The captain’s belt

A vote of thanks, please, for the crew from the leading airline who kept me entertained with their wonderfully indiscreet conversation at the table next to mine at dinner last night. I nearly choked on my moules and frites several times, and had to order at least two extra beers lest I finished dinner before their stock of anecdotes had run dry.

I loved hearing from the cabin attendant who had had to put out a fire in a plane’s oven mid-Atlantic on a previous trip. A colleague had put her shoes in the oven to dry, and was padding around the cabin barefoot. She forgot all about the shoes, and inevitably they combusted after a few hours.

It appears that young Kimberley, the stewardess concerned, was dismissed. I imagined a different outcome, in which the stern, older captain sat quietly at the end of last night’s table had taken matters into his own hands. The crew had arrived safely at their destination in some far-flung land, and checked into their hotel rooms. Kimberley emerged from her post-flight shower, and slipped into casual clothes for a night on the town – before spying a note that had been slipped under her door: “Captain Watson would like to see you immediately in suite 2505.”

He’d still have been in his uniform. He’d have been unimpressed to have been kept waiting. An uncompromising of lectures about flight safety would have followed. “Do you realise the possible consequences of your actions today, Kimberley?”

She did. She apologised, swore it would never happen again.

“It certainly won’t, young lady.” He proceeded to outline his three options for the return journey, having total responsibility for the plane and the crew. “I can dismiss you now, and you can find your own way back to the States. I can take you with us under suspension; you can travel as a passenger and be taken to Human Resources as soon as we touch down. Or I am allowed under airline rules to use my discretion to address any disciplinary matters as I feel fit, so we can deal with matters now.”

“Please, sir,” she pleaded. “Let’s deal with it now. Whatever it takes.”

‘Whatever it took’ involved a conversation about how the captain had punished his two daughters in their wilder teenage years and through into their recent times at college.   “They’re your age: good girls with good jobs. We’re all very close. It worked for them, I think.”

It involved a shamefaced Kimberley responding to the query as to whether her father had dealt with her in the same way in the affirmative.

It involved her sitting at the desk in the captain’s suite, taking out a sheet of the hotel stationery and writing a letter to him asking him to punish her.

It involved her taking off her tight designer jeans and folding them neatly over the arm of the chair; the captain looking at her sternly until, as agreed, her underwear followed.

He’d have cleared his desk of the usual hotel paraphernalia – the leaflets advertising the spa, warning of the exorbitant phone costs, forms seeking feedback that would inevitably be ignored.

He’d have removed his jacket, braided with so many stripes. Unbuckled his thick, airline-issue belt and doubled it over.

He’d have had her bend over the desk’s cold wooden surface, reaching over to grip the far side.

He’d have punished her. Not one of those a-few-gentle-licks-will-be-enough, it’s-the-very-act-of-punishment-that-will-correct-a-girl type corrections. Not a daddy-dealing-with-Kimberley-for-a-bad-report type admonishments. A full-blown lesson in airline safety, in the risks she’d caused for the captain’s aircraft, an if-this-is-the-alternative-to-dismissal-it’d-better-be-hard type thrashings.

She’d have fought not to cry; he’d whipped her ’til she did. And then he’d have had her stand, pull on those too-tight jeans with a wince, told her how brave she’d been, confirmed that the incident was now closed. Offered her a hug, gratefully received, holding her tight as she sobbed and her tears dampened his captain’s shirt.