It is Friday evening, and I am driving to the airport to pick up my sister, who is stopping over on her way to from America to South Africa. In my pocket I have a sign with her name on it, hand lettered and badly spelled. This is what I always do when I pick people up at the airport, although I remain unsure of how funny it is, because I so very rarely pick people up at the airport. I just haven’t had that much feedback.
My phone pings as I am parking the car. It’s a text from my sister complaining about the huge queue at passport control. “Don’t worry,” I type. “Just got here.”
When I reach the terminal I head for the doors where arriving passengers emerge, and take my place among the taxi drivers and travel reps holding up signs with people’s names on them.
I unfold my sign and hold it in front of my chest with one hand, fishing my phone out of my pocket with the other. A solitary passenger drifts through the doors, luggage rolling ahead of him. I check to make sure my sign is the right way up.
Twenty minutes go by. My sister sends a text that says “halfway through line”. Ten more minutes go by. I check the arrivals board, confirming that my sister’s plane has been on the ground for over an hour already. I send her a text consisting of a single question mark. There is no immediate reply.
The doors open and several dozen passengers come through, most of them hesitant and bewildered. I realise that my sign is being scrutinised by people as they pass. One or two get uncomfortably close. I consider the possibility that my elaborate misspelling of my sister’s name is coincidentally a plausible rendition of someone else’s name, and that I might be approached. I imagine the embarrassment that would follow. Sorry, I would say, I’m not here for you. They would naturally want to know how I could be so sure. My explanation would strike them as deeply unsatisfactory. If you already know the person, they would say, then why are you holding up a sign?
The flow of emerging passengers eases. I crane my neck to look through the doors, ready to avoid eye contact with anyone who might appear.
I check my phone for further updates, but there are none. I look at my emails, and then scroll through the news headlines. I begin to read an article about a press conference given that afternoon by Donald Trump, even though I watched the press conference in its entirety when I was meant to be working. It was an absolute car crash, and I get a perverse thrill from reliving it.
A sharp finger drills into my ribs. “Hey!” says a stern voice. “Are you that guy from the Guardian?”
I look up to see my sister staring at me.
“Jesus Christ!” I shout. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“Sorry,” she says.
“And you missed my sign,” I say, holding up the piece of paper, which is now partially crumpled in my balled up fist.
“Funny,” she says.
“It would have been hilarious,” I say. I look down and see that she is flanked by two wheeled suitcases. When I try to grab the nearest handle, my sister rolls the suitcase out of my reach, and raises an eyebrow.
“Take the bigger one,” she says.
In the car park we get stuck behind a man slowly feeding coins into the ticket machine. This, I think, is why I never pick people up at the airport.
“My heart is still pounding,” I say.
“You were so absorbed in whatever,” my sister says.
When my turn finally comes I feed my ticket in, followed by my bank card. Nothing happens. I reinsert the card. Nothing happens.
“Is there another machine?” my sister says.
“There’s no way to retrieve my ticket,” I say. “I guess we live here now.”
“The guy before you used money,” she says.
“I haven’t got any,” I say. “This is a disaster.”
“Hang on,” says my sister. She unzips her bag and reaches in, producing a fat shiny handful of British change.
