{"id":68,"date":"2006-12-27T20:45:58","date_gmt":"2006-12-28T04:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/2006\/12\/almost-safe-in-dover\/"},"modified":"2006-12-30T20:12:07","modified_gmt":"2006-12-31T04:12:07","slug":"almost-safe-in-dover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/2006\/12\/almost-safe-in-dover\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost Safe in Dover"},"content":{"rendered":"

When can you let down your guard when you travel? In your hotel room? At passport control? Never?
\n<\/strong>
\nThe tea was hot, the cream seemed fresh as I shared my digestives with Alec, the terrorist. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been waiting for him in the Dover tea shop for twenty minutes, and now we sat huddled at the table, eating biscuits like grateful refugees.<\/p>\n

I was glad to be back in an English-speaking country. In Salerno I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen the headlines \u00e2\u20ac\u0153E MORTO IL PAPA!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It was August of 1978 and Pope Paul VI had just died. People would be rushing to the Vatican; it was time to hightail it home. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d picked up Alec on the way.<\/p>\n

Alec stroked his tea cup.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you have some trouble at passport control?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, I had a lot of bloody trouble. The buggers strip-searched me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What are you talking about?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never heard of strip-searching.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re British, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m from Belfast, so they thought I must be carrying a bomb. I had to take off all my clothes, and they fingered me all over. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

He snapped a biscuit in half. The tea shop was quiet. The street down the hill to the ocean was dappled with sunlight. People lay on the beach on huge striped towels. A phone rang in the back of the shop.<\/p>\n

I was heading for England when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d met Alec in the hot Gare du Nord waiting room in Paris. It was midnight, and a knot of sullen Algerian laborers slouched in the other chairs. They never spoke or closed their eyes, and the next train to Calais wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t leave till seven the next morning. Alec brought me rolls and coffee without asking, me falling all over myself like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d made Christmas dinner.<\/p>\n

Alec put another sugar in his tea.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They asked me if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d gotten a leg over you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who did? Whose leg?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t he just speak in normal English?
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The bloody policemen. They asked if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d had sex.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I gripped my cup and looked away. The cops must have watched us as we left the boat and separated at passport control. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been so relieved to leave Paris, get onto the train, and get back to England. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d finally felt safe. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d counted on Alec to keep me away from the Algerians and other questionables. Now it turned out he was the one who needed protecting. When are you finally safe out on the road? Right then I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to travel anymore: no more politics, popes dying, former colonials raging, differentness.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My next trip out I will<\/em> be carrying a bomb,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Alec said, looking up at me, his eyes red, humiliated, furious.<\/p>\n

We stood and murmured goodbyes. He shouldered his rucksack and took a bus to Brighton where he knew somebody. I cinched the straps of my backpack and headed for another train. I just wanted to get back to where I knew\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand could really trust\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsomebody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When can you let down your guard when you travel? In your hotel room? At passport control? Never? The tea was hot, the cream seemed fresh as I shared my digestives with Alec, the terrorist. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been waiting for him in the Dover tea shop for twenty minutes, and now we sat huddled at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}