AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.

In the previous episode, the miserably mysterious Peppet discovers another piece of the puzzle when his mustache unfreezes.

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 5
Cardiff International has often been described as the most perfectly designed airport ever built. The ticket counter is conveniently placed directly in front of the door exactly on the ground floor. Broad shallow steps composed of an extremely hard, durable, very smooth material have been provided to allow travelers to ascend to the first floor, where the coffee shop is clearly visible. On the same level, just there, are the news agent's and the Bureau de Change and the eatery. Between the eatery and the news agent’s is the unmarked The whole area may easily be taken in by the bleary eyed traveller recently alighted from the bus after two hours of journeying away from the city through the night, having traversed an unseeable landscape of shadows transmogrified by the hypnotic nocturnal miasma into the phantasmagical shapes of biotal flora.

Once at “the Inty”, the groggy passenger is gently embraced by a touchable intimate atmosphere rather than jolted into vast cathedralesque spaces booming with the echoes of voices, the clack of high heels, the announcements in six languages, none of them Welsh, voices, the clack of high heels, the announcements in six languages, none of them Welsh. Here, the gigantic departures and arrivals boards that dominate so many other international air terminals have been replaced by unobtrusive tv-like monitors a mere twelve inches square. The arrivals area, arrived at by the simplified route of merely turning right outside the ground floor door, is a short fifty-second walk away. There, chairs may be sat in and a capacious unobstructed area offers “the perfect place to stand”. Comfortable leaning can be done against a generous two out of three walls. A tradition has grown up almost organically from this design, whereby whenever a seat is vacated by a meeter whose peregrinator has been sucessfuly met, it may be occupied by any stander curious to enjoy the interior from a fresh perspective.

It was at this perfect airport that the professor, wizened, sere, wrinkled, withered, and dessicated, was deposited by a taxi. Paying the driver in British pounds, he watched as its two tail-lights were blurred and expunged by the fog before they had time to grow smaller and smaller, eventually becoming tiny red winking lights disappearing into the distance. The professor, later to be described as black and white by newspaper photographs, picked up his kitbag with the ease of a forty-year-old half his age and strode into Departures. The Spahndecks AirPlane agent prepared his boarding pass and handing it to over him said with a generic smile, “Have a nice flight Mr… erm..” and cast a surreptious glance at the name on the ticket. “Erm…”

The professor took the ticket, put it in his pocket, picked up his carpetbag with his accustomed ease again and proceeded to the first floor, casting piercing asides in all directions. And then he did a curious thing. Instead of heading to the coffee shop or the news agent’s or the eatery, he veered 80∞ to the right and within several long strides entered a recessed area, dim, with a long counter; Further within, tables were artlessly arranged at some little distance from each other. Each held an ashtray. To the casual observer it looked much like a bar, and indeed had such an observer observed what happened next, she or he (if male) would have been justified in that belief.

Professor Erm approached the counter, placing his lower ribcage in actual contact with it, and when a fruit-faced young woman materialised on the opposite side, he said in a voice brooking no certainty, “I don’t suppose you serve Beer®?”

A grey-haired woman in the Bureau de Change coughed into her nametag, extinguished her cigarette and instantly lit a fresh one.

The nametag said Mrs. Ddwwchyllff. Hearing this, a dark look flitted across her face, startled from it’s slumber by the outburst. The woman would deal with that breach of protocol later. And meantime, there was more immediate work to be done. Much much more done.

( to be continued...)