departures

I didn't take much with me to Italy, just one rucksack containing my toothbrush, hair gel, spot cream, razor, a spare pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, favourite black top, pants and socks, my Walkman, my cassettes (New Order, Sonic Youth, Hendrix and Primal Scream), my small sketch pad, a load of pencils (freshly sharpened), my paint tin (brushes inside) and my passport.

My passport's one of those big black ones that makes you feel proud to be British (despite the fact that the country's a bit of a shit heap these days). It's only ever been used once, when I went to Portugal about seven or eight years ago - a fortnight on the Algarve with my mum and my dad and my sister, Janice. Inside there's this photo of me taken in the photo booth at Woolworth's with fine hair, a twisty little grin and a stripy T-shirt (which I've still got somewhere, even though it's far too small to fit me anymore).

Whenever I look at the photo in my passport, it always reminds me of that holiday: the brightness of the sun on the white walls of the hotel; the smell of coffee, cleaning chemicals and bread rolls at breakfast; me and my sister going on at my mum and dad to hurry up and take us to the beach - two miles of rocky sand bulging with bare breasts and bronzed biceps.

I can picture them now: mum tight-lipped in an old one-piece swimsuit stomping among the sunbathers with her towel and the latest Jackie Collins (fresh from the Gatwick book shop) clutched protectively to her pale chest, glaring with disapproval at anyone who dared catch her eye; dad slack-jawed and slobbering like a thirsty blood hound, following her, laden down with towels and a bag full of goodness knows what, his slicked back hair sizzling like a barbecued sausage in the Portuguese sunshine, whilst me and Janice broke ranks and ran towards the edge of the first proper sea we'd ever seen.

It was fun swimming and playing football with the other lads on the beach and spying on the sunbathing girls. It's funny, at that age we weren't interested in the grown ups with their enormous handfuls of sun-tanned flesh, like Annie down the Railway Tavern (this barmaid who's been in Escort and Playbirds). No, we spied on the girls our own age with their flat little breasts; fried eggs and cherry cup cakes that all but disappeared when they lay down and rose into pubescent pink pyramids when they leaned forward.

Yea, it was great that holiday, except that when we arrived home I discovered this thing under my arm - a kind of lump. I didn't tell my mum and dad about it at first. I just put some TCP on it and hoped that it would go away, but as the days passed it got bigger and bigger and then I started to feel ill. After I'd been in bed sick for a couple of days and the lump had grown to the size of a small hen egg, I went downstairs and showed it to mum as she was taking a shepherds pie out of the oven.

"Oh my God," she said dropping the pie on the ceramic hob, bits of toasted mash potato splurting everywhere. "Brian, Brian come and have a look at this boy's arm. It's all yellow."

"Bloody hellfire," said Dad looking at my lump. "How did this happen?"

"Don't know," I mumbled (not daring to mention that I'd cut myself playing around with his razor, shaving a chunk of hair from under my arm, the way Janice did, just to see what it felt like).

"Don't be bloody ridiculous," said Dad. "It can't of just come from nowhere. Now, how long has it been like this?"

"It started when we were in the hotel," I said.

"I might of bloody known," said Dad.

"Urrgghh, it's horrible!" said Janice, who'd dragged herself away from a team of milk bottle jugglers on Record Breakers, to have a look.

"What is it?" mum wailed weakly.

"How the bloody hell should I know," said Dad. "I'm not a flaming doctor am I. It's some disease he's picked up from the water there."

"Oh I don't think it can be that," said mum.

"Of course it bloody is. I told you that was a turd I saw floating around the very first day we were there. I told you we should keep them on the beach."

"But Brian...," wailed mum.

"Don't you bloody but Brian me," said Dad (getting into his stride). "There was a perfectly good swimming pool at the hotel. That's what we bloody paid all that money for. But, oh no, you had to let him do what he liked didn't you. Now see what's happened. No small wonder he's got that bloody thing on him, splashing about in that filth all day. It's disgusting."

"Disgusting," echoed Janice, with relish.

"Sorry dad," I said.

"Get your coat on," he ordered. "We'll just have to hope Dr Phillips can sort it out." He turned to mum. "Will the surgery be open now?"

"I'm not quite sure," she said twitching like an anxious mouse. "I think so."

"You're as bloody bad as he is," said Dad propelling me out of the door. "I can tell where he bloody gets it from."

We drove without talking to the surgery, Dad, his face contorted somewhere between frustration, fatigue and fury, overtaking everything, urging the Cortina on, cursing it round corners, whilst I curled up on the back seat, feeling sick and sweaty with my coat on over my pyjamas.

The doctor had quite a long look at the lump and judiciously squeezed various parts of my body. But he didn't seem that bothered by my condition. Then a nurse came and took me into another room, where I had to take off my coat and unbutton my shirt again. I can remember hearing people in the corridor outside and hoping that no one would come in and see me sat there in nothing but my pyjama bottoms. I'm still not entirely sure what the nurse did to my lump, but it involved something sharp and momentarily painful being shoved into my armpit which, following a warm flow of relief, resulted in a pool of blood and gunge in a shallow metal dish.

"That was quite a nasty lump you had there," said the nurse.

"I got it from Portugal," I said.

"Well, don't worry," she said. "It'll be all right now."

The doctor prescribed me this syrupy yellow medicine that tasted of bananas and which, Janice said, looked like pus. It must have been some kind of antibiotic or something, I guess.

The weekend after I'd had my lump seen to, my dad bought me the Brazilian Subutteo team, kind of like a consolation. And my cousin, Kevin, came round for a game. It was the World Cup Final and, even though he was two years older than me, I beat him five-two. He was the Netherlands but I was unstoppable, every pass inch-perfect as I dissolved sugar lumps in cherryade and listened to the chatter of the teleprinters on 'Final Score.'

II

Just before I went to bed, I did think about going to the phone box down the road and giving mum and dad a quick ring to let them know I was going to Venice. But, in the end, I decided I'd just surprise them with a postcard. I could imagine what would happen if I rang them and tried to explain about wanting to go to Italy to paint pictures. My mum would get all worried and upset and think that I'd gone balmy (or balmier than I normally am), and my dad would get all angry because I'd jacked my job in (even though, technically, I can't jack it in because I'm self-employed and pay my own national insurance and everything).

I checked and rechecked about a hundred times that I'd packed everything I needed. I balanced my toothbrush, toothpaste and passport (with the computer print out from the Travel Agent's tucked inside) on top of my rucksack and got into bed.

I was planning to have an early night. But I just couldn't sleep, worried that my alarm clock would suddenly cease ticking a few seconds before it was meant to go off (something which it had a nasty habit of doing whenever I had to get up and go somewhere important). So, I decided my best bet was to stay up and watch whatever was on until it was time to go and catch the bus to the airport.

They put some strange programmes on at three o'clock in the morning, like two-aside beach volleyball from California. I mean, what is the point of that. I have never in all my life met anyone who plays bloody volleyball (let alone two-aside volleyball). And the nearest sandy beach is at least eighty miles away from where I live. I guess the programme might have been OK had it been just a diposable bit of fun - a ten minute snapshot of life on the other side of the planet. But they took it all so fucking seriously.

This game of volleyball was on for over an hour with a four man commentary team and slow motion 'action' of these blokes in their swimming trunks slipping over in the sand as they sprinted across this vast, empty court desperately trying to reach the ball, but never quite managing to do so. I don't know why they don't just put on a two-aside version of the FA Cup Final from Clacton-on-Sea with sand castle buckets for goal posts - Sheffield Wednesday, forty-seven, Arsenal forty-three - or even endlessly repeated highlights of Coca Cola Cup Fifth Round replays. Still, I suppose, on that beach volleyball programme you did at least get an occasional close up of some tipex-toothed, beach babe with shaved pubes, sun-tanned buttocks and huge boobs bursting out of the tiniest of bikinis (which, I have to admit, is something you don't often see on Midweek Sports Special).

Well, maybe it was all that slow-motion action or the droning voices of the American commentators (or because there hadn't a decent pair of tits on the screen for a few minutes), but sometime towards the end of the volleyball show I fell fast asleep.

Before I nodded off I'd worked out this plan of what I'd do in the morning. I imagined myself getting up at about half past four, sauntering round the room checking that I hadn't forgotten anything, casually gelling my hair and having a bowl of Shreddies before strolling to the bus stop. So much for that idea!

I woke up about twelve minutes before the bus was due to leave. I didn't have time to brush my teeth or wash or anything. I just leapt out of bed, tugged my jeans on, slung my jacket on, stuffed my toothbrush and passport and everything into my pocket, slipped my bare feet into my trainers, grabbed my rucksack and ran down stairs in the dark (practically breaking my ankle on a roll of heavy duty roofing felt which the landlord had left by the front door).

The coach which goes to the airport was just pulling out from the bus stop as I arrived. I sprinted down the middle of the road towards it, whirling my arms about like some demented windmill. Luckily, the bus driver was in a reasonable mood and stopped and opened the doors for me. I leapt through them and stood there panting like an asthmatic dog in a sauna, then fumbled in the bottom of my rucksack for my wallet, wobbling around as the bus pulled away like it was on the front row of the grid at Brands Hatch.

"Thanks mate," I said to the driver, balancing a crumpled ten pound note on top of the ticket machine. "You saved my life!"

"It's eleven pound return," said the driver, without taking his eyes off the road. He held his hand out.

I found a pound coin in my jacket and dropped it into his waiting palm. I snatched my ticket before it had properly slipped out of the machine, shoved the two torn halves of it into the pocket of my jeans and went and sat down near the back of the coach.

I must have spent about two hours at the airport but it didn't seem anything like that long as, all in a whirl, I collected my boarding pass from the Air Italia desk and went through to the departure lounge via customs. They didn't bother to check my rucksack after it had been through the X-ray machine. But they did frisk me after I'd gone through the metal detector doorway even though I didn't hear it bleep.

The departure lounge was really plush. There were mirrors everywhere and the whole place was really clean and polished as if it had been rinsed through a giant dishwasher. I felt really scruffy as I dodged past girls with violent lipstick and three hour hair-dos selling duty-free perfume, fags and whisky in vast quantities.

I sought comfort in a paper cup of cappuccino; chocolate-sprinkled froth overflowing on the cafe's glass counter as I sat there with my Reeboks resting uneasy on the steel frame of an empty stool, nervously watching all those departures and arrivals slowly disappear off the top of the information screen until we were called into another smaller lounge, then led down the corridor and onto the plane.

I love planes and flying. My favourite part of the flight is the moment just before take off when, after the plane has taxied onto the runway, you hear the engines roar into life and it suddenly gathers speed, and you think to yourself this is it, this is it as the plane gets faster and faster, then tears itself free from the ground with a screaming surge of power, and for a moment you feel a part of that power inside of you. It's a brilliant feeling.

Some people can't stand take off, but I just love it. I look out of the window as the plane climbs, insides turning over, ears popping as below all those miniature trees and roads and houses with bright blue swimming pools drift past, smaller and smaller, and then you're over the sea, all around, nothing but sea except perhaps for an occasional ship.

So, there I was sitting at 18,000 feet as the sun rose over Brittany, watching that orange glow seep through the murky grey of morning, then flash above the horizon and climb in a blaze of light, flooding a cotton wool world of clouds, mountains and valleys, white and pure, like a ski resort for angels.