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and stared at admiringly—anyone would think they flew the bloody planes—greeting passengers at the top of the steps, directing them to their places, settling them, flirting very mildly with the men, charming the women, walking up and down slowly, smiling reassuringly, checking they were all safely strapped in.“It’s a bit like being a mannequin,” they’d been told when they were training. “Everyone will look at you; you’re the face of the airline; you have to be calm, confident, perfectly groomed every minute of every trip.”
    And they had such fun. The pilots were fantastic, glamorous, dashing figures, made so much more handsome by their uniforms. The most dashing were the ex–fighter pilots, older, practised charmers. The girls weren’t supposed to fraternise with the air crew; they were always booked into separate hotels, “as if that would make any difference, for God’s sake,” Scarlett said scornfully.
    Nor, of course, were you encouraged to have anything to do with the passengers once off the plane. There was occasional trouble with the men, of course; they’d pinch your bottom, or try to stroke your legs, and some of the businessmen travelling alone would ask you to have dinner with them, but a sweet smile and an “excuse me” or “sorry, sir” usually did the trick, although now and again, lured by the promise of dinner at the Hilton, say, in Rome, they would succumb.
    God, this turbulence was bad. There were bells going all over the place, unpleasant noises coming from various points in the plane, someone trying to get up to go to the loo. They all begged to be allowed, but they weren’t; they had to stay in their seats, however humiliating the consequences. That was another thing you became as a stewardess: a nanny. Scarlett didn’t even mind that.
    They were on the way to Rome. She was looking forward to it; she liked Rome and she especially liked Roman men. Normally it was straight back the same day, but she had a couple of days’ leave and she had decided to stay. She was having a little fling with a pilot, who’d adjusted his rotation to be with her. Well, it was more than a little fling; it was an affair. He was married, but he was getting a divorce, so she didn’t feel too bad.
    Sometimes Scarlett wondered what on earth her parents would think of her if they knew what she had become. A tart, they would call her. A slut. Which would be unfair, because she never slept with anyone unless she was very fond of him; she had only one relationship at a time, and she never slept with anyone who was happily married or who had children. Of course they all lied, and said their wives didn’t understandthem, but she always did her homework and checked their stories out. And she hadn’t actually had that many affairs. Three. Well, four, if you counted the first one.
    She often looked back at the Scarlett who had been a strictly-brought-up virgin, who knew that once you’d slept with a boy you lost his respect forever and you’d never see him again. The other girls had put her straight on all that; the conversations in the hotel rooms late at night were barrack-room lewd. They’d told her what a lot of fun she was missing and where and how to get herself sorted out so she wouldn’t get pregnant; she was still worried about the loss of respect, but Diana said that was an old wives’ tale—or rather an old mothers’.
    “Maybe when you’re really young and you don’t know the chap very well, but in a relationship, goodness, it’s fine.”
    Scarlett, thinking herself properly in love for the first time, with an Englishman she had met in Paris, consulted the gynaecologist, who was kind and practical, instructed Scarlett in the mysteries of the Dutch cap, and sent her back to her boyfriend’s bed with her blessing. He was, as it turned out, as so many of them had turned out to be, married; but Scarlett enjoyed several weeks of happiness with him before making the discovery and, as a