Lost Luggage

The queue at the lost luggage desk was long and silent and full of exhausted people. Valentina had been in it for an hour when the man behind her said, to nobody in particular, 'At least my underwear is having a holiday.'

She laughed so loudly the official at the desk glared at them.

His name was Henrik. His suitcase was apparently in Reykjavik. Hers was possibly in Cairo, or possibly nowhere. They had both been promised a delivery within forty-eight hours and both knew better than to believe it.

They went shopping together for emergency clothes in the only shop still open, a sports outlet in the terminal, and emerged in matching neon tracksuits that made them look like a very unlikely relay team. They ate dumplings at a counter. They compared terrible travel stories, and his were worse, which pleased her immensely.

The airport hotel had two rooms left, on the same corridor. They said good night at her door, awkwardly, holding their carrier bags.

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock.

'I have a toothbrush,' Henrik said, holding up a spare. 'You didn't buy one.'

She had not. She invited him in to deliver it properly. The neon tracksuits were the first thing to go, to the relief of both.

Her suitcase arrived three days later, smelling faintly of somewhere warm. She never found out where it had been. She never asked Henrik about his either; by then they were booked on the same flight home, and it no longer seemed important.