Talking down

Jarrod Gilbert on the agony of sitting next someone who switches her mouth to talk mode

When flying there is one thing more fearful than losing power and falling from the sky and that’s the prospect of sitting next to somebody who talks. Talkers make the prospect of fiery crashes appealing.

It’s this simple. You stuff your bag in the locker or under your seat. You briefly acknowledge the person next to you. An eyebrow raise or a smile is sufficient. Then you pull out your book, the newspaper or phone and kick back. That’s it.

Sure, sure, at a certain point you may need to work out who gets what when it comes to the armrest, but that simply requires the diplomatic language of elbow dancing.

I don’t know who made these rules; I only know that all decent people live by them.

Recently a plane talker took her aisle seat without me even noticing. I was already in the window seat and a man — this story’s victim and hero — was seated between us. I didn’t know it then, of course, but now I recognise him as a living, breathing barrier between me and a murder charge.

The hell that followed did not slowly build to a crescendo. It did not ease its way into our hero’s life, it rushed at him with all the decorum of a flash flood; terrifying and unexpected.

Before the talker had fastened her seatbelt she had introduced herself and asked the man who he was and where he lived. Before the plane had moved off from the air bridge she had covered three separate topics. That’s a year’s talking quota for an average traveller.

As we gathered pace down the runway, the talker gathered volume and the man gathered the in-flight magazine. Sensible, I thought, because even talkers know that’s the equivalent of placing a “do not disturb” sign on your door. But the talker didn’t shut up. She kept going;

punctuating each diatribe with a question so that the man was forced to nod his head at the very least, which by this stage was stuffed so far into the magazine his nose was near touching the pages. At a glance you’d be forgiven for thinking he was using it to be sick into… and so to speak, he was.

I felt sorry for the bloke, of course, but there was nothing I could do. He was a kindly, suited fellow, maybe around 60 years old. Whoever taught him manners either did too good of a job or not good enough. Not then, and not for the rest of the trip, did he politely or impolitely tell her to f*** up.

In fact, he made some terrible strategic errors; his kindly nature forced him to answer her from time to time. In fairness, it’s not easy to flat-out ignore a direct question.

For a short period he kept an unwavering belief in the in-flight magazine, like Christians might the Bible. But when the talker pointed to something in the magazine and began discussing it, he placed it back in the seat pocket. She had just beaten him with his own defence weapon.

At this point I took my headphones off. This was like the Halley’s Comet of talkers. I wasn’t really that interested — frightened, if anything — but I knew I’d never see the likes of it again for 75 years.

They say if you are threatened by certain animals that you should stay very still and play dead. Back went the man’s head and he closed his eyes. He went into sleep mode.

And there we were. In the eye of the storm. If he just kept his eyes closed for long enough he would surely force her into a mute submission. But she did not break. He did. After a few seconds his eyes opened with quiet resignation and he began to talk to her. I wondered if after 4000 topics she’d finally struck one he found irresistible. But in reality, I was witnessing Stockholm syndrome at 35,000 feet. The conversational equivalent of waterboarding; she had tortured him into talking.

Resigned to his fate, he wasn’t what anyone could describe as happy. At times he would grind his hands together in odd ways, a kind of stress-induced tic. I side-eyed him. I wondered if he was having a stroke.

On landing, the talker stood in the aisle and I tried to get a handle on who the hell she was. She looked vaguely normal. She was rocking double denim but not in such a way as to hint at such a heavy madness. She wore oldfashioned big tan glasses. She was maybe 50 years of age, so too young to have lost her marbles. I then got a glimpse of nail polish with glitter in it, and unless you’re 8 years old or a drag queen that’s a bit out of order.

The last thing she said to the man was, “It was nice talking to you, it made the flight go fast.” Our hero smiled at her and said goodbye having just endured the longest flight of his life.

If he had stabbed her right there and then, I would have said I was in the toilet and saw nothing. All decent people would have done the same.

I didn’t know it then, of course, but now I recognise him as a living, breathing barrier between me and a murder charge.