Extreme measures to counteract boredom. by Katherine M. Kean

Everybody has one birthday, usually when they reach a decade, where they suddenly feel tired, old, and used up. The intensity of this feeling varies depending on the person, and on the age in question. When Patricia hit fifty, the shock sent her reeling, and she felt as though she had bitten the dust, hard. It happened at a very precise moment, when she was making her New Year’s Resolutions. This had always been problematic for her, her difficulties linked to the fact that her birthday fell on December the 30^th. She usually spent most of the 31^st staring at a pristine sheet of paper, furiously chewing on a blue biro. In a bad year the paper remained resolutely white, whilst by the end of the day she looked as though she had regressed to age five, and had been out picking bilberries on the moor.

This year she made zero progress with her list, although she was at it all morning. Suddenly, a light lit up in her brain, illuminating her face. This signalled her realization that she no longer derived any pleasure from her administrative job, that she hated the cold, damp climate of the North of England, and that she was bored with how she spent her leisure time. All in all, she had grown tired of her day-to-day routines.

Patricia could only see one solution; leave home. She would need to move far enough that her whole world would seem to change. Once she had made a decision, Patricia was a girl of prompt action, even for a major earth-shattering decision. Thus, before she even ate her lunch, she was in Thompson’s Travel Agents, picking up colourful catalogues as though they were edible smarties. She realized that a tourist destination was not necessarily the best choice of where to live full-time. At this point, she was merely hoping for a few clues as to vegetation, and climatic conditions. Once she began to stagger under the weight of her haul of magazines, Patricia headed for the library, with the crumbling façade that ensured it couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a repository for dusty books. However, times have moved on since she used to sit in there after school, giggling with her friends. All libraries now carry the prefix “multimedia.” Patricia booked a computer to trawl the web, and since it was lunch-time she only had a quarter of an hour to wait until the next computer was free. Patricia hated wasting time. Therefore, she flicked through the foreign sections of a few newspapers, to get another angle on the countries that she might want to move to. As far as she could see from her initial impressions, the major problem was going to be that of language. Her native tongue was English, and she had a smattering of French, Spanish and German. She could also read Italian, but couldn’t come to grips with the pronunciation. She failed to see her school-day Latin being of any use; all those hours of Virgil and his Aeneid were still wasted almost forty years on.

Patricia’s buddy Gillian had gone out to the Greek Islands the year previously, with the sole intention of sitting in a deckchair on the beach sipping ouzo. She estimated that it took three months to pick up enough of a language to be able to understand and contribute to a high-speed conversation, and talk on the telephone. As Patricia was travelling alone, she was in for rather a quiet and lonely three months. Then there was the problem of money. She would need enough to survive on until she found a job of some description, however badly paid.

Patricia spent the last five minutes before it was her turn at the computer trying to list her disposable assets. There was no point sweating the small stuff; things of immense value to her would fetch peanuts in price minister or another such establishment. She would dispose of her two television sets, and her DVD reader. She would also sell her car, but it was eight years old and well-worn, so it was debatable how much she would obtain. Several other family members had had pleasant surprises valeting and putting their cars up for auction in preceding years, so Patricia thought she had nothing to lose by following their examples. She didn’t want to sell her flat at this point, because waiting for a sale to go ahead would drive her stir crazy. Also, she had an inordinate amount of “stuff” to sort out and pack up. She decided to close off half of her double garage for her own things, and rent out the rest of the flat.

Patricia had just reached this point in her planning when her turn on the computer came around. She first pulled up the list of all English-speaking countries, and was impressed by its length. However, by crossing it with pictures and a thumbnail description, she could see that most of these countries wouldn’t suit her. For example, the whole of Canada seemed to close down at the beginning of September due to intense cold. It dawned on Patricia that she was examining things from the wrong angle, and she should first make a list of the sort of country that she wanted to move to. She could worry about the language when she got there, just as Gillian had. So, she needed to be near the sea or a large lake. Really near, so that she could go every day. She also needed blue in the sky, to replace the English heavy, leaden, rain-filled clouds that she hated. Red in the sky would also be nice. The dawn and dusk skyscapes were one of the few things that she loved about England. She needed a lot of green. A dry, arid landscape would not suit her. She did not need yellow, other than that from the sun. She was emphatic about that. She had always had a strong dislike of sand, and only tolerated it because of its link to the sea. She didn’t need modern architecture. Her personal taste ran to older buildings. Her list grew and grew.

Patricia finally fixed on America, on the Long Island Sound. If her parents had still been alive, she would doubtless not have moved so far, but it was two years since she had lost them, within a month of each other. She had more or less come to terms with this, although it could have participated in her desire to move from where she had grown up.

Patricia used her limited funds to book a place on a low-budget plane, juggling between price and date of the flight. She couldn’t contemplate hanging around for up to a year before leaving England merely to save a few dollars. Rather, she found a slot on a plane only three days hence. She had rented a room on the other side of ‘the pond’ for a couple of weeks as a base whilst she looked for cheaper, more permanent, accommodation. Lastly, Patricia packed. To be going on with, she filled two large suitcases with clothes and a few family photographs. As she was travelling so far to another English-speaking country, with all the luggage restrictions distance imposed, Patricia considered that she didn’t need anything else. Weighing herself down with her beloved papers and books seemed rather like taking coals to Newcastle, and she had never been one for unnecessary redundancy. She could happily live with just the memory of the bulk of her belongings for a while.

She packed for the trip as quickly and painlessly as if she was going on a short holiday. Hence, she had time to box up the contents of her furniture, and move the cartons into the garage. It was incredible. The pile of boxes towered more than two metres high. It was constructed on a solid base that had seemed sufficiently wide and deep when she began the stacking. Patricia chuckled to herself as she imagined the whole tower keeling over and shuttering to the ground, even though it wouldn’t be in the least funny if that really happened. She made a mental note to ask Fred to restack the pile more securely before she left, to reduce her anxiety levels to normal, at least on that front. Meanwhile, her daughter, Laetitia, was looking for a tenant to flat-sit and at the same time pay off the mortgage. They had all three agreed that this was the best solution, but no-one had planned on allowing so little time for it. Predictable Patricia, her speedy approach to setting major life-changing events in motion had not slowed down with age.

Thus, Patricia was rather excited by three o’clock when the taxi was due, even though she was a bit emotional to be leaving Laetitia and her boyfriend. She comforted herself with the thought that it wouldn’t be for too long, as she intended to return for a short visit in the spring or early summer. Then in September, Laetitia and Fred planned to leave England, to look for work in warmer climes. What a travel-happy family they were.

In the taxi, Patricia verified that she had everything important: passport, ticket, visa card, ESTA, bank and Airbnb details, mobile phone, i-pad etc. etc. The list seemed endless. Once she had checked everything twice, she sat back and dreamt about the move and the details of her choice. The highpoint, as far as she was concerned, was somewhat trivial. Although it was on marine water, neither sand nor mud bounded the Sound. Instead, the ground cover was medium-sized pebbles. Not as small as shingles that would cut tender feet, or as large as stones, which were often equally difficult to walk on. Just a highly attractive multi-hued pebble beach reaching as far as the eye saw in all directions, right up to the wooden decking that forms the ends of the North Shore gardens. Patricia was familiar with the topology of this side of the Sound through visits to a friend who used to live there, and she had always found the houses particularly attractive, although she had never imagined herself settling there.

Before she knew it, Patricia was at her local airport. As usual, when she reached this complex structure, Ron Laskey’s cynical lyrics started to run through her mind. Of course, she had never had problems as serious as he described for Heathrow, but it was true that in general, airports did not inspire her with confidence that she would arrive at her desired destination complete with luggage, preferably her own. Despite the time Patricia lost paying her taxi, finding a free trolley, and making her way to departures, she still had over an hour before checking-in. So, predictable once again, she followed the signs for the nearest bar, and ordered a Gin and Tonic. This was her usual treat to herself when travelling, provided she had the time to enjoy it.

She was just relaxing into a luxurious club chair, when suddenly she heard a surprised voice exclaiming

“Patricia, is it really you?” She turned her head, but didn’t recognize anyone in the close vicinity. “Here,” piped up the voice again, from the depths of a wheel-chair.

“I’m sorry,” said Patricia “but I can’t seem to…”

“place me?” the other girl interrupted. “If you are indeed Patricia, then we were at primary school together.”

“How can you recognize me from way back then?” queried Patricia.

“Oh, I’ve had a lot of free-time recently,” said the other girl, indicating a leg heavily encased in plaster. “Apart from reading, I’ve spent it sorting out and classifying a life-time’s photograph collection, which certainly helps.”

“But who are you exactly, and what have you done to your leg? I hope it’s only temporary.”

“Linda,” was the prompt answer, “and yes, I long to be up and about again. It was a skiing accident just before Christmas. However, it didn’t stop me returning to England for the holidays to see my parents, although I had dreamt of having the plaster off on the National Health whilst I was over here.”

“Where do you live now?” Patricia prayed that it wouldn’t be in the East of the USA. She didn’t want to spend her voyage of discovery reminiscing about long bygone years. But no such luck! Linda lived in Connecticut, and the two women were booked onto the same flight.

Linda manoeuvred her wheelchair closer to Patricia, looking as though she was settling in for a long gossip.

“What are you drinking?” she asked, as the barman came over.

“G and T” replied Patricia, sipping her drink, appreciatively.

“Oh, I never drink alcohol when I’m about to fly, it’s not recommended. I’ll have a Virgin Mojito, please.”

Patricia became slightly sulky at the implicit criticism of her choice of drink. Who was Linda to moralize? How was she going to cope with the current theory that on a plane you should walk around every hour to reduce the probability of a blood clot and deep-vein thrombosis? Patricia thought that in her current state of immobility Linda really shouldn’t have travelled on two transatlantic flights in relatively quick succession, but she didn’t say anything. The immediate problem that came to the top of her mind was how to distance herself from Linda. She wanted to go back to enjoying the start of her new adventure, for that was how she saw the present time.

Patricia decided that she was stuck with Linda for as long as it took her to drink her two G and Ts, Linda having ordered her a second one. But then she would plead a need to go to the bathroom. It seemed highly improbable that Linda would want to accompany her there, and Patricia would find some excuse for taking her trolley with her and then just not come back. ‘What a terrible person I am’, she thought to herself, as she tuned back into Linda’s monologue, which she had blanked out while she was planning her escape. Linda seemed to be talking about economics and politics. She congratulated Patricia on living in England, where government-funded enterprises were relatively cheap compared to the American system. Patricia didn’t have the heart to interrupt and explain that she was in the process of going to install herself in America for a lengthy stay, if not for good. However, Patricia’s silence didn’t seem to bother Linda, who simply kept talking without respite. Patricia wondered idly whether Linda was unattached, and therefore grateful to have an audience, or if she was just a born extrovert and chatter-box. Patricia couldn’t remember back as far as primary school. Then she had gone on to the Grammar School rather than the local senior school with her classmates. Thus, she was at somewhat of a loss to recollect any details of Linda’s basic character.

Patricia started to listen more intently when she registered mention of the twin tower attack in lower Manhattan on Tuesday, September 11^th 2001 by members of the Al-Qaeda Islamic group. Linda began to talk seriously of the many other globally occurring terror attacks by jihadist Islamic extremists to further their perceived religious or political causes. She highlighted how this had made America retrench even further behind a strong policy of isolationism. Having initially been very excited to be living in America, Linda felt strongly that the wind was changing, and not for the better. She admitted that she felt that now was not an auspicious time to settle in the USA, and that she herself was thinking seriously about returning to England.

This immediately gave Patricia food for thought. Had she done the right thing by deciding to leave England so abruptly? Had she chosen the right destination? Could she go back on her decision without losing face? Patricia had visions of bumping into acquaintances who would all ask her when she was setting-off. It would be extremely embarrassing to have to say that she had been, seen, and returned already. Patricia’s mind began to spin like a proverbial top, under the influence of a whipping cord of suggestions. In the end, she decided to go for an initial couple of weeks. That day’s plane ticket was not refundable, and she had already paid the Airbnb bill. When she arrived, she was not obliged to look for longer-term accommodation or a job. Instead, she could treat the trip as a holiday. As soon as she arrived, she would Skype Laetitia and seek her advice. Patricia usually ended up asking her daughter what she thought about things, and often accepted her suggestions.

Linda’s monologue continued through to check-in time. Linda hoped they would reach the check-in desk together and have seats side by side, to carry on their “discussion.” However, with her two suitcases and handbag Patricia couldn’t possibly push the wheelchair, and with a non-refundable ticket she couldn’t afford to wait until airport help arrived. Thus, the two girls separated, and Patricia was left to face five hours of cogitation in isolation concerning the political and economic situation in America. She knew little about these subjects, as they had not been main criteria of her choice of destination. She felt it was unfortunate that they had come up when they did, since she was now confronted with a difficult journey before she could call upon further input to provide her with advice and help. She felt unclear what to do and where her future lay suddenly, a surprising situation for Patricia.