We arrive into London Heathrow sleepless and jetlagged. Because we are carrying six large suitcases, as well as two large boxes that clearly contain a Macintosh tower computer and a monitor, we are stopped by a customs officer when we walk through the “Nothing to Declare” hallway.
Looking over our assemblage of baggage, he looks at me and asks how long we’ll be in London. Lauren answers, “Two years.” Still looking at me, he asks, “And what will you be doing?” Lauren tells him she’ll be working in London. Still looking at me, he asks what the computer is for. I tell him I’m a writer.
I have one problem. Last month, Lauren spent a week in London scouting out apartments. One of the flats she looked at was located over a pawn shop. When I told this to my co-worker Jim, he adopted a lower-class British accent to demonstrate the words he imagined I’d hear floating through my window, all day and night: “How mooch for the bahnjo, guv’nah?” Why, exactly, a Londoner was looking for a banjo in a pawnshop was never clear, but the way Jim said it was so funny that it became a refrain, repeated by my co-workers every time the subject of my impending trans-Atlantic move arose.
Now, standing at customs, the problem is that the officer has exactly the same accent Jim was imitating. I try to suppress the image of him asking “How mooch for the bahnjo, guv’nah?” but my reserve of willpower has been drained by exhaustion. I cannot help reflect that it is, after all, in the nature of the job of Customs Inspector to inquire after the price of things. Surely, in all his years on the job, some passenger must have brought a banjo into the country. If the man asks me, “How mooch was the computah, guv’nah” I am going to lose it completely.
And I don’t have a moment to compose myself, because he directs all his questions at me, although Lauren is answering most of them. Evidentally, he has never seen a trailing husband. (“Trailing husband” has always sounded to me like something that must be removed through lengthy surgery under general anesthesia. In fact, it simply means that my wife’s job is the driving force behind our relocation, and I am following her.)
Fortunately, we make it through customs without loss of property or straight face, and catch a cab into the city. Our first glimpse of fabled London traffic is not as bad as I had feared; it seems to take about 45 minutes to get into the City. Even crammed among our possessions in the cab, it is not a bad ride. When traffic is slow, the cabby chats through the window with the drivers of other cabs. I wonder if they know each other, or if there is just a universal brotherhood of London cabbies.
Later that day, as we enter the Notting Hill Gate real estate office where Lauren has made an appointment, we have awoken somewhat. We shake hands with Jean-Pierre, who, despite his name, is clearly British. I would like to ask him about his name, but I am afraid it is some sort of mortal insult to ask an Englishman if he has French blood in him.
We climb into Jean-Pierre’s car, and take off, and immediately, all the cues I have been learning since childhood begin working against me. As far as my gut knows, the only time you have cars speeding towards you on the right side of the street is when you are driving the wrong way down a one way street. Plus, in England, you don’t have to park in the direction of traffic, so many of the parked cars on our left are facing towards us as well. And my gut is further alarmed by the fact that I am sitting in the driver’s seat but do not have a steering wheel, an accelerator, or, most alarmingly of all, brakes. Add in my lack of sleep over the past 24 hours, and you have the very definition of a nightmare ride.
I’m glad we won’t be owning a car here.