*Please note that some readers may find this content upsetting. 

There are few airports where passengers and crew still board from a flight of stairs on the tarmac.

Most board directly from the terminal with an airbridge, so you don’t really grasp the concept of height, but an aircraft door is far from the ground. Imagine entering a building through the second floor.

Yet nobody’s frightened of that part.

I passed the usual warning signs as I entered and began my safety checks. Like every crew member on every flight, I had to quickly make sure all emergency equipment was available and in good working. Failing to do so would put us in danger, right? 

Safety was everyone’s responsibility. And we were reminded of this time and again.

I can’t recall where I flew from with Marija, but, I know she was my cabin supervisor on the flight home.  On those return flights, everyone’s a little more tired, so it’s not unusual to witness short fuses or cut corners. Sometimes both.  But Marija was particularly bad tempered and had little patience for anyone who was not following the rules. The rules, as she reminded us, were there to protect us.

When the dinner service came to an end and the cabin lights started to dim, crew usually drifted to the aft galley, at the back of the plane, looking for whatever was leftover to eat, or to grab a seat while we had the chance.

I liked this part of a night flight. You saw the best of people in a midnight aft galley, helping each other stay awake with galley games, or making a round of coffees. Noticing someone who looked sad - when you were alert enough - and making them laugh or distracting them with the latest crew rumours.

The midnight aft galley was where you’d find out you were flying with a tap dancer, or basketball player, or architect, who now wore the same uniform as you.  And they’d be equally impressed by what you considered to the very mundane details of your own life. We’d chat about what we planned to do after flying and how the job was helping us to get there. And we’d take it in turns to answer call bells, knowing each one of us was as tired as the next. Until safe on the ground, we were totally reliant on the strangers around us. Our lives depended upon everyone doing their job correctly. So this was a short window of opportunity to get to know the people who held our fate in their overworked and dirty hands. The aft galley felt like a safe place, for most crew.

But not that night. Marija was owning the space, marching around and marking her territory. Hauling metal containers loudly from the shelf and banging the meal carts back into place.

We could have helped, but, there was an energy plane around her, keeping everyone at away.  It was cold and hard and difficult to penetrate. It dared us to approach - and nobody did.

One by one, without needing to say why, we drifted to the mid-galley instead, where we crammed into a much smaller space to sip our lukewarm coffees. There were no games that night. Somehow, it felt like they would only come to an untimely end.

But safety checks were still required, so we took it in turns. Any concerning smells in the cabin? Was the medical in 53 juliet looking better? Were the pilots awake?  Was anyone sneakily smoking? I picked up a tray of juices and tip-toed through the cabin, using my elbow to prise open the lavatory doors as I passed. Had to make sure the trash-flaps were in a safe position.  The last thing we needed was a fire on board, I was too tired for an emergency landing. 

As I finished a circuit of the cabin and started to make my way back, I noticed a laminated safety checklist on the floor. Jeezo, why don't we just juggle knives?! Somebody could slip on that and do themself a mischief! So I tucked it away where it belonged and crept back into the mid-galley to see if my colleagues were surviving. Funny how there was no checklist for that.

The cabin was dark, calm and filled with heavy zzzs, but Marija would burst into the mid-galley at regular intervals clutching a clearance bag full of rubbish and barking out instructions. 

“Do another round of drinks!

Am I the only one checking toilets?!

Pick up the plastic in the aisles, before somebody gets hurt.”

Her anger felt a tad excessive. This was a very quiet flight with an extremely pleasant and professional crew. Glancing at my watch, I noted it was three the morning our time, so maybe she was tired, but, weren’t we all?

Yet Marija wasn’t asking anything unreasonable so we poured another tray of drinks - if silently rolling our eyes as she left.

Marija didn’t look like the rest of the fresh-faced crew. She was hired a very long time ago -  fifteen to twenty years at least - and something had changed her in that time. Every airport standby; every death on board;  every missed birthday, wedding, funeral (because they weren't an immediate family member, so didn't count, right?); every all-nighter; every lonely day off; every injury (which definitely wasn't industrial); every manager's warning for too much sickness; every devastating last minute change to plan for 'operational reasons'; every power-hungry purser who wrote a report; was now worn by Marija, like a part of her uniform which would never, ever feel comfortable. 

For someone so keen on rules, she was only just meeting the minimum standards of image and uniform. The buttons of her waistcoat were gaping. Her shoes were not recently polished. Her hair was scraped back, but not in the smooth, elegant manner of others. It looked like it had been thrown together hurriedly with little regard for the final aesthetic. And this emphasised a face that wore the tell-tale puffiness of medication. Here and there, her skin erupted in angry red patches. But there was still a beauty behind it all that could, so easily, have been drawn out with a little love and attention. Manicure? Forget it. The basics were covered. Mascara. Lipstick. Base. Scrunchie. Nobody could say she was breaking the rules.

It was the dead of night - somewhere - and we still had two more hours until top of descent. I walked into the aft galley looking for band aids, but stopped, abruptly, when I saw Marija. She was holding a miniature wine bottle in front of her face, staring intently at the glass, but jumped when she noticed I’d entered her territory.

“Who put this bottle in the trash compactor? It cannot go in there! That is very dangerous!”

She wasn’t wrong, but far more angry than was reasonable and I was finding her belligerence pretty tiresome. Six hours into a night flight, when I hadn’t slept for days, I’d had just about enough of her nonsense. So I sighed loudly in obvious frustration and with uncharacteristic sharpness in my own voice, said:

“I don’t know who put it there, Marjia,” before picking up a first aid kit and leaving her alone.

All alone.

The rest of us regrouped in the mid-galley to moan about how difficult she was and to make one another more coffee.  As long as someone - Marija - stayed in the back to monitor the ovens, then everyone was perfectly safe.

…Weren’t we?

The landing was stable and we disembarked without issue. Everyone passed through security, found the correct bus and made it home - safely - for the rest they needed to recover.

That was all we needed, right? A good sleep? 

And did we recover?

When it happened, months later, her name spread quickly through the crew community. So quickly that her corporate headshot was still online when I searched her name on my app.

It couldn’t be her, surely it couldn’t be her...

But yes. The face that appeared on my screen was the same one I had seen staring into a wine bottle, contemplating danger.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I think of what I said to her and my skin crawls with shame. The memory of my tone stings and cuts through my peace. What if I had taken the bottle out of her hand? Would that have removed the idea from her mind? What if I had sat beside her, in spite of my discomfort. Would it have eased hers? Because in the middle of the night, when I think of her, she’s alone in the aft galley. Where we left her. All alone. Now she’s a crew rumour discussed there.

The cold, hard, barrier she constructed kept everyone at a safe distance, just as she wanted; and we were so busy flying through our checklists, that none of us thought to check that.

There are few airports where passengers and crew still board from a flight of stairs on the tarmac. Most others board directly from the terminal with an airbridge, so, you don’t really grasp the concept of height, but that door is far from the ground. Imagine exiting a building from the second floor.

Yet, nobody notices that part.

I heard that the incoming crew boarded from the front while the purser made an announcement over the PA:

“All exiting crew to disembark from the front!”

I know the disembarking crew would have hurriedly gathered their things, as we all did, keen to finish a shift and begin their layover in the crisp, winter sunshine. I heard they exchanged high-fives and jokes with the new crew as they passed on the stairs.

Not Marija.

Marija was still in the aft-galley.

Alone.

Again.

For her, there was only one way out.

The purser repeated instructions:

“All disembarking crew to leave by the front!”

The rules were there to protect us, but, Marija had lost faith in those rules. She threw her hat on the aft galley floor and against all protocol, pushed the heavy door open herself.

Ground staff watched with open mouths, as their minds raced to catch up.

There were no steps at the aft. It wasn’t safe. What was she doing?

Their eyes widened as Marija appeared in the doorframe, holding a miniature wine bottle to her neck.

Then Marija marched forward, against all instructions, leaving the aircraft her own way, for the first, but final time.   

From the front stairs, crew could only watch, from a distance, as she spilled out onto the cold, hard tarmac between them.

We had left her alone for too long. And nobody could reach her now.