Would this Marseille-bound flight be the death of me?

‘There’s no need to wipe down your tray table,’ screeched Heidi, chief steward of the ‘amazing team you have looking after you today’.

‘Because for your safety today,’ she went on, ‘the aircraft is deep-cleaned between flights by specialists.’ Which brought to mind the chain gang of depressed women that one sometimes sees filing aboard during a stopover to gather rubbish and flick a duster around. I wondered whether they had been inspired or lashed into devoting their lowly paid attention and energies to the tray-table catch, for instance, or to the overhead ventilation nozzle or to the locker handles. Just as, earlier, I had also wondered how many hundreds of fingers had grasped those grey plastic trays circulating in the security check area since they were last disinfected.

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I had hoped, imagined even, that when we filed aboard and took our seats in the plane cabin, we would find the middle seats unoccupied and the passengers evenly distanced over the remaining space.