January Journey
by Max Akroyd
In case airports aren’t confusing enough, they put a man in the way of their signs. In a parallel world where toothpaste is definitely a liquid, sir and your multiple metal crowns earn you a brisk rub down by a complete stranger, you need a sign – something to point you in the right direction. There it is – the multicoloured oracle. People look to it for guidance, and even the godless pray that the words ‘flight delayed by x hours’ don’t appear next to their final destination. I approach the departures board with due reverence, trying to pick out Nantes from a hundred other names. Before I can even start looking: can I help you sir? asks a man dressed like a funeral attendee. I now have two competing sources of information where I barely wanted one. I mumble something untrue (the truth being: I just want to go home now please) and walk away confidently in completely the wrong direction. Fortunately he’s facing the other way snaring other folk as I sneak past him and find another sign free of human intermediary.
Later, on the plane, I discover my hand luggage has become too engorged with duty-free Jelly Babies for the kids and the jumper that still smelt too much of the farm. A strange sight greets my fellow passenger upon entering the plane as I wrestle with the bloody thing. They grumble as I block their way, on four – maybe even five – separate, increasingly desperate, forays into overhead compartment hell. At least this spectacle makes the air stewardess smile momentarily, before she has to wearily resume the pre-flight ritual for the fourth time that day.
Living in the middle of nowhere, you end up a kind of weathered residue of your former self which makes normality appear very strange. The early-morning shopping precincts had been transactionless but people showed up anyway. Why does a sign need a man to explain the sign? I’m sure he just wants to go home too. Why does the lady squeezed into the red nylon suit designed by a misogynist have to dispense instructions to an unheeding collection of grumpy travellers who care not which toggle to pull in the unlikely event the plane should land on water… I don’t any more know why we do this to each other.
It’s a relief to be in the car on the final stretch. Despite a thick sea mist hanging around the motorway near Vannes, it’s all so straightforward. And then the fog is gone. I can now see the big bridges crossing the big rivers which seem to hold a memory of the daylight on the surface of the water. French roads are very quiet at this time of night and I only have to dip my lights a few times between Lorient and home. After a few hours the driver and the road and the travel and the music from the car stereo have become one substance.
I stop to pee by the roadside (well, when in Rome…). The car is just a tiny pulse of light and sound in the afforested night. The moonlit beyond is constant, unperturbed by human trajectory.
Ah, home: Where the heart lies, where the family are and where you can reach a toilet unmolested. You’re a closet romantic aren’t you?
Write that book!
Airports…..a world of their own, staffed by specially trained folk put there merely to cause confusion and throw us into a state of belief that man really was born to fly.
How nice to reach home, to see that little beacon of light down a dark track, to know that behind that peeling, painted door lies more confusion, but one that you made yourself and somehow is just comfortable and right.
It’s nice to go away sometimes, but always doubly nice to be back home.
Sue xx
Welcome home.
Hi Max
I did not want that post to end. It has the promise of a story.
I have to experience an airport for the first time in March as I’m going to see my brother in Sonoma. Never been on a plane before and not looking forward to it! At my age if I don’t do it now….well…….
Hope the family is well.
Is there going to be a “big pig” this year?
Mary x