Realistically speaking, we had 54 minutes to drop off the hire car and get to
check-in at Pisa airport. Ample time, as someone who wears sock garters
might say. First, though, we had to fill up the hire car. If we didn’t, we
would be charged something like €7,000 for the hire-car company to do it for
us. And I am far too canny to let that sort of thinly veiled fleecing
happen. Really, I am.
With 48 minutes to spare, we drove into the airport and began the search for a
petrol station. Harriet spotted one and pointed, her arm stretching right
across my line of vision so that I only narrowly avoided a Fiat Latte
squitting the other way. She doesn’t normally point so outlandishly. This
sort of thing happens only when you are trying to catch a plane: all
gestures become exaggerated. It is the first sign of hysteria.
After a brief argument, we pulled into the petrol station. Apart from another
Englishman kicking the pump with all his might, there was nobody around. It
was an automated petrol station. What you have to do is feed euro notes into
a machine located nowhere near your car up to the value of petrol you think
you might want.
There were two problems: I didn’t know how much I needed to fill the tank, and
I didn’t have any euro notes. I had cleverly eked out the last of my change,
depriving my family of a service-station snack and everything, in order to
fly home with no foreign cash.
All I had was a credit card, and the only thing in English in the whole place
was a tiny sign reading “No credit cards”. I kicked the pump like the other
Englishman, got in the car and announced that this was not a proper petrol
station – we would have to find another.
After a brief argument about the pros and cons of using up all our foreign
cash, we set off and immediately got caught in Pisa’s ridiculous one-way
system. There were 37 minutes to spare. Then 33. And, oh, there was the
Leaning Tower. Then a brief confusion at a roundabout. And, oh, there was
the Leaning Tower again. Then a petrol station. Obviously, it was closed,
because it was only the third hour of the petrol-station attendant’s lunch
break.
“There’s a cashpoint,” said Harriet, who is always the first to give in to
these continentals.
Twenty-two minutes. Two more automated petrol stations. Sweat mixed with
sunblock in eyes.
Fourteen minutes. Cashpoint and an “I told you so”. No doubt my bank will
charge some stupid fee for the €40 I have to withdraw.
Seven minutes. Leaning Tower. It really does lean, despite the fact that they
tipped it back up.
Now, it really is the most Italian system of all to put a petrol station in an
airport, right next to all the car-hire drop-off points where everyone needs
to fill up, and have it set to a prepay system. I put €20 in. Not enough. So
I put in another €10. Almost, but the car-hire company could still charge
€6,998 (€1 for the petrol, €6,997 administration). I only had another €10.
Harriet had her arms crossed. Freddie’s interest in being a well-behaved
toddler was waning fast. Even if we left that second, we would have to
sprint to catch the flight.
I put the whole goddamn €10 in. I ran back the 15 yards from the paying
machine to the pump in the, by the way, 43-degree heat, and watched as only
three of the 10 euros went in before the tank was full. Now I had to decide
who should profit: the bastard petrol station or the bastard car company.
I decided to split it, pulled the pump to keep going to the very, very top,
then sprayed myself from head to toe with a refreshing half a litre of
petrol.
I looked through the window at Harriet, tutting. I looked through the other
window at Freddie, tutting. I looked at my watch and I looked at the car’s
cigarette lighter. If I set fire to myself, it would all be over in seconds.
I could run into the distance, lighting up the horizon, and I would no
longer have to worry about returning the car.
Two minutes to go? If we sprinted, we could make the plane, but there would be
no time to wash the petrol off.
