I am provided with information about my forthcoming holidays on a need-to-know basis. Because I am disinclined toward travel and prone to panic, my wife has come to believe that the less I know about our plans beforehand, the better. If nothing else, it puts me in a position where I cannot complain.
Three days before we are due to leave, I find her at her desk.
“Can you show me a picture of where we’re going?” I say.
“I’m busy,” she says. “Why are you so interested all of a sudden?”
“I think it’s normal,” I say.
“It’s not normal,” she says. “I’ve done absolutely everything, and now you want to know where you’re going.”
“Let’s not pretend you’re interested in my input,” I say.
“No,” she says. “I’m not.”
The next day she comes to find me in my office.
“So, the flight may be slightly earlier than I said,” she says.
“What’s early?” I say.
“Six something,” she says. “And also it turns out it’s from Gatwick.”
“In that case,” I say, “we should probably set off now.”
“It’s not my fault,” she says.
“I think, technically, it is,” I say.
“Perhaps you’d like to plan these things in future,” she says.
“Actually, I think I would,” I say.
“Yeah, as if,” she says, walking off.
Two hours later she returns.
“Problem solved,” she says. “I’ve booked us a lovely family room at an airport hotel.”
“We’re spending the night at Gatwick?”
“It’s like an extra day of holiday!” she says.
“Have you ever been in an airport hotel?” I say.
“No! It’ll be an adventure!”
At dusk the next day my wife, the middle one and I find ourselves trying to cross a busy roundabout with our bags. After a journey involving three trains, a bus ride and a lot of confusion, we are still apparently a 15-minute walk from a hotel that, in my opinion, has no right to use the word Gatwick as part of its name.
“That way,” the middle one says, pointing with his phone. He is the only one of our children still willing to go on holiday with us, and he has just realised his mistake.
“What a nightmare!” shouts my wife, laughing. For some unknown reason she is having the time of her life.
“I think I can see it,” the middle one says. “Over there.”
“Do we have to climb this fence?” I say.
“For Christ’s sake, cheer up,” my wife says. “You’re on holiday.”
When we get to the hotel we dump our bags and follow signs to the bar, which turns out to be a huge, low-ceilinged room, lit like an operating theatre and full of screaming children. We order some food. Forty-five minutes later, it hasn’t come.
“This is hell,” my wife says.
My mood begins to lift as hers darkens. I don’t know why – maybe it’s just because I’m surrounded by people who have made the same mistake as us.
“Look at those two behind you,” I say to the middle one. “Eating alone, back to back, at adjacent tables. Do you think if their chairs were facing the other way they would fall in love?” He cranes his neck round for a look.
“No,” he says.
“Perhaps not,” I say. “You know what? I’ll bet a lot of these people are from cancelled flights. Holidays ruined, hopes destroyed.”
“Will you stop being so chirpy?” my wife says.
“What’s wrong?” I say. “Would you like another £6 glass of chardonnay?”
“Shut up,” she says. “I can’t decide whether to complain about the food not coming, or just go to bed.” She chooses to complain, which is a mistake, because the food comes.
Afterwards my wife goes up to the room, and the middle one rolls himself a fag.
“Roll me one,” I say. “I’m on holiday.”
We stand outside the lobby, smoking alongside a man so drunk he has to hold on to a pole to stay upright, while streams of traffic pour across the nearby access road.
“Have you seen pictures of where we’re going?” I say.
“Yeah,” the middle one says. “Haven’t you?”
