A Very Irish Christmas

1

I always get childishly excited when I’m at an airport. I’m not sure why; it’s not like I’ve just escaped a cult, or I’m a time-traveller from King Arthur’s court. I don’t live in a remote Amazonian rainforest where planes are things of myth and legend, wondrous monsters to be pointed at in the sky. I have been in airports dozens of times during my life, and the shine really should have worn off by now.

Except, it hasn’t – and today I am glad about that. I mean, if it had, then I wouldn’t be quite so thrilled to be sitting in a swish bar at Dublin Airport, sipping a mojito from a tall glass and watching the world go by. I think maybe that’s what I really love about these places – the way that you see all of humanity flowing around you. The happy reunions, the tearful farewells, the harassed parents and excited teenagers. The mini-breakers, the honeymooners, the school trips, the business travellers with their posh hand luggage and suits carried around in sleek shells.

You see literally every human emotion, every human reaction to stress and pleasure and anticipation and fear and boredom. All from a comfy seat in a busy bar, safe in your own cocoon. It’s like the world’s biggest soap opera – all the different languages and clothes and ethnicities, all mixed up in one giant melting pot on the edge of the city. People who would never normally encounter each other end up next in line in queues, or sharing sympathetic glances at security, or browsing over-priced sunglasses in the same shop. It’s brilliant, really, and to be honest I hope I never get fed up of it. When you’re bored of airports, you’re bored of life, I reckon.

I always like to make up back stories for the people I see. I give them names, and imagine their lives, and guess where they’re going and why. There’s a man on the next table from me who I just know is some kind of internationally renowned self-help guru. He is dressed in casual clothes that look effortlessly expensive, and has a case that probably cost more than my car. His hair is tied back in a ponytail with a leather string, and he’s drinking green tea – a dead giveaway. I call him Xander, and decide that he’s off to Chicago to give a motivational speech to a group of engineering executives, inspiring them to be their Best Selves.

Next to him there’s a man maybe in his late fifties, with a younger woman. Father and daughter, I decide, off to explore the souks of Marrakesh. Just as I am filling out their story and giving them names, the man puts his hand on the girl’s thigh in a very non-paternal way, and I have to start all over again. He is Derek, I think, and he works as a CEO at a software firm. She is Chantal, his PA, and the dirty dogs are having an affair, leaving his poor wife Barbara back at home with the teenaged twins and their spaniel, Jasper. They’ve disguised it as a business trip, but they’re actually off to Paris for a night of illicit passion.

Over in the corner I spy a family. The dad looks bored, the mum looks flustered, and their three kids look like they are plotting world domination and the eternal subjugation of the human race. I can tell that in reality the kids were born maybe a year apart each, but I reinvent them as triplets – created in a lab by evil super-villains. Or maybe they’re just a normal family heading to Tenerife for a bit of sun, who knows?

I sip some more of my mojito, and wonder if other people are doing the same as me – I wonder if anyone is eyeing me up, creating my fictitious history. I gaze around, suddenly a bit paranoid, then remind myself that I don’t look that special. I have deep red hair, but that’s not uncommon in this part of the world. I’m tall, and naturally lean, which was the cause of much envy in my younger years, but is partly because I’m one of those people who runs on nervous energy. I find it hard to sit still, to relax, to let down my guard, and all that fidgeting and worrying seems to use up any spare fuel I’m carrying around.

Today, I am faking it – trying to look confident in my new skinny jeans and white linen shirt, my hair up in a bun. I’m wearing make-up, which is unusual for me, and dangly earrings, aiming for casually elegant – I do like to make an effort for the airport. I drenched myself in posh perfume at the duty-free shop, and smell a lot more classy than I usually do.

I have sunglasses ready on the table top in case anyone wants to make too much eye contact, and I have a notepad and pen beside them. I’m trying to give off vibes that say “mysterious lone travelling woman, best left alone”. Maybe anyone looking will think I’m a security specialist, or a travel writer, or a ju-jitsu champion heading back home after scooping a gold medal.

I am, of course, none of those things – but I might as well play the game with some dedication. I think I might be called Gizelle in this scenario, or possibly Amelia. One is more exotic, of course, but I always feel Amelia is a superb name – Amelia would be classy and cool; she’d have gone to a posh school and been head girl, and have an amazing career in something that mere mortals don’t even know exists. Amelia would never feel nervous, or spill her coffee, or drink her mojito a bit too fast because, even though she loves airports, she’s always a tiny bit jittery in them too.

I mean, it makes sense to be jittery, doesn’t it? The whole ordeal of getting inside one screams danger – you’re surrounded by tough-looking men in uniform, and getting through the crowds is sometimes like a scene from The Hunger Games . Everywhere you look there are warning signs, and announcements encouraging you to report anything suspicious, and perfectly ordinary people getting searched and scanned and treated as potential threats.

I take a deep breath, and stop my nails from tapping out an alarm on the table top. They’ve been going in tandem, my nails and my toes, a physical sign of the thoughts I’ve allowed to take hold. I tell myself off, take a drink, and look around for someone else to fictionalise. I’m not short of possible subjects – a delay has just been announced, and the bar is starting to fill up with weary-looking travellers.

I’m scoping out an elderly couple in the far corner – Brenda and Bill, I decide, late-comers to love and off on a mini-break to Rome – when I am rudely interrupted. Well, very politely interrupted, to be fair.

“Hi – is this seat taken? No problem if it is…”

I glance up, and suddenly wish I had my shades on to hide the reaction that I’m sure must be plastered all over my face. My eyes have widened, and I suspect I have the beginnings of a blush – always a very real danger with my colouring. I try and regain control, but frankly it’s tough because if I was making up a story about the man standing in front of me, he’d definitely be a supermodel on his way to a fashion shoot in Milan. For something top end, like Rolls-Royce or Rolex.

He’s tall, even by my standards, and has one of those wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped bodies that is made to wear a suit. The one he has on is navy, and very nice indeed. His hair is thick and dark, his skin tanned, and his features look like they’ve been carved out of stone by a sculptor who has a side hustle in writing romantic fiction. In short, he’s extremely hot – and now I am extremely bothered.

He’s also staring at me with something bordering concern now, and I realise that way too many seconds have passed without me speaking. I’m sure he must be used to this – this is the kind of man that random women swoon over, or watch through their windows while they drink their Diet Coke. Even by airport standards, he is impossibly glamorous.

“Oh! No, it’s not taken – please, help yourself,” I say, gesturing to the seat opposite me. I move my glasses and notepad out of the way, managing not to drop anything, making room for the drink he’s holding. A good old-fashioned bottle of Becks.

He nods, and settles himself down, pulling his carry-on right next to him so he doesn’t trip anyone up. I like that simple act of courtesy – it’s one of my pet hates about travel, actually, the random and terrifying use of wheelie cases as weapons of mass destruction. I often think there’s a gap in the market for ankle guards at airports and stations.

He takes a quick swig of his beer, and runs his hands through his hair, then smiles at me. It is quite the spectacular smile, lighting up his almost too-handsome face, crinkling into well-worn laughter lines around brown eyes that are flecked with gold.

“My flight’s delayed for another two hours,” he tells me. “So I figured I might as well get comfortable. Possibly drunk. You?”

“An hour so far. Where are you heading?”

I ask him this because I want to rule out any possibility that we will be on the same plane. It’s not every day you meet men like this, and short but sweet is the way to go. If I talk to him for too long, I might find out that he’s really boring, or has bad breath, or talks about himself in the third person.

“Gatwick,” he replies. “I’ve been here for work for a few days. Teaching conference.”

“You’re a teacher ?” I ask, struggling to keep the disbelief out of my voice. Okay, so I know actor/supermodel/TV presenter was probably always a wild guess, but “teacher” would have been very low on the list. My lord, I can only imagine the amount of poor teenaged pupils who have a crush on Sir at his school.

“Yeah. Business Studies A-level at a sixth form college in South London. What, you don’t believe me?”

My face must be giving me away, and I quickly sort that out.

“Of course I do. If you were going to lie, you’d say something far more exciting!”

“You’re right,” he says, tilting his chin and looking upwards, as though searching for inspiration. “If I was going to lie, I’d tell you I worked for MI5, or I was a professional racing car driver, wouldn’t I? Damn! If only I’d thought of that first…”

I laugh, and decide that this is fun. This is not a situation where I need to be on full alert, or worry about what might happen next – because what happens next is that we get on separate planes, and never see each other again. In fact it’s perfect.

“I’m Josh,” he says, holding out his hand. I take it, and we shake, our fingers lingering for a few seconds longer than is strictly necessary. Even that superficial contact sends a little lightning bolt through me, and I realise that I really do need to get out more.

“I’m Amelia,” I say. “Amelia Leamington-Smythe.”

He grins, and replies: “I thought you were going to say Leamington Spa then!”

Truth be told, I almost did. Lucky escape. I nod, and answer: “That was my nickname at boarding school.”

“Right. And what do you do, Amelia Leamington-Smythe?”

“I’m a security consultant,” I say, the details of the fantasy coming thick and fast now.

“Wow. That sounds impressive. No idea what it actually involves though.”

Obviously, I don’t either, but I’ve watched enough episodes of Homeland and Killing Eve to have a stab at it.

“Oh, you know – I assess cyber threat levels, do background checks to prevent corporate espionage, set up counter-surveillance systems, that kind of thing. I can’t really tell you much more, or I’d have to kill you.”

He’s silent, then catches my playful expression and laughs out loud.

“Yeah. Well. We wouldn’t want that, would we? So, where are you off to?”

“New York,” I say nonchalantly, as though I make trips to the Big Apple every week. “I’m doing some work for the Chrysler Foundation.”

I have completely made up the Chrysler Foundation, and hope it isn’t real – like, maybe a rehabilitation charity for compulsive liars.

“Nice. I spent a few years in New York, when I was actually working in business rather than teaching it. I loved it there in my twenties, but I think it might be too fast for me now I’m knocking forty.”

“What business did you work in?”

“Property development. It was my brother’s company, he was the big cheese, total wheeler dealer type. He loved it… but, well, I suppose I never did, not really. It was lucrative, and it could be exciting, but my heart was never in it like his was. And then a few things happened – life things, you know the kind – and I realised it was actually making me pretty unhappy. So I packed it all in, and retrained as a teacher. It must sound really boring to someone like you.”

I take another sip of my drink to hide the fact that I want to laugh – someone like me? If only he knew! – and reply: “No. Not boring at all. It sounds inspiring, and I bet it’s a lot of fun, working with young people. All full of life and energy, the world at their feet…”

“Yes, it can be – it’s hard work, but I’m not going to lie, I do love it. And they’re so full of ideas, it’s amazing – I fully expect at least a few of them to pop up on Dragon’s Den in the next five years! So, why were you in Dublin – for work?”

“I have a house in the countryside near here,” I say casually, as though absolutely everyone has a pied-à-terre in all corners of the globe. And strictly speaking, it’s not a lie at all – I do have a house in the countryside near here, just over the border. It’s just that it’s ramshackle, the roof leaks, it costs a gazillion pounds to heat in winter, and it is in fact my only home.

He nods, and glances at his watch – I find myself liking the fact that he still wears a watch; it’s kind of old-fashioned yet manly.

“Can I get you another drink?” he asks, gesturing to my nearly empty glass. He picks it up and sniffs it, saying, “A mojito, I’m guessing?”

“Ah! A man who knows his cocktails! And… yes, why not?”

After he disappears off to the bar, I let out the laughter I’ve been holding in for too long, attracting a few bemused glances from Derek on the next table. Not that I care what he thinks, the cheating dog. I meet his gaze in a direct way that I usually avoid, and stare at him until he looks away. This is very unlike me, and I decide that being Amelia is a lot more fun than being me.

As Josh returns with our drinks, I can’t help being taken aback yet again by just how bloody good looking he is. It would be disconcerting if he didn’t also seem so nice – most men who grew up looking like that would be arrogant arseholes, or charisma black holes. I’ve found over the years that exceptionally attractive people are often pretty dull, because they’ve never really had to try very hard to make people like them – it just comes with the territory for them. They’re like those beautiful old buildings where the outside looks spectacular, but the inside has been torn out and turned into soulless flats.

This guy, though – well, I don’t know why, but he seems to have a fully fledged interior as well as the fancy fa?ade. I remind myself that I am only going to know him for maybe another thirty minutes tops, then I’ll have to drag myself away and catch my flight to, ahem, New York.

I thank him for the drink, and he holds his up so we can clink a cheers .

“Here’s to random encounters in busy airports,” he says, grinning at me over his bottle. “The very best kind.”

There is a flirtatious note to his voice that gives my heart a little flutter. I am not a flirtatious person. I never really was, and these days I’m most definitely out of practice. I often struggle to even make eye contact with men, never mind flirt with them. Amelia, though… well, she’s a different matter entirely. Quite the little hussy, in fact.

“I agree. It’s a shame the flights aren’t being delayed overnight, and we could continue this conversation in a hotel bar…”

I would, of course, never do that in a million years, and I can’t quite believe that those words have come out of Amelia’s lips. But he doesn’t know that. I see a flash of delight cross his face, and he gives me this amazing crooked smile – half up, half down, wholly sexy – and the golden lights in his eyes are flashing.

“I’m sure we’d find plenty to talk about,” he replies, voice full of humour and promise. “We’d probably be up all night. And as it happens, it’s the start of the school break next week, and I have nowhere else I urgently need to be…”

I blink rapidly at him and, for just a moment, I’m tempted. I’m tempted by this handsome man with his good manners and his easy charm and his as-yet-mysterious life story. Tempted, and flattered – it’s done my self-esteem the world of good to think that he’d ever be interested in a woman like me.

But I have places to be, and things to do, and promises to keep – and none of them involve a steamy night of passion with a stranger, no matter how gorgeous he is.

“I’m sure we would be,” I say, smiling to take the edge off the words. “But sadly it’s not to be. I really do need to be in New York, and there’s a car booked to collect me at JFK. It has been great to meet you though, Josh.”

I glance at my phone, and feign surprise as I say: “They’re calling my flight! That’s a bit earlier than I expected, but I’d better go… thanks for the drink, and for the company.”

I hate letting a good mojito go to waste, but I can’t blow my cover by gulping it all down. A sleek and successful security consultant just wouldn’t do that, would she?

Josh stands up as I do, and I revel in the fact that he is so much taller than me. I’m five foot nine, and have spent a lot of time in flats purely to accommodate the height of the men in my life. With Josh, I could wear stilettos if I wanted to – which I don’t, actually – and he’d still be taller than me.

I reach out my hand for him to shake again, and as he does so, he leans downs and drops a kiss on my cheek. It’s only a gentle thing, but it’s still more contact than I expected, and I feel a strange combination of warmth and nervousness. I fight to keep my hands steady, and not to take a step back.

“Well, have a safe flight,” he says, his gold-brown eyes on mine. “And… is there any chance I could get your number? Maybe we could meet up for a drink the next time you’re in London.”

Again, I am tempted – but I have to remember that this man doesn’t actually want my number. He wants Amelia’s number, and she doesn’t even exist. If he knew the real me, he’d run a mile.

“That’s very kind, Josh, but I rarely have the time, between my career and my charity work. But who knows? Maybe one day we’ll bump into each other again, in a place just like this.”

He nods his acceptance, grins, and says, “Well, you can’t blame a man for trying, can you? Take care, Amelia.”

I give him a final wave, and saunter away – at least I hope I’m sauntering. I’ve never really tried it before. Maybe I just look like I’ve got a pebble stuck in the sole of my sandal.

I disappear into the flow of the crowds, giggling to myself, amused at the whole thing. Amused, but also a little bit sad – because the reality of my life is so very different.

My name is not Amelia. I am not a globe-trotting executive, and I am not the kind of person who flirts with handsome strangers in bars.

My name is plain old Lucy Brown. I’m a single mum who works in a call centre, and I haven’t been on a date in well over fifteen years. I live a quiet life, and I usually find the male species a little overwhelming, much as I pretend not to. And now, I am off to Heathrow, then onto the train, then the Tube, battling my way through wet London weather to collect my sixteen-year-old daughter from her father’s house.

There is nothing glamorous about me, nothing confident, nothing that anyone would aspire to. I’m an ordinary woman, leading an ordinary life, and someone like Josh is way out of my league. It’s time to leave him with the memory of Amelia, and morph back into being plain old Lucy.

Once I am far enough away, I pause and get out my phone. I dial the number I dial several times each day, and receive the usual delighted response: “Mum! What a surprise! And yes, I’m fine – that hasn’t changed in the last four hours, okay?”

I smile, and don’t mind her sarcasm. If she’s annoyed with me, her overprotective mum, that means I’m the worst thing in her life right now. And that means that everything is all right.

It might not be glam, but plain old Lucy’s life ain’t so bad, I tell myself. She has a great kid, and a lovely mum, and a wedding to go to where she will catch up with old pals who will make her heart sing. She might not know them as well as she once did, but she’s sure it will be brilliant.

Plain old Lucy is in for a fabulous few days full of fun and friendship in what looks like one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Plain old Lucy is doing okay.