So, what song?
I continued to play this game with myself. Certainly nothing out of my covers set. Something epic? That would just be arrogance. There’s nothing special about me and to be honest not about most other people either. We’re all just spinning on this broken carrousel and we’ll all fly off sooner or later.
My way?
Yuck – certainly not. Maybe something by Miles. Or Portrait for Tracy by Jaco – that’d do.
“Excuse’ madam…”
“Oh shit, sorry,” I said, shuffling along suddenly.
I hadn’t noticed the queue moving on until a youngish back packer-behind me had indicated it. Madam? Did I look that old? Maybe they only say that here – no word for Miss.
Moving further up, I felt anxious again, clocking each one of the police officers, looking away when their gaze fell near. I was only a few feet away now. Beefheart had just finished singing the admittedly nonsense lyrics of Abba Zabba. I stopped it before the next song, keeping my phone and headphones in my hands. I was close enough to take a tray. I set my things in and began searching my pockets for anything else metal. Then I placed my bags on the rollers too and waited. An older middle aged security guard with white slicked back hair indicated to the man in front of me to come on forward. The smartly suited man walked under the metal detector, as his bag disappeared inside the scanning machine. I caught the eye of a security guard standing off to the side. Was he looking at me? I set my own tray onto the rollers, feeling very nervous, my hands sweating.
I am so close.
The beeper stayed silent and the man walked on to collect his bag. By own bags began to roll towards the machine, just as I clocked a cop coming my way. He was maybe forties, tall, lean, with a tanned and serious face. I bent back up and tried not to stare at him. He was a few metres away, surely walking towards me. Did he recognise me? Was he even one of the ones from the hotel? The security guard by the scanner noticed him then too. He was another burly character.
“One moment,” he said to me, holding a finger aloft. Then he quietly conferred with the cop. I was gutted, the plane was so close, so was home, escape. I tried my best to look disinterested.
“Your passport please.” said the cop pointedly, suddenly right in front of me. I tried to keep calm and hoped the vein wasn’t obvious pulsing in my neck.
“Yes, of course,” I said, passing it to him.
He studied it, his eyes fixed on it with intensity. Then he glanced towards me, his eyes boring in for a moment. Finally, he handed me back the passport.
“Thank you,” he said dully and strode off.
“Come now, come,” said the security man sympathetically.
I blew out my cheeks and stepped through. He gave me a conspiratorial shake of his head. It had been nothing – must just be what that cop is like.
Then the alarms rang out.
Fucksake! What now?
“Okay, pass on please,” he said waving me on towards my bags.
Really? Thank you!
I was experiencing a kind of hesitant elation.
I bent to pick up my bags, looked around once more, then headed off to find a departures screen.
42
“Hi, a coffee please, one ham and cheese toastie, and a brandy.”
I was jolly well delighted to be on the plane and up in the sky. I near shat myself at the airport. Come what may, at least I was getting home. When my food arrived, it was just the ticket. Eating on planes seriously is a novelty. Maybe it’s all the dinky, plastic parts – or just the fact of eating at three hundred thousand feet. Once we had ascended as high as we were going to and evened out – I evened out too. I felt properly excited, but tried to keep a lid on it. Unless the Spanish army were to fire a rocket launcher at the plane, or it was hijacked by disgruntled ex-Ryanair staff, I was on my way back to my wee country. My country. It’s a funny notion. I do have a warmth for the place. I’m connected to it. I could care less about The South or even Great Britain, but I did love home, whatever you want to name it.
I thought about my friends, my auntie. Maybe I would see them all again after all. I knew I had loose ends to straighten out, but there was hope. I’d go and spend time with Auntie Grace, first chance I got. I thought of Amy and all my other friends. I knew I was lucky. I thought of a few months before when me and the girls had gone on a big night out. It’d been the best of craic – drinks at our friend Claire’s, then out dancing in town.
Jesus – what I’d give for an ordinary night out with my friends again.
I think Amy and I had drifted apart a little recently. It happens. Well I didn’t want to let it. I had a fresh start coming, I had a second chance at everything. If I could just make it through the last stretch.
Most of all, I couldn’t wait to see Mike. It didn’t consider it a romantic thing, just a primal need for my friend, kinship.
Once I had finished my sky munch, a hostess came and collected all the rubbish and then they dimmed the cabin lights. I eased back in my chair and drifted off into a contented sleep.
Disorientation returned when consciousness seeped in with the roar and screech of a rather bumpy landing. Usually I feel a touch of melancholy, landing back in Belfast from a trip away. This time was different.
A lot different.
Walking down through arrivals would usually have appeared a little down at the heel and diminutive, after arriving from somewhere exotic.
