I leave Amsterdam for Canada knowing I have forgotten something. My foot is itching; I am worried about work; I have a weight on my heart and cannot exactly explain what it is.I suspect that the gloom is something to do with work. I do not like it, the thing I do, and the end of August - when I leave Amsterdam and my job for Blighty, where I will seek out my thickest socks before leaving almost immediately for the Canada - seems a very long way away.
I pass out almost immediately when the plane takes off, for I am very tired. But then the children next to me play a game that involves barking like Chihuahuas every time I fall properly asleep. It must be a good game, for it lasts for nearly seven hours. (I very much doubt their parents ever suggested a game my own parents encouraged us to play: it was called "Playing On The M4", and Monkeymother would often suggest it as she slipped into her habitual absinthe-induced coma.)
The lady brings pasta (which I eat) and salad (which I do not, for it is made of celery and encased in savoury custard*). The KLM hostesses** offer me ice-cream, which I do not have; mere seconds later they are bring round suspicious looking parcels of bread crossed with pastry closed around something that smells like curry, but could be sweetened Pal. I do not eat it.
The aeroplane lands in Montreal and I stand up to get my bag - which contains two laptops - from the overhead locker. As I 'accidentally' drop it onto the waiting head of the younger of the two Chihuahua children, I realise something so obvious that I am surprised I had not noticed it before: I have been unhappy at work for months, but have been making the misery worse by not admitting it. Admitting it to myself cheers me immensely; in celebration, I swing my other bag (containing three novels and four magazines) against the head of the elder of the two children. It has the desired effect.
I am asked questions by the customs man. "What is the purpose of your visit?". "I am visiting my boyfriend!", I say, gagging on the word. "AND WHERE DID YOU MEET HIM?", he barks, as if my secret wish has always been to become a Canadian Citizen, guessing that I am up to no good with the internet and a cheque for $10,000. "In Canterbury", I say, adding - for reasons I have yet to understand - "He is a pathologist! Of animals!". This confuses him, and he lets me through.
Everything is much better now. I have only thought about work for a bit (to think about a predictably foolish decision someone has made, and to have an excuse for a delicious conversation with a friend in New York under the pretext that we are talking about cars). I have been eating toast and cherries, making not-very-nice soup, been chewed on by gigantic laconic mosquitos, and picked fruit in the pathologist's garden.
I am making Summer Pudding out of it, of course, these raspberries and redcurrants and brambles*** that we picked this afternoon. I have been telling the pathologist that it is better than any pudding in the world. It is also one of the most English things you can think of; more English even than a ridiculously high cost of living in return for a preposterously low quality of life, PG Tips or warm, overpriced gin and tonic in a smoke-free pub. He doesn't know that the other ingredient is bread, but no matter; he will like it, otherwise I will kill him. I am not thinking about work much now.
* One of the most chilling expressions in the English language.
** My airline of choice. Efficient, impersonal service; serves Chinese red wine. Reluctant to lend pens.
*** Do not bother to write in and tell me that those are not the correct fruits. Strictly speaking, it's whitecurrants and raspberries. Strawberries and cherries are Not Correct, that's all I know, and I like a blackcurrant in mine. (Strawberries are such show-offs; the adolescent Bonnie Langford of fruits.)
