Free Further Under the Duvet by Marian Keyes Page B

belts or chance to check in luggage: you had to carry on all your own stuff – suitcases, rocket-launchers, etc. Then, when I emerged into the body of the plane, I thought it was one of those military planes with no seats, where you sit on the metal floor waiting to parachute out over enemy territory. But, mercifully, behind a little curtain there were seats. Sort of. There were chintz curtains at the windows and no working seatbelts. Everyone was frozen, you could see the cold air when they breathed out, and they all kept their furry hats on. It was like being on a rattly old bus going between Knock and Claremorris on a wet January day. Think about that the next time you’re tempted to complain about Ryanair.
    And the thing was, I knew that this was the safest airline in Russia.
    Nothing to eat, mind you.
Nothing to eat
. And now it was getting to me.
    Between the hunger and the tiredness and the strangeness of everything and being in the grip of mad, bad PMS, I behaved very badly in Samara. I was in a right fouler and I just couldn’t bury it. (I’m still so ashamed of myself. It’s one of those memories that whenever it surfaces, I wish I was dead. You know those ones? Even writing about it is killing me, but it must be done.)
    When we landed, our lovely driver took us on a tour of Samara. Until very recently it was a closed city. (They used to make bomber planes and other secret stuff.) It was a big banana to be allowed to visit and, in all fairness, it was beautiful and the Volga was frozen over and men were sitting fishing into little holes in the ice and it was all very atmospheric and charming, but I couldn’t care less. I wanted something to eat. Instead I had to do a press conference.
    After which we were finally allowed to eat something. Our host led us along a slushy, potholed street, to a pancake place, where he ushered us to the cloakroom and said, ‘Here. Please to take your clothes off.’ And I was too narky to even raise a smile.
    Food usually does the trick with me but even after I’d eaten about fifty-six pancakes with a variety of fillings, my mood remained sour. And still remained so when we arrived at the local university, where I was to adjudicate a debate. In honour of me being a recovering jar-head, the title of the debate was: Should drugs be legalized? It was the mostone-sided debate I’d ever come across; it was clear that all the students were horrified by drugs and it kind of annoyed me, what with Russia being rife with alcoholism. Why worry about keeping pot criminalized when alcohol was perfectly legal and in the process of killing and destroying more Russian lives than every other drug put together?
    Anyway, I should have kept my mouth shut and smiled politely, but to my great shame I couldn’t. Brutally and rudely I laid down my views, and although they gave me a box of chocolates when I left, I could tell that they were thinking of keeping it for themselves. Not that I blame them. Oh the shame! The rudeness of me!
    And so, finally, to our hotel, a flimsy unreassuring place which seemed to have been bought in its entirety from Ikea. (This is not a good thing, some of the unhappiest moments of my life have been spent in Ikea.)
    I was feeling too ashamed to go out for dinner that night, but Valya made me. In the restaurant she was in a strangely restless mood, drinking vodka shots and on the prowl. She still loved her husband but she wouldn’t mind making the sex with someone else. Your man over there, in fact, she said, pointing to a bull-necked but otherwise quite attractive man, who had surprisingly nice shoes for a Russian. I was thrilled. I’d taken violently agin the deserting husband and I wanted her to hook up with someone new. Himself and myself wished her well, left her to it and went back to our flat-pack assembled hotel. Some unknown time that night we were woken by an almighty crash. It sounded like a ceiling had fallen in. We’d just drifted back to sleep when we