The Carrier Read Free

board, about how well the girls sang something called ‘Angeli Archangeli’. They didn’t sound like the sort of people who would be quick to knock a German airport employee to the ground in a mass stampede, or insist on exposing their talented offspring to dangerous storm conditions for the sake of getting home when they expected to.
    Bodo picks up a small black device that is attached to the departure gate desk by a length of coiled black wire, and speaks into it, having first pressed the button that makes the pinging noise that must precede all airport speech. ‘This is an announcement for all passengers for Flight 1221 to Combingham, England. That is Fly4You Flight 1221 to Combingham, England. Your plane is being rerouted to Cologne airport and will depart from there. Please proceed to the baggage reclaim area to collect your bags, and then go to wait outside the airport, immediately outside the Departures Hall. We are trying to make the arrangement that coaches will collect you and take you to Cologne airport. Please make your way to the collection point outside the Departures Hall as soon as possible.’
    To my right, a smartly dressed woman with postbox-red hair and an American accent says, ‘We don’t need to hurry, people. These are hypothetical coaches: the slowest kind.’
    ‘How long on the coach from here to Cologne?’ a man calls out.
    ‘I have no details yet about the timetable of the coaches,’ Bodo Neudorf announces. His voice is lost in the spreading ripple of groans.
    I’m glad I can miss out on the visit to Baggage Reclaim. The thought of everyone else traipsing down there to pick up the luggage they waited in a shuffling, zig-zagging, rope-corralled queue to check in not much more than an hour ago makes me feel exhausted. It’s 8 p.m. I was supposed to be landing in Combingham at 8.30 English time, and going home for a long soak in a hot bubble bath with a chilled glass of Muscat. I woke up at five this morning to catch the 0700 from Combingham to Dusseldorf. I’m not a morning person, and resent any day that requires me to wake up earlier than 7 a.m.; this one has already gone on too long.
    ‘Oh, this is a fucking joke!’ Psycho Rag Doll pipes up. ‘You have got to be shitting me!’ If Bodo imagined that by amplifying his voice and projecting it electronically he could intimidate his nemesis into silent obedience, he was mistaken. ‘I’m not going to collect any suitcases!’
    A thin bald man in a grey suit steps forward and says, ‘In that case, you’re likely to arrive home without your bag. And everything in it.’ Inwardly, I cheer; Flight 1221 has its first quiet hero. He has a newspaper tucked under his arm. He grips its corner with his other hand, expecting retaliation.
    ‘Keep out of it, you!’ Rag Doll yells in his face. ‘Look at you: thinking you’re better than me! I haven’t even got a suitcase – that’s how much you know!’ She turns her attention back to Bodo. ‘What, so you’re going to unload everyone’s cases off the plane? How does that make sense? You tell me how that makes sense. That’s just . . . I’m sorry for swearing, but that’s just fucking plain stupid!’
    ‘Or,’ I find myself saying to her, because I can’t let the bald hero stand alone and no one else seems to be rushing to his aid, ‘you’re the one who’s stupid. If you haven’t checked in a bag, then of course you’re not going to collect any suitcases. Why would you?’
    She stares at me. Tears are still pouring down her face.
    ‘Also, if the plane was here now and could safely fly to Cologne airport, we could fly there
on
it, couldn’t we?’ I say. ‘Or even fly home, which is what we’d all ideally like to do.’
Shit.
Why did I open my mouth? It’s not my job, or even Bodo Neudorf’s, to correct her flawed thinking. The bald man has wandered away with his newspaper and left me to it.
Ungrateful git.
‘Because of the weather, our plane can’t