There were huge crowds checking into the hotel in Toronto, most of them gripping lap-top computers, which all look identical in their black cases. There have been several ugly incidents, in five Canadian cities so far, with these lookalike bags. Hardly any of them have identifying marks, and people are constantly having heart attacks when they open their machines to find everything in Japanese or Spanish and consequently their entire life in ruins.
"I guess you're not with the information technology lot," said the eager young clerk, who no doubt will own a string of hotels by the time he's 30.
I took his name so I'd be able to say "I told you so" later. "No, the writers lot," I said, marvelling to myself about the different paths peoples lives take. "Thought so" he replied, full of insight. I wondered how he figured out I was having such huge difficulty getting anything to plug into any socket, let alone attempting going on-line. Was it written all over my face? He indicated our little laptop, which has a pink, elastic, spotted ribbon tied around the handle in a neat little bow. The bow was originally a gift for the cats from a friend who had bought it in Cat Dancer - "the place for innovative feline gifts". The two dazed cats had obligingly danced to it before moving on to something marginally more interesting, like sleep.
I'd spotted it as I was leaving the house and thought it might do to identify the piece of technology which I fondly believed was going to make everything simple on this trip. I thought it looked silly, but the young man who had "success" written all over his face thought otherwise. "It's artistic ma'am, that's what it is, artistic and original. I knew in my heart you couldn't be information technology." So I took the lift, smiling loftily and with some pity at the hawkeyed, but non-artistic people at the other conference.
The weather in Toronto was gorgeous. Warm, sunny, autumn days, with people eating al fresco. It seemed marvellous until you realised it was mainly beleaguered smokers who were sitting outdoors, almost coveredin blankets in order to have a cigarette. In Montreal, it was more relaxed, but in Toronto it would take a brave nicotine addict to light up. "Aren't you totally disgusting?" a security woman was saying to a sneaky smoker in a book store, as the unfortunate girl was being marched out. "There are worse things" the girl said. "Like what?" asked the security guard, who obviously couldn't imagine any. "Like, I could have been stealing books which is what I imagine you are here to prevent." "Yeah, if you stole a book the bleeper would go off. No, what you're doing is much, much, more evil. You are filling innocent lungs with your noxious fumes. Next you're going to tell me that I should be congratulating you because you didn't murder anyone today." The journey to our next destination involved, as it so often does, changing planes at Los Angeles, possibly the most upsetting airport in the universe. The scene of many a battle in the past for almost everyone who has passed through, including, I must admit, a terrible shouting match in our own mellow relationship in l992, that almost led to divorce. It's all to do with low ceilings and lack of information as well as the fact that it's always thronged with anxious people, shouting and pointing in different directions. Either that, or it's totally deserted so you begin to wonder if there has been a security alert and everyone has gone into bunkers. Hugely aware of its panic potential, we had arranged a four hour stop-over, so we might possibly have a chance of finding our connecting plane.
We spoke to each other with exaggerated politeness, holding back the screams of frustration and panic that others were letting loose all around us. "Where's the check-in desk Harry?" "Shut your face," said Harry. "Harry, that's not nice, I only asked" "All you ever do is ask, ask, ask, ask, that's the history of our whole godamn life together," said Harry. Fifteen polite questions to passing strangers located the shuttle bus, the correct terminal and the business class lounge. I slept there happily in a chair for two hours. Just before I dozed off, I noticed a girl with a baseball cap on backwards, sitting on the floor. and wondered mildly why she didn't sit on a chair. I woke up and discovered from the buzz of excitement that I had missed the fact that it was Monica Lewinsky, changing planes between LA and New York.
A woman said: "The cheek of her, behaving like an ordinary person, as bold as brass." The woman's daughter was ready for a good old LA airport fight. "That's typical of you Mom, do you want her dressed like a penitent, shouting `Unclean, unclean'?" "No Darlene, that's typical of you, you want bad behaviour glorified." I left them to it and flew for what seemed like several days to New Zealand, where the sun was shining and they thought it was a totally different day to the one we knew it really was.