The Salmon of Doubt

Like, the cabbie’s never of any interest.” “Er, I suppose so,” said Dirk. “Um, can you still see the cab we’re supposed to be following?”

“Oh Yeah, I’m following him OK. So, the only time you ever actually ever see the cabbie is when the fare says something to him. And when a fare says something to a cabbie in a drama, you know what invariably it is.”

“Let me guess,” said Dirk. “Its ‘follow that cab’.”

“Exactly my point! So if what you see on the telly is to be believed, all cabbies ever do,” continued the cabbie, “is follow other cabbies.” “Hmmm,” said Dirk, doubtfully.

“Which leaves me in a very strange position, as being the one cabbie that never gets asked to follow another cabbie. Which leads me to the unmistakeable conclusion that I must be the cabbie that all the other cabbies are following.” Dirk squinted out of the window trying to spot if there was another cab he could switch to.

“Now I’m not saying thats whats actually happening, but you can see how someone might get to thinking that way, can’t you. Its the power of the media, innit?” “There was,” said Dirk, “an entire television series about taxi drivers. It was called, as I recall, Taxi.”

“Yeah. Well. I’m not talking about that, am I?” said the cabbie irrefutably. “I’m talking about the power of the media to selectively distort reality. That’s what I’m talking about. I mean, when it comes down to it, we all live in our own different reality, don’t we? I mean, when it comes down to it.” “Well. Yes. I think you’re right, as a matter of fact,” said Dirk uneasily. “I mean, you take these kangaroos they’re trying to teach language to. What does anone think we’re going to talk about? What are we gonna say then, eh? ‘So, hows the hopping life treating you then?’ ‘Oh fine. Musn’t grumble. This pocket down me front is a bit of a pain though. Always full of fluff and paperclips.’ It isn’t going to be like that. These kangaroos have got brains the size of a walnut whip. They live in a different world, see. It will be like trying to talk to John Selwing Gummer. You see what I’m saying?”

“Can you see the cab we’re following?”

“Clear as a bell. Probably be there before him.”

Dirk frowned. “Be where before him?”

“Heathrow.”

“How on earth do you know he’s going to Heathrow?”

“Any cabbie can tell if another cabbie’s going to Heathrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“You read the signs. Okay, so theres certain obvious thinks like the fare’s carrying luggage. Then theres the route he’s taking. Thats easy. But you say he may just be saying with friends in Hammersmith. All I can say is that the fare didn;t get into the cab in the manner of someone going to stay with friends in Hammersmith. So, what else do you look for. Well, here’s where you need to be a cabbie to know.

“What you notice depends on who you are.”

“You couldn’t happen to tell which flight he’s catching, could you?” asked Dirk. “Who do you think I am, mate,” retorted the cabbie, “a bloody private detective?” Dirk sat back in his seat and stared out of the window, thoughtfully.

Chapter 7

THERE MUST BE some kind of disease that causes people to talk like that, and the name for it must be something like Airline Syllable Stress Syndrome. It’s the disease that seems to kick in at about ten thousand feet and becomes more and more pronounced, if that’s a good word to use in this context, with altitude until it levels out at a plateau of complete nonsense at about 35,000 feet. It makes otherwise rational people start saying things like “The captain has now turned off the seatbelt sign,” as if there were someone lurking around the cockpit attempting to deny that the captain has done any such thing, that he is indeed the captain and not an impostor, and that there aren’t a whole bunch of second-rate and inferior seatbelt signs that he mightn’t have been fiddling about with.

Another thing that Dirk reflected on as he settled back into his seat was the curious coincidence that not only does the outside of an aircraft look like the outside of a vacuum cleaner, but also that the inside of an aircraft smells like the inside of a vacuum cleaner.

He accepted a glass of champagne from the cabin steward. He supposed that most of the words that airline staff used, or rather most of the sentences into which they were habitually arranged, had been worked so hard that they had died. The strange stresses that cabin stewards continually thumped them with were like electric shocks applied to heart-attack victims in an attempt to revive them. Well.