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| Bath |
“Do you
think that’s a ghost?” I asked Lulu.
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| Mr Darcy: Jane Austen Centre |
I was showing her a photograph taken of Mr
Darcy in the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. She grabbed my phone and inspected it
with the intensity of a hard-core sceptic.
“Look!” I
said, swiping the phone. “It’s in this photo as well.
And if you look closely it’s
in this one on the right side of me.”
“Could be your
thumbprint,” Lulu sniffed.
“No, it’s
not because it’s not on any other photos.” I triumphantly showed her the other
photos.
“I think I
can make out a face,” Lulu said.
I quickly
snatched the phone back from her and turned it off. Ghosts are okay if they’re just
wispy bits of fog, but I didn’t want to know about any eerie faces appearing.
“I think it
was Jane herself,” I said, hugging myself with contentment. “She knew it was me
coming to pay homage, so she dropped down from the ether for a visit. You know,
fellow writer and all that…”
I’d become
all teary when we first walked into the centre because I’d wanted to go there
for so long and I love her so much.
It was definitely
Jane’s spirit and not a thumbprint. Besides, according to the Singapore
authorities, I don’t have thumbprints.
I was
nearly captured and imprisoned on the way through Singapore to London because
no matter how many times I submitted my thumbprint to security, it drew a
blank.
Smooth as a baby’s bum my thumbs are.
For all I know, I don’t have
fingerprints either.
I was
innocently standing behind Scotto at Changi Airport, (who merrily scanned his thumb and walked
straight through the checkpoint) when I was detained.
Scotto didn’t see me desperately
poking my thumb in the machine as he was fiddling with the luggage. A machine gun
attired guard grabbed me by the arm and escorted me into a side room, demanding
my passport without a smile on his face.
Naturally,
whenever something like that happens, I become sweaty, nervous and highly suspicious-looking.
‘Don’t
talk, Pinky,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Whatever you do, don’t start babbling on
and making stupid jokes about terrorists, like last time you did at Brisbane
airport. This is Singapore. They shoot people here, idiot.’
“Do you
come to Singapore a lot?” the guard asked, eyeing me up and down.
“Never,” I
blurted. “Well, once I did. But that was twenty years ago. I mean thirty. Thirty
years ago. Thirty years ago I was here.” I grinned sheepishly.
He
continued to stare at me with hard beady eyes and I could feel heat rising up
from the back of my neck and sweat trickling down my face.
I didn’t want to
sweat because they might have thought I’d swallowed heroin. I've seen Border Security on the telly.
“Not that
there’s anything wrong with it. It’s nice. (cough) Singapore is lovely. I
wonder why I don’t have thumbprints?” I wiped a thick streak of sweat from my
top lip with the back of my hand.
I could see
Scotto through a glass barrier. He was looking confused, worried and more than slightly
irritated that I’d seemingly disappeared into thin air.
I think the
guard took a photo of me. I can’t remember because I was so anxious and was
obsessing about Schapelle Corby in Bali, and rats in prison cells, and having to use my Nicorettes
as collateral in jail instead of cigarettes.
I thought about how I might finally
get a book published if I had a Singaporean prison story but then I thought
about missing out on my holiday to London and felt a bit miffed.
Finally,
they let me through, and I tumbled out of the secret room to find Scotto looking
around in a bewildered state of fury.
“Where were
you?” he hissed. “You’ve got to stop disappearing on me, Pinky. I thought you’d
been abducted!”
Later on,
after I’d calmed down, I googled why I might have no thumbprints. Apparently, four
people in a hundred have difficulty at Singapore Airport because they have worn
down prints. They wear off with age, so I’m told.
Hmmmmffff.
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| Singapore |
