Feb 1st

So. That was the plan. Here I should be, writing the tale of the day from ma petite chambre in the Hotel Alize, Marseille, having indulged a delicious bouillabaise whilst looking out over the Med on a sharp crisp, black night. The boats bobbing up and down gently in the harbour, the shriek of gulls mingling with the frenetic meridonal Friday night traffic.
So why then, was Friday not vendredi, and why was bouillabaise a mediocre ruby muray, and why were there not pleasure craft and sturdy fishing vessels vyeing for my attention, but rather the dull and familiar surroundings of Market Square Sleaford.?
I’d packed the day before, and was feeling quite pleased with myself for the organisation put into this. I even had time to mess around with the new video camera purchased for our trip. In fact I had so much time I’d transfered some old footage onto DVD. It was Daniel’s fifth birthday. So Sophie would have been 7 or 8 and little Emmsy was just staggering around in a baby grow with a shock of platinum fuzzy baby hair, and making an awful lot of noise. The kids are lovely now, but how beautiful they were at that age, untainted by anything the world had thrown at them. Daniel totally unselfconscious in a Thunderbird outfit, ready for International Recue action. Sophie is at the table in her puppy dog nightie. How awkwardly they handle their spoons, how hard to eat without making a mess of their faces. How funny their little utterances. How easily and unquestioningly they laugh at my feeble jokes. They are totally uncritical, it’s heart warming and more than a little sad to think that they will never again experience such a halcyon state of mind.
Heather dissapears. We’ve agreed. We need to leave at half eleven. We fly out from Stanstead at four, but as we are then flying from Marseille to Marrakech, and from Marrakech back to Luton, we need to leave one car there (Luton that is, not Marrakech)
At 11:15 I ask H whether she will be ready to leave in 15 minutes. She questions this, but I point out our agreed departure time, and she acceeeds. I am therefore a little surprised when she dissapears into the shower.
Needless to say the deadline is passed before she emerges in drip dry mode, and further time elapses before I find her getting out the ironing board. Kids trousers need to pressed for school on Monday it transpires. Notes have to be written to teachers as both Dan & Emsy are in bed today with chills, Emsy having half frozen to death yesterday playing football (in goal and immobile)
My temper is starting to go alrready. It’s gone midday now, although I still feel we are within a reasonable time frame. By twenty past I am losing my rag and in my car hooting for her to do the same. A further ten minutes slips away.
We head down the M40 and round the M25. The fuel warning beeps on my car.. I’d probably get to Luton, but the margin of error on this car is notoriously tight. The traffic is grinding to a halt, so I decide to leave the motorway at Watford, fill up and rejoin at the next junction.
The bloody garage is closed for furb, so I have to divert further through Hemel Hempstead. For the first time it occurs to me that things might be getting a little tight.
We head for Luton, but my worsening mood means that communication between me & H is limited, to say the least. Actually it’s non exisistent. The plan is that I’ll find an off road parking spot for H’s car and then we can head for Stanstead, but I am not in a mood to share this with her.
We set off up the M1, and nearing the exit for Luton airport, she overtakes me. Quite why when she doesn’t know where we are going, I can’t understand. I turn off for the station. From there I can find the nearest road without yellow lines, and we’ll be able to get the freebie bus back to it from the airport.
She doesn’t notice where I have gone. Five minutes later she hasn’t arrived. I ring.
"Where are you?"
"Where are you?"
"At the station, where are you"
"I don’t know"
"Get to the station"
Ten minutes later
"Where are you?"
"On a hill"
"Oh that’s fucking useful information, and where is this hill in relation to the station?"
"I don’t know"
"GET TO THE FUCKING STATION. FOLLOW THE SIGNS"
Ten minutes later
"I am in the centre of town, where I used to drop you off"
"WHAT???!!!!"
I am starting to lose it and now scream into the phone.
"GET TO THE FUCKING STATION"
I spell out each syllable. People are giving me a wide berth. Only a day later do I realise that I am standing right beside my car with my name and telephone number emblazoned all over it."
Three or four more calls pass, until eventually the mobile skip hoves into view.
"PARK" I yell from thje window.
She either doesn’t hear or doesn’t understand.
"PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRK" I scream to the consternation of everyone around who has not spent their life caring for the mentally deranged, amongst whose ranks I am now most asssuredly an honorary, albeit temporary member.
By the time we are reunited, a good thirty minutes have passed.
It is now well gone two, the flight leaves at four, we are in Luton, the plane is in Stanstead, we have a car to park and security to overcome. It is becoming tight.
The journey takes place in total silence. Road works on the M1 add to my sense of martyrdom and suffering at the hands of my incompetent spouse. This view suits me very well.
The traffic clears. We head east on good roads, but with frequent, infuriating stops for hold ups in the towns en route.
At 10 miles out it is 5 to 3. We arrive, park, and hurtle round the car park to the shuttle bus. It doesn’t move for what seems like an eternity, but what in reality is probably only 5 minutes. Eventually we our the car park. It is the size of fucking Hertfordshire with frequent pick ups on the way.
At last we spy the terminal building. We have moved to the front of the bus, our bags are at the back. It is gone half three.
I despatch H to to the terminal whilst I battle to retrieve the bags and haul them towards the check ins.
"Marseille 16:00 Go to Gate 42."
Easy, no problem. Then we see the queue to get through security. At Luton a few weeks before, when needless to say, we had been in a similar situation, we had got through in minutes, at the cost of losing Emmsy’s coat, later retrieved, in the rush.
Here though, the line snakes backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards, ruounds corners, up hill and down dale.
Being British, of course we don’t dare explain our situation and barge try to reason our way to the front. We wait patiently whilst the staff examine every pocket, evry crevice, every shoe, every bag, every nook and every cranny available to them.
By the time I get tp the front it is 10 to 4. I am dealt with reasonably quickly. I’m through. No matter that I have forgotten laptop, camera, passport, ticket, keys and cash, I am on the other side. I rush to the nearest screen.
"Marseille 16:00 Last Call."
We can do it. I don’t know how to get to gate 42, but I sense we can make it.
But where is H?
Where the fuck is H?
Where the fucking fuck is H??
Where the fucking fuck is that fucking useless fuck H????
For fuck’s sake where the fucking hell is that fucking useless fucking wife of mine???
A glance back to security and all is plain.
The handbag
The handbag that contains every bloody scrap of paper that has passed through her hands in the past twenty years.. Every useless piece of information, every never to be rung telephone number, every leaflet from every tourist attraction that we will never ever ever visit.
Every single scrap is being tipped out onto the table and scrutinised in minute detail.
Why?
Becasue she has put her liquids and gels and pastes in the bag, just as she did at Luton last time, and now having discovered this Pandora’s box, security are having a field day.
It’s time for the Victor Meldrew quote, but liberally sprinkled with "fuckings" as appropriate.
How many minutes pass before she is finally set free I know not, but now I am hauling a monster of a bag through departures. As we pass Dixons we hear our names called out on the tannoy. We desperately search for yellow signs. Gate forty two.
Every bastard in the building now conspires to get in the way as I try to get my 14 stone something running in it's direction.
The enormous wall of glass to my left shows me where I must have to get to . A line of Ryanair plane neatly parked in the process of either degorging or consuming their diet of human meat. At best they are a couuple of hundred yards away. Laden down by my ridiculously heavy cargo, and with the mass of gently ambling humanity heading towards their flights with time to spare, they may as well be on the other side of the world.
H is in front with her smaller roll alonong case. As with everything else we possess it doesn’t work properly, the handle not extending fully, so she is having to stoop and run simaltaneously.
"Leave the case!" I yell to her. "Go on ahead, hold them up!"
She understands, and I recuperate her baggage. A flight of stairs approaches (downward mercifully) There is the option of an escalator but that is too crowded. Round the corner. A long airport corridor, and then in the distance, shops, bars and the other paraphanelia of the area clustered around the departure gates.
H is in the building. I am sweating and wheezing. In the very little time I have to think I reflect that I would not have got this far without my walks in the hillsides bringing me back at least some way from the brink of total physical collapse.
She is talking to the girl on the desk. A platinum blonde. The body language looks discouraging. Certainly their are no other stragglers to be seen. The girl dissapears down the tube connecting planet earth to the plane. She doesn’t think so, but she is trying is the message I receive as I gasp to the desk.
If it was going to work she’d be straight back to rush us aboard I reason. A minute passes, two then three.
Eventually she reappears. It must be a well practised scenario. She looks calmly negative, so that we can assume the news before she has to break it to us. As she closes in on us her head starts to shake. H waits for the explanation
"They have done their final count"
She tries to reason. The girl points out that our web check in status requires us to be their nice and early. Before H can respond, I realise that my lungs are now functioning, and that it’s time to give vent to my spleen.
"No, but you had to have a fucking shower and then start the FUCKING ironing when it was time to leave for the plane. Didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU???"
The check in girl has seen people throw wobblies on many occasiona I have no doubt, and she remains cool and detached.
I stomp away, blood pumping, thrusting through every vein, thudding in my temples, pulsing in my arms. I am way beyond reason now, but I am resolved that this catastrophe is fairly and squarely, 100%, without the tiniest hint of doubt, the fault of my wife, and that she must suffer for it. That I had not filled up with petrol the day before is irrelevant. That I felt no real sense of urgency as she dithered around, and I was quite happy to get some extra charge into the camcorder will not be mentioned. That I could have been 100 times more helpful as she was lost in Luton will be passed over. This is entirely, categorically, and without the merest scintilla of doubt, her problem, hers alone, and my wrath and retribtuion will be awesome.
She has a plan. She wants my passport. Clearly she has a plan to book another flight. As indeed she did last she came to Stanstead. Last time she was late. Last time she missed a plane. The time when she quite happily let me think she was flying to Dublin, when in fact she was flyng to Shannon. I checked.There were flights to Dublin available, and at the same price. I asked, not directly, "Are you flying to Dublin?" but questions phrased so that if she wanted me to know she was in fact flying to Shannon, in all innocence, she had every opportunity to tell me so. She didn’t. A little research. Her friend Brendan lives not half an hours drive from Shannnon.
So if she wants to meet her friend Brendan, why not say so? Why let me continue to believe she is flying to Dublin? Unresolved issue. Of course, she missed the flight and ended up flying to Dublin anyway, paying a King’s ranson to do so. Clearly, the paln is to repeat the operation.
I willl have no truck with any rescue attempt. She has got us into this mess, and it must be made clear to her that she has ruined the weekend, ruined my life. She must suffer. Nothing coherent is happening in my head other than this grand plan.
Somehow her handbag has come into my possession.My nemesis. The bag that is permanently stuffed with paper, detritus, shit, more shit and yet more shit. Her ally in wrecking theplan!! Wan’t it the calamitous disorder of this fucking bag that had held her up for so long in security?Little matter if it was or it wasn’t, it was now as culpable as her. I march over to a dustbin, and in front of her empty it’s contents therein. People are staring, mouths are dropping. I am swearing at her, gleefully celebrating the demise of at least one of my sworn enemies. Then another idea springs to mind. She loves carrying around shit in her bag, so I’ll fill it with shit for her. I start cramming the handbag with used coffee cups, empty fag and crisp packets, anything that I can drag from the depths of the bin other than the original contents of the bag.
She’s had enough and tears are forming. She takes back her bag more in sorroow than anger, and is forced humiliatingly to scrape throug the bin in front of the gathered and astonished multitude, to retrieve her possessions. Her belly pops out from under her ill fitting jumper as she bends. I am tempted to comment, loudly and cruelly, but something within me says no.
This is the woman who has loved me and supported my indolence and incompetence for the past I don’t know how many years, and I can do no better than treat her like this. She has many failings, but far fewer than I do, and she doesn’t deserve this of course. What she needs is an ally who can help her rise above her shortcomings rather than someone who lazily and contemptuosly allows them to develop to their ultimate tragedy, and then takes glee in assassinating her for them.
But I am not thinking this right now. She must be punishd!
I leave, stomping angrily back towards the entrance gates, against the flow of all humanity. There should be no reason for anyone ever to head in this direction, and I am still cursing and spitting insults quite loudly enough for those travelling with the flow to cast uneasy glances at me. The thud of my bootsteps is ostentatious, I need people to know I have failed. I need them to ask themselves why, find out who caused me this pain, seek her out. And punish her.
What to do? Back to the car, get in, drive off, abandon her?
It’s tempting, it’s a possibility. Disspaear? Go of on my own for a few days. Let her stew wondering what’s become of me? Another flight? Take the weekend by myself? A Eursostar to Paris and TGV to Marsseille? Too many possibilities and certainly no cohenrent strategy emerging.
We meet again, I abuse her some more, belittle her, and she is crying and, unusually for H, aplogising. Genuine, heartfelt apologies. She has accepted full responsibility for this (when of course she was never fully to blame) and she wants to put it right. She is rushing to Easyjet desks, and checking further flights on Ryanair, and making phone calls.
I am alternately glorying in the fact that she has destroyed everything, and trying to work out in my addled mind if the weekend is still salvagable.
There is a hotel room paid for and awaiting in Marseille, and another in Marrakech. A glint of reason says it would be simply too pig headed to abandon this all to prove a point. A point that has probably been accepted anyway.
I have to tell someone what has happened. It’s poor Sophie who is first to know. She sound sad, not for me, but for the two of us. She is lovely, so lovely, and really cares. I make it quite clear who is at fault, but don’t turn the screw as I know how muh she adores her mummy and she doesn’t want to hear me destroying her. I ask if she’d have a look for flights to Marseille. We could get back to Luton maybe, certainly Heathrow is within reach and maybe Gatwick.
I consider flying to Nice or maybe even Narbonne. I am trying to see a map of southern France in my head and wondering if we could get their and then take a train. I have a rough idea of where these places are, but no clear sense of the distance between them, or the regularity of trains. Besides there are no flights heading that way from Stanstead.
Gravity has pulled the two of us together. Weak, sarcasm is now my weapon
"Thank you, thank you so much. What a wonderful fucking weekend, I so enjoyed that fucking terminal buiding, wasn’t it fucking wonderful, amazing, thank you oh thank you so much". Loud enough for all to hear. Public humiliation
We board the bus. She sits down and I walk to the back. She is continually on the phone, fighting back tears.
We get back to the car. My cruel tirade continues, unabated The phone rings. Apparently it is Sophie. Obviously H has been in touch with her too. Their is a flight to Marseille. I am only hearing one side.
"9 o’clock?" That sounds hopeful Gets in at 12. Ah! It’s tomorrow morning. Not so good, but I think through the options. Wrecks Marseille, and I was really looking forward to Marseille, the whole idea of a weekend away in two destinations was part of the thrill.
She tells me about the flight, which sounds the best idea in the circumstances. I belittle the plan, dismisssing it out of hand, mainly because it’s her plan,, and therefore cannot possibly hold any merit. She tells Sophie she’ll ring back.
We reach the exit of the car park. Reason rears it’s ugly head. We have paid for a weekend’s parking. If we just drive away we will lose the remainder of that. If we are coming back, then best arrange for us to return tomorrow. I order H over to the office. She’s almost obedient. This is so unlike her that I am starting to enjoy it! She sorts the whole thing out, as she always does when there is shit to be sorted, and I offer her not the faintest praise, merely seizing on the slightest area of doubt and amplifying it out of all proportion.
We drive away. Sophie is back. "Book the flight"
We drive in silence, Heather sobbing gently. Sophie rings back. Her plan, while the two fat cats were away, was too have 20 of her mates round for a party. It’s now dawned on her that we are heading home. She doesn’t want us there. She’s 17, she is home alone for the first time in her young adult life, and the return of her parents threatens disaster to her plans too. Now she is shouting at Heather. The tears start to flood.
"Yes!" the gleeful, vindictive bastard that I am is revelling in this two pronged attack on the enemy. In fact, I am even beginning to feel she may have suffered enough.
Sophie is told we are coming home and that’s that. We drive in silence.
Sophie is back on the phone. She is sorry. More tears, from both of them. I love them both. I should be helping. I don’t.
More miles, and I have time to consider Sophie’s plight. Until now I had put her attitude down to selfishness, but I transport myself back long through the years to when I was that age. A solution occurs.
"Shall we drive up to my parents and stay the night"
I sense she is glad of the chance to converse. There is no opposition, merely discussion as to the practicalities. It is less practical than to go home, but why wreck Sohpie’s weekend too?
Later Sophie rings up again. She’s clearly distressed. The dad of her friend Toblerone, who she is very fond of, has died suddenly. Apparently he was never a well man, being crippled in some form or other. It puts my problems into a sharper perspective and encourages me away from my strop.
It’s two hours to Helpringham, and as we get closer a thaw develops. Never warm, but we are conversing.
As we pull up outside I realise we should by now be dining on the "Vieux Port". I ring up Mum from outside andd describe the view over the Med, the lobster I am cracking into, and the bouillabaise I am devouring, then ring her bell and register her astonishment at seeing me on her doorstep.
The story is recounted in brief, and with me in a perfect light of course.
We go to the pub. I am now teasing by recounting at every moment whatwe should be doing in Marseille by now. On the way to the curry house I take her hand and she says than you. She must know she deserves better than me.
The curry is moderate, but we end up friends. A quick pint and then back home. It’ll be an early start tomorrow.