Arrivals & Departures

by Leslie Thomas

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said. ‘I only know his poem … some of it …. “On Dover Beach”.’ He looked at the book once more. ‘I learned this years ago:

  … Ah, love, let us be true

  To one another! For the world, which seems,

  To lie before us like a land of dreams,

  So various, so beautiful, so new,

  Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light …’

  He looked up at her again, her cigarette had burned an inch of ash. Realising from his look she searched in alarm for an ashtray. He produced one from a drawer in his desk.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said in a relieved tone. ‘My wife has the nose of a bloodhound.’

  She stood and said she must be going. ‘So Matthew Arnold is buried near here,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. At Laleham. Only five or six miles. On the Thames. I know because I stood in for the vicar there when he was away and Arnold is the church’s claim to fame.’

  She thanked him and they shook hands affectionately. ‘Don’t forget to open the window,’ she said conspiratorially. She collected the umbrella at the door. The dog roused itself and barked just once again. ‘He counts you in and counts you out,’ said the vicar. ‘Thanks for helping with the fruit. The vegetables we sell to the Swan, so you may be having harvest festival potatoes tonight.’

  Halfway down the vicarage path she turned and waved slightly. It had stopped raining though the trees were dripping. There was no one in the street although there were two people coming out of the lit village shop further down. Pearl turned and walked steadily back to the Swan, carrying the furled umbrella on her shoulder. But then her pace slowed and her eyes were wet. ‘Well, well, well,’ she said to herself. ‘Like a land of dreams.’

  Edward Richardson, on his way to see Grainger, walked along the ranks of taxis and cars discharging passengers and their luggage; people cheerfully or fearfully flying away, others going, perhaps wondering if they were doing the right thing, back home; earnest businessmen carrying undistinguished overnight bags. A pushchair collapsed, almost devouring its baby passenger; the mother cried out in chorus with the child and righted it. A crew were going on duty, the braided captain, firm-jawed, striding out purposefully like a drum major at the forefront of a band with unflinching eyes on the horizon, steady ahead as if he were already flying the plane. Stride for stride, but one pace to the rear, were his fellow officers carrying their oblong black cases like morticians, the stewardesses in unsuitably tight uniforms tugging dainty wire trolleys each bearing a single piece of luggage. Soon they would be on the distant side of the earth.

  A pair of armed police-dog handlers passed like conscientious men exercising their pets. They paused and one spoke into his radio phone while the other held both dogs. Firemen, bright in toylike yellow, were checking a hydrant just outside the airport church. That day they had been rushed out from their base on the north perimeter of the airport to standby as an incoming flight reported a hydraulic emergency, although it was only a faulty flight-deck light; to a blazing chip pan in a Terminal Four kitchen; to a collision between a courier’s motor cycle and a Nigerian in tribal dress; and another between two out-of-control baggage trolleys careering on the downward slope of Arrivals at Terminal Two during which an elderly man’s leg was bruised and a youth received a blackened eye. There had also been three well-intended and two malicious false alarms and a call to free an engineer, cursing with pain and embarrassment, who had put his hand deep into the trap of an airliner’s toilet and could not withdraw it. But nothing serious or dramatic.

  Much of airport life was trivial. That morning Edward had dealt with little more than trite matters. Public Relations had a complaint from a journalist, well known for his self-esteem, that he had not been upgraded to First Class apparently because he was not wearing a tie; a child had concealed a white mouse in her hand baggage on a flight to Majorca; the arrangements for a dinner for three colleagues who were departing under the voluntary redundancy scheme; a passenger disgruntled because it had rained too much in Australia; a party of folk-singing nuns who wished to rehearse in Economy Class to Rome.

  It seemed that Moira, Grainger’s secretary, hovered at the door as though to make sure that Richardson actually entered the room and stayed there. Grainger was in the ante-room acting out his ploy of keeping underling visitors waiting, and Richardson half turned to see Moira’s anxious face still projecting around the door. She blushed stupidly when she realised she had been found out and said ‘Just wanted to make sure,’ before going out. Richardson briefly wondered what her life was like.

  Grainger appeared ominously wiping his hands as if he had garrotted someone in the next room. ‘Sit down,’ he said omitting Richardson’s name, an indication the interview would not be pleasant. Richardson sat.

  Grainger studied a sheet of paper on his desk as if he did not understand it. ‘Why they worry me with summer schedules now I can’t think,’ he muttered.

  ‘They’re provisional,’ said Richardson pointlessly. ‘You sent for me?’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Grainger as though he was glad Richardson had brought it up. ‘The Board.’ His eyebrows rose slowly. ‘You have the opportunity to appear before them if you like….’

  ‘What’s it about?’ asked Richardson although he knew.

  Grainger looked hurt. ‘About the Allsop business, of course, Edward. What else could it be about? As I say, you can go and see them if you like and put your side of the story as you did to me. They have seen your written report, however, and while not unsympathetic with your humanitarian motives in bringing Allsop back, they feel that the risks involved were such that you should not have attempted it.’

  ‘The risks to the company, you mean,’ said Richardson.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Grainger in a surprised tone.

  ‘He was dying and he wanted to come home.’

  Grainger spread his clean hands. ‘But there were ways of doing it.’

  ‘Letting him die in that hole and then bringing him home in a box?’

  Grainger sighed. ‘Let’s not discuss what might have been. Only what was. The Board have decided to reprimand you, Edward. There it is.’

  He handed an envelope to Richardson who glanced at it and put it in his pocket. Grainger seemed disappointed that he had not opened and read it.

  ‘What about Dr Snow?’ asked Richardson.

  ‘That’s another matter. I’m not at liberty to discuss his case.’

  ‘I merely want to ensure that because he’s the medical man he doesn’t get the rough end of things. I can stand up for myself and I was the one to make the decision.’

  ‘That was your responsibility,’ agreed Grainger. ‘That was taken into account.’

  He put on a transparent fatherly air, his face creasing, his hands held tightly in front of him. ‘You’ve got an excellent record with this company, Edward. The Board, of course, took that into consideration. But things appear to have been getting on top of you a bit lately.’ He glanced up. ‘We all feel the pressures at times. I do, God knows. But you can surely realise what a mess we would have been in if it had got into the press about Allsop. Dying of Aids on one of our scheduled services.’

  Richardson clenched his teeth. Grainger held up a warning hand. ‘And everyone knows that your decision was prompted by the right human responses. But in this case they were the wrong ones. Fortunately it did not get into the press.’

  ‘I’m happy I did the right thing by Bill Allsop,’ said Richardson simply. ‘I wasn’t going to leave him there.’

  Grainger regarded him painfully. ‘Why don’t you take a couple of weeks’ leave before Christmas,’ he said. ‘Tack it onto your Christmas break.’

  ‘I don’t need it,’ said Richardson. ‘I thrive on this stuff.’

  ‘Perhaps your wife … Adele … might like to see a bit more of you,’ said Grainger.

  For a moment Richardson thought he might know something. ‘Adele is very busy at the moment too. In any
case I’m due to go down to Australia tonight. Ray Francis is going to take over in Sydney, as you know.’

  ‘Francis, yes, I know. I’ve had my grave doubts about that. Let’s hope he doesn’t go off with an Aborigine woman.’

  ‘His wife is going too. They’ve got a daughter there. He’s the right man for it.’

  ‘Do you have to go?’ asked Grainger.

  ‘It’s what I do,’ said Richardson, surprised. ‘It’s not just Ray Francis, there’s a dozen things to be sorted out down there, the Brisbane office has been under six feet of flood-water for a start and there …’

  ‘Someone else could do it,’ suggested Grainger carefully. ‘We could get someone out tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s my function and I have to go,’ said Richardson firmly. He was not going to let them pull that trick.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Grainger putting his hands in front of him as if to ward off the consequences. He stood up and so did Richardson. ‘I’m on the flight tonight,’ Edward said. He went towards the door.

  ‘Before you go,’ said Grainger, ‘think about the reprimand. Let me know if you want to appear personally. Otherwise you must accept it.’

  ‘You mean lump it,’ thought Richardson.

  Snow was in his office adjoining the surgery. He was sitting at his desk looking at what appeared to be a garden slug in a small tin box.

  ‘A leech,’ he said to Richardson. ‘You don’t see many of them these days. At one time they were in such demand by medical practitioners that they were sold secondhand.’ He looked up and smiled in his gentle manner. ‘This was a box containing snuff. I hope I don’t start him sneezing. He seems to be all right.’

  Richardson sat down and studied the leech. ‘Reminds me of someone we know,’ he observed.

  Snow grinned pleasurably. ‘Ah, you’ve been to see him. No, actually they’re still used, these little fellows, you know. When I worked in Glasgow they were useful. Brides beaten up the night before the wedding, and so forth.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Richardson cautiously.

  ‘The application of a leech is wonderful for making bruises disappear,’ said Snow. ‘Not a trace. Bride radiant as she walks down the aisle to meet her assailant at the altar steps.’

  Richardson said: ‘What happened to you? Do you mind me asking? I have had an official reprimand from the Board.’

  ‘Oh, that. Well, it wasn’t so bad. Early retirement it’s called. But I’m ready for it, Edward.’

  ‘We could both appear before the Board if you like. We could fight it.’

  ‘Ah, no. I don’t want that. We did the right thing, I’m satisfied. I’m ready to go. I’ve only got a couple of years anyway and they’ll have to shell out. We did our best by that poor soul, even if it wasn’t the proper best. I shall devote the rest of my life to Tchaikovsky.’ He picked up the leech on his pencil. ‘Won’t I, Grainger?’

  He returned to his office through the terminal, past the general Departures gate, the goodbye groups with their tears, their awkward farewells; faces in relief, solidified smiles. He glanced towards the window corner where Rona had set up for sketching and with a disconcerting start of pleasure he saw she was there. Skirting the crowd in front of the barrier he went to her.

  ‘Still finding it a good subject?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s ever changing,’ she said. She had not seen him approaching but she looked up unhurriedly with her fine eyes. ‘No brushes with officialdom?’ he asked.

  ‘Not officialdom,’ she answered smiling. ‘But I’ve had plenty of painters and people who draw and others just being interested, all coming over to see what I’m doing. Everyone’s giving me tips. Artists are always very clever with the work of others. They all know a better way. One man just stood and tutted. And there was a girl who asked me not to put her in the sketch because she had been crying. Her boyfriend was leaving and she didn’t think he was coming back.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘Right then she needed to tell someone.’

  ‘May I see?’ She nodded and he looked over her shoulder; the sketch was hardly started, just shadows. ‘How many have you done?’ he asked.

  ‘This is number three,’ Rona said. ‘I want to do six. Arrivals and Departures, I’m going to call them. I had thought of maybe drawing other aspects of the airport but somehow the check-in and the snack bar didn’t grab me.’

  ‘Are you going home … back to Bedmansworth on the bus?’

  ‘That was my plan. Now I know the times and the idiosyncracies of the drivers it works out fine. It’s funny though, bumping along here on those country lanes is like coming to some futuristic city by stage coach.’

  ‘I’m leaving here at mid-afternoon,’ he told her. ‘I’m off to Australia tonight. If you’re ready to leave about then I could give you a lift.’

  ‘Thanks. That would be useful,’ she said. ‘Usually I quit about three.’

  ‘I’ll come and pick you up,’ he said. ‘Unless you’d like to come to the office.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll drop over. I know where it is.’

  ‘Call from Reception. I’ll come down.’

  She watched him walk back through the scattering of people and disappear down the stairs and returned to her sketching with a troubled heart. She should have made an excuse. She had not wanted this to happen to her.

  Rona remained for another hour before going to the snack bar for coffee and a sandwich, sitting among moody passengers holding plastic cups, blinking untrustingly at the flickering departures screen. Those who had come to bid them farewell sat lost for words; children fidgeted, spilled coloured drinks and made demands. On the screens, like some list of available bargains, the destinations clattered: ‘Cairo, Dubai, Sydney, Singapore, Jakarta, Cape Town, boarding Gate 14, boarding Gate 23, boarding … delayed … delayed … boarding …,’ a changing poem in blank verse. Travellers, weary even before they had travelled, stood as the destinations altered, gathered their hand baggage and children, and moved towards the final doorway.

  She returned to her position by the window. A pink man with a full white moustache came to her side and observed what she was doing. ‘All the joys and sorrows there,’ he said realising her theme. ‘In the old days it was different.’

  ‘How was that?’ she inquired politely, still sketching.

  ‘Going by ship,’ he explained. ‘Farewells then, the final embarrassment, was at a decent distance. You know, just hundreds waving from the dockside, streamers and bands. It was not so … so claustrophobic … you were safe. Beyond them.’

  She stopped sketching. He wore a well-cut grey suit with a waistcoat and a striped tie. There was a carnation in his lapel. ‘Are you travelling?’ she asked. Her fingers had become tired. She flexed them. ‘Or seeing someone off?’

  ‘I was,’ he sighed. ‘They’ve gone now. The agony is over. My daughter. We see each other only at long intervals, and there’s a mutual sneaking feeling that this could be the last time, not that we’d ever admit it. It’s a moment for musing over opportunities lost, paths not taken.’

  When he had gone she continued sketching. But her swift, decisive hand had slowed. She watched the leaving people file through the outgoing gate, showing their boarding cards, and knew that she and Pearl too must soon be departing. They could not remain in the village, in this country, for much longer. They must go home. Even if it were running away.

  Just before three o’clock she walked out of the terminal and across the airport road to Richardson’s office. The receptionist telephoned Harriet. ‘Oh, is she?’ remarked Harriet. ‘Wait a minute, will you.’

  In her certain tone she called across the office. ‘Mr Richardson …’

  Edward looked up from his desk. ‘Mrs Train is downstairs,’ he finished for her. ‘Say I’ll be down right away.’

  She looked miffed. ‘Yes. As you didn’t mention …’

  ‘I know. Sorry, Harri. Slipped my mind.’

  ‘I bet it did,’ whispered Harriet t
o herself. She said into the phone: ‘He’ll be down in a few minutes. Would you ask the lady to wait.’

  He was already gathering his papers and pushing them into his case. ‘How about the new schedules?’ Harriet reminded him. ‘You were going to look at them.’

  ‘Let’s have them,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it between here and Sydney.’ He walked briskly across the office. Glum-eyed she handed a file to him. ‘Back next week then,’ she said. She opened her desk diary. ‘Saturday or Sunday you thought, didn’t you.’

  ‘I thought,’ he said grinning at her gruffness. ‘But you never know. I might meet somebody interesting.’

  ‘I suppose there’s always that chance,’ she sniffed. She peered up from behind her wide glasses. ‘There’s a new lot of tactical redundancies coming, so I hear.’

  ‘I hear that too – all the time. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I’m not worried, not for me,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a job. I might start a bike shop. It’s you I worry about. They’ve got the axe out for senior staff.’

  ‘I’ll start a bike shop with you,’ he said. ‘I must be off.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said pointedly. ‘Don’t keep Mrs Train waiting.’

  ‘Harri.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Have a good trip,’ she said. She had a superstition about saying a ‘safe’ trip. When he had gone she took the teacups in the outer room and began moodily to wash them. She did not like changes. The telephone rang and she returned to the office. It was Adele Richardson. ‘He’s just left, Mrs Richardson. He’s on his way home … I think he is anyway. He’s on the flight to Sydney tonight you know.’

  Adele sounded annoyed. ‘I know, Harriet. The trouble is I have to go to an emergency welfare committee meeting and it’s imperative. If he’s not home in twenty minutes I’ll miss him. I’ll have to leave a note because I won’t be back until late. All right, Harriet. Thank you.’

  Harriet put the telephone down thoughtfully. She went back to washing up the cups. ‘Emergency committee,’ she muttered to herself. ‘I’d stay at home with him. I wouldn’t let him out of my sight.’