The Driver's Seat Read Online Free

with
two young children to bundle their coats up on the rack. The way is clear at
last. Lise’s business man finds a seat next to the right-hand window in a three-seat
row. Lise takes the middle seat next to him, on his left, while the lean hawk
swiftly throws his coat and places his camera up on the rack and sits down next
to Lise in the end seat.
    Lise
begins to fumble for her seat-belt. First she reaches down the right-hand side
of her seat which adjoins that of the dark-suited man. At the same time she
takes the left-hand section. But the right-hand buckle she gets hold of is that
of her neighbour. It does not fit in the left-hand buckle as she tries to make
it do. The dark-suited neighbour, fumbling also for his seat-belt, frowns as
he seems to realize that she has the wrong part, and makes an unintelligible
sound. Lise says, ‘I think I’ve got yours.
    He
fishes up the buckle that properly belongs to Lise’s seat-belt.
    She
says, ‘Oh yes. I’m so sorry.’ She giggles and he formally smiles and brings his
smile to an end, now fastening his seat-belt intently and then looking out of
the window at the wing of the plane, silvery with its rectangular patches.
    Lise’s
left-hand neighbour smiles. The loudspeaker tells the passengers to fasten
their seat-belts and refrain from smoking. Her admirer’s brown eyes are warm,
his smile, as wide as his forehead, seems to take up most of his lean face.
Lise says, audibly above the other voices on the plane, ‘You look like Red
Riding-Hood’s grandmother. Do you want to eat me up?’
    The
engines rev up. Her ardent neighbour’s widened lips give out deep, satisfied
laughter, while he slaps her knee in applause. Suddenly her other neighbour
looks at Lise in alarm. He stares, as if recognizing her, with his brief-case
on his lap, and his hand in the position of pulling out a batch of papers.
Something about Lise, about her exchange with the man on her left, has caused a
kind of paralysis in his act of fetching out some papers from his brief-case.
He opens his mouth, gasping and startled, staring at her as if she is someone
he has known and forgotten and now sees again. She smiles at him; it is a smile
of relief and delight. His hand moves again, hurriedly putting back the papers
that he had half drawn out of his brief-case. He trembles as he unfastens his
seat-belt and makes as if to leave his seat, grabbing his brief-case.
    On the
evening of the following day he will tell the police, quite truthfully, ‘The
first time I saw her was at the airport. Then on the plane. She sat beside me.
    ‘You
never saw her before at any time? You didn’t know her?’
    ‘No,
never.’
    ‘What
was your conversation on the plane?’
    ‘Nothing.
I moved my seat. I was afraid.’
    ‘Afraid?’
    ‘Yes,
frightened. I moved to another seat, away from her.’
    ‘What
frightened you?’
    ‘I don’t
know.’
    ‘Why
did you move your seat at that time?’
    ‘I don’t
know. I must have sensed something.’
    ‘What
did she say to you?’
    ‘Nothing
much. She got her seat-belt mixed with mine. Then she was carrying on a bit
with the man at the end seat.’
    Now, as
the plane taxis along the runway, he gets up. Lise and the man in the aisle
seat look up at him, taken by surprise at the abruptness of his movements.
Their seat-belts fasten them to their seats and they are unable immediately to
make way for him, as he indicates that he wants to pass. Lise looks, for an
instant, slightly senile, as if she felt, in addition to bewilderment, a sense
of defeat or physical incapacity. She might be about to cry or protest against
a pitiless frustration of her will. But an air-hostess, seeing the standing
man, has left her post by the exit—door and briskly comes up the aisle to their
seat. She says. ‘The aircraft is taking off. Will you kindly remain seated and
fasten your seat-belt?’
    The man
says, in a foreign accent, ‘Excuse me, please. I wish to change.’ He starts to
squeeze past Lise