Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
I was feeling excited, this was my first day of the actual adventure and as the passengers from the 'plane from London filtered into three zig-zag files, each file destined for one of the dispassionate looking immigration officers, I wanted to tell as many people as I could that today was the first day of my new life. Today I had chosen you, Halifax, to be the recipient of my first step into the 'New World'. 'One small step for man, but one giant leap for Stagbeetle', aka Derek.
"Look at me," I wanted to shout, "I not just here on holiday or a boring business trip, I'm here to look at the creators works and get the full on, Technicolour, stereo, hi-fi, 3D, Blue-Ray, HD, Road to Damascus Revelation that will make me a god!!!"
Here begineth the first lesson. You ain't the only one who has a story to tell.
The elderly man in front of me was well built and a few inches taller than I, he being about six foot high, albeit that he lost a little of his height due to a slight stoop. He wore a full beard, now liberally streaked with grey, a dark brown fur hat and a long old fashioned, grey overcoat that was unbuttoned with its belt hanging loosely in the belt loops. His brown leather shoes were polished and of the sort of quality that I had only been able to choose once or twice in my life. Russel and Bromley in my case but I know not the origin of the shoes of the man in the grey overcoat.
"Have you been to England on holiday?" I asked, hoping to find an opening to crow about my madcap adventure.
"No," he replied, " have been to Europe to find my wife who was kidnapped two years ago."
I mentally fell off my self erected pedestal with a dull thud.
"The man who did this thing," he continued, "has now been sentenced to eight years in prison thanks to the work of Scotland Yard and Interpol."
"And your wife," I asked in wide eyed amazement, "is she okay?"
"Physically, yes; but she no longer recognises me."
We both shuffled forward with our hand luggage as the queue shortened by one body.
This mild looking Canadian man then told me his story. "Look it up," he said with a throw away gesture of his hand, "it's in the Canadian papers."
I cannot remember every detail but will relate what I remember of what he told me. He and his wife had been happily married for many years, when coming close to his retirement he noticed that his wife was becoming forgetful. The family doctor diagnosed the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and was unable to suggest any treatment. Her brother lived just outside of New York and suggested that she should come to see him for a short holiday while she could still remember who he was. They packed the car and he drove her there, returning home to continue with his work for a few weeks until it was time to collect her again. That was the last time he saw her for over eighteen months, and the last time she knew who he was. In the few weeks that followed he had a few phone conversations with her, although one or two were confused and he wasn't sure she knew to whom she was talking. Subsequently he learnt that some of the later phone calls were made from Europe. When he could no longer reach her mobile phone, and deeming that she had been away long enough, he went to pick her up and bring her home. Only her brothers house was in darkness and her mobile phone rang plaintively somewhere deep in the house when he dialled it. The Police were unable to help, saying that she was old enough to determine her own life, and sad as it seemed, if she had decided to leave him, that was her affair. Only after involving the Canadian Mounted Police, following him getting a letter of concern from the family doctor, did the FBI tell him that she had left the country on a flight to Paris, and that her brother accompanied her. He flew to Paris and contacted Interpol. Here he had to assert that she had been kidnapped while being in no mental state to make the decision to come to Europe. Interpol were only able to tell him that her brother had bought a ticket on the Euro-express to London. Scotland Yard were of no immediate help, informing him that a certain time must pass between him saying she was missing and them recording it as so. Dejectedly he returned home. Some six months or more passed before Scotland Yard contacted him to say that they too were now concerned about his wife, since their investigations had led them to a private care home, where the doctor who attended the guests there confirmed that in his opinion she was not capable of making life decisions for herself. Furthermore on being told of the deterioration in her condition her brother had removed her from the home. He flew to London and went to see for himself. He told me that he found a large mock Tudor house with large gardens, clean rooms and a caring staff. The matrons description of his wife's condition appalled and dispirited him and a further six months or so were to pass before he heard more. Then Interpol called his local Police to say that they had located her and her brother in the south of France. He flew to Paris immediately and was reunited with his wife who did not have the faintest idea of who he was, and cried for her brother, the only person she recognised. The French Police could do nothing, since no crime had been committed in France under French law. Scotland Yard could however, since removing her from the English care home, without the permission of her legal guardian, her husband, was kidnapping. The tale ends with him taking her once more to the English care home which she recognised and was happy in, her brother being sentenced to eight years imprisonment in England and him returning home where an empty house awaited with a bitter retirement. How cruel for him to lose those last few months when she remembered who he was and how their life had been. He had by now reached the head of the queue and headed for the Immigration desk and a lonely journey home. Some endings are neither happy nor cathartic.
Tomorrow. Chocolate and Pecan Pie with the Wired Monk!
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