I’m sitting in a hollowed out corner of a pub, a deserted Whetherspoons in an airport hallway.  Sat down, the football news ticking away wallpaper.  A man with a thick mustache, a camouflage jacket tucked into his belt, walks towards a man sitting to my left.

‘You mind if I join ya?’

‘Go right ahead.’

‘So you’re flyin to…’

‘Atlanta.  Yourself?’

‘Goin back to Alaska.  Live in Tunisia, flyin through Paris this morning.  Of course, the strikes on there.  I get there this morning, my flight to Seattle’s canceled.  The strike, they say.  But they’re flyin to Stansted, so here I am.’

They trade pleasantries.  One is an auditor, an IT auditor.  The other an oil man, overseeing new drilling projects.  A man brings a plate of food to the auditor.

‘Can I get a whole lot of ketchup?’

‘There are packets of ketchup on the counter over there, sir.’

He gets up to get a handful of the sachets.  A minute later, after sitting down, he halts conversation.

‘Sorry, just have to take this mustard back up there.  Don’t even have yellow mustard.’

He comes back, resumes, ‘That english mustard, it’s not mustard, they put horseradish in it.  Don’t even tell you.  Can’t find normal mustard no where.’

‘I just bring all my own food,’ the oil man states proudly.  ‘Last time brought sixty pounds of moose meat with me.’

‘How you bring it over?’

‘Oh I freeze it.  Still frozen by the time I get there.  And I got me a nice girlfriend over there, she’s the least American woman you’d ever meet.  She’s like, “Am I enough for you?  Are you happy with me?”  She’s great.  I have an apartment for her, we got satellite tv all hooked up there, so when I go there I can just chill out.  I don’t stay the night, it’s just too…’  I think he says ‘too far from work’ here, but I’m not sure.  ‘So I go over, eat a meal, chill out, then head off.’

I hurry, finish my drink and get out of the hole as soon as I can.