Cambridge Blues

I couldn't have expected what would happen. The plane had landed at Luton airport on time and I was queueing up in the aisle, shuffling slowly towards the front exit. After I had murmured adiós to the extremely posh English steward and crossed the threshold of the door, I became aware of the hideous weather, which prompted the realisation that my fleece might not be enough to feel all snug and warm in the south of England in early spring. I jumped down the passenger steps with my eyes narrowed by way of protection against the drizzle and dashed across the tarmac for shelter. The light rain had speckled my glasses before I could reach the terminal gate, and my eyes, once they'd managed to adjust to see through the misty lenses, were confronted with the dilemma posed by the sign:
"<--International Flights | Domestic Flights-->". Funnily enough, it felt like home and I'd come from home, it had to be domestic; then again, the cold hinted otherwise. I followed the elderly couple I'd just spotted to the left instinctively. Confused as I was, it seemed like the right thing to do. Tut tut!... rusty brain... I kept considering the matter.

From the coach, I perceived Luton was a hilly town. Lost in thought, I heard my phone ring a while after I'd replaced my Spanish SIM card with my UK card on my mobile. Noreen's words on the phone got me relaxed and I leaned back in my seat and stared out of the window at a railway track that ran straight and parallel to the motorway about twenty metres away from it. I sat up, calmly raised my eyes and looked at the punched-out thick cotton-like cloud blanket that partially hid the blue sky. Then I lowered them a trifle and looked at the horizon. A pale green plain, as if it hadn't got enough water, spread before me and I knew Cambridge was near.

As I walked into Noreen and Alastair's flat, Noreen greeted me matter-of-factly and went on to explain she had come back from Israel the day before and was cleaning up the house. Alastair turned up from work about an hour later. Noreen announced, "Jose is here". "Is he? Where is he?", he replied. Not surprisingly, that was about all the excitement Alastair could display. I'm not an exciting character anyway, so I don't complain, I just state the fact.

I met Ana and John in our usual Caffè Nero at 10.30 on Saturday morning. We talked mostly, although not exclusively, about my tiny flat in Madrid over capuccinos and mochas for more than an hour. The conversation seemed quite short to me, but we all had things to do and had to move on, so we said goodbye and I hurried to meet Gill at the Cambridge Blue pub in Gwydir Street at 12.15pm. Again, I enjoyed myself a lot and time flew away. Having eaten a delicious hot ciabatta with melted brie and cranberry, my stomach was full when I went out of the pub and walked into the drizzle that had just begun to fall. In my hands I carried my bike basket and helmet, the post collected in the last three months and Tania's books.

Alastair, Noreen and I watched Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat for the second time that evening, after which Alastair drove us to the India House on Newnham Road. Noreen had organised a dinner with Tristan, Luisa, Marco and Alessio --and the girlfriends of the latter two, who were in Cambridge for a short visit--, and I had suggested an Indian restaurant. Elena had excused herself and said we'd meet up Sunday afternoon. I ordered my favourite curry dish (the excellent lamb rogan josh) and explained, among other things, how my blog had become an important part of my life, which most people found hard to believe -- this is just the beginning, though.

At 2.45pm on Sunday, after about an hour's swim at the Parkside pool, I couldn't spot Fengqiu in either the Borders Starbucks, where I wrongly thought we had agreed to meet, or the Starbucks next door to it. I phoned him. He had forgotten to put his clock forward and showed up at 3.15pm in the basement of Starbucks in Market Hill. We talked for about an hour about work, stress, life, motivation (and the lack of it:), the future, his identical twin brother who's going to come to Cambridge in June and whom I'll probably meet in a few months (it's going to be weird meeting two Fengqius, but, maaaan, I'm looking forward to it! :). Then we walked all the way to Gresham Road, where he had left his bicycle, and said a heartfelt goodbye. I walked up to Glisson Road and rang Elena's door bell. She wasn't at home and my mobile had run out of battery when Fengqiu had made his elegant entrance in the basement of Starbucks. I walked back towards the city centre and made a phone call from a booth in Parker's Piece. I had only jotted down Alastair's number, but he wouldn't pick up the phone. Wondering what I would do, I looked up and saw the OLEM church standing in front of me. It was almost five and the mass was about to start. I thought Elena may be there. She wasn't, yet I joined the service. Luckily, she had thought along the same lines: "Ciao!", she said with her ever-present smile when the sermon was about to finish. Surprised, I turned my head towards her and smiled, "Hi!". She placed herself on my left-hand side just before everyone stood up to pray the Creed. I opened the prayers book and we read from it as we used to do in the good old times, "We believe in one God, the Father, the All-Mighty...". Fengqiu's "boss" Andrea was sitting near us. I pointed out to Elena he was Italian and picked up on a tic he had in his neck, or at any rate he was moving it rhythmically.

I woke up in the middle of the night. I could feel the Malaysian Wok fried Sate Duck Mee I had eaten with Elena and the Paraguayan zoologist José at the Dojo Noodle Bar that evening in my stomach. Then the nightmares began: my face was squeezed by a stretched palm that violently induced drowsiness in me. Seconds later I found myself, in revery, flying over Madrid. I remember seeing the Metrópolis building and then heading for Gran Vía.

I was knackered in the morning. Alastair offered to spend half an hour with me at the Engineering Department (Trumpington Street) after he'd finished at the dentist's. Actually, he gave me an hour and a half of his time in the end, for which he jumped up a few positions on my Top 10 list and I thank him hugely. Then I met Elena and we both walked with my bags from her house to the bus stop on Parkside (many thanks!!). I took leave of her and Cambridge at just past 1.10pm.

* * *

"Welcome on board this Easyjet flight to sunny Madrid", said the captain over the intercom, and my heart leapt. More accurately, it hopped on and off a quick optimism tour bus in melancholy land, which means you get a fleeting glimpse of happiness and a vast supply of miserable existence to reflect on and crave. I finished reading Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down in between naps and then I took a pleasurable long nap to make up for the wasted night.

At past eleven, with my watch set another hour forward, I'd locked my flat door and took some time to observe the improvement the construction workers had made in the last four days as I headed down the stairs of the building to go to Opencor on Ronda de Atocha for some groceries. Madrid was warm, or rather, warmer than Cambridge. The night was crystal clear, in a way that only Madrid can be. I was walking down my steep street when a drop of water hit my scalp. I blamed the air conditioners and carried on with my thinking. A few seconds later another drop, then another. I kept walking in the rain with my head bent down and my hands in my pockets. Cambridge was chasing me. I had the blues.


(I still have the outermost two double pages of the Daily Telegraph from Saturday, 24 February that Alastair gave me to wrap the mugs I brought along from Cambridge. I can't muster the courage to throw them away. Not yet.)