‘What?’ I say, taken aback.
‘Jesus,’ says Derek, bowing his head, ‘that was a bloody nightmare.’
‘It was,’ agrees Terry.
It turns out some woman had come off an Air India or Air Pakistan flight on a stretcher and her colostomy bag had burst. Not only was she covered in its contents but she was shaking and sweating at the same time. All that sweat and shit looked like it might be catching so they called the Port Health Authority, which is what they are obliged to do if they think they have come across anything that might be contagious. The man from the Port Health Authority arrived slightly the worse for a few drinks and told them they were panicking over nothing. Terry and Derek refused to budge. They’ve seen enough shit, so to speak, to know when something doesn’t look right. They didn’t have the right equipment to deal with her and they weren’t going to. Eventually, they got permission for a couple of Devonshire ambulancemen to come airside and collect her, taking her back to Devon where she lived.
‘And do you know what?’ says Derek.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘We got a call yesterday to say that the blokes who took her down south were so ill with exactly what she had they had to fumigate the ambulance and boil all their clothes.’
‘Really?’
‘I know.’ He nods. ‘We know our shit.’
‘Well, that’s a nice story,’ says Andy, running his hands through his bleach-blond hair. ‘I’m glad you could share that with the group. Perhaps you would like to share it with those nice Customs boys coming up our rear . . . all right, boys?’ Andy looks the pair of them up and down. One of them is quite good-looking.
‘All right.’ They both nod.
‘Here for any reason?’ I ask.
It is quite unusual to have Customs meeting our Sydney-Bangkok flight. Thailand is obviously a drugs-producing country, but they have a death penalty in place for drug smuggling, which does tend to put people off somewhat. Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey are their favourite flights to meet and they usually have a couple of money-sniffer dogs checking the flights out to Switzerland, as it’s one of the favourite money-laundering routes for drug smugglers and gangsters. I never knew they had dogs that could sniff out cash until I started to work here. Apparently they can be trained to sniff out almost anything.
Then again, Customs have to be on their toes at all times. Only the other day they busted this smack-smuggling ring where the bags were coming through actually soaked in heroin. The drugs had been suspended in an ethanol solution and the bags had been soaked in the solution and then dried off. When they reached the UK they were re-soaked, the heroin was washed out and then dried. It was ingenious. But unfortunately for them one of the dogs got hold of the bags, and once you get picked out by the dogs, Customs won’t let you go. Out come the Marigolds, and then it’s a question of bend over and where’s my torch? Or sit on the transparent toilet for the next couple of days and let’s see what happens.
They do get quite a few swallowers coming through. They usually get spotted and flagged up on the plane, as a belly full of coke-packed condoms tends to put you off your lunch. And as soon as you don’t eat anything, your card is marked by the flight attendant and they point you out to customs. You’d be amazed how much people can get inside them. Hauls of up to two hundred condoms at a time are not uncommon. Women, especially, seem to manage to smuggle quite large quantities. They caught a woman with a thermos full of cocaine inside her just the other day. She was walking rather strangely, which is what gave the game away. As was the guy they grabbed last week who had a whole load of diamonds up his backside. On his way to Uxbridge Magistrates Court, he managed to get out of the car and scale a wall, not realizing there was a thirty-foot drop the other side. He broke both his legs and ended up in hospital.
But it’s not just the funny walkers they notice. Girls on their own are also on the list. Known as ‘naive travellers’, they are apparently what the mule-hunting smuggler is looking for in Thailand, Turkey and Jamaica; as a result, lone females are often picked on over here. Sometimes it is just people who stick out – white people on predominantly black or Indian flights, or vice versa. Unless you fit the norm, the prototype for the flight, you scream something to Customs and they will pick on you no matter how innocent you may actually be. They spend their lives watching people, so they know what normal behaviour is, and as soon as you deviate from the norm they will pick you up.
And they are watching everywhere. From the moment you walk off the plane, while you are standing waiting for your bag, and most especially as you come out the other side of Customs, which is when most people finally let their guard down. The Customs mirror itself is supposedly designed to shift that process along a bit. It stretches you slightly, so you feel better about yourself, a little bit taller and thinner, as you go through, and you let your guard down just that bit more. They’re full of little tricks and ploys. And they almost never tell you anything.
‘No reason,’ says the young, dark-haired bloke.
‘You don’t have a tip-off or anything?’ asks Andy.
Neither of them bothers to say anything.
Finally, the plane door opens.
‘Here we go,’ says Derek, rubbing his hands together. ‘Bring on the sick, the lame and the lazy.’
‘Hi, hi, hi everyone,’ says a rather round-faced attendant called Susan, who I have known for years and rather inexplicably started to fancy in the last six months. It is all rather worrying. I really must get out a bit more. I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with a woman, let alone went to bed with one.
‘Hello there, Sue.’ I smile pathetically as I step back slightly, letting the foul inflight air out. ‘Good trip?’ I’m sure she knows I like her.
‘Not too bad.’ She smiles, fiddling with her small blue hat that is part of the new uniform. ‘Only a few people misbehaved.’
‘Right.’ I can feel my cheeks growing hot under her gaze.
‘Only a few,’ says Andy, sounding disappointed.
‘Although I do have a character for you today,’ she adds.
‘Me?’ I ask.
‘No, Andy.’ She smiles.
‘Oh yes?’ he says, suddenly perking up.
‘Don’t get too excited. He’s in his eighties but he’s hilarious. Broke his leg trying to get it on with some lady on a cruise. He went back to her cabin and missed the bunk bed. He fell and broke his leg, and now all he can moan about is how he never got his end away.’
‘I know how he feels,’ mutters Andy. I look the other way.
‘I thought as much,’ says Sue. ‘So, shall I give him to you?’
‘Fine,’ Andy replies. ‘We can be two born-again virgins together.’
‘What about last week?’ I ask Andy.
‘What about it?’ He shrugs.
‘Come on,’ beckons Sue. ‘He’s right at the front.’
‘What about us?’ says Derek.
‘Oh, an old biddy and some woman who broke her arm falling off a barstool.’
‘Oh God,’ moans Derek. ‘Not another cocktail fracture.’ Sue just smiles. It is wide and perfect. She always looks like she’s just brushed her teeth. ‘I bloody hate bloody drinking injuries,’ Derek continues. ‘It’s always the bloody elbow. They fall off the stool and, in an attempt not to spill their drink, they land bloody elbow first.’
‘Is that right?’ asks Andy, clearly thinking it a good idea.
‘At least it’s better than another case of Venice bloody ankle,’ says Terry, turning his wheelchair towards the plane door.
I’ve often heard them complain about ‘Venice ankle’. In fact, I’ve often heard them complain about most things. But Venice ankle is a particular favourite. So many elderly Americans visit Venice and don’t realize that the floors are made of marble. They slip over and twist or break their ankles, then their insurance companies end up paying for one of the boys to escort them home. Derek and Terry don’t spend all their time at the airport
, you see. They spend quite a lot of it actually on flights escorting patients home. There are thirteen regular staff in their unit but there are also a few who work part time, so they aren’t always in the air. But more often than not they are. And the majority of the time is spent escorting Americans. Terry’s favourite rant is that the Americans think that no part of the world is closed to them: ‘The fact that they’re ninety-three, on permanent oxygen, on their fifth coronary and they weigh fifty-four stone apparently doesn’t bar them from sub-zero trekking in Iceland.’
But it’s not all Americans with broken ankles. They get transplant patients arriving, with accompanying boxed-up livers purchased from somewhere where labour is cheap and body parts even cheaper, who need to be taken to a London hospital. They collect patients with terminal illnesses, transport premature babies in incubators and escort families where one or more have been involved in car accidents. They sometimes have to do incredibly long trips such as Kathmandu–Singapore–Amsterdam–Newark, which means that they have to travel in pairs so one can sleep while the other is awake. Terry’s longest trip, as far as I know, was to the Falkland Islands. Apparently, by the time he got down there the patient had taken a turn for the worse and was unable to fly. So Terry sat on his backside for two weeks, checking out the penguins, looking at the views, contemplating his navel. Then, just when he was about to leave, patient on board and everything stowed, they found out there was no oxygen on the flight, and the poor bugger had to be disembarked again. Eventually the insurance company got so pissed off they threatened to sue the airline, and the airline, fearing a lawsuit, chartered a 747 just for Terry and his patient. They flew them to Cuba and the US in immense style.
‘Oh, one other thing,’ says Sue with a special smile as she makes to go back inside the plane.
‘What?’ I smile right back.
‘We think we have a snake on board.’
‘What?’
‘I know.’ She laughs. ‘Bit of a nightmare for you, but’ – she winks at me – ‘I’m sure a big man like you can cope.’
‘Of course.’ I smile again, my chest involuntarily puffing itself out. God, do I hate snakes. ‘Do you know what sort it is?’
‘No. Some Thai guy brought it on in his rucksack and I think it has escaped into one of the lockers. It’s right down the other end of the plane. Rachel’s dealing with it.’
‘Rachel . . .’ I repeat, like I don’t know who she is.
‘Yes, you know, Rachel. Blonde, blue eyes, long legs.’
Sue is being generous. Rachel is nowhere near as lovely as she sounds. Sue has omitted to mention that Rachel is carrying more than the recommended hostess weight around her hips, and the fact that I once kissed her on the staff outing to Alton Towers three years ago. It was one of those mad drunken days when we all tucked into the warm white wine on the way back in the coach and one thing led to another. I tried to keep it a secret because I did rather like her. But she told everyone, adding that I kissed like a washing machine and that she’d only done it because she was drunk. As a result most of the flight attendants now give me a wide romantic berth, most probably Sue included. So, Rachel is the perfect person to be in charge of poisonous snakes, you may think. (Did Sue say the snake was poisonous? Or did my imagination just make that up?)
‘I know Rachel,’ I say eventually.
‘Course you do,’ says Sue. ‘Well, she’s waiting at the back. Oh, by the way. Don’t mention the snake out loud. The only person who knows about it is the Thai guy who brought it on board, the passengers in his row and the crew, and we’d like to keep it that way.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll get on to Animal Welfare straight away.’
‘Hang on a sec,’ says one of the Customs guys. ‘I think we should have a look at it first. He may well be trying to smuggle it into the country.’
‘I don’t think so,’ says Sue. ‘I think he’s got the paperwork, he just didn’t want to put it in the hold.’
‘You’re welcome to have a look first,’ I say – anything to stop me from having to deal with the thing. It’s something about the way they slither that makes my skin crawl.
‘Um . . .’ The young, dark-haired officer hesitates. ‘I don’t know one end of a snake from another.’
‘No,’ agrees the other.
‘Whatever,’ says Sue as she turns to go back inside the plane. ‘I’ve got passengers to disembark. And you know how much they like to be kept waiting.’
‘I think we should leave it to the professionals,’ says the dark-haired officer.
‘Yeah,’ agrees the other. ‘Get it caught and identified correctly and then we’ll deal with it.’
‘Anyway, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.’
‘Yeah, absolutely.’
‘So I’ll call the Animal Reception Centre?’ I suggest.
‘Yes,’ they both reply.
I walk back up the corridor to the gate to use the phone. I get hold of Jeremy from the Reception centre who seems thrilled to get my call. The youngest and newest of the Welfare guys, I’ve only done a couple of jobs with him, but he is always enthusiastic.
‘A snake?’ he says.
‘That’s correct.’
‘Great! Do you know what type?’
‘No, but it’s from Thailand.’
‘Great, Thailand,’ he repeats. ‘Reptiles are really my thing, you know. I’ve always loved them. Ever since I was at school. I’ve got a few at home, including a chameleon that eats flies and changes colour all the time. Oh great, a snake . . .’
‘That’s good.’
‘I know, isn’t it? Oh great!’ he says again. ‘I’ll see you in ten minutes. Gate fifty-four?’
‘That’s the one. See you in a bit.’
As I stand by the telephone, the passenger stampede begins. I can see them all sprinting along the corridor the other side of the glass. I never know why people bother to rush off an aircraft. I suppose it’s because they’ve been cooped up for hours, fed and watered at someone else’s whim, and now, suddenly, they are allowed free will. But it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. If they are not held up by passport control, Baggage will get them in the end. They’ll all end up standing next to one another in the taxi queue at the other end no matter how speedily they exit the plane.
Andy walks past wheeling his eightysomething sexpot. He points at the old boy’s head and makes some sort of oo-er racy bloke gesture; he then gives me a little wave and blows me a kiss through the glass. Terry is not far behind. His old biddy is the colour of putty and looks like she’s either been exhumed or is, in fact, not long for this world. He gives me a discreet finger as he pushes her along. Derek’s too busy not being furious to do anything other than push his injured boozer along. I can see his determined face from here. And you can hardly blame him. Slouched in her chair with her tight yellow perm and sun-blasted face, shouting to someone on her mobile phone, she looks perfectly capable of walking.
I wander slowly back down to the plane to wait for Jeremy to turn up. He doesn’t take long; clearly his reptilian enthusiasm makes him drive the ten minutes from the centre a whole lot faster. Skinny, mousy-haired and in his late twenties, he beams and waves as he walks towards me, bag and stick in tow. I tell him the little I know as we walk past the waiting Customs officers, who seem disappointingly short of smugglers. We board the aircraft together, but I hang back a bit. Well, there’s no real point in getting involved, is there? I’m only here to see if the passenger is all right. Long, slithering reptiles don’t know how to fill in customer satisfaction forms.
‘You took your time,’ says Rachel, clearly not relishing her proximity to the snake.
‘I’m very sorry,’ says Jeremy, apologizing for no reason. ‘It takes me a while to get here from the centre. Now, what have we here?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Rachel, stepping closer to the toilets.
‘Hello,’ says Jeremy, smiling at the Thai passenger. ‘What sort of snake is it?’
The Th
ai shrugs and, smiling, points to the closed locker above his head. He clearly doesn’t understand much English. ‘Is it in there?’ asks Jeremy rather slowly. The Thai guy smiles and nods again. ‘Is the snake large or small?’ he asks Rachel.
‘I don’t bloody know,’ she babbles. ‘I saw its head just when we were about to take off and I managed not to scream. I thought of taking the passenger and the snake off the flight, but you know how expensive that would have been, so I took all the other bags slowly out of the locker and asked the passengers to put them elsewhere. Told them there was a slight leak in the aircon and that locker was wet, and then I sealed the thing with some Sellotape.’
‘So it has been in the locker the entire flight?’ asks Jeremy.
‘Yes,’ she replies.
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘What?’ says Rachel.
‘Has anyone checked that it is still in there?’
‘Um, no,’ she says.
‘What did its head look like?’
‘What?’ asks Rachel, not really listening. Instead she is slowly looking around the plane as if the snake could appear from anywhere. I have to admit I take an unchivalrous step backwards as well.
It has happened before. Last year a mate of mine had five African snakes escape from the hold. No-one knew how it happened, but they made it out of their boxes and into the passenger section of the plane. They were poisonous snakes and the airline spent a good two hours trying to find them. Eventually they gave up and the plane flew for weeks and weeks with them on board. The flight attendants were instructed to keep their eyes open for any reptilian stowaways. But they were never discovered. The theory is they escaped during a maintenance check.
It’s a nightmare flying livestock. There are so many rules. Animals aren’t allowed to fly with food for hygiene reasons, or coffins because the smell sends them mad. They also cause endless amounts of damage to the planes. Their urine is corrosive and their crap always ends up all over the hold. And they are always dying during flights because the captain forgets to flick on the hold heating switch on the flight deck and the temperature plunges to minus forty. I have seen so many dogs and cats arrive as stiff as boards it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Air Babylon Page 5