The loneliness of the unaccompanied traveller

Having decided to go, it was obviously only a matter of time before I had to pack. Ottawacker Jr was despatched to school – despite an onset of coughing as he reached the front door, which miraculously ceased the second he set foot outside – and Mrs Ottawacker sent to work. All heart, me.

Still undecided as to whether this trip is worth the risk. I can minimise my own risks – and will be bemasked, begloved, bedecked in all manner of things before mingling with the great unwashed, other than travelling in a giant condom, I am not sure there is much more I can do – but the risks I bring home or to friends with me are more serious.

I called my great friend Mark at the Reporting Factory, for it is he with whom I will be spending a weekend in London in the middle of the trip, as we go to witness the delights of Damien Dempsey and the Scouse bard Ian Prowse. He was refreshingly blasé about the whole thing.

“Just make sure you wash your hands,” he said. “And don’t touch your mouth or eyes or nose.”

I was quite reassured. Then, as is often his wont, he came up with the coup de grâce. 

“Of course,” he said, “it is all moist membranes that are the problem. What worries me most is if you can keep your hands off your cock while you are away from home. I’ll trust your word.”

So essentially, I am welcome in London if I can avoid having a wank while I am in Spain. It sounds like a plot line from Seinfeld. The man who was best man at my wedding thinks I am a wanker.

So, I packed and unpacked and then panicked as I had lost the Übersichtskarte Februar 1938 – Reichsbahndirektionen – Deutsches Reich I had purchased at great expense from the Verlag Rockstuhl a couple of years ago, and placed in a very safe place until such time as I should need it as the central documentary backbone for my novel, which is, of course, the primary reason for me going to Spain in the first place.

After an hour’s careful searching, during which I stripped four bookcases of their casual order, I found it exactly where I would have put it had I been thinking: next to the atlas. The atlas that the best man that thinks I am a wanker gave me. There is, I believe, something of a symmetry in all this.

I finished packing five minutes after I was supposed to get Ottawacker Jr from school, so (in the pouring rain, no less) went to get him a little late. I found him in tears in the classroom, having sprained his ankle.

“Can you hop?” I asked.

“I’ll… try,” he answered, bravely. 

So we hopped and limped together to the car and then drove on to pick up Mrs Ottawacker from her place of work (still in the driving, ceaseless rain) before heading down Lyon and Bronson to the Ottawa airport.
Which was deserted. I must have essentially been the only person that decided to travel on that day.

Air Canada didn’t disappoint. Somehow, on moving to the self-service kiosks that they have replaced 90% of their employees with, I discovered I had packed a case that weighted 23.1 kg, as opposed to the allotted 23. “Luggage refused: too heavy,” said the machine.

“Can you unpack it, and perhaps remove something?” the attendant, waiting helpfully in another area, said. 

“It’s 100 grams, I said. “If I remove the snot from a handkerchief it would be enough. Surely you can let me through without making me unpack my case here in the hall?”

“Let me ask my supervisor,” she said.

Five minutes later, she returns and says, with a broad smile, that I was to move to the nearest agent who would be happy to help me with my issue. I managed to not say “it is not my issue, it’s yours”, preferring to just smile and move.

But bugger me sideways if when I get to the new operator, she doesn’t take my suitcase, weigh it, and discover it weighs 22.9 kg.

“It’s all a big game, isn’t it?” I said, bravely.

“I can’t really say, sir,” she smiled, equally bravely.

So through I went, had the most expensive Guinness in the world at the airport\s Darcy McGee’s (“we don’t serve draught any more sir, just cans – but we charge you the same price because we are thieving bastards,” may or may not have said my waiter. ($8.50 for a can of Guinness, in case you are reading this in Dublin! Obvious solution: don’t drink at Darcy McGee’s.) 

The flight to Toronto was 2/3 full – but only because they had cancelled the next flight out and crammed people on this one. I was at the back, so felt comfortable slipping on my mask.

Toronto airport was half empty. I thought I was in Kingston, or somewhere similar.

But the flight to Madrid was even emptier. I had a full three seats in which to extend myself and reflect on the sage words of my best man. Sleep? Not a chance. Three Air Canada long-haul seats are not enough to fully lie down and sleep. Besides, my mask kept on slipping.

That may or may not be a metaphor.