The journey to the UK was spent squashed between two generously proportioned Women's Institute knitters, and between their gossip and their girth I had managed neither sleep nor sustenance. Now as I escape the Knitters and the confines of coach and am reintroduced to the idea of being in control of my own limbs I find myself longing for food. There is a bar after Passport control and I pick up a coffee and a tuna sandwich. There's something miraculous about the reviving quality of coffee. I find I don't have to drink it, just the smell of it, the suggestion of caffeine, kicks my brain in to gear. I have no doubt I would have been one of Pavlov's favourite dogs, I am so readily susceptible to suggestion.
Conscious of the crowd of people streaming past me to clog the baggage reclaim carousels I stow the tuna sandwich and take a last sniff at the caffeine before moving on. As I near baggage reclaim I check the flight number on the overhead screen and notice the flight has not been assigned a carousel yet. I have beaten the system. For a moment I feel quietly smug but then reality dawns on me that this is not terribly helpful: I have escaped the aeroplane only to be at the mercy of the ground staff. Hostage once more. I resign myself to make the most of the moment of freedom for what it is and decide to eat the tuna sandwich. For hours I have been confined to a seat in the plane, my desperation to escape still palpable in the air and yet I search for somewhere to sit. Such are the conventions:I was brought up to sit down to eat.
I scan the baggage reclaim hall and spot a bank of four seats. Two are free but as I near the bench I realise the occupants are the two WI women from the plane, still knitting, and I quickly swerve away, taking all due care not to make eye contact, and search for an alternative. The majority of people are concentrated around three reclaim belts and I notice the one at the end of the hall is out of order and I decide to perch on that.
Removing the sandwich from my bag I sit on the overlapping rubber mats of the carousel and struggle to find an angle of comfort. That done to the best of my ability I am about to unwrap the sandwich when an inaudible tannoy system announces its most recent gibberish. I put down the sandwich on the carousel, pick up my bag and go to check the screen. No new information is available, but as I turn back I bump into the WI Knitters again who ask me if I know when the bags will come. They are, to be kind, a little beyond middle age, these two knitting bookends, and it occurs to me that maybe they cannot read the writing on the screen without their glasses.
"No news yet" I say in a sudden act of civility.
That was all the encouragement they needed. I was dragged into the position of semi-participant-audience for the next five minutes of 'conversation' and my only way out seemed to be to offer to get a baggage trolley for them which they accepted gratefully. I skulked off and left them to it, heading not to the trolleys but back to my sandwich.
I had got as far as removing half the sandwich from the wrapper when a second announcement was heard ( although I am not quite sure if it was intelligible to anyone) and I had to get up to check the screen again. Nothing.
"Couldn't you find a trolley dear?" Damn. "I think they are over there"
"Ok ladies, back in a minute." There was no escape. At the other end of the baggage hall there was a line of trolleys stacked together and I went to collect one. A third announcement followed by a whirring of machinery and an audible warning bell looked more promising. The mounting impatience of a hall full of jet lagged and weary travellers suddenly stirred itself to action as positions were vied for at the side of the carousel and my two knitters finally put away their ball of wool, jabbed through with needles, and urged me into a better position at the carousel.
Before I know how it's happened I'm standing three deep in a scrum of desperation, suitcases being pulled from the carousel into my chins, yanked up with such force that I'm elbowed in the ribs and with other passengers stepping back onto my toes to make their escape. A rugby scrum? American football? They have nothing on these desperate passengers. I give up all hope of escaping to my tuna sandwich and pitted myself to the yolk. As the belt begins to clear I spot my case and pull it clear, shortly after helping the Knitters with their bags. I waved them off with the trolley and dragging my suitcase back to the out of order carousel, prepared to eat my tuna sandwich in my own time, on my own terms.
There is a sudden whirring of machinery I front of me and an audible warning bell and from across the room I see that my sandwich is on the move. The out of order conveyor belt it seems is out of order no longer. I drag my suitcase as fast as I possibly can and reach the conveyor belt just in time to watch my sandwich disappear through a rubber curtain. In desperation I abandon my suitcase climb on board the baggage reclaim belt and ride on my hands and knees through the curtain. Re emerging through the other curtain fifteen seconds later,surfer style, sandwich in hand, feeling every inch the hero of the hour and take a
full lap of honour before joining my suitcase.
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