OUR SPECIAL MISSION

Cláir Ní Aonghusa

 

We waited in our hallway, me clutching documentation and passports, our cases on the floor, our hand luggage on a chair. David’s phone pinged the arrival of a text message.

“He’s on his way. Five minutes. I see the route he’s taking.”

A few subdued, necessary exchanges with the monosyllabic taxi driver broke the silence as we loaded our cases into the boot. As the car glided away from the kerb our road seemed to breathe in and out in unison with slumbering forms behind locked doors. Dublin’s city centre had a jaded, forlorn air as the taxi nosed its way past shuttered shop sand traffic-free, empty streets.

At the only operational entrance in Terminal 1, we rubbed our hand with (gel). A masked security man inspected our passports and boarding passes. The airport building was spookily quiet, traffic cones and endless swathes of tickertape fencing off vast people-free areas, ticket desks unattended, wall arrows and signs directing us towards a single bag drop off area in the basement. From a solitary upstairs coffee shop lights shone feebly. Reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting of an harshly lit night-time American diner, solitary individuals and one couple sat hunched over coffees and picked at sandwiches.

“You’re off to Alicante, are you? You’re on the list. I’ve been expecting you,” a wheelchair attendant greeted me. A tall, lanky man settling into middle-age, he didn’t smile but managed to convey cheeriness. A smoker I guessed from his voice. I recognised him from previous encounters.

“Good guess.”

“Only five flights going out this morning. It wasn’t hard.”

A slim, immaculately made-up middle-aged woman in a hijab, fashion  trousers and coat, was fumbling through various bags and suitcases on the floor in a relentless search for something or other. Opposite her, in matching wheelchairs, a masked couple sat quietly and impassively. A dark rimless prayer hat on the man’s head, a long scarf concealing the woman’s hair. The younger woman rifled through bag pockets and unzipped cases and hand luggage. The wheelchair assistants waiting patiently, slouched against a metal barrier, and the patient elderly couple seemed unperturbed. Finally the woman gave an exclamation, flourished some paperwork and passed it to the attendants.

My new friend and a younger blonde woman wheeled the older couple away. “I’ll be back in ten minutes once I’ve dropped off these folks,” he promised.

True to his word, he soon returned. David had already dropped off our cases. We headed towards Departures.

“Do you have a holiday place in Alicante?” my assistant asked.

“No, no,” I answered quickly, getting my spiel in. “Our son and his partner live in Valencia. She gave birth to twins a fortnight ago. They’re premature. She had a section. Her mother took ten days off work to help out. The rest of her family works. We’re the relief.”

“Twins,” he said, softening. “That’ll keep you busy.”

“Is the situation here very odd for you?” I asked when the patter of small talk paused.

“Very,” he said grimly. “Very. The world turned on its head. But look at it this way. I’m employed. I have a job. It gives me something to do. I’m not complaining.”

He helped us through the elaborations of unusually genial security checks, seating us in a truck, steering it through quiet corridors, stopping, parking, alighting, retrieving another wheelchair, and easing us into a queue close to the airline’s desk.

“Time to go,” he said, said when the exit doors opened onto the tarmac. A rush of icy, early-morning November air prickled my skin. Above my facemask, my glasses steamed up. My assistant was dressed lightly in trousers, shirt, jumper and high viz jacket.

“Can you imagine what negotiating this on an icy morning would be like? Lethal, it’d be. Lethal,” he grumbled as he steered the wheelchair this way and that through the sharp twists of a narrow walkway along a convoluted route that looped back onto itself several times

“I’ll be OK. I can walk the rest of the way. I don’t want you catching your death.”

“The plane’s not as close as you imagine,” he said, and it wasn’t. When I alighted, I turned to thank him but he was already striding away, a purposeful figure slipping between gaps in rows of parked aircraft.

The masked cabin crew shivered in outdoor coats, gloves and caps. I was glad of my heavy-duty winter coat. We’d booked front seats, reckoning that they’d be less popular, and so it proved, but the plane was at least two-thirds full. My glasses kept steaming up. I sat back and closed my eyes. I’d brought a book but I was in no humour to read.

“We’re on board,” I texted our son.

 

*****

 

In Alicante we queued to hand in a printout of the security form we’d filled in online. I couldn’t get the internet to work on my phone, and our son kept ringing me. “Turn on data roaming,” he said, but it didn’t work.

It took us a while to figure out the exact location of the parking block. Once on the fourth floor, I guarded our luggage while David looked for the car hire office. Finally he drove up, we loaded our luggage, I plugged in our SatNav, and off we went.

Once on the motorway, I extracted my shoulder bag from the backpack. My purse, cards, glasses case and diary were missing. Fruitlessly, again and again I searched through everything, emptying things onto my lap and the floor. They were definitely gone! As soon as we could, we pulled off the road and parked. In vain we searched the boot, back seat and the floor of the car.

I remembered noticing that the zips of my backpack were open when I took off my coat after we came out of a crowded lift. Why hadn’t I checked everything then? Too distracted. Too busy with my mobile. Fortunately, I’d secreted my passport & mobile into a zipped inner pocket in my coat.

 “I think I was robbed in the lift.” It was terrible and, at the same time, it didn’t seem that important. There were practical implications. I’d have to make calls.

We debated returning to the airport but decided to press on. As David drove, I rang banks and cancelled cards.

“Let’s not mention the theft. Let’s admire the babies first,” I suggested as we drew close to our son’s apartment on Avenida BlascoIbañez. He let me out and set off in search of a parking space.

“I’d better keep my distance,” I said to my son, but we hugged.

“That’s some coat you’re wearing!”

“You said it’d be freezing at night,” I answered defensively.

I followed him into their living room. “Here you go Mamó Cláir. Meet your grandchildren,” he said.

They were impossibly tiny, so frail and fragile. My throat tightened. I trembled. The universe had condensed into a room in Valencia.

“The world’s a wonder,” I said, echoing JM Synge.

“What do you think?’ Aengus’s partner asked.

“They’re amazing. They’re gorgeous.” I said. “But they’re minute!”

Later, as David and I each held a squirming, wiry, wriggling form, I felt their strength and remembered him telling me, decades ago—when I was neurotically obsessed with trying to control everything in my life—that I couldn’t hold infinity in the palm of my hand. But, that day in Valencia, the two of us nervously cradling two minute forms in our arms, probably came close to experiencing exactly that.