A Lizard In My Luggage (5 page)

  I'm sure Tolo isn't of such a sensitive disposition but I find Alan's loyalty to him rather endearing. Someone knocks gently on the half-open door. It's Rachel. I put the phone down.

  'That was Alan. We've been invited to our local bank's refurb party, isn't it a hoot?'

  She gives me an old-fashioned look. 'I can't think of anything more boring. Besides, I don't know a soul at my bank and certainly wouldn't want to.'

  'Ah, but it's different in the mountains, Rachel. Our bank's wonderful.'

  'Yeh, right,' she rasps. 'Have you been on the happy pills again?'

  I poke my tongue out at her.

  'Anyway, on to more pressing matters. Are you getting changed here or at the do?'

  'The what?' A panic grips me. Crikey. The Cosmetic Guild's annual bash. How could I have forgotten? Isn't it tomorrow night? No, of course not. That's Patterson's media party for 300 guests and we're organising it, silly! Charismatic Bryan Patterson, Queen of the Aphrodite Corporation in New York, a client whose account my entire team would work on free of charge, given the chance.

  Rachel is unperturbed. 'I'd better get one of the girls to jump in a taxi and pick up some clothes from your flat, otherwise, Cinders, you won't make it to the ball.'

  I gratefully throw her my door keys while writing out instructions for whomever of my long suffering staff has agreed to accomplish the task. They'll need to find everything from jewellery and hosiery to make-up and shoes in my jumble sale of a bedroom. Mind you, they've all done it enough times.

  'Oh and we've got team drinks in half an hour. I thought you might like to reassure the troops that you'll be back and forth each month now.'

  I feel like Brown Owl about to deliver a campfire talk.

  'Can't you do it?' I plead.

  'No, that's not an option.' She thumps me lightly on the head with a file she's carrying and says with irony, 'By the way, George Myers rang to thank you for giving that lizard to Dresden. He's doing an interview with him on Friday.'

  I begin to picture the headline and story:

It's only a toy, but a twelve-inch Moroccan leather lizard costing seventy-five pounds that shakes its head and exudes an intoxicating fragrance has caused hysterical scenes in the capital today. Designer George Myers of exclusive Mayfair store Havana Leather created the lizard as an executive anti-stress device, never expecting it to develop into a craze.

  'I put its success down to Posh & Becks who bought up the lot and now I'm waiting for new supplies,' said George Myers.

  Angry riots erupted outside the showroom in the early hours of this morning when it became clear that new stocks would not be available until tomorrow…

  A sharp cough shifts me out of my reverie.

  'A penny for them,' says Rachel before closing the door.

I'm watching the news. Actually I'm staring at BBC News 24 while propped up in my voluminous bed, a pile of annotated notes, two out-of-date copies of
Private Eye
and a
Spectator
on my lap. News is addictive and because I have no television in Mallorca, I'm staring at the screen with the rapt attention of a voyeur at a bedroom window. I find it impossible to switch off in case I miss something, something heart-stopping, like the latest hourly bulletin about war and strife in the Middle East or wherever else the world's events have moved. In public relations circles we switch restaurants and hairdressers at the drop of a newspaper. In global politics, they

swap their war terrain at the drop of a despot.

  Somehow, since I was last here the news has taken on a more sinister mantle. The stories seem darker, the murders more gruesome, the violence on the streets more tangible yet, perversely, my eyes are rooted to the news spot on the television screen or drinking up every last drop of ink on the page of a newspaper as if to goad myself into a state of terror. By contrast, in Mallorca the most nail-biting headline is likely to herald inclement weather, cancellation of a fiesta or inauguration of a new mayor. Perhaps our media should carry a government health warning.

  I get out of bed and go over to the wardrobe. It's bulging with city battle dress; suits, a few expensive ones, and last night's cocktail dress, hooked lopsidedly on a hanger. Too much stuff. Did I ever really wear all this clobber? As for my casual clothes, they have been sent to Mallorca where I shall be spending most of my time, my life. What remains here is a working wardrobe, whatever that's supposed to mean. My wardrobe has never earned a penny. It's a slob. It just dispenses clothes every day and taunts me when I can't find a vital part of an outfit. I swear it hides belts and shoes, or maybe, as in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
, a secret world lies beyond. I push my arm through the bulk of suits and hit a wall on the other side. There are definitely no trees. I feel a pang of disappointment and potter off to the phone. I dial 123. A synthetic male voice announces frigidly, 'At the third stroke the time, sponsored by Accurist, will be 2.08 and 40 seconds.' I'm annoyed. Why does everything have to be sponsored these days? We never used to have any of that nonsense. I'm sounding like my Irish grandmother.

  Perhaps I should try to sleep. I pace up and down the room, aware of the soft wool carpet contracting beneath my feet. A restless lion in a fur-lined cage. It's a strange, lonely sort of time to be awake in the city. There's a dull hum of traffic in the distance and I can just about hear rain dripping methodically from the gutter above the window. I peer under the blind and through the iron bars up to the starless sky and then to the sodden patio. Leaves have clogged up the drain and a discarded, empty packet of cigarettes is rotating in the scum and water. Some drunk or yob must have thrown it down. It happens every day. A large pile of rubble, like a tired old man, sits dejectedly in a corner, the remnants of a neighbour's crumbling wall that was never repaired. Here I am in my own private prison, protected from an invisible enemy. I slump back on the bed, longing to pick up the phone and speak to a human voice, and wondering what I'm doing here in this cramped flat, more like a lock-up, stifled with the trappings of city life which now seem so alien to me. I'm missing a soft sky pregnant with stars, chanting cicadas and the smell of jasmine floating on the breeze. And above all, I miss space and peace. Suddenly I want to be back home, curled up next to the homely Scot in our simple, white walled room with its gnarled beams and shutters, with the balmy, fragrant mountain air seeping through the bedroom shutters and fluttering about the sheets. For the first time ever, I'm even missing Alan's habitual snoring, although I'd never admit it. God forbid! I begin to yearn for my bedtime story-reading with Ollie, those secret moments of communication alone with my son, as the clicking cicadas and frogs croon outside his window. My family now feels like it belongs there, back on Mallorca, and tonight in London I feel like a lone tourist in search of some guidebook to help me make sense of my life here again.

  A coach whooshes by in the distance and then there's a wail of sirens as two speeding police cars pelt up a nearby street, their tyres squealing in the rain as they spin round a corner. Then silence. I sip at a glass of water, forcibly make myself switch off the television, hurl everything from the bed and extinguish the light. I'm exhausted. Time to go home.

This is what I hate about flying. You're given a departure time on your ticket but in truth it's just nonsense. What actually happens is that you merely board the plane at that time, taking off at the airport's leisure. Then again I'm on a no frills airline for which delay is a hallmark. Still, I'm en route back to Mallorca so things could be worse. I've brought
The Fearless Flier's Handbook
with me but immediately regret that I didn't think to wrap it in a false cover. Come on – to flaunt the title, rather like sporting an 'I love Cliff Richard' T-shirt on board, would be begging for ridicule from passengers and crew alike. I pull the book furtively out of my bag, turning the front cover back on itself. The man by the window appears to have dozed off. I hate him already. I am sitting in an aisle seat, row two to be exact, with an uninterrupted view of the air hostess's jump seat. Given that there is no allocation of seats on these budget airlines, this is some achievement. It took a serious amount of artifice and grievous bodily harm inflicted on my fellow passengers to end up here. As soon as they started calling us to the plane, I had leapt up, elbowed and kicked the early birds out of the way, and hobbled dramatically to the desk.

  'Your ticket number is 98. That means you have to wait,' snapped a male attendant.

  I groaned and writhed horribly.

  'What's wrong?'

  'I've had an operation.' Then in a whisper, 'It's a little personal and embarrassing.'

  He reddened. 'Oh, er, well, you'd better go ahead.'

  Once out of view, I had walked briskly onto the plane and bagged my favourite seat. Was it necessary to lie or to abuse other passengers? Yes. Look, when you're a nervous flier, you will do anything to ease your inner hysteria. Like superstitious actors who carry their favourite amulets to the theatre, we fractious fliers take comfort from sitting in certain seats on flights, particularly if they are near exits, cabin crew, flight deck or drinks trolley.

  The air hostess has returned to her seat and is fastening her belt. We've had the seat belt check which I presume is to stop maniacs like me from leaping for the exit just before take off, and then there's the demonstration about what to do when landing on water. We drown, don't we? Still, even in death's claws we are strongly advised to remove high heel shoes and to secure our own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs. You bet, buddy. The plane is crawling towards the runway like a hearse and small lights are glinting in the dusk on the vast expanse of tarmac. In the dimmed cabin I can still read my watch face. It's nearly nine o'clock and the man next to me is snoring, his head and shoulders lolling over the vacant seat between us. I'm tempted to shake his arm and say, 'For heaven's sake, what the hell do you think you're doing? Do you realise, bonehead, that this is probably your last moment of consciousness?'

  Instead, I turn my head away, intently scrutinising the face of the ever-so-young air hostess sitting ahead of me by the exit. How old can she be? No more than 20, I'd guess, and how on earth would she cope in an emergency? Badly, that's how. I close my eyes for a split second. BING! What's that? I bob my head out into the aisle to study her face. The features are foggy in the half-light but she remains seated and calm – or is she just frozen in terror? There's a huge roaring sound and the plane is going faster and faster, racing out of control up, up and now practically vertical, and my mouth turns dry. Suddenly there's a strange creaking sound and a low humming. The ground below has become a huge chessboard listing from side to side. I strain to see the face of the air hostess which now looks like wax in the moonlight, her hands lying flat on her lap, her body pert and prim as if she's attending a church service. Maybe she's praying.

  BONG! BONG! That's it! We're done for. Perhaps we're losing cabin pressure? I can hear an ominous hiss like air being released from a punctured beach ball and again another BING! She's up this time, unlocking her belt and grabbing the internal phone. Who is she calling? Is it the captain or a colleague at the back of the plane? Is she suggesting dispersal of life jackets or a communal mass? The cabin lights up, people yawn and my sleeping partner continues to grunt. We're still alive.

  It's past midnight and I'm in a taxi coursing along dark country lanes, gulping in balmy and fragrant air from the open window while the driver hums softly, tapping the fingers of his right hand against the wheel. The car's headlights burrow into the blackness, briefly exposing scurrying rats, hedgehogs, rabbits and topaz-eyed bats in its glare. We reach the long and stony track that leads to the house. It is barely wide enough for a vehicle and my driver slows down, opening the door to inspect the significant drop on one side.

  'It's only an orchard down there,' I say mischievously in faltering Spanish.

  He whistles and clucks at me, '
Madre mia
!'

  A few minutes later I'm in the courtyard watching him carefully reverse around large scattered obstacles left by the builders. The taxi rumbles slowly back down the track, laboriously picking its way over the stones like a giant beetle in a rockery. Soon the lights are no more than tiny white dots, fireflies in the obscurity, and the sound of the engine disappears into the night. Silence. I stand with my case at my feet, listening. There is a sudden hooting high above and an owl swoops over the trees. A hawk scuds by screeching wildly. To the side of me the rhythmic purring of the cicadas begins and a weird quack, not quite that of a duck, breaks out in the pond. Something plops in the water, and then a small leaping silhouette crash-lands soundlessly on to a terracotta tile balanced on the pond's edge. My eyes adjust to the darkness around me and there, surveying me impassively, is a large bullfrog – or is it a toad? He turns his head for a second and emits a strange crackly sound, not a croak. It is startling and I crunch back on the gravel at the sound. He dive-bombs into the pond with a tremendous splash. It's not only the geckos that have a weight problem around here.