Sergeant Sparrow is not in homicide, I replied, and motorists kill more people in a year than murderers.
Only a lot of jaywalkers, Major Charge said. Cannon fodder. However, he agreed to water the dahlias.
I picked my aunt up in the bar of the Crown and Anchor, where she was having a stirrup-cup[81], and we drove by taxi to the Kensington terminal. I noticed that she had brought two suitcases, one very large, although, when I had asked her how long we were to stay in Istanbul, she had replied, Twenty-four hours.
Sergeant Sparrow is not in homicide, I replied, and motorists kill more people in a year than murderers.
Only a lot of jaywalkers, Major Charge said. Cannon fodder. However, he agreed to water the dahlias.
I picked my aunt up in the bar of the Crown and Anchor, where she was having a stirrup-cup[81], and we drove by taxi to the Kensington terminal. I noticed that she had brought two suitcases, one very large, although, when I had asked her how long we were to stay in Istanbul, she had replied, Twenty-four hours.
It seems a short stay after such a long journey.
The point is the journey, my aunt had replied. I enjoy the travelling not the sitting still.
Even Uncle Jo, I argued, had put up with each room in his house for a whole week.
Jo was a sick man, she said, while I am in the best of health. Since we were travelling first-class (which seemed again an unnecessary luxury between London and Paris) we had no overweight, although the larger of her suitcases was unusually heavy. While we were sitting in the bus I suggested to my aunt that the garage fee for my car would probably have been cheaper than the difference between first and tourist fares. The difference, she said, is nearly wiped out by the caviar and the smoked salmon, and surely between us we can probably put away half a bottle of vodka. Not to speak of the champagne and cognac. In any case, I have more important reasons for travelling by bus.
As we approached Heathrow she put her mouth close to my ear. The luggage, she said, is in a trailer behind.
I know.
I have a green suitcase and a red suitcase. Here are the tickets.
I took them, not understanding.
When the bus stops, please get out quickly and see whether the trailer is still attached. If it is still there let me know at once and Ill give you further instructions.
Something in my aunts manner made me nervous. I said, Of course it will be there.
I sincerely hope not, she said. Otherwise we shall not leave today.
I jumped out as soon as we arrived, and sure enough the trailer wasnt there. What do I do now? I asked her.
Nothing at all. Everything is quite in order. You may give me back the tickets and relax.
As we sat over two gins and tonics in the departure lounge a loudspeaker announced, Passengers on Flight three-seven-eight to Nice will proceed to customs for customs inspection.
We were alone at our table and my aunt did not bother to lower her voice amid the din of passengers, glasses and loud-speakers. That is what I wished to avoid, she said. They have now taken to spot-checks on passengers leaving the country. They whittle away our liberties one by one. When I was a girl you could travel anywhere on the continent except Russia without a passport and you took what you liked in the way of money. Until recently they only asked what money you had, or at the very worst[82] they wanted to see your wallet. If theres one thing I hate in any human being it is mistrust.
The way you speak, I said jokingly, I suspect we are lucky that it is not your bags which are being searched.
I could well imagine my aunt stuffing a dozen five-pound notes into the toe of her bedroom slippers. Having been a bank manager, I am perhaps overscrupulous, though I must confess that I had brought an extra five-pound note folded up in my ticket pocket, but that was something I might genuinely have overlooked.
Luck doesnt enter into my calculations, my aunt said. Only a fool would trust to luck[83], and there is probably a fool now on the Nice flight who is regretting his folly. Whenever new restrictions are made, I make a very careful study of the arrangements for carrying them out. She gave a little sigh. In the case of Heathrow I owe a great deal to Wordsworth. For a time he acted as a loader here. He left when there was some trouble about a gold consignment. Nothing was ever proved against him, but the whole affair had been too impromptu and disgusted him. He told me the story. A very large ingot was abstracted by a loader, and the loss was discovered too soon, before the men went off duty. They knew as a result that they would be searched by the police on leaving, all taxis too, and they had no idea what to do with the thing until Wordsworth suggested rolling it in tar and using it as a doorstop in the customs shed. So there it stayed for months. Every time they brought crates along to the shed, they could see their ingot propping open the door. Wordsworth said he got so maddened by the sight of it that he threw up the job. That was when he became a doorman at the Grenada Palace.