left – I was a glutton for air, always having to return to the surface long before anyone else – and adjusting my tank as its heavy weight seemed to shift and slide on my back.
I just didn’t look happy underwater. Like all good divers, Rose looked as though there was nowhere else she would rather be.
She had learned to dive at home. She had got her PADI card in freezing dark waters off the south coast of England and in a flooded quarry in the Midlands. She had done it the hard way. So the dive sites of Asia – warm blue waters, endless coral reefs, so much marine life that sometimes the fish blotted out the sky – seemed like the next best thing to paradise.
I learned to dive because of Rose. I had a crash course on our honeymoon in Puerto Galera in the Philippines, getting used to breathing underwater in the hotel swimming pool with a local instructor and a couple of twelve-year-old Taiwanese, learning the theory in some little classroom behind the resort’s dive shop and finally being taken out into open water for the real thing. Rose was as excited as me when I got my PADI card. Maybe more.
And we had some good times. Once, on a weekend trip to Cebu in the Philippines, I sucked up most of my air in a ridiculously short amount of time and got sent up by the dive master. I had to make a safety stop for three minutes at a depth of five metres to let the excess nitrogen seep out of my body. Although her tank still had plenty of air, Rose came up with me and those few minutes making that safety stop were the best diving that I ever had. We
They lay him in the aisle, stretched out on the floor, right beside me, close enough to touch his terrified face, and two young doctors knelt by his side, pulling his shirt open, talking to him like priests beside a death bed.
We couldn’t fly to Hong Kong. The man needed a hospital and so our flight diverted to Copenhagen where a medical crew was waiting to take him off the plane. And all the passengers were very understanding about the diversion, of course they were, even when they learned that we would have to wait for hours at Copenhagen Airport until we could get another crew. Our pilot explained that our crew could no longer take us to Hong Kong because, with the diversion, they would exceed their permitted hours in the air. So we had to wait. For hours.
Everybody was very understanding. Everybody except me.
I hated that sick man. I didn’t want to divert to Copenhagen so that he could get medical treatment. I wanted the pilot to stick him in with the suitcases and let him take his chances. It was worse than indifference. I felt a rage towards him that I could hardly contain. I didn’t care if he lived or died. It meant nothing to me. I just wanted him out of the way so that I could get back to Hong Kong, back to my girl, back to my life, back to the best thing that had ever happened to me.
That’s what love did to me.
Love messed up my heart.
seven
Rose was beautiful in the water. She had been diving for years, long before she came out to Hong Kong, and she had that still, weightless quality that separates good divers from the rest of us.
We looked like two different creatures when we were underwater. I was always a nervous wreck, struggling to maintain neutral buoyancy, constantly fiddling with the air in my BCD jacket, letting a little out as I started drifing to the surface, letting a little in as I began to sink, never getting it right for very long.
Rose just hung there, floating in space, doing it all with her breathing, doing it all with minor adjustments to the air in her lungs, remaining weightless with what seemed like little more than sighs.
I was never happy with my equipment, forever clearing my mask of water, nervously checking my air gauge to see exactly how much was left – I was a glutton for air, always having to return to the surface long before anyone else – and adjusting my tank as its heavy weight seemed to shift and slide on my back.
I just didn’t look happy underwater. Like all good divers, Rose looked as though there was nowhere else she would rather be.
She had learned to dive at home. She had got her PADI card in freezing dark waters off the south coast of England and in a flooded quarry in the Midlands. She had done it the hard way. So the dive sites of Asia – warm blue waters, endless coral reefs, so much marine life that sometimes the fish blotted out the sky – seemed like the next best thing to paradise.
I learned to dive because of Rose. I had a crash course on our honeymoon in Puerto Galera in the Philippines, getting used to breathing underwater in the hotel swimming pool with a local instructor and a couple of twelve-year-old Taiwanese, learning the theory in some little classroom behind the resort’s dive shop and finally being taken out into open water for the real thing. Rose was as excited as me when I got my PADI card. Maybe more.
And we had some good times. Once, on a weekend trip to Cebu in the Philippines, I sucked up most of my air in a ridiculously short amount of time and got sent up by the dive master. I had to make a safety stop for three minutes at a depth of five metres to let the excess nitrogen seep out of my body. Although her tank still had plenty of air, Rose came up with me and those few minutes making that safety stop were the best diving that I ever had. We
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