New Year's Day

6am on New Year's Day. Eddie massaged his temples and sipped at the tall latte in the cardboard cup. It had been a very long night. It was, he counted, his sixth coffee since he arrived at the airport, and they were beginning to make him feel sick.

"How did we end up with the short straw?" asked Jeff, handing the memory card from his camera to Eddie. "I could have been out in the West End getting nip slip pics of z-listers. Or at home, sleeping."

"We must have pissed someone off" replied Eddie. "Ah, the glamour of journalism."

He pushed the memory card into his laptop. "I don't think we've got anything. Not even a hint of a story."

He clicked the mouse and the photos began to send to the picture desk.

Eddie and Jeff had been sent to the airport at 10pm on New Year's Eve by Jim, the editor of the regional evening newspaper where they worked. Jim had hoped that they would record the veritable tsunami of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants expected to hit the tarmac from midnight onwards. "Angle one's dole scrounging," he had said. "If you can get an admission of criminality then great, but you probably won't. Lots of pictures of them queuing up, looking disreputable. Lots of grubby kids, that type of thing."

Eddie sighed. The paper had become increasingly right wing in recent years, but if he didn't write this someone else would, and someone else would get paid for it.

The difficulty that had was the tsunami never happened. There wasn't a single Bulgarian in the airport all night. Not one. At one point, out of desperation, Eddie had slipped the pretty girl at the Easyjet desk a tenner to put out a tannoy announcement asking for a Bulgarian speaker but Bulgarians came there none.

Eddie spent several hours playing Candy Crush Saga on his phone, while Jeff tried and failed to chat up the Easyjet girl. Midnight was marked by a flurry of notifications on his phone, friends on Facebook saying Happy New Year and uploading pictures of glasses of champagne or flaming sambucas. In despair Eddie called Jim. "There's nothing going on, there's no story here."

"Sit tight, there's a flight coming in from Bucharest at 1.30am. There's always a story." Jim was drunk. There was obviously a party going on in the newsroom. Eddie grumbled into his gingerbread latte.

1.30 came and went. The flight was delayed due to the high winds. At one terrible moment the Easyjet girl said it might have to be diverted. But eventually at 2.25 the plane touched down. Jeff wiped his lens and they went to the arrivals gate to greet the flood.

It was more of a trickle really. But Jeff took photos and Eddie got out his notepad and tried to get a story.

First through the gate was just what the editor was looking for. The family, grey and downtrodden in grubby, creased clothes. The sunken eyed wife ushering three dirty looking kids along. The youngest child didn't have any shoes on. "This is great" thought Eddie.

"Sir, excuse me sir, do you speak English? Are you here to work?"

"What the fuck are you on about, mate?". Eddie's heart sunk.

"You're English?"

"Romford, mate. Been on holiday. Sandra here wanted to see the castles, didn't you Sandra?"

"Oh they were lovely, it's a lovely part of the world," said Sandra. "The railways are lovely, much cleaner than ours. We could learn a lot from the Romanians."

Eddie pretended to be jotting it down in shorthand, but really he was just scribbling. He knew "Essex woman enjoys castles" wasn't the headline he was looking for.

"Oh fucking hell, Lampard, where's your fucking shoes? 'Ave you left them on the bleedin' plane?" said Sandra's husband, and they rushed off to find someone who could retrieve the footwear.

Next were a couple. They were speaking Romanian. Or some foreign language. "Sir, excuse me sir, do you speak English? Are you here to work?"

"Yes, I am here to work." said the man in heavily accented English.

"Will you be using our public services?" asked Eddie, hopefully. "For example might you be going to hospital?"

The woman laughed to herself. "Oh yes, I think we will spend much time in your hospitals."

"I'm a radiologist," explained the man. "And my wife here is a paediatric surgeon."

"Coming over here, healing our sick kids..." whispered Jeff, laughing to himself.

"Shut up Jeff" said Eddie.

Last of all came a weary looking man.

"Sir, excuse me sir, do you speak English? Are you here to work?"

"No, I'm not here to work."

"What will you do while you are in the UK."

"Nothing much, just relax and enjoy the hospitality."

Eddie gripped his notepad excitedly. "Will you be claiming and welfare benefits while in the UK?"

"I don't think I'll have time," said the man. "I need to file a flight plan first thing."

"He's the pilot, you knob" said Jeff, unnecessarily as Eddie had now spotted the epaulettes under the man's jacket.

 

Eddie closed the laptop as the last photo uploaded. He felt a presence behind him. Turning round he saw a submachine gun, resting on the plump belly of a police officer.

"Press are you, sir?"

"Yes officer." said Eddie.

"We prefer it if you make yourself known to us first."

"I'll remember that for next time, officer. Listen, can I ask you something off the record?" The policeman tilted his head as if to say 'Maybe'. "Have you had to make any special plans to deal with Eastern European criminals?"

"No"

"No meetings with interpol? No special training? Off the record."

"No. We're not worried. We'll treat them like we do anyone else. Any misbehaviour will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Eddie sighed. "Thanks for that."

Jeff stood up. "What a complete waste of time." He said. "Let's go home."

Eddie slept the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon. At about three he walked over the road to the newsagents. "Twenty Mayfair and the paper please." He flicked through the paper as the newsagent got his cigarettes. There on page four was his byline. Under a picture of Sandra and her family, and the surgeon and her husband, even the pilot, silhouetted as they queued at passport control was the headline "Police Ready".

"Police sources have confirmed," the article went on, “That they are prepared for the influx of Eastern European migrants and will prosecute lawbreakers 'to the full extent of the law.'"

Eddie sighed. “There’s always a story” he thought.  If he didn't write it someone else would.