The morning before we go on holiday I walk to the shop to purchase a few basics. The shop is quiet and I’m feeling invisible as I glide up to the self-checkout and plonk my items down. I scan briskly, card already in hand to pay.
As I scan the last item – a newspaper – I notice something still on the counter top. Whatever it is, I think, it’s not mine. Only when I look again do I see it: a little brown bird, compact and flecked with iridescent green highlights, lying dead on the cold steel.
My second instinct is: I should probably mention this to someone; it’s sad and unhygienic. But by then my first instinct had already propelled me out the door and halfway home.
“What kind of bird?” my wife says as we pack.
“I don’t know birds,” I say. “Maybe a robin.”
“Robins aren’t green,” she says.
“It’s not about the type,” I say. “It’s about what the bird symbolises.”
“You think it’s an omen?” she says.
“A reminder that my passport expires in six months and I should not risk travel.”
“Your passport expires in seven months,” she says.
“There was a dead bird mixed in with my shopping,” I say.
Late the next morning, my wife and sons and I set off for the train. We have two suitcases between us and I am carrying one of them.
“It has wheels, you know,” my wife says.
“I don’t approve of wheels,” I say.
Six hours later, I’m standing outside a farmhouse in France watching the sun set. We are staying with friends and I have a glass of pink wine. The journey has been uncomplicated and I feel strangely, prematurely relaxed.
The middle one picks a child’s rubber ball off the grass, bounces it once and kicks it barefooted deep into the opposition half of an adjacent sunflower field. Our friends’ dog – a maniacally enthusiastic spaniel – chases after it, the heads of the flowers quivering lightly in his meandering wake. Five minutes later, he comes back with a baguette in his mouth.
“I don’t know what that means,” I say. “But I don’t think it’s ominous.”
The rains come. It rains through the night and all the next day. The flies of the field invade the house. We take to our beds to read for long stretches, and in between we eat and drink, and kill flies.
The sun breaks through on the day of our departure, as we pack up damp socks and exploded paperbacks. We say our goodbyes and head for the airport.
The woman at security flips through my US passport, turning page after page, forward and backward, looking for something and not finding it.
“It’s finished,” she says.
“Nearly, I know,” I say. “I’ll apply for a new one as soon as …”
I stop, realising that she means it’s full. She needs a place to put her stamp and there isn’t one.
She shakes her head and turns the pages again. Can you be refused travel because your passport is too full? I don’t want to ask, in case the answer is yes.
Beneath my shirt, beads of sweat roll down my sides.
Finally, she plants her stamp in the fold between two pages and hands me the passport with a severe smile.
On the plane, all I can think about is what happens at the other end when I turn up with a solidly inked passport. How did this happen? I don’t even really like travel.
After we land at Stansted, my children scatter so as not to be delayed by me. As I walk along, feet heavy with dread, suitcase wheeling behind me, I notice the signs for the electronic gates have little US flags on them: according to the instructions, I’m now allowed to use them as long as I’m over 12. I stop to ask an official. Really?
“Yes!” he says. “Go!”
I walk up to the screen and place my passport face down. After a few seconds the gate opens and I step through.
“What are you doing here?” says the youngest one, incredulous.
“Belonging!” I say, while thinking that sometimes you have to ignore the dead bird in favour of the stupid dog with the baguette.
