DAY 17 MISSED CONNECTIONS
The feeling I had was well founded. The flight from St. Vincent finally arrived but at four hours behind schedule it was going to take a miracle to make the connection at Barbados. And Liat don't deal in miracles. They deal in disappointment. They make you wait in the baggage hall, a cavernous carousel of emptiness on this particular day, for your bags to be coughed up onto the belt. Suitably late. I smelt conspiracy. Is that my seat being given to a standby refugee out there at the check in desk? A well placed airport employee directing us immediately to our gate would save the day but this is Liat and something like that is about as far away as a one legged man winning an arse kicking contest.
So here we sit. Another day, and there have been three of them so far, in the fully non air conditioned check in area of the airport, on standby. Feathers flew when we arrived for there were fifteen of us who were likewise inconvenienced and true to human nature a pissed off leader and spokesperson for the group soon emerged. Liat staff were duly called to account for their ineptitude and our untidy gang were ferried to a hotel for the night and told to return tomorrow to be placed on standby.
A quick appraisal of the group told me that we would be going nowhere fast. There was a family of five with two small children, a little old lady, in tears most of the time, a mother and daughter, four independent travellers and us. Our plight soon turned into a plot. From a well known Agatha Christie novel. For three days we turned up at the airport and each day we returned with less people. We even accommodated an even more deserving family of four who had been sleeping rough at the airport not knowing until meeting us that they had rights too. Of course The Caribbean's equivalent of Ryan Air
had not bothered to inform them that as the delay they had suffered had been due to technical problems, they, like us, were entitled to overnight accommodation and sustenance. so our number grew by four more after the first day.
We called a House Meeting, deciding in true Titanic fashion that it would be women and children first etc. This left we three with the feeling that we had as much chance getting home as Tom Hanks in 'Castaway' although our current surroundings put me more in mind of 'Terminal.'
But wait, I can hear you thinking to yourself, 'wow not bad, all expenses (no alcohol) paid accommodation in Barbados for a few days. How bad can that be?' Some Facebook posts supported this sentiment. And you might be right. But somehow the fun of it all was dissipated by the daily twelve to six session at the airport, sitting staring into the distance, waiting for your name to be called, eating complimentary fast food, wondering how long the agreement at The House Meeting would last when the chips were down.
So now here we are, the last of the fifteen. Everyone else has gone. Their names have been called. It's now day four and yes, I know people have endured much worse but vision becomes blinkered and you just feel the subliminally acute frustration of wanting to get home. And it's not quiet in this place. There is a huge water fountain which cascades day and night, a never ending backdrop to the coming and going of people, many taking photos of the soon to be departed, the regular flight announcements that even top multi linguist would never be able to decipher, the sound of wheeled cases dragging across the tiled floor, the birds winging their way to the fast food area to find morsels and then taking to the air again with the sweetest of irony. It's hot and hypnotic and only Merlin, who, at the end of our time in The Caribbean has perfected the art of 'The Lime' is fully suited to it.
A cluster begins to form around the check in desk. All the regular passengers are through and we now fight for the scraps left by the missed connections, cancelled trips, traffic jams, accidents and lost passports. We've been here before of course and our experience picks out the rookies, we are like vultures circling, scanning the plains for the weak and dying. We have already established our territory before they even arrived, well before. We know how to stay in the eyeline of the check in clerk, meeting her gaze like a western gunfighter squinting against the unforgiving sun. We are ready and waiting, coiled. All we want is to hear our names. Merlin has been sent to do the same at another desk. He too keeps in their peripheral vision. Would be passengers start to shuffle nervously, there is no mercy to be shown tonight. We will be away, no more taxis, no more hotels, no more sparkling turquoise sea to greet the early morning swish of the curtains. We will be away. Any moment now. Our time has come. But...........will there time for some duty free shopping?
