Gate 44
I met the ghost of Italo Calvino one summer evening at Gatwick airport. He was sitting at Gate 44, reading a newspaper and fanning himself with a paperback. I didn’t want to disturb him, but managed a little wave. When he waved back, I felt heartened, and hurried over to him. He was wearing a cream linen shirt which was fastened but didn’t have any buttons. I didn’t know what to say, and ended up blurting out: ‘You are about to utter the latest sentence by Italo Calvino.’ He gave me a withering look. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘very good.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘have a nice evening.’ I carried on to my gate. On the way I stopped off to buy Sight and Sound, and even treated myself to a can of Fanta. But by the time I got there, the gate was closed. I could see the plane from the window. I pleaded with the guy at the desk and waved my ticket in his face. ‘Beyond my control,’ he said. ‘There’s no record of you checking in.’ I sat at the gate and read the magazine for a while. There was a long interview with a Finnish director whose films all took place in sewers, and who was planning (insanely) a remake of Some Like it Hot. I couldn’t get through it. I gave up. As I trudged back to security, I passed Italo Calvino again. He was staring out of the window at the empty runway. ‘Italo,’ I asked him, ‘what are you doing here?’ ‘I live here,’ he said. ‘And you?’
The cubicle
The following winter, I met Elias Canetti at a coffee shop in Manchester. He said he was just passing through, which he liked to do every now and again, particularly when a new shop or restaurant was opening. I introduced myself and asked what he made of the coffee. ‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘the carrot cake is good, I’d recommend it.’ I didn’t know what else to say. All I could think to ask was: ‘Remember when your dad had a heart attack while he was reading The Manchester Guardian?’ But I restrained myself, I didn’t say that. Instead I muttered a few words about the snow and then invited him to a lecture on Lowry’s dogs at the Whitworth gallery tomorrow lunchtime. ‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘tomorrow I’m going to Vienna. There’s a new bookshop opening and I want to take a look.’ ‘Too bad,’ I said, and returned to my table. I ordered the carrot cake and looked up flights to Vienna. They were extremely expensive, even if I transferred in Paris, which I had no intention of doing. Soon I felt quite ill. I hurried to the bathroom, which was immaculate, apart from the cubicle door, which was already covered with scrawled names and phone numbers, one of which I copied down into the back of my notebook. Just above the latch, I also read the following, which was written in thick black marker: ‘ELIAS CANETTI WOZ ERE.’
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