Let me take you to the Greek island of Rhodes; and in particular, the airport.
After landing, we nip over to the toilet, in preparation for the coach journey to our apartment in Pefkos, near Lindos.
We have two suitcases, a rucksack and a paper bag from Pret a Manger at Gatwick, containing two books, some water and my glasses.
First my wife looks after these as I go to the Gents, and then it’s my turn before we leave the airport terminal, and cross the hot car park full of coaches in search of ours.
We find our coach, get on, settle in, and celebrate our front seat. Things are going well.
Then my wife asks where the paper bag is – the one containing our books, water and my glasses.
I don’t know where it is. Did I have it?
‘You must have had it outside the toilet. I gave it to you. You were holding it.’
I wonder how or when or why I would have put it down.
‘I’ll go back,’ I say.
I run across the hot car park full of coaches, back to the airport terminal I thought we’d left behind us.
I can’t get back in. A woman guards the entrance. I attempt explanation, very much the Englishman abroad.
‘I’ve left a paper bag in the airport – outside the toilets. I’m very sorry. Would it be possible for me to go and have a look?’
‘Not without accompaniment.’
‘I understand.’ I probably apologise again.
‘I will ring the company,’ she says. She’s doing her best for me.
‘Thank you.’
So, on her mobile, she rings ‘the company’. I don’t know which company she is ringing. Tesla? Rowntrees? The CIA? Ocado?
We’ll never know because the company don’t answer. So it’s probably Amazon.
Instead, she finds me Head of Airport Security – HAS. Together, we go back through the airport and back to the toilets; or rather the toilet hallway, where the paper bag was given into my suspect care.
There’s nothing to see. No bag.
‘It’s not here,’ I say. ‘Really, don’t worry…’
But HAS isn’t giving up. He asks the cleaners, whose uniforms declare them to be ‘Facility Experts .
An exchange in Greek takes place. Have they seen a Pret bag containing two books, some water and my glasses?
No, the facility experts haven’t seen anything and I’m all for calling off the search now. We’ll survive. It’s not like the sea or the sun has gone missing.
But HAS has other plans: he wants to check with the police.
‘Ooh, I’m not sure really…’
But we find the police and they are so bored at Passport control, I see their eyes light up with the possibilities. A possible terrorist incident? Some action?
No, just a Pret bag, two books, some water, glasses…no weaponry, really.
They return to their uniformed stupor, checking tedious travel documents, and this time I insist on letting the matter go. I don’t wish for it to develop any further… with the closure of the airport, flight cancellations and Greek International airspace closed down.
After thanking HAS, a good man, I return across the hot car park full of coaches to announce my failure.
The young couple next to us in the coach have (kindly)been brought up to speed by my wife – so there is merry mockery of the ‘What is he like?’ variety. ‘Only Simon could lose a paper bag…’ etc etc
Slowly, however, we come to terms with our loss. It’s not the seven stages of grief – just the two stages of irritation. Yes, I had started the book on the plane (‘My Name is Legion’ by AN Wilson), and was enjoying it – but, well, other stories are available.
Jokes about me broaden out into happy conversation with our new coach travel buddies. She runs a beauty salon in Arundel.
They are two generations younger than us, but these things don’t matter when you’re on holiday and wearing shorts. Separating distinctions melt.
But half an hour into our journey, as we’re being educated about the face mask industry in particular, and skin treatment in general, something impossible happens as we turn a corner.
My glasses – remember them? They fly across the coach aisle. The glasses at Rhodes airport are suddenly here on the coach. So where have they come from?
I glance up above my head and behold the Pret bag containing our two books, some water and, until recently, my glasses.
I had put the bag on the shelf above our seats as soon as we got on the coach.
And then forgotten.
‘Where’s the Pret bag?’ asked my wife on arrival in the coach. ‘I gave it to you.’
And the right answer would have been: ‘On the shelf above your head, all safe and sound.’
But I didn’t manage the right answer. In the pressured moment, I had no answer but assumed failure.
‘I’ll go back to the airport…’
On occasion, circumstances disable us from accessing the truth we know, and the good we have done, which can lead to unfortunate diversions.
Lovely holiday, though.
