That Word - "Travel"

“There’s a little scene,” said Ozzie, “in ‘The Wind in the Willows’, just before the

expedition to recapture Toad Hall. Remember it? Rat is busily preparing everything he

thinks needed: “Here’s a sword for Badger; here’s a sword for Mole; here’s a sword for

Toad; here’s a sword for Rat. Here’s a pistol for Badger; here’s a pistol for Mole; here’s a

pistol for Toad; here’s a pistol for Rat.” And so on and so on, as the little piles grew and

grew. Finally Badger interrupts declaring gruffly: “We four, with our sticks, shall clear the

floor of all the lot of them in five minutes!”

“Mention the word ‘travel’ in our household, and that’s exactly the scene. Virgo wife

immediately constructs piles of ‘necessaries’ for each of the family: ‘Here’s five

underpants for Ozzie; here’s five underpants (giggle), I mean ‘panties’, for me; here’s

five leopard-skins for Mick; here’s five knickers for Helen; etc, etc, etc.’ Driven to

distraction at the sight of these growing piles, Badger-like, I protest that I, for one, won’t

need a tenth of all that.”

“‘All very well for you who spent his first twenty-odd years living out of the contents of

two suitcases! You know I wouldn’t want you to say: ‘We should have brought this, we

should have brought that, and our holiday be ruined!’ ”

“You see what’s happened, of course? The noble expedition to seek out new places,

foreign people, strange customs, exotic grog and tucker, has been perverted into a

‘holiday’. Admittedly I’m a Pisces and rather too casual (so I’m told) about Things That

Matter, but I have nightmares of lugging eight lots of super-sized suitcases round

marathon sized air-terminals, then guarding them obsessively on railway platforms,

either against being confiscated as suspect bombs, or the depredations of ‘porters’ who

descend declaring: “Monsieur has a formidable need of help with all that luggage, n’estce

pas?” and, foot planted on the most valuable case, demanding a huge ransom.”

“Then comes the struggle to squash everything into the two taxis— one being grossly

inadequate—which have magically appeared with drivers whom the porter ‘very highly

recommends, monsieur’.”

“Then those stations and their ridiculous platforms, almost on the level of the very traintracks,

requiring what the French call ‘climbing up into the train’ or ‘descending from the

train’— very apt, those phrases.”

Ozzie pauses reminiscently.

“Let’s take what you and I might consider a simple trip: say from Rome Central to

Zurich.”

“Our mountains of luggage unloaded at the station, and hovering porters summarily

dismissed, we tag along in the wake of Child 1 who, because of his cheek and arrogance

(very handy in Italy), has been sent ahead (like one of Caesar’s scouts) to acquire

‘information’ as to: platform number, departure time, cost of tickets, availability of valium

tablets, and then rendezvous with the baggage-train (i.e., the rest of family) at the

Waiting Room. Twenty minutes later, Child 1 returns, his scouting in vain; not because

of lack of cheek – heaven forbid! — but because the Information Official has declared

cappuccino break and left, impervious to the insults of the multitude of those not-about-to

be-informed. Meantime we have spied what we think is the ticket office and Child 1 is

dispatched in that direction loaded with thousands of lira (the gods be thanked for the

introduction of euros!) to purchase ‘four, going-only, adult, second class tickets to

Zurich’. Wife 1 (and only) and Child 2 are appointed trustees of baggage-train whilst

Husband 1 goes to consult the Arrival/Departure oracles (aka the Indicators). They

indicate nothing. Supposedly this is because it is more than twenty minutes before

departure time of said train. This is manifestly untrue. Having waited another ten

minutes at the Milan platform entrance where the baggage-train has been strategically

positioned, Child 1 dashes up, waving tickets and yelling: “Quick, dad, it’s on platform

18, leaving in three minutes.” Baggage-train alerted and loads apportioned, it gallops in

wild disarray from platform 9 to 18. There is no time to locate carriage or seat (irrelevant

in Italy). Wife 1 and Child 2 mount the ladder-steps to the carriage. Husband 1 and

Child 1 shoulder bags, heft them into the train door and scramble after them. All

present, items barely accounted for, the train lurches forward, depositing family willy-nilly

into seats where it subsides gasping to await the arrival of Milan. The whole ignominious

manoeuvre has gone unremarked by other passengers.”

“At Milan, the same in reverse. Suitcases are ‘descended’, counted and re-organised.

The baggage train sets up post hopefully at the adjacent platform entrance. Not even

the Italian passengers know from which platform the ‘rapido’ departs.”

“Husband 1 rushes after a red-headed signora with whom he has chatted during the

Rome-Milan journey: hopeful she will be his Moses. He loses her in spite of her fiery

pillar of hair. He speaks to the engine-driver — the locomotive being nearest the

platform entrance, the rear carriages pointing in the direction of Zurich. The engine-driver

declares loudly, gesticulating wildly, that he does not know where this train is going, ask

the guard! Husband 1 pelts frantically down the platform and finds a guard. The guard

urges him to mount ‘subito!’, and not ‘preoccupy yourself on’ the carriage, the seat

number or the destination: if the driver doesn’t know, how can he know? And this train

‘departs here’ in one minute!”

Husband 1 tears back to alert the baggage train. There is a repeat of baggage hefting,

and seat-acquiring. By this time Husband 1 has double hernia and is speechless with

exhaustion. He subsides painfully, consoling himself that Zurich is, hopefully, the end of

the line and all, luggage included, can be descended at leisure.”

“Travel,” Ozzie sums up, “is not for the old or the faint-hearted. A wife may see it as a

holiday, or treat it as a shopping splurge. Believe me, for a mere male it is a routemarch,

destination uncertain, time-frame unknowable, and cost prohibitive.”

© Fred Schinkel