The loudspeaker was calling the number of the flight; and Ella went with the others across the tarmac and into the aircraft. She sat down and noted a woman sat beside her and that she was relieved it was a woman. Five years ago she would have been sorry. The aircraft taxied forward, turned, and began racing for the take-off. The machine gathered speed, vibrating; seemed to hunch itself up with the effort of getting into the air, then slowed. It stood roaring futilely for a few minutes. Something was wrong. The passengers, crammed so close together in the shaking metal container, looked covertly at each other’s brightly-lit faces to see if their own alarm was reflected; understood that their own faces must be preserving masks of unconcern; and lapsed into private fears, glancing at the air-hostess, whose look of casualness seemed overdone. Three times the aircraft sped forward, gathered itself for the climb, slowed, and stood roaring. Then it taxied back to the airport building, and the passengers were invited to descend while the mechanics ‘adjusted a small fault in the engine’. They all trooped back to the restaurant where officials, outwardly polite, but exuding irritation, announced that a meal would be served. Ella sat by herself in a corner, bored and annoyed. Now it was a silent company, reflecting on their good luck that the engine fault had been discovered in time. They all ate, to fill in time, ordered drinks, and sat looking out of the windows to where mechanics, under bright beams of light, flocked around their aircraft.

Ella found herself in the grip of a sensation which, when she examined it, turned out to be loneliness. It was as if, between her and the groups of people, were a space of cold air, an emotional vacuum. The sensation was of physical cold, of physical isolation. She was thinking of Paul again: so powerfully that it seemed inconceivable that he should not simply walk in through a door and come up to her. She could feel the cold that surrounded her thawing in the powerful belief that he would soon be with her. With an effort she cut this fantasy: she thought in a panic, if I can’t stop this, this madness, I’ll never become myself again, I’ll never recover. She succeeded in banishing the immanence of Paul; felt the chilly spaces open around her again, and inside cold and isolation, leafed through the piles of French magazines and thought of nothing at all. Near her a man was sitting, absorbed in magazines which she saw were medical. He was at first glance an American; short, broad, vigorous; with close-cut glistening hair like brown fur. He was drinking glasses of fruit cordial, one after the other, and seemed unperturbed by the delay. Once their eyes met after both had inspected the aircraft outside, which was swarming with mechanics, and he said with a loud laugh: ‘We’re going to be stuck here all night.’ He returned to his medical publications. It was now after eleven, and they were the only party still waiting in the building.