company into selling an expensive ticket.
I looked at the statement again. It didn’t say anything about where the ticket was from or to. Dec 21. Maybe this other me had been going home
for Christmas. Did she have a family? Did the family know she was a fraudster? Were they maybe a family of fraudsters? I could see them all round a long table set for Christmas; I stood ghost at their feast and watched them with their arms round their shoulders as Hogmanay gave way to New Year. How could she be me? I hadn’t sat in Departures with a print-out ticket paid for by me. I hadn’t walked down the tunnel that led to the door of the aeroplane, or climbed the steps out in the cold of the winter airport air.
Oh Christ. Passport.
I ran upstairs. I pulled open the cupboard door. But my passport was safe there on the underwear shelf.
I put it back. I closed the door. I laughed. Oh well. I came downstairs and put the kettle on, thought about making something to eat. But it was after nine o’clock and if I ate now I’d not sleep.
So I sat on the kitchen stool until the kettle boiled and I thought about how once, years ago, I had been really well pickpocketed in an Italian seaside resort by a child. The child, a dark-haired girl with a miniature accordion slung on her shoulder, had been walking up and down outside the restaurant we’d decided to eat at, playing the opening riff of Volare. I must’ve looked an easy touch; she had approached me and asked for money and when I’d said no she had talked to me briefly and shyly while
thieving from me with such sleight of hand that it wasn’t till I’d put my hand in my pocket half an hour later for the roll of cash I was carrying so I could pay the bill and found the pocket empty that I knew. She’d done it with such artistry that I almost didn’t regret what she’d taken. On the contrary, I’d felt strangely blessed. It was as if I’d been specially chosen.
How was this different? It felt different. It felt like it had been nothing to do with me. There’d been no real exchange. More, it somehow made
me
the suspect. No amount of speaking down a phone to someone in a call centre could restore my innocence.
I got my Barclaycard out of my wallet and folded it in two. I folded it back on itself the other way. I did this several times very fast until the fold gave off heat. When I could no longer put the tip of my finger on it because it was so hot, I ripped the card in two, one half
valid from
, the other
expires end
.
Five days later a new card with a new number and my name on it arrived from Barclaycard.
Ten days after that, a form arrived. It asked me to tick a box which confirmed whether I agreed or disagreed that I had made the transaction in question with Lufthansa.
I ticked the box which disagreed. I wrote underneath in capitals: I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE CARRIED OUT ANY TRANSACTION WITH LUFTHANSA WITH THIS OR ANY OTHER CARD and I signed the form with my name.
Two weeks after that, a letter arrived from Barclaycard which said they’d
credited my Barclaycard with the amount involved
while they made
further enquiries
.
Meanwhile, here’s the story of what maybe happened to the remains of DH Lawrence.
After he died in 1930 at the age of forty-four, his wife, Frieda, married her lover, Angelo Ravagli, and they moved to New Mexico. In 1935 she sent her husband back to Vence in France, where Lawrence had died and was buried, with the instruction that he have Lawrence’s body exhumed and cremated so that she could put his ashes in a beautiful vase.
Ravagli took the vase to Vence. He came back to New Mexico with the vase full of ashes. Frieda sealed the ashes up in a resplendent memorial shrine inside a block of concrete in case of thieves. When she died in 1956 she was buried next to this shrine. There’s a photograph of the shrine on Wikipedia. It has a risen phoenix carved in stone or concrete above it and the letters DHL surrounded by bright painted sunflowers and
I looked at the statement again. It didn’t say anything about where the ticket was from or to. Dec 21. Maybe this other me had been going home
for Christmas. Did she have a family? Did the family know she was a fraudster? Were they maybe a family of fraudsters? I could see them all round a long table set for Christmas; I stood ghost at their feast and watched them with their arms round their shoulders as Hogmanay gave way to New Year. How could she be me? I hadn’t sat in Departures with a print-out ticket paid for by me. I hadn’t walked down the tunnel that led to the door of the aeroplane, or climbed the steps out in the cold of the winter airport air.
Oh Christ. Passport.
I ran upstairs. I pulled open the cupboard door. But my passport was safe there on the underwear shelf.
I put it back. I closed the door. I laughed. Oh well. I came downstairs and put the kettle on, thought about making something to eat. But it was after nine o’clock and if I ate now I’d not sleep.
So I sat on the kitchen stool until the kettle boiled and I thought about how once, years ago, I had been really well pickpocketed in an Italian seaside resort by a child. The child, a dark-haired girl with a miniature accordion slung on her shoulder, had been walking up and down outside the restaurant we’d decided to eat at, playing the opening riff of Volare. I must’ve looked an easy touch; she had approached me and asked for money and when I’d said no she had talked to me briefly and shyly while
thieving from me with such sleight of hand that it wasn’t till I’d put my hand in my pocket half an hour later for the roll of cash I was carrying so I could pay the bill and found the pocket empty that I knew. She’d done it with such artistry that I almost didn’t regret what she’d taken. On the contrary, I’d felt strangely blessed. It was as if I’d been specially chosen.
How was this different? It felt different. It felt like it had been nothing to do with me. There’d been no real exchange. More, it somehow made
me
the suspect. No amount of speaking down a phone to someone in a call centre could restore my innocence.
I got my Barclaycard out of my wallet and folded it in two. I folded it back on itself the other way. I did this several times very fast until the fold gave off heat. When I could no longer put the tip of my finger on it because it was so hot, I ripped the card in two, one half
valid from
, the other
expires end
.
Five days later a new card with a new number and my name on it arrived from Barclaycard.
Ten days after that, a form arrived. It asked me to tick a box which confirmed whether I agreed or disagreed that I had made the transaction in question with Lufthansa.
I ticked the box which disagreed. I wrote underneath in capitals: I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE CARRIED OUT ANY TRANSACTION WITH LUFTHANSA WITH THIS OR ANY OTHER CARD and I signed the form with my name.
Two weeks after that, a letter arrived from Barclaycard which said they’d
credited my Barclaycard with the amount involved
while they made
further enquiries
.
Meanwhile, here’s the story of what maybe happened to the remains of DH Lawrence.
After he died in 1930 at the age of forty-four, his wife, Frieda, married her lover, Angelo Ravagli, and they moved to New Mexico. In 1935 she sent her husband back to Vence in France, where Lawrence had died and was buried, with the instruction that he have Lawrence’s body exhumed and cremated so that she could put his ashes in a beautiful vase.
Ravagli took the vase to Vence. He came back to New Mexico with the vase full of ashes. Frieda sealed the ashes up in a resplendent memorial shrine inside a block of concrete in case of thieves. When she died in 1956 she was buried next to this shrine. There’s a photograph of the shrine on Wikipedia. It has a risen phoenix carved in stone or concrete above it and the letters DHL surrounded by bright painted sunflowers and
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