Maeve's Times by Binchy Maeve

Author:Binchy, Maeve [Binchy, Maeve]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781409149910
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2013-09-11T23:00:00+00:00

Encounters at the Airport

7 November 1981

At the shop in London Airport, there was a young man studying the display of postcards. Then he went to a section which had simply big words on the front like THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU. His eyes went up and down the shelves until he found what he wanted, and he bought 12 of the one that said ‘SORRY’.

He was tall and fair-haired and blameless looking. I haven’t had a wink of sleep wondering what he did. Two women on the plane were discussing a friend they had seen in London who had got amazingly slim.

‘Unnaturally slim, I’d call it,’ said the one with the velvet beret.

‘You wouldn’t even call it slim, it’s downright thin,’ said the fur hat.

‘Fashionably thin is one thing, but this is verging on the bony,’ said the Beret.

‘Yes, the face is getting kind of gaunt,’ said the Hat.

At that point the air hostess passed with the coffees.

‘Two vodka and tonics, please,’ said the Beret.

The air hostess broke the news that ordinary people aren’t allowed to buy drink on planes any more; you have to call yourself Executive and pay a fortune and sit in the front, and they’ll pour drink on you free. The Hat and the Beret received this news glumly, as indeed have we all in our time. But they thought back to their slim friend.

‘Probably just as well,’ said the Hat.

‘Maybe it was meant as an omen,’ said the Beret.

As we waited for the luggage to come out, my mind was a red blur of relief that we had landed and filled with resolutions never to go up there into those skies again. Dublin Airport is grand about luggage trolleys these days; there were dozens of them where you could see them, unlike a lot of places where they hide them behind huge cardboard walls. A woman and daughter who were having a hard time relating to each other were leaning on a trolley.

‘There, now, the bank’s open in the airport on a Sunday. Wouldn’t that be a handy thing to know?’

‘Why would it be handy?’ asked the girl.

‘If you wanted to cash a cheque, you could come out here.’

‘God,’ said the girl, ‘twenty-four miles to cash a cheque, God.’

Mothers are slow to take offence at tones and dismissiveness. This woman chattered on about how the cases would soon be out and then they’d be on their way, and how grand it was to be home and how great it had been to be away. The girl grunted and eyed the crowd in a hopeless quest for an Airport Encounter with a young man who would whisk her away to less tedious chat.

‘When all’s said and done, I think it’s best to fly by plane.’ The mother looked pleased that she had come to this decision.

‘Aw, God,’ said the girl, ‘what else would we fly by but a plane? Seagull?’

Out in the place where people wait to meet the Arriving Passengers, a family was peering nervously as there seemed to be no sign of their son.

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