‘Please, no,’ Jemima muttered to the gods of seat allocation as he started rearranging bags in the bin above her row.

As he reached up his T-shirt lifted revealing a taut, sun-kissed tummy. Vain, Jemima thought, as she observed him charmingly involve other passengers in the bag reshuffle. Vain and late she decreed noticing his muscular arms. Just then the straggler caught Jemima’s eye. She snatched up a tattered duty-free magazine and leafed through it. A blur of spy equipment and pink lipsticks flashed before her. She wished that just once, duty-free would stock cosmetics vaguely suited to her ebony skin tones. That, however, was a battle for another day. Right now, her sights were on The Straggler – the worst of all Batman’s nemeses.

His annoyingly jovial bag palaver finally over, he took his seat – on Jemima’s row!

Nooooooooooooo, she wailed inside as she watched him get comfortable in what had been occupied territory. Well, he’d better not talk to me, she ruled.

‘Hey. Chance,’ he said, reaching across the two empty seats to shake hands.

‘Chance?’ said Jemima with zero warmth.

‘Yeah, you know like the Abba song. Take A—’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard the word “chance” before,’ said Jemima, observing his Australian accent, with unnecessary disdain.

‘You reading that upside down on my account?’ he quipped. Jemima looked down and realised she was indeed holding the magazine the wrong way up.

She snapped it shut, flustered.

‘Is this your stuff?’ Chance said pointing at Jemima’s detritus.

‘Sorry,’ she said, indignantly. ‘I thought the row was empty.’

She collected up her things and stuffed them under the seat in front.

‘My bad. Bloke on my last flight had a heart attack and I had to do CPR. Cracked his rib but at least he’s alive, eh?’

‘Lucky you were there,’ Jemima replied. Show off!

‘Cabin crew, arm doors and cross-check and if you left the iron on, I hope your house doesn’t burn down. Joshing! I hope it’s razed to the ground and you get a mighty insurance payout. Right, here we go!’ the captain hooted.

Chance leaned across the seats, ‘This guy’s a laugh.’

His sarcastic aside at least, was one thing Jemima could agree on. She nodded ungenerously then clamped her headphones on and scrolled through the music selection. She needed calm, soothing tones to help her drift away from row twenty-eight, from this chatterbox and from their ‘comical’ captain. Finally she found what she was looking for, Bach’s Cello Suites. At school, she’d made a few half-baked attempts to learn this and in adulthood it was her go-to when she needed tranquillity. As they taxied for takeoff, Jemima caught one last inappropriate cockpit broadcast about using breast milk in the tea, before the cellos whisked her away.

Halfway through Suite No. 5 Jemima felt a tug on her headphone cord and turned to see Chance waving at her. With a quiet sigh, she lifted one ear pad.

‘Wanna chat?’ said Chance.

‘No,’ said Jemima in an alternative reality where she freely spoke her mind.