Schiphol airport. Long-stay car park. I’m standing just outside, pretending to have a conversation on a phone I don’t have. I’m waiting for a suitable car but so far everything’s been way too modern for my needs. Just as I’m thinking I’m going to have to come up with an alternative plan a red Ford Mondeo sails round the curved road and heads right for the barrier. It slows, the window rolls down and a hand reaches out to take the ticket. The barrier rises in a series of jerks and the car moves. I finish up my imaginary phone call and walk in through the pedestrian entrance, trying to keep track of where the car is going. In the end it finds a spot between a boxy SUV and a maroon Mazda on the third floor.

I hold back, reigniting my imaginary conversation on my imaginary phone. People spill out: man, woman and two children, the perfect family. The man hauls a collection of suitcases out of the boot and ferries them one by one down the narrow channel between his car and the SUV next to it. The kids are excited, the mother stressed, the father even more so. Soon they’ve each been assigned a case and are disappearing into the walkway which will lead them into the terminal.

I walk back down to the ground floor and press a button on the ticket machine, requesting assistance. It takes a few moments but a crackly voice comes on and I explain that I’ve just come in a few minutes ago and one of my kids was playing with the ticket and lost it and that we’re late for our flight so I need another one and could he do that and did I say we’re really late for our flight and I’m taking the kids to Disney Land in Florida, which has been their dream for years, and I’d be really grateful if he could help us out because if we miss this flight we won’t be able to afford another one and –

‘What car? When did you come in?’

‘Red Ford Mondeo.’

He’s obviously rewinding the entranceway CCTV.

‘Licence?’

I give it to him. A few moments. C’mon, c’mon.

‘All right, ticket’s coming out of the machine now.’