Free Frank Derrick's Holiday of a Lifetime by J.B. Morrison Page B

them next to the three clocks.
    Frank explained about a leaflet that his daughter had sent him once and how the leaflet had suggested ways to prevent dementia.
    ‘Being aware of the time is important,’ Frank said.
    The security woman took a small A5 children’s charity calendar out of the bag.
    ‘And the date,’ Frank said.
    He explained to the woman how his daughter was always asking him whether he was looking after himself and if he was eating properly. He didn’t tell her that they had recently reversed those roles and it was now he who was constantly concerned about his daughter’s health. He said that he’d packed the clocks and the calendar so that Beth would see that he was taking his health as seriously as she did.
    ‘It’s a sort of joke,’ he said.
    ‘A sort of joke?’ the woman said.
    ‘She sends me emails with titles like “Are you eating well?”’ Frank said. ‘Or “Ten great memory tips”. Sometimes I put them straight in the trash, thinking they’re spam.’
    ‘Spam?’ the woman said. Frank had the distinct feeling that she was one of the few people left in the world without a computer and she might have thought that Frank was talking about processed cold meat. He looked for a picture of Spam on the prohibited items board behind the woman.
    ‘Can you tell me why today’s date is circled, sir?’ she said, looking at the open calendar.
    It seemed such a ludicrous question to Frank, with such an obvious answer, that he had to try really quite hard not to say something hugely sarcastic. He wondered if the airport security was always this thorough. It seemed a bit over the top right now but their diligence actually made him feel more comfortable about stepping onto an enormous aeroplane with four hundred complete strangers.
    As he explained that the date was circled because it was the day he was flying to America to see his daughter, the security woman took a fourth clock out of Frank’s bag. Even Frank now accepted that carrying four clocks in your hand luggage was a bit unusual.
    ‘That one is set to Los Angeles time,’ he said.
    The woman looked at Frank and decided that he wasn’t a terrorist but just a bit of an idiot. She wished him a nice trip and waved him on with a gloved hand and a look of bewilderment.
    Frank put everything back in his bag, letting go of the waistband of his trousers so that they slipped down his hips revealing his underpants like he was a rapper. He dropped the belt into the bag and put his shoes back on. The laces of the right shoe were still tied in a knot and he couldn’t get his heel in and he had to hold the shoe on by clenching his toes and dragging his foot along the ground. With his passport between his teeth, his bag unzipped, his jacket slung over one arm and the other hand holding his trousers up by the waistband, he walked into the departure lounge. The older members of staff in the airport’s security-camera control room sighed as they were reminded of 1970s sex comedies and the hero escaping through the window of his lover’s house after her husband had come home early from work unexpectedly. The same woman who’d laughed at Frank earlier walked past smiling at Frank: Albania’s Robin Askwith.
    He sat down in the departure lounge and rethreaded his belt. He took off his right shoe and untied the knot in his shoelace. He rolled the pop socks down almost to his ankles and scratched his legs. He put his jacket on, careful not to rush things and crick his neck. And then he relaxed as best he could. He had quite a while to wait before his flight but he was so paranoid that he would be late and miss it that he’d turned up far too early. He squinted at the departures board but the words were too small. He would have to walk over and take a closer look.
    There were more shops in the departure lounge than Frank had ever seen before in one place, and certainly in an airport. The last time he’d flown anywhere was to Portugal in the 1980s. He