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07 August 2006

Bringing Dad Home Part VIII

I was getting bored of chronology, and so in a mildly Tarantino-esque fashion (minus the guns, crooks, molls, drugs, blood, death and carnage), I am choosing to time-shift the tale of bringing that boat back from Spain.

WEDNESDAY 26TH JULY 2006

I woke up sharpish at 730am, my eyes pinging open with the memory of the failed car drop-off. Thankfully, I had packed completely last night and all was ready by the door. I quickly showered and dressed, before heading out of the hotel on 8, towards the car rental dudes. I was outside their shop by five-past, and they were shut. Shit. Now I am just praying that they are gonna show up in reasonable time. There's a big supermarket with a covered, tiled walkway around it across the street, so I cross and sit down on the steps to the pavement. An old lady is mopping the whole area before the tourist hordes descend for suncream, lilos, baguettes, ham and cheese slices. A little dog, presumably hers, is scooting about. He's a little terrier-type, with the colouring of a Dobermann Pinscher, all black and tan. Thankfully, he does not possess the temperament of that heritage. In fact, he's a softy and is soon jumping all over me, trying to lick my face, before getting onto the tiles and rolling over for a good tummy-tickling. Nonce. I'm keeping watch for the very nice and friendly, though rather obese, German lady who works at the place. I'm not halfway through my second cigarette on the steps, when she flops out of the back of a Fiesta and starts towards the shop. I get up and run over, profusely apologising, hoping there's no charge. Do you have the keys?! she asks. I fumble in my pocket and get them into her hand. Any more money? I ask. No, she laughs. I point up the street to where the car is parked, thank her, very much, and head back to the hotel. It is 815am. I'm getting a bit hot now, despite the early hour, and the streets of Cala D'Or are coming alive with the preparations for the package holiday masses. Everywhere is washing down, with tables and chairs stacked from last night, waiting for the floorwork to be done. Cats roam the streets. None of them will come anywhere near you, unless they see a piece of something thrown on the floor. You shouldn't want them to, anyway, it's not like British cats - where most have an owner, with a collar and contact number on it. These are street-cats. Like Top Cat and his crew. O'Malley from The Aristocats. As the felines slink through the piles of tables and chairs, postal workers arrive and collect, business shutters rise, and another day rumbles on during peak tourist season.

Back at the hotel, I get up to the room by 20 past eight. One final check over the drawers, cupboards, bathroom and balcony, and I'm out of the door. At reception, I get the bloke in from the cafe-bar, and he's off to get my bill. It's 300 euros, including the safe, for the six nights. Not bad at all. I pay in cash - I've still got a stupid amount in my possession following the renegotiation of the bill with Miguel at Nautica Amengual. I ask the chap to order me a cab, while I carry my stuff to an outside table. It's only 830am, but the sun is already fit to burn and the humidity is strangling. I head back inside for one, final el bastardo caffe con leche. It's the second coffee I've had in my time here. It has taken me this long to get over the first. I sit down outside and smoke and sip my liquid hydrogen booster and smile. I did it. I had a mission, in a hot place, and I did it. But it hadn't just been the mission. There was an undoubted pilgrimage element to it, and perhaps that's what my future visits to Mallorca will be, below the surface. I've been back to where my Dad died, twice. The very spot. I've buried hatchets, they do you no good and what's the use anyway? That shit'll just eat you, from the inside. I've found my faith again. Not in any get along to church every week and hug each other way. Maybe that'll come later, maybe not. But certainly a sense of reattachment to a higher sense of the world, to people.

The taxi arrives at 845am. The driver has something of Tom Selleck about him, without the moustache. He flips my holdall into his boot, and wheelspins as we pull away from the hotel. We speak entirely in Spanish, mine being awful. He compliments me, politely. I think he says that he wishes more people would have a go. As we drive back to the airport, I realise that this might be it for a long time, boat-returning-arrangements allowing. I think about the drive in from the airport when I arrived - that there was something I was coming back to. From the airport, onto the PM-19 motorway, off at the Lluchmajor exit, past Lluch, past Campos - telling the story then, of how my Dad lived here, and died here, and we had the service in the cemiteri just down there - heading for Santanyi, and finally down through S'Alqueria Blanca - passing the end of the road my Dad's house is on - and into Calonge, before popping out the other side on the Cala D'Or road. Down into Cala D'Or, past all the familiar places. The places we'd spent so much time as a family, and with our friends. Places me or my sister had pulled. Places friends of ours had pulled. Beaches we'd swum from, rocks we'd dived off. This place that held so much of my late teens and early twenties in it's palm. This place where it all fell apart, where it all went wrong. Now, I was doing it all in reverse. I was leaving it all, and grief grabbed my throat and bearhugged me around the chest. I pointed out each story location as we passed it, barely being able to conceal my sadness. My legs went all light. I felt sick, and as if I was in a vortex. I felt dizzy. We arrived at 930am.

Once I got to the airport, I quickly debunked my stuff onto a trolley, paid the fella and headed in. I went straight to the departures board, where the check-in desks are listed as 93-101, along with a delay of 40 minutes already. We would be leaving at 1155 at the earliest. I went straight to the lines - it turned out that only two of the desks numbered 93-101 were actually for my flight. The queues were long but moving. I plugged my iPod into my ears for the first time all week, and started jigging along to Underworld's Two Months Off, The Thrills' So Much For The City and other such delights. My spirit lifted slightly, and then I was at the desk and checking in. The bags went through without extra charge, despite the seven kilos overweight. Boarding card and passport squirreled away, I headed outside before locking myself into the heatpit that will be the airport departures area. I started walking away from the airport, I almost felt like I couldn't bear to leave this place. I was still singing away when I just started crying. And then, as if my iPod had started being able to read my thoughts, feelings and emotions (now there's the start of a Microsoft-led conspiracy theory), the playlist switched to a series of tracks that just had me completely blubbing. Two blokes were unloading some big boxes from the back of a tail-lift truck nearby. I was leaning against the polished steel rail overlooking some fountains and gardens, people scurrying by below as they arrive in the sun. And in the sun, I rocked gently, sobbing in the heat, as if any more humidity were needed.

Palma International airport (PMI) is a big place. The annual tourist visitor total pushes 12 million per annum, mostly in the peak months of June, July and August. It is a monster, check it on Google Earth. When I say monster, I mean for an island that's just 60 miles by 45 miles. It's only the size of an English county, yet this monolithic airport is required for the waves of Brits and Germans that flood through passport control each year. I'm giving myself 40 minutes to get through security, maybe grab a bite to eat, and get to the gate in time for lift-off. Once through the scanners, with a typically-Mallorquin disinterest in doing the job at all thoroughly, I'm out and into duty free. A ramraid of the cigarette and perfumery departments later (still burning that excess cash), and I'm heading towards the gate, using the massive network of moving walkways around the place. Once you get to your node (hah), there are shops, restaurants and bars. Like the junk food scummer that I am - and not having been near one for a week - I get in the line at the Golden Arches. One quick Menu Quarto Libro Con Queso, y Coke Light and I'm refreshed, replenished, a man cannot live on caffeine alone. I notice that, despite the massive anti-smoking/no smoking campaign peppered all over the airport, there is a bar, where you can smoke, right over there. By the boards telling you all about your flights. And so, I plonk myself at a table under the screens, rip open my first 200 carton of Marlboro Lights, and wait for DELAYED to flick to BOARDING. It doesn't take long, and soon I'm at the gate. I get the impression that someone forgot to push the button that changes the airport information screens, as there's just me and a few others getting on. The plane is full when I arrive, though thankfully it hasn't reached the tutting point just yet. I'm sat next to two boys, aged about 10 and 7. The elder of the two is clearly shit-scared of flying, though his younger brother seems to have an alarming level of aviation knowledge, and announces that he wants to be a pilot. Well, your first job, kid, is to calm your brother down over there.

I sleep for the first 30 minutes, then the drinks trolley arrives. I nab a pair of Diet Pepsis and plenty of ice, before necking both cans. I plug in my 'Pod and settle back, enjoying the music and being miles above the ground. There are four teenagers across the aisle from me, a brother and sister, plus his mate and her mate. They giggle incessantly during the flight. I'm guessing that brother snogged/shagged sister's mate and sister snogged/shagged brother's mate, given their lasciviousness and vulgarity. As is always the case with such teenagers, Mum and Dad were clearly very well-to-do (Dad wore a Man From Del Monte suit to fly back in, complete with hat) and had no idea how to control their children and escorts. I got the impression it might be the last family holiday. My ears began popping of their own accord as we headed down into Birmingham, landing at 1pm. I was collected and out and in a cab by half-past, and home by two. I am tired. I am dizzy. I am knackered. Busted. Dog-tired. Kaput.

Now, when does this boat get to the UK?

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