I took out all the cash, at least £500, and a decent amountof drachmas as well. Making sure no one was looking, I tossed the wallet overthe back of the boat straight into the Aegean Sea, just as a right hullabalooerupted behind me.
“Hey, someone’s stolen my wallet!” I heard Jim exclaim, andwatched from a safe distance as he kicked off in no uncertain terms. He didn’tdo himself any favours at all, especially when he started accusing the“thieving Greek bastard” behind the bar.
He got no support whatsoever from the other holidaymakerswho clearly found him as irritating as I did; thus his demands to have everyonesearched fell on deaf ears. Not that it would have done any good anyway; therewas nothing on the cash in my pocket to link it back to him.
Watching him rant and rave, getting redder in the face bythe minute, was quite amusing. He really was a horrible, fat little man and Ifelt almost as if I’d done the world a favour by dealing him a misfortune. Hewell and truly deserved it.
Docking at Corfu, I had no time to lose. I certainly wasn’tgoing to waste time waiting for a bus to the airport, and grabbed the firsttaxi I saw. At 11.45am, I practically ran into the departure lounge, scanningthe boards for a flight back to England.
Other than the Manchester flight, now delayed until 2.20pm,there was nothing until the evening: far too late for me. A quick enquiry atthe check-in desk confirmed what I’d already suspected – the Manchester flightwas full anyway.
I wasn’t beaten yet. I had a plan B. Corfu was predominantlya holiday airport when it came to international flights, invariably fullybooked. However, I could get an internal flight to Athens and there was onescheduled for 12.40pm.
I quickly changed some of Jim’s sterling into drachmas atthe bureau de change and headed for the booking desk. I was in luck. The Athensflight was used mainly by Greeks who worked in the islands, going to and fro onbusiness, and there were plenty of spare seats.
I knew once I got to Athens Airport I’d have a much betterchance of getting a flight home, as they would have many more flights that werenot purely dedicated to holidaymakers.
The plane was in the air on time, and the flight to Athenstook just one hour. I had no luggage and there were no customs, so gettingthrough the airport was easy. Well before 2pm, I was in Athens Airport, scanningthe boards for the flight that I hoped would take me home.
My luck held. I had been hoping for a flight to Gatwick, butI was delighted to see that there was a British Airways flight to Heathrow,much closer to Oxford. It didn’t take off until 3pm, though, and I had to meetJosh at 5pm.
Luckily, Greece was two hours ahead of the UK, so I couldstill make it. The flight time was only two hours, and I had just enoughdrachmas left to cover it. I hadn’t changed all the sterling I’d lifted fromJim because I knew that I’d still need some at the other end.
With the flight taking off only ten minutes behind schedule,I was able to relax for the first time that day. It was less than six hourssince I’d got on the boat from Paxos and now I was on a flight bound for home.I was really beginning to believe that I was going to make it. But would Joshbe there? I’d hate it if I’d gone to all this effort for nothing.
It seemed to take an age to land at Heathrow where we werestuck in a stacking system above the airport. I put my watch back two hoursbefore we landed and checked it as I cleared customs with no problems. It was3.27pm. I rushed out of the airport and enquired at the taxi rank how much itwould be for a black cab.
Needless to say, it was beyond my means, I had only around£40 left after paying for the flights. I toyed with the idea of stealing a car,but it was too risky and would be stacking up potential problems later on. Inthe end, I jumped on a National Express coach bound for Oxford and hoped forthe best.
The journey went well, to begin with. We were ahead of therush hour, and the M40 was running smoothly. As we headed past the Park andRide on the outskirts of Oxford, it was 4.39pm. With only around three miles togo, I really did think I was going to make it.
And then we hit the Oxford traffic. It was queued up to theHeadington roundabout, and then at a crawl through Headington itself. By thetime we got to St Clement’s, there was less than five minutes left. I wasgetting frantic, checking my watch every few seconds.
As we crawled over Magdalen Bridge at barely walking pace, Irealised that I had to get off the coach. Now I just had to convince the driverto open the doors. The coach service was meant to be non-stop all the way toGloucester Green bus station, but there was no way I could wait that long: itcould be another half-hour at least.
We were only a couple of hundred yards from where I neededto be, so I rushed to the front of the coach, hand over my mouth, and yelled atthe driver, “Open the doors, I’ve got to get off, I’m going to be sick.”
“I can’t let you off here,” he replied. “It’s againstregulations. There’s a toilet at the back of the coach: use that.”
“There’s someone in there,” I protested, and leaning closelyin towards him and doing my best to look as if I was about to vomit, I added,“Seriously this is an emergency and I’m going to throw up all over you if youdon’t open these doors.”
He
