We are sat in another airport lounge. This time we also have Immy and her kids with us. God, time is dragging... when will they call for Aer Araan RE607. I feel awful....I ache from head to toe and feel like I have the flu. The airport lounge is screaming at me. It is to bright, everything is really grating and intense, my head feels like it is about to explode. This place is packed with bithering eejits and whining kids. An old couple sits opposite us, looking territorial. He has his paper on his lap, she is stuffing tattie crips in her gob like a to large letter in a postbox. She looks at me as if I am something out of a zoo and her eyes linger on my hair and the black rings under my eyes that now do not disappear after a good nights sleep and then she goes back to her Take a Break puzzles.
Immy's kids are behaving like something out of a brat film. Immy tells her youngest, try to colour in the lines...he looks at Immy with a glint in his eye takes the red felt tip pen and scribbles all over the page. Immy looks harrassed juggling toys, colouring books, bags and cartons of juice. I wonder how she is so good at her job? The other sibling is unfazed, munching an Easter egg for breakfast, swinging legs back and forth, constantly accidently kicking my wonderful man. He looks at me as if to say these kids are going to give me an aneurysm or a heart attack. He looks at me, puts his arm around me and I whisper in his ear, 'my head is thumping, it is all to loud, I am so tired!'
He pulls my head down onto his shoulder and I put my jacket over my head. Just as I do they call our flight....
I have decide I hate Dublin airport, the place makes me feel as if I am going to have a stroke or a brain haemorrhage.
I am very disheartnened tonight.
I desperately want to talk but have had nobody impartial to talk to in nearly a fortnight.
I do not want to burden friends and family any more than they have been.
I don't want them upset and distressed.
I have read the book ...Love Is A Journey Twice by Jan Latona an
This book is invaluable.
I am blessed with what I have physically around me, I know I am not classed as depressed as I can pick myself up and be positive most of the time.
What hurts and gets me down are the cruel words, allegations and lies by total strangers and the thing that cuts deepest of all is is the odd person that promised to be there for me/be my friend and they did the exact opposite.... it cuts like a knife...
I am a human being and I have feelings yet some continue to be extremly cruel.
A hug would be so much more appreciated than a stone between the eyes....
Half seven...a knock at the door and the voice that I have grown to love puts his head around it and smiles saying, 'breakfast darling, we have to be at the airport soon.'
The sun shines on our faces as we board Aer Lingus E1661. We settle in our seats, he pulls out the Anne Donovan book I have recommended he reads....I can tell by the faces he pulls that he is struggling with Buddha DA and what to him must be a strange dialect. I smile to myself, pull out my French Hello and stick my iPod in my ears and turn U2 up full blast which seems appropriate for our destination. I must have dosed off as I wake to him gently shaking my shoulder from his window seat and the air hostess smiling at me with a bottle of champagne in one hand and two plastic glasses in the other. I look at her bewildered and she smiles down on us both saying, 'compliments of Immy, enjoy.' I spend the rest of the flight describing Immy. He laughs as I describe her and says, 'she sounds unreal, definitely one of a kind.' I assure him although a few weeks ago some others doubted she exsisted..she is very, very real. He sighs, jangles the liquid in his glass and scratches his chin ponderously.
This time as we land in Dublin I have a warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach unlike the dread I had felt on my last trip here. In the terminal I remember why I hate Dublin Airport so much....why do you have to walk a zillion miles to passport control and to collect your bags?
At passport control..he kisses the top of my nose, 'see you in a moment,' he says. I walk through with the EU queque qnd he walks through the other nationalties. 'We need to do something about that,' he says. 'Bollocks,' I reply. We share a wry smile.
At the door to arrivals I tell him to take a deep breath and before he can answer as we walk through the door. I hear the walrus cry of Immy. 'Phwwooorgh!' she hollers. Bathed in a shaft of light is Immy by the barrier. He laughs, breaks out into a wide, canny grin and says, 'Oh please God, no, there is two of you.' 'Hi,' Immy bellows at me as she smothers me in a hug, then she turns and says, 'introduce me to this gorgeous man.' Immy looks at me, winks and whispers in my ear, 'does he have a twelve inch knob.' 'Ha, ha very funny,' he says blushing, 'I heard that.'
I have the feeling he has an urge to turn and run screaming back into the airport.
As we load the luggage in the boot of the car, he whispers to me, 'Darlin, your mates an unhinged Farrah Fawcett.' He offers me the front seat...I decline laughing. 'Are you sure?' he says.
'Yep, lets just say we will be at The Arlington in ten minutes.'
He looks at me puzzled and I see Immy's Devil's horns appear.
I have been hiding for so long
Men and women screw up...thats what we do. It's in the manuals.
The question is can we forgive. I have, can you?
I still care.
I want you by my side.
on the way out today I played a game-the one where you ask the universe a question and wait for the world to give you a sign. It could be anything, magpies, black cats, superstitious crap like that. I was feeling very pissed off, down and lonely...my stomach was rumbling with hunger, so I asked it, 'when will I find somebody!'and I waited...I got danger! Then I got Caution! Then I got stop! Suppose it serves me right for playing it on a plane. Don't know what I was expecting it to say. 'He is behind you?' Anyway, I'm an idiot to think I can control the world and make it do what I want. I can't even control my own life. I wish I could just turn around and say STOP, too.
But it is so beyond me now that I need divine intervention, I need a miracle. My life is a terrible bad film and who ever wrote the script should be shot.
I want to be in charge of my own destiny rather than at the mercy of everyone else.
We have ordered our food and I take a large gulp of my wine.
He holds my hand and says to the old lady, 'We would love to hear your story.'
She takes a sip of her tea and begins. 'We were ordinary girls from ordinary families apart from one thing we were QA's. We wore curlers to bed and caused much amusement trying to put tin helmets on with these in our hair when there was an air raid. We exchanged cami knickers and skirts for huge balloon like khaki knickers and battle dress.
Our Baptism of Fire came at the end of the war when we exchanged battle casualities for the most harrowing evidence of a human's inhumanity to another in the whole of the war.'
She shudders and has a few sips of her tea. I had a precious day off and when I came back into the ward. I will never forget the sight. It was full of living skeletons with haunted sunken eyes and each had a number tattooed on his arm...these were liberated men, most were Austrian and Belguim Jews...I spoke French to those who were not to weary to even speak and they confirmed that the horrific stories we had heard were true.'
Our food comes and we eat whilst she carries on tellings us her story.
'These men were very ill...they had dysentry, worms, you name it,
we had to feed them tiny meals frequently as they had huge digestive problems having being literally starved...I doubt many lived even when they were sent to proper hospitals. By the time we had reached Germany and Austria we had seen pain and suffering in an unimaginable scale. It was so hard we were given stimulant drugs to keep us going....a bit like Prozac and Valium!
She stops and looks at me....'are you alright my dear? Shall I carry on?' I simply whisper, 'Please do.'
A convoy of ambulances, lorries and a tank with with a flame thrower went into the camp. What I saw there was the worst experince of my life. There were bodies lying on the ground everywhere. The huts where full of lice and disease...the worst we could not clean was burnt down by the flame thrower. Some of
the huts were so infested with lice we had to use blow torches on the walls and doors to kill them...the thing that haunts me the most is the memory of those that could walk coming up to us and kissing our arms saying schwester, schwester. We constantly had to fight the feeling of wanting to be sick...the soldiers took bets on which of us would crack with the strain first.' At this point she chuckles and then carries on. 'The camp in mates were put into big baths and had their heads shaved as they were crawling with lice. Their emaciated bodies were covered with sores. Feeding them was really hard ...we fed them this special type of bread...but they only ever ate half of what you gave them and put the other half under their pillow incase they never got anymore. I stayed for a week and then I was sent on a weeks R and R.'
By this time we are on our coffee. She turns to me and says, 'hope I did not offend you saying you were Jewish.' I explain I am and I am not. She looks at me bewildered... I explain that I am of French, Jewish heritage but that I am third generation baptized and raised as a Catholic...that many of my family left France for England thankfully or I would not be sat there...those that stayed had survived in Vichy France and a few had met their fate in camps. She simply puts her hand on top of mine and says I understand.
She says to us as we leave.... 'Zog nit keynmol az du geyst dem letztn veg.'
I bend down to kiss her cheek and she says to me almost in a whisper, 'that man of yours encircles you with his love.' I whisper back he and my children are my world, my amours d'amour.'
He sets a glass of wine in front of me and I take a large swig.
It has been a very pleasant drive and we are steeling ourselves for what lies ahead...we are about to visit a Nazi death camp that has been turned into a memorial lest we ever forget.
He looks at me and suggests we can go somewhere else. I assure him I am fine and up to the trip. Some invisible force is pulling me...I must go.
The only words that can describe our visit to Mauthausen is that it was a shocking experience. There are no boxes of shoes, hair, glasses, few photographs but it's bleakness is a hundred times more haunting. There is a deathly silence. As I walked into the chamber were prisoners were beaten to death I feel the nausea hit me and feel as if a freezing hand is bearing down on me. Mausthausen has memorials but how can it be a fitting memorial for those inmates stripped outside in sub zero conditions, hosed with freezing cold water and literally left to die an agonising, freezing, slow death or to have to walk the, 'Stairway of Death,' with heavy stone blocks on their backs knowing that the only thing that awaited them was death.
We stand on the cliff looking into the Wiener Graben Stone Quarry were hundreds were pushed to their deaths. I am frozen to the spot. I think of the thousands in this death camp. Criminals, priests, Jews, POW, state enemies, children and the most brave of all the Fearless Women...the female agents who worked along side the Maquis and various underground groups.
I remind myself to rent the film Female Agents (Les femmes de l'ombre) when we get home. Jailed, tortured and beaten for helping people to freedom. A man next to me speaks to me in French and I reply, then he wanders away blowing his nose and wiping tears from his eyes.
I wander a hundred yards further and a very old lady in a wheel chair is pushed by a middle aged man. They stop beside us. The lady says hello and I reply good afternoon. She looks at me and says, 'I hope you do not mind but you're French is very good for an English girl.' I chuckle and explain. I ask her why she wanted to visit Mausthausen. She replies, 'I was here once before.' I am unsure how to reply to this and I can see she has taken in my stricken and shocked face. She says, 'I was not a prisoner...I came into the camp as it was liberated to Nurse.' I was a QA. All I can say is, 'Oh my God.' By this time the two men are chatting too.
She looks at me and says have you had something to eat would you like to join us for a meal at our hotel. I am taken a back this sweet, strange old lady who has no idea who we are has asked me to sit and eat with her.
I am now stood at the side of her wheelchair and she reaches out and takes my hand, for some strange reason I do not pull away.
She says to me, this must be extremely hard for you being Jewish.
I am frozen to the spot and through the fog I hear his voice saying, 'of course we would love to join you for something to eat.'
I wake up with the sun streaming through the open window. For the first time in months I have slept for seven hours. My head is clear and my mouth does not taste like it is full of ball bearings. I glance over at him, his eyes are closed and he's asleep, snoring softly, his stomach is rising and falling. I break out into an entirely goofy grin. He stirs and rolls over and pulls me towards him.
Slowly I withdraw making sure to be quiet and leave him to sleep.
I take a scalding hot shower. I step out and wrap myself in a hotel tower and rub until my skin is tingling. I am brand new. I have a ravenous appetite, I feel like I have not eaten for weeks. I clamber into a shirt and jeans and sneak out of the room in search of breakfast. I am starving if I do not eat in the next five minutes I will die.
I wander downstairs to see if there is any sign of life. In what appears to be a living room I see a tall male in a striped polo shirt and Jeans slumped on the sofa, watching golf. I hear the tap of a ball and a polite ripple of applause. 'Yes!' he yells, jumping up and punching the air. You beauty!' He turns around and sees me. 'He is winning he explains.' 'Oh right,' I say trying to smile. Golf I do not get, all that interminable walking about and knocking balls into little holes is so mind numbingly tedious I would rather be forced to watch Jerry Springer.
The nice lady appears with her cheeks flushed from being in the hot kitchen..'Ya, ya you awake, I bring you breakfast to room' and she winks turning to head back to the kitchen with a chuckle.
When I enter the room I see he is showered and pulling on his jeans and t-shirt. 'Ah there you are,' he says. 'Wheres breakfast?' 'You are feeling bold,' I say shuffling from one foot to the other. He pulls me down on to the bed beside him. 'Do I need to book into a convent?' I hear myself say. 'You minx,' he says saucily, pulling me back to him so my face is in his neck.He is in full Alpha male mode. He chuckles and asks, 'do you want to stay in this calm and serene sanctuary or want to open two of these,' producing the envelopes from behind his back. 'The envelopes please.' My voice sounding to high and squeaky. Like Tweety Pie on drugs... He reaches over to kiss my face that is glowing like a small childs on Christmas Day.
I am shattered. I need to go to bed. I have had a wonderful day and I must type this whilst the adrenaline is still flowing..
He is snoring softly stretched out on the bed. As l look at him I am thinking how annoyingly handsome he looks although he needs a shave and that the muscles under his t-shirt are enough to make me stay in this room all day tomorrow.
I have had the most amazing day...We have wandered through the Nachsmarket, laughed at the Punch and Judy show. I have been enchanted by the fact that music is literally in the air in this city. In the Opera house I wanted to learn to waltz. To waltz around those grand rooms to the sound of the Blue Danude, oh what a thrill that would be.
As we entered St Stephens the cool, dank air hit us smelling faintly of candle wax and incense. He reached his hand towards mine as we walked to where Mozart made his wedding vows. Then he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him. Out loud he said, 'do you think it would be really bad,' he whispered the rest in my ear. 'What in a Church you mean?' I said in mock horror and laughed. 'I am a good Catholic girl, it would be really bad.' 'Oh thats a shame,' he said. He wrapped his arms around me and picked me up, twirled me about. 'I love you, he said, plonking me back down. 'Get off, you have gone bonkers,' I said blushing. As I glanced around I could see people smiling at us.
We devoured a delicious meal of Wiener Schnitzel, Tafelspitz, Apfelstrudel and Sachertorte and a light refreshment or three in the Schweizer Haus.
Vienna is a must see after sunset...we rode the giant ferris wheel in the Wiener Prater...I felt like I was floating in the sky. As I looked around I could see the whole of Vienna. He said to me, 'I do not need to ask if you are happy you're eyes are sparkling and dancing.' I snuggled in close and said, 'incase I forget to say it later, thank you darling.'
At the bottom of the wheel was a wedding party. The bride was beautiful and her young attendants were dressed in cornflower blue Dirndls or linen shirts and seal skin coloured Lederhosen. They looked absolutely wonderful as if they were about to set off on a Sommerfrische. It was easy to spot the father of the bride he had that I have lost something quite precious and things will never be quite the same look. I asked, 'what do you think goes through the father of the brides head on the wedding day?' He simply replied, 'the guy hopes his new son-in-law will love, care for his daughter and bear her burdens as he has done in the past.'
He offered me the crook of his arm and said lets get you back before you get to tired as you will want to email two young rogues.
I have had the type of day that are memories always with a smile.
The airport security look at me as if I am insane...Possibly I am.
Bongos are still pounding in my head. Does your head still hurt he asks. 'Yep a bit,' I mutter, 'I need to sit down.' He wraps his arm around my shoulders. 'Come on lets find somewhere to sit and I will go and buy you a cooked breakfast. 'Eff off,' I whimper. 'You have got a mouth like a navvy sometimes darling, he says, smirks and kisses my mouth into silence before he goes off to buy me some water.
We board the plane to be met by ten foot girl with a booming voice, whilst She peers suspiciously at my sunglasses.
I wonder to myself if she might be pissed and to qualify as cabin crew do they have to leave their brains at the door?!
As I drop into my seat my muscles turn into soup, I put my head on his shoulder and I sleep for the entire flight dribbling on his shoulder.
Half an hour by train and we are in Vienna. I am enchanted by what I see and wonder why people choose Paris over this city.
Walking through the streets is like walking back in time. It is a city at first glance that is beautiful, vibrant, and romantic. A city full of old world charm and magic. I drink in the beautiful buildings as he leads me by the hand and seems to know exactly where we are going.
We are staying in the most wonderful little pension run by a couple who can not do enough for us. They lead us to the attic where we have a very white, spotless clean ensuite room with the biggest bed covered with the most inviting duvet and pillows. They fling open the window and gesture for me to come look...the sight is breath taking... in front of me is stretched half of Vienna. I imagine I can smell flowers, coffee and freshly baked bread. I turn to say so and there on the table is all those wonderful smells in front of my eyes. We devour the sweet Viennese breakfast. The pink gloop and its after effects are now a bad memory.
He pulls me to the window telling me we are going on an adventure whilst leaning in close to me. His breath is hot against my ear. Suddenly I feel a stab of lust so intense I bite my bottom lip incase I let out a gasp.
He produces six sealed envelopes from behind his back with the instructions I may pick two to open each day. I pick two and tear them open one says Marionette Show and the other reads Fiaker Ride. I am overwhelmed and hug him. My face pressing against the warm wool of his sweater. 'Oh I'm so touched,' I burble. A smile is playing on his lips and he fixes me with that piercing, sizzling blue eyed stare.
Uh, Uh! I feel like shit. My lips are stuck to the pillow and my tongue to the roof of my mouth.I have never felt so bad. I painfully lift my head of the pillow it hurts like hell. I look around I am alone thank God.
I get up and go to the bathroom where I look in the mirror and nearly scream in fright...the person staring back at me is not me but someone from the Adams Family with a ghostly pale face and black and red rimmed eyes.
Something draws my eyes away from the mirror. There is the full length, pale gold dress hanging on the closet door.
I need to not look like something discovered in a peat bog a zillion years ago.
After a litre of water and a few nurofens and having brushed my teeth so hard my gums have begun to bleed, it is now or never!
I enter the store and I am about to do something I would normally never do. I walk up to the assistant who's skin is literally the colour of orange Kia-ora...she reminds me of someone I have seen before but I am not sure where. She smells of coffee, fags and Eau de Skunk. I tell her tonight I want to look like a fair maiden, I want to float in, in a heavenly, feminine haze and make sure I have stolen his heart. Well at least not look like a dog. I see her resist the urge to sni**er.
'You have skin type two,' Kia-ora says...'Okay,' I say happy with her diagnosis.
As Kia-ora tries to make me look semi human she asks me is this for a special occasion....I whisper yes!
Kia has at last finished and says, you are gonna knock him dead. Then she asks me do you always wear your hair this short....It would just finish it off if you had long hair....then you would definitely be the fair maiden. I blink back silent tears. Kia-ora launches in to we have special offers and starts banging on about would you like to buy the anti shine, anti UV, anti-shite flange cream? I pay Kia-ora and leave thanking her.
I am dressed in the floor length, pale gold creation...it's folds do not cling to my body as they use to...it exposes to much. I stare in the mirror, Oh well, here goes. I drag the bristles of the brush one last time through my short hair, it hurts my scalp.
Reluctantly I walk into the next room. I gasp he is stood there looking so dashing and handsome. I need to pinch myself. He says, 'you look beautiful.' I stick out my tongue and pull a face. He replies, 'you have no idea how beautiful you are.' The soft, loving eyes search my anxious face. He slips my arm in his, turns to look at me and says, 'you will be just fine.'
I push the food around my plate...the food looks beautiful on the plate but everything has that cabbagey stink to me. He looks at me and makes sure the waiters take my plate away quietly. Every few minutes he takes my hand under the table and gives it a reassuring squeeze.
The meal is finishing thank goodness I am desperate to go to the ladies room. A small group of musicians begin to play...it sounds like Marley's, Don't worry be happy. In the ladies room a pink and fragrant girl with a gentle smile says Hi. She tells me it is great to meet me at last as all he has ever spoken about for months is you. She tells me her name and I offer her my hand to shake, instead she hugs me which brings tears to my eyes that I suck back quickly. She takes my arm and says, 'come on these guys will be holding up the bar.'
My new friend guides me to a table near the bar with a large group already sat around it. I am deposited in a chair in the middle of the group. I search the room for him and he is stood at the bar mouthing to me, 'what would you like to drink?' I mouth back suprise me! Dancing in the Moonlight is now playing as he brings over the trays of drinks with another guy. I stand to let him in to sit down and he encircles my waist with his arm and he pirouttes and spins me around, deposits me in my chair, kisses the tip of my nose and disappears with his buddy in crime. I see them go over to the group of musicians and begin to chat. I neck down half my drink and my new friend starts giving me the third degree in a very friendly, genuine fashion.
He appears at myside and then drags me to the edge of the dance floor and deposits me in a seat as does all the other guys with their female partners.
They strip of their jackets, roll up their sleeves, produce their shades and what looks like imaginary air guitars and the song, Don't stop me now begins to play...It becomes clear this is something that they have done many times in the last months to keep themselves amused and semi sane. I am laughing so much the tears are pouring down my face, as are all the other females.
I have not laughed so much in twenty years. A waiter appears and gives each female a glass with bubble gum pink liquid in and informs me it is called a Jesus Christ Superstar. I look at my new friend and we clink the sticky pink glasses. I take a sip and gag. 'Jesus Christ,' I say and she laughs. Here like this she says and downs it in one. I follow her lead and down the hideous, disgusting gloop. The guys launch into a Blues Brothers routine. The applause at the end is enough to wake the entire continent.
My new friend next to me anounces, 'Girls,' what those guys can
do we can do one better.' She turns to me and says, 'I hate to break it to you but you are in on it to.' I cringe and mutter, 'I don't think so,' and grab a glass of the pink gloop and down it in one. He appears by my side and picks me up in his arms, whispers in my ear indulge me and deposits me on the table beside the other females. The pink stuff is now reaching the desired spot. He is watching me with suave interest. Okay no point being a wallflower, you want fiesty...I will show you fiesty. We have a quick chat amongst us gals and tell the musicians what we want them to play. I am supported on both sides by the other females....We launch into Gimme, Gimme, Gimme a man after midnight. Everyone is looking on, cheering and clapping which encourages us all to act up even more. I catch his eye and see he is watching me totally enraptured and clapping appreciatively. This place I decide is fun and in an over-the-top, flirtatious fashion we launch into Blondies, One way or another.
Later on in the evening as we dance to Van Morrison's, Brown Eyed Girl..he asks me how I am feeling and I answer honestly, 'I feel lit up from the inside when I am with you. He looks at me with that look that burns down to my very soul, wraps his fingers around mine, draws me into his arms....I am home.
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