Moscow time

Like I'm in a sixties film - like Farehheit 451 or is it 541? That one about books. With people memorising books in a forest of Birch. With that blonde fireman. Or is it that I'm getting muddled because of Julie Christie. Zchivago. Trees. Klimt.
I saw a man on a roof today. He looked like he was sweeping and then I began to wonder if he wasn't painting the roof white. That the snow wasn't just white paint. I saw a woman walking slowly in a beautiful coat. Kyslowski likes slow-moving elderly women in his films I'd noticed recently. I had pointed it out to my friend (trying to sound like I'd noticed a motif) but he'd counterpointed that elderly people often move slowly implying that the repetition might have been unintentional. He's a bit like that my friend. Counterpointy.
Everywhere I look I see women who look like me - like plump, elderly Joan Crawfords with lots of fur. Sorry, I mean Joan Collins.
Breakfast - was about 10 except it was really 1 except I thought it was 7 because I went the wrong way - in my head. I've got a problem with time. Early on I had decided to keep my watch on English time (which I was still getting used to due to the clocks having gone forward). My friend keeps funny time anyway so I just decided I'd pretend.
My friend had made porridge. He explained to his Russian girlfriend that porridge to English people was a special treat. Like caviar.
I'd missed my flight from London and had arrived a little later than planned. It was the tube. At the stop just before Heathrow hundreds of people had had to get out to get a special bus to the airport. I had decided to wait at the wrong end of the bus terminal, in the cold emptiness, watching the crowds thinking - why are they at the wrong end? Bus after bus went past me until I realised.
This well-trained policeman was saying. - "there's no point in getting hurt now is there?" as people prepared to board in a big lump of suitcase on wheel dash. Like Supermarket Sweep without the shopping, Dale Winton, or the food. Or the trolleys. Although the luggage was a bit like trollies which was why I alluded to it. I frantically tried to phone a friend to see if she could perhaps check in online. Too late and good job. I wouldn't have made it. When I eventually reached the Swiss-air desk at Heathrow it was empty. Embarrassment mixed with relief. My friend in Moscow texted me saying "Don't be mad, I started smoking two weeks ago". I texted back saying "Don't be mad. I just missed my flight". I toyed with the idea of just checking into a hotel for the week and pretending. Like the time thing.
The weary man at Swiss reservations was kind. A flight tomorrrow. I'd get into Moscow a little later than first planned but I'd be able to spend the night at my mate's flat - just 26 stops away on the Picadilly line - couple of glasses of wine and good giggle and I'd be as right as rain. I had a choice though and I'm not good with choice. City airport or back to Heathrow in the morning. City was near the Millennium Dome apparently - very central. I'd been on the road a while at this stage and was imagining this brand new airport settled twixt Eye and Tate. I went for it. My mate looked it up. It was Greenwich way. Three changes on the tube if I wanted to avoid going the wrong way on the Jubilee plus a short hop on the Docklands light railway. Check in was five to eight in the morning. My mate lived near Finsbury Park. You do the maths.
Things got a bit bleak in Zurich. Once I joined the queue for Moscow. Lots of men. Lots of dark coats. Like a dark grey spotlight was shining on them.
Take off was delayed due to one passenger who shouldn't have been on the flight.
I waited patiently for the inevitable escort off the plane (relief again - were there mountains in Zurich?) but my ticket was kosher.
Sat between two men (naturally); one was a muscovite who'd been travelling for 24 hours from Nairobi. He kept glancing at my Alan Bennett monologues. We tried to strike up a conversation but it was difficult due to us not being able to understand each other.
At all.
My other plane companion was a jolly German who was tucking into cognac which made him perfectly polite when I had to keep standing on his chair to look into the jam-packed luggage holder. A coat had dropped onto the woman in front at one point. It fell perfectly over her like a magic trick. Like I was taking her hostage. I half expected her companions to bring out a gun but they all seemed to take it in good part. And when my pen sort of exploded while I tried to fill in my immigration form the Muscovite said it was one of those things and tried quite hard to find me a tissue.
Black hands. My phone hadn't been working since London and I'd only sent that brief word to my friend in Moscow about missing my flight and catching a later plane. My hands shook as I tried to fill my form in. I might be arriving in this strange cold land of mad letters with no idea of where my friend lived and only the torn out phrase book chapter from a guide to St Petersburg . I made a mental note to throw myself at the mercy of my muscovite mate if all else failed.
I gave him a slightly manic smile at the immigration desk. I wondered if he might mind a strange English lady attaching herself to him like a complete limpet? (Did they have seaside?)
There it was. Unmistakably mine. Coming towards me on the conveyorbelt. My suitcase.
Damn.
Last hurdle. Moscow customs. A large silver lump in my case - thirty cds from the Krishnamurti Foundation in Brockley together with four tubes of Euthymol toothpaste and some Toni & Guy moisture injection hair serum for my dear friend. The customs man seemed to want me to stop. I prepared myself for arrest or at the very least some sort of scene involving me trying to sign "investigations into love and existence", "a special kind of dental freshness" and "dry hair". I actually thought he said "you are very pretty" and I had stopped to make him repeat it. Was this really the right time for a flirt? I eventually realised he was asking me where I'd travelled from.
Britain.
He waved me through, he waved me through. I was there. I was here.
A sea of faces. Everyone looked a bit serious. A bit worried. I couldn't even remember what my friend looked like. He'd stopped wearing his glasses a while back so that narrowed it down a little. But there he was - skulking sort of sheepishly yet happily is the only way to describe him. Relief made me cocky but I was unable to be more than two yards away from him for the rest of the week without severe panic.
We'd gone for a gander on my first night to the corner shop, which was more like one of those indoor markets you get in Tooting Broadway. Simultaneously bright, claustrophic, smelly and kind of damp. Except in Tooting the origin of the food was reasonably clear. Here it could be a strange animal from some far off mountain (possibly in Zurich). Where it snows a lot. With veins. Or horns. And that was just the tinned section.
There seem to be a lot of them and they seem to sell everything. Thinking about it they might not have been corner shops. Just shops.
The Moscow streets seemed quiet. I'd made the time mistake again. It said ten on the clock but the label said not. It was 2am except I mean 1 except I mean 10 except I mean 7 etc.. Why wasn't I tired? Too busy trying to work out the time.
My friend lived in a tower block Project with one of the few muslims in Moscow - a turkish banker called Fatih who seemed churpy enough and warned me about falling in love. With the city. I sat myself in the corner of his kitchen just looking. His flat was so hot. It was a bit like Peckham (and I realise I'm in danger of mixing my South London Boroughs). It was starting to snow. I'd been hot and sweaty since I'd landed truth be told. All the messages I'd been getting from home were concerned about my bodily temperature. "It's ironic", I told my friend, "I've been nothing but hot and sweaty since I've landed!". Talk about Farenheit - everything was turning into an Alan Bennett monologue.
I tried to write but all I could think about was what would a multiple of Joan Collins be?
A Dynasty?