Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     Airport.

     Behind the sheer glass window, huge tonnages of aluminium hefted themselves skywards in apparent silence. To the two men, as they sipped their coffee, it seemed still inconceivable that such defiance of gravity should be accomplished without the agency of propellors, but simply with the black hole energy in the empty maws of the jets’ nacelles which reminded them of the flared nostrils of cavalry chargers.

     The spacious, cantilevered arrival-and-departure lounge with its amicable furnishings, its brightly lit cabinets displaying merchandise available at the duty-free - jewelled liqueurs and perfumes, travel goods made from the simulated hides of endangered species, silk squares printed with two splashes of colour and the monogram of an exclusive house - even the aroma of the coffee made it a far cry from the dilapidated pre-fab in which they had imbibed some chicory-flavoured beverage in the first years of their annual day of vigil. It was as if, in a parody of time-lapse photography, the world had sped up and changed all around them as they sat face-to-face, patient and immobile, waiting for Ludovic Hyams.

     6 September: that was the date he had given them when they had made their own shaky escape into exile. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he had said to them. ‘I shall be following you. Show up at the airport to greet me on 6 September! I have it all planned.’

     The first time, when he did not appear, they had been filled with apprehension on his behalf. They did not dare risk trying to contact him, for fear of placing him in a greater danger than he might face already. When a year had gone by, and they had heard nothing, they decided to return to the airport on the same day. After all, he had not explicitly told them which year he meant; and it would be entirely in character for him to breeze in exactly twelve months late as if nothing untoward had happened. He would most certainly expect them to be there if he did. It was probably after the sixth year, or thereabouts, that they had given up hoping with any pretence of realism that Ludovic Hyams might still arrive; and their annual excursions to the airport, to await the one plane that came each day from their former homeland, had thenceforth taken on the character of an observance: an empty observance, perhaps, but one they could not bring themselves to abandon. When the regime had finally collapsed, they had written; but their letter was returned with the information that the address no longer existed on the city’s map.

     Children wove hesitantly and bumpily among the tables wearing those black masks that are sold to enable travellers to sleep through the in-flight movies: eyeless dominoes tottering in a carnival without joy. The one plane having long since voided its passengers, the two men, after a minimal signal one to the other, were about to rise and leave when the inane ping-pong of the public address system was followed by the announcement: ‘Will Mr Bachmann and Mr Muldooney please proceed to exit No.3, where the person they have come to meet is waiting for them. I repeat, will Mr...’ For a moment, the terrible immobility of all those years held the two in its glacial grip; then, saying not a word, like assassins acting under the compulsion of hypnosis, they rose and made their way towards the exit specified.

     The main concourse was almost deserted. Beyond the customs barrier at Exit 3, the carousel could be seen still circulating two melancholy items of unclaimed luggage, perhaps the property of some malefactor apprehended when his belongings were already in the hold. There seemed to be no-one waiting. And then they noticed the child. A boy of indeterminate age, nine at the most, he wore an ankle-length raincoat and a flat cap with a wide crown, such as was fashionable before the second World War. His old leather suitcase bulged. Its stitching had split in places; and it was tied around with hairy, jute string.

     The boy’s eyes were brown; and when he glanced up, at the approach of the two men, it was as if a horse had raised its head from pasture.

     ‘I am Abraham,’ he said; and then, seeing the men’s puzzlement: ‘I am Abraham, great-grandson of Ludovic Hyams.’

Mike Foreman