Page 22 of The Custard Tart Cafe by the Sea
Yet, as with all journeys, somehow this one comes to an end and before I know it, the captain is talking about us making our descent to Faro, where a balmy twenty-eight degrees and a light westerly breeze await us. Perfect. Hold onto that thought.
If only I could hold onto my passport.
But no. Me being me, I lose my grip on it just as I am rearranging, of all things, a strand of hair. My precious proof of identity falls to the carpeted aisle, and the passenger in front of me accidentally kicks it out of my reach as they twist and stretch to reach their small case in the overhead locker.
“Nooooooo!” I cry, but my anguish is muffled in the hive of activity that is the excitement of a Portuguese holiday with everybody around me rushing to get off the plane and into the sunshine.
“Move forward, Willow!” Kelly and Radhika direct me in unison once we are all in the gangway. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve dropped my passport and it’s been shunted down the aisle somewhere,” I reply as if it’s perfectly obvious.
“Knowing you, I’m sure it’s in your bag,” says Radhika. “Why would anyone get it out now anyway? We don’t need to show it until we’re inside the terminal building at passport control.”
“Because I like to have it ready. I’m telling you, I dropped it! And I’m telling you I’m not leaving this plane without it!”
“And I’m telling you, you’re holding up the plane!” screams Radhika, nudging her elbow past Kelly and digging it sharply in my ribs. “We’ll keep an eye out for it as we walk. If you dropped it, we’re sure to spot it.”
I agree in principle but I am only prepared to walk slowly, combing every detail of the rows with my dramatic eyes, crouching down to peek beneath the seats. I don’t care if everyone is huffing and puffing behind me. Let them get on with it. Besides, Radhika can hardly talk about holding people up, when she decided to rifle through her suitcase at the check-in desk, removing its heaviest objects at her leisure as opposed to thinking of her fellow passengers and opting for the speedier solution of agreeing to pay for excess baggage.
We reach the third row now, where a bunch of elderly travellers are seated, and my stomach turns to lead. I still haven’t glimpsed my passport. This is a disaster! How do other people get through this hideous scenario without having the world’s biggest meltdown? Surely I can’t be the first passenger who’s lost my passport on a plane? Just when I resign myself to having no option but to burst into tears at the feet of the pilot, who has come out of his cockpit to cordially wish everyone a good holiday and a safe onward journey, I catch sight of a rectangular flash of maroon on the floor.
But it’s too late to yell for the old lady on the end of the row to pick it up. I take a deep breath and try again but my panic is lost amidst all the frenetic grabbing of cases and seat exit etiquette (‘you go first’, ‘no, you go first… you’ve got your hands full there with those little ones’). I squat in the aisle now, and people complain behind me. I swear Tiago’s voice is in the mix but I need to see where my passport is. Once I’m off this plane there might not be any getting back on it. Anybody would do the same in this nightmare of a situation. The little grey-haired lady’s companion passes her a walking stick from the overhead locker, and I watch in dismay as it connects with my passport on the floor, somehow causing it to fly to the very front of the aircraft, undetected by another soul, until it disappears underneath the food trolleys in the galley.
“Willow! You’re going to get yourself arrested! Stand up!” Kelly’s voice means business. Rising quickly, I take in the curious stares of the pilot and two of the female cabin crew, who look far from impressed at my shenanigans.
Rabbit caught in headlights, I can’t get my words out. They are lodged stubbornly in my throat, much like during my wretched French GCSE oral exam, when all my vocabulary flew out of the classroom window and onto the football pitch. Panic engulfs me. I’ll be thrown off this plane within seconds if I don’t say something.
“She’s lost her passport and I think you’ll find it’s somehow been kicked forward from row seven all the way to the food trolley,” says a deep, smooth and calm male voice behind me.
“We have a very tight turnaround, Sir.” The pilot frowns. “If that’s the case then the passport needs to be retrieved within sixty seconds. I simply can’t hold the next flight up any longer.”
The pilot taps his watch as he replies to the guardian angel behind me, who I already know to be Tiago. But– to avoid a massive argument, to get my hands on my passport and to swerve ending up stuck in an airport like Tom Hanks in that movie– I will pretend it is the imaginary surfer dude I was eyeing up earlier. The pilot gestures now at the queue of outbound passengers through the porthole window, and I can feel the wrath of the scores of people waiting behind me, the panel of airline professionals standing before me, and the impatient travellers waiting to greet me when I do eventually get off the aircraft.
“Allow me.” Tiago brushes past me and rolls up his sleeve. He removes his cap and lies flat on the floor, legs sprawled down the aisle. Radhika giggles and there’s a grumpy hubbub from everyone behind us. I try not to ogle his incredibly pert buttocks as he wriggles and he writhes, using the peak of his cap to fish around, until finally, at the pilot’s count of “fifty-eight seconds”, he is triumphant. He quickly scrambles up, hand gripping the passport, which he places in my palm, refraining from all eye contact.
I am mortified yet relieved, embarrassed yet I have no more dignity to lose anyway. I amsomany things. My hands are shaking.
“Are you not even going to say thank you to that incredible man?” quizzes Kelly, before yelling, “Thank you on my very ignorant friend’s behalf,” as Tiago marches off the plane and we follow suit. Kelly puts her hands in praying motion to each of the cabin crew and pilot in turn. I shuffle past, willing the Portuguese ground to open up and swallow me whole, the moment we walk off the steps to connect with our next mode of transport: the ubiquitous bendy bus. All those who have pushed past us in the height of my dilemma are now staring menacingly out of its window. I seem to have become famous for all the wrong reasons.
Tiago is glued to a pole at the other end of the bus and every so often the vehicle brakes spectacularly, flinging him forward in a move that can only be described as uncomfortable. I feel guilty for having secured myself a seat, even though he doesn’t appear to have spotted me. I know it’s pathetic, especially after all the terrible things he’s done before today, but I feel tears gathering on my lashes at the selfless heroics back there on the plane and my dreadful lack of decorum and gratitude, so I quickly whip out my sunglasses. I’d never have retrieved my passport by myself. For one, my arms are too short. I guess I’d have ended up at the British Embassy in Lisbon, begging and pleading my innocence, missing out on the holiday, and, I don’t know, possibly even finding myself in jail?
Where the hell could Tiago be staying? My mind runs through the possibilities as we continue to skeeter around the tarmac to be deposited at Arrivals. I’d plump for Faro, where we are now. Well, it has the largest local population so statistically it makes sense. Nevertheless, how can I possibly relax for a whole week when I don’t know? I’ll be looking over my shoulder, even on my sun lounger.
You do often see people you know when you’re abroad on holiday. At least Mum and Dad did, when we used to do the package holiday thing as a family. It’s the weirdest phenomenon. And in the good old days, with Bristol airport flying to only a handful of enticing destinations, you kind of expected it, because barely anybody would make a trek up to London to then head for the Med.
“Oh, hello stranger!” Mum or Dad would invariably get accosted by a hand on the shoulder or an eager ‘cooey’ in a departure lounge.
“Darn it… I thought I’d managed not to catch Mike from Accounts’s eye when we passed him five minutes ago,” Dad would mumble through his fake smile as he cheerfully returned Mike’s greeting and marvelled at the ‘good fortune’ of an unavoidable chat with his work colleague.
“Fancy us not only taking the same week off but ending up in the same resort!” Mike would reply chirpily.
But even those kinds of ‘surprise’ airport exchanges are bearable, especially with the get-out-clause of whining kids needing food/a pee/a giant Toblerone from duty free to keep them quiet. How am I meant to enjoy my week away, knowing Tiago and I could end up at the same bar, on the same dance floor, elbowing one another out of the toaster queue at the breakfast buffet, or in the same patch of the Atlantic ocean (with me being royally trapped unless I want to parade past him in my shabby old bikini, the one I didn’t get around to updating before we left)?
This holiday is a nightmare. The flight alone told me everything I needed to know. I should never have left the perimeters of Weston.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I still can’tbelieve you! Not only was he luscious, and not only did you have the perfect opportunity to engage in some serious flirting with him on that flight, but then he retrieved your bloody passport like a trooper! What more do you want, woman? That was your cue to insist on taking him out for a thank-you drink… which would have led to, well, you hardly need me to explain that!”
