A Start in Life by Alan Sillitoe

Author:Alan Sillitoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504038560
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2016-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

*Michael Cullen’s mistake. As everyone knows, this novel was written by Tobias Smollett – though Cullen is by no means the first to make such an error. Author.

Part Five

They loaded me up at the flat and William drove me to the airport. He had only got back from a diamond trip the night before, but wanted to be the one to see me off. ‘You’ll do marvels. You’re a bloody wonder-boy. I’ve never seen anybody carry so much with such a cold look in his eye. I mean it. You’ll be perfect.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Stop the cackle. I can’t stand it so early in the morning. I still need fifteen more cups of coffee, so I hope there’ll be time at the buffet.’

I’d been to the airport the day before, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a cap as if going to wait for somebody, so I knew my way through. I said goodbye to William, then got out of the car so that he could drive home and get some sleep. I felt utterly cool and unconcerned about carrying gold out of the country, because it seemed such a harmless and easy thing to do. It wasn’t stealing, and that made it all right. I was only a highly paid pack-mule.

I booked in, got on the escalator, and made straight for the departure lounge, feeling it would be better not to delay in case this feeling of righteousness deserted me. Bustling in the crowd around the newspaper and souvenir kiosk at the other end, I saw the bluff familiar head of Moggerhanger. What he was doing at the airport I didn’t know, and had no wish to find out, but it made just one more good reason for getting through the formalities quickly. My ticket was checked, and then I walked towards the passport man, a real old Twitchbollock standing behind a pulpit. Nearby was a customs officer who glanced at everybody as they went by. I looked ahead, through the door, as if anxious to get at one of the coffee urns beyond, and this disinterested craving for another dose of breakfast put a normal look on my face at a point when I was about to get nervous. There was a beautiful dark-haired girl in front of me, and after my passport was seen to I took a view of her legs when I should have been giving the customs man a dirty look. I heard no voice asking what I was taking out, felt no hand on my shoulder, and then I was through, and in, and out, and at the counter, and sweating so much under my armour-plated coat that black spots flitted in front of my eyes. I deliberately lingered by the part of the counter that was still in sight of the customs man, not out of crackpot bravado, but only to emphasize to him, if he ever had any suspicions, that I felt no reason to vanish into the crowd.

With half an hour

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.