Wet Fishiness

There is black comedy in dire circumstances. Our first taste of slap-in-the-face wet fishiness was the unexpected but inevitable fact that there was no wheel chair waiting at the airport in spite of all my phone calls; in fact no-one seemed to have much idea of where a wheel chair could be found at all. F had to be sat in the taxi at the drop-off point at the airport (around which is always an air of barely controlled hysteria anyway) while I and son B ran around in different directions - I presume B was looking, I have no memory of where he was at all but I was acutely aware of the indifference my earnest queries received as I hurried hither and thither, dodging crowds, trying to find a wheel chair.

Eventually, aha, we found one; and eventually we flew to Johannesburg, alighting and finding the arranged wheel chair but which, astonishing fact, was not to be taken to the International Departures area! But how could we get him there? One has to get one from that side. How to do that? They would give him one at Check In. But he could not get to check in without a wheel chair. Sorry, that was the way. He had to be at Check In in order to get a wheel chair.

By this time F and I were with Daughter K and her two children; F in the Domestic Arrivals wheel chair, at one of the busy restaurants in that area almost over-run by taut people with luggage and the worn air of earnestness that comes with the noise and bustle of long distance travel. Son B was left to sort out the problem. He seemed to take a long time, arriving finally quite exhausted - and exasperated - as he had been arguing at both Domestic and International sections which in Johannesburg is a stiff walk one from the other; finally, he said, he had had to leave his passport with one end, as he claimed, and was given, a wheel chair and could rush back to find us in the crowds.

Our daughter lives in Johannesburg. She had come to the airport to say goodbye, bringing with her our three-year-old grand daughter and baby grandson, who was in his pram and just at the age of broad baby smiles. Amid this innocence of the children we hovered as on a small island in a chaotic passing current, while goodbyes were said. We exchanged Christmas presents. It was a time of darkness - indoors and on the concourse of a vast airport, with coloured artificial lights, people rushing past, noise, loud conversation, steel tables with cardboard cola cups, F stoic in a wheel chair, my family briefly together, my daughter infinitely tense, and a baby smiling at me.

We were on our way. The night ahead would be bearable. We had three seats together in Business Class and it would be relatively peaceful. The only hitch was that we seemed to have been double booked and several enquiries were made by cabin staff as to our properness. Were we who we said we were? We were. Were we happy to sit here? We were, we did not want to be moved anywhere. In fact we would not move anywhere.

After fighting with the wheel chair at two air ports, this was peace. Little did we realise the debacle that awaited us
at the next one.