HellTrek Diary, Part Two

[mad_andy]

Part two: Damn, you’re short...


The flight was, in common with commercial flights the world over, extremely dull. Ryanair being one of these much lauded ‘no frills’ airlines they didn’t even have the decency to offer you a cup of crap complimentary coffee; still, for thirty quid I guess I can’t bitch about even having to pay for a cup of warm water. Bastards.

Anyway.

Usual scramble to disembark, accompanied by howling children and scuffling along the aisles; why is it always such a bloody scrum? Thank god I’ve got such well padded hips is all I’ll say. You could tell it was Olympic time; what conversation I could overhear and understand was relentless in its enthusiastic gibbering about winter sports. Oh tra-la, say I. I could have tromped straight over the brace of chattering figureskaters that tried to get under my feet but figured that if I did then not only would I break them but I’d probably get put on the first flight home.

I behaved myself.

Reluctantly.

Passport control? Too damn small. And there was an Italian family armed with two small children standing behind me; I caught them whispering about my jacket - well, I heard the words ‘Iron’ and ‘Maiden’, anyway - and was tempted to tell them that if they thought the jacket was freaky they should see the arms. Baggage collection? Full of bloody soldiers. With funny hats on, decorated with feathers. Weird, you’d never see the British Army wearing half a dead goose on their heads. (A goodly chunk of dead bear, on the other hand...)

Tempting as it was to approach the senior looking chap with the diamonds on his shoulders and ask him to organise his mob out of the way of the tourists I withheld. Again, getting the shit kicked out of me by a lot of soldiers holds little appeal - and I’d get plonked back on said flight straight home. Only this time with a lot of contusions and a headache, if not in a little box.

Hoping like Christ that none of these incidents were in any way an omen for the trip I grabbed my stuff and trailed toward the exit. Would Lia recognise me?

Well, it was certainly true that nobody else on the flight was wearing a denim cutoff over a leather jacket, and big boots and an Eddie shirt; chances were high that she wasn’t going to get me mixed up with some skinny little figure skater. And so it proved; I knew who I was looking for, and as I stomped through the gate there she was, peering over the barrier.

“Andy!”

She’d spotted me.

I must have worried my fellow travellers because when I dumped my bags on the floor with a yell (right in their way) to sweep up this tiny little red haired, bright eyed grinning person in my arms nobody complained....

But then, the soldiers were still gathering their belongings back in the arrivals hall.

Well, introductions were made - Motty (Lia’s mum) doesn’t speak a word of English but a hug and a grin says it all in any language, don’t you find? About all I could think of to say at the time was:

“Damn girlie, aren’t you short?!”

Complimentary, no? Sometimes I only open my mouth to change feet, I swear.

Still, as the first thing the pair of us did on hitting the fresh air (and damn, was it fresh!) was stop dead and light cigarettes I was at least able to shed my jacket - damn thing gets too hot indoors and it was good to cool down - and show off my ink. Lia squealed and bounced with excitement.

Damn, I thought, she does that in real life? Too cool!

It’s always a strange thing to meet someone for the first time that you only know from the internet. I’d heard a great deal about Lia’s life, what with one thing and another; and here I was, climbing into the very little red car that I’d read about, meeting Motty, the absolutely charming, delightful lady that Lia has said so much about. Who is also tiny, by the way. I’m short, but these two made me feel like some hulking great bear.

Not to mention accents. I have no idea what she was expecting me to sound like, but I couldn’t help a grin every time my friend opened her mouth; despite all her protestations her English was - is - fantastic, and to hear her rapid chatter was an absolute delight. And good lord but does swearing sound good in Italian when some idiot driver cuts you up!

Of course, then we got lost. The fact that we’d had to take some strange twists and turns in order to find a working petrol pump - I’d never seen anything like it; put money in, swear, figure out which pump you’d activated, swear some more, fill car - and were outside Torino’s city limits meant that I got a damn good look at some of the smaller urban conurbations around the edge of the city of the Shroud. Crowded, is one word that springs to mind. Narrow streets and tall buildings, architecture ranging from Art Deco elegance to Sixties Ugly, small shops and bars on the ground floor and life taking place as much on the street as anywhere else, despite the cold. Unlike a lot of Europe - where by the architecture you could be anywhere, Berlin to Brighton - this was, to my eyes, different. Really very different. And alive in a way that many tidier cities are not.

We wound our way into the city, Motty and Lia cursing other drivers and chattering away, me wondering if I ought to point out that extensive travel in the backseat of small cars makes me as sick as the proverbial dog but putting it off to rubberneck. Torino had that same weird mix of fugly and elegant buildings, crowding the side streets but leaving long, wide sweeping boulevards; Olympic symbols littered the place but unlike most of Europe everything was in one language. I’ve been fortunate enough to have mooched across a large part of Europe, and never yet come up against a language barrier; looked like this would be my first!

We reached the building wherein nestled Tiny Hell, and tumbled out of the car. If anyone’s got the knack of wriggling out of the backseat of a three door car with any grace I’d appreciate some tips, because my exits are going to result in me breaking my blasted neck one of these days. Graceful I ain’t.

Up the steps, and I was waved into a contraption that looked suspiciously like a coffin; Lia assured me that it was, in fact, a lift and despite its decidedly sepulchural appearance quite safe. She did mention that it was miles nicer to travel in than the one in Motty’s building, and she was dead right; more on that later. Anyway, the little green box squeaked and rattled its way up the shaft, groaning to a halt on the fourth floor. I hopped out with some alacrity; I sure didn’t relish using the damn thing too often, but as Lia was still hale and hearty then it couldn’t have been too bad...

I hoped. I did make the observation that if there were ever an accident they wouldn’t need a coffin, they could just bury you in the damn lift; it was less than reassuring to be agreed with, I can tell you.

Casting a dirty look at it as I dragged my suitcase up the last flight of stairs I wondered just what the apartment was going to look like; again, I’d seen pictures but you know how it is. A picture somehow never quite seems to get the feel of a place.

Tiny Hell - Lia’s mostly-affectionate nickname for her apartment - is indeed rather on the petite side, rather like the girl herself. But the ceiling is high, stopping it feeling too claustrophobic and she’s made good use of the space; one look at the bed and I was damn glad I’d be sleeping on the floor. Ladders, you see, give me the creeping horrors, and as her sleeping platform was above my head level - eek!

Thankfully she had an airbed, so we pottered around and put that up, sorted stuff out, put the makeshift kettle (a saucepan) on and lo, there we were, plonked on her chairs in her apartment where such a lot of the fic I love so much is written, grinning at each other. Sometimes at this point you find yourself rather lost for words; this was not, thankfully, the case with us. In fact the chatter - and the smoking and the tea drinking - went on until the wee small hours, when we finally decided to go to bed.

For some reason - possibly because things have been mightily shitty at home over the last few weeks - I had the most tremendous panic attack at this point. Lia, determined not to let anything get in the way of our having a damn good time, simply wrapped her arms around me and refused to let go until it passed; sometimes a hug beats the crap out of all the medication in the world, you know?

And although some things are meant to be shared, others are not; but I will say that the first time I kissed her I felt like... I’d say it felt like coming home, but that would not only be a cliché it would be untrue. It felt more like I had found a place that would forever be uniquely mine, where no one or nothing could touch me. Friendship squared.

Panic attack?

What panic attack?

Of course, one thing can lead to another but that, my friends, is quite another story altogether - and not one for any public journal, either.

~*~