Dear Copenhagen Girl,
WE didn’t get your name but it was a day you’ll never forget. I really hope you’re happy now and that you have good friends. I’d love to know how things have gone for you.
My husband and I met you for 10 or 15 minutes at most. None of us should have been at Lisbon Airport just then. Our flight had been delayed for four hours because of an air traffic controllers’ strike. You were booked to fly back to Copenhagen about seven hours later. You sat at our table even though there were empty ones all around. We were drinking free cups of tea to pass the time.
You’d bought a bottle of water and a sandwich. You sat down but didn’t open them. Instead, your grey eyes filled with tears and your blonde head went down and you started crying. I asked if you were all right. You shook your head. You were so miserable you couldn’t talk straight away.
Then, in staccato sentences at first, you told us your boyfriend had just broken up with you. He was Portuguese. You had been living together in Copenhagen, where you were from. The two of you had come to Lisbon so you could meet his family. You blew your nose and dabbed your eyes.
I got the picture: a young Portuguese man, dark and handsome, your excitement and tension at being brought to meet his parents, maybe brothers or sisters. Your skin had a hint of tan from your two weeks in the sun.
You and he had been together for three years. You were going home that day, but, earlier that morning, he told you he didn’t want to go on living with you. You said he just ended it. The break-up seemed to have come as a complete shock.
You had come to try and get an earlier flight home because the thought of sitting beside him, so separated from him, all the way to Copenhagen was unbearable. Flights were limited because of the strike and you hadn’t been able to get a seat on anything earlier. So you had five more hours to wait.
I felt for you — the pain of that wait, knowing you’d have to look at his face again and endure it. I told you that you would get through it even though it felt like the end of the world to you that day. My husband assured you you’d meet someone else. “But,” you said, “I’m 28. I feel old. I feel so old.” I asked if you could get someone to meet you at the airport and you said, ‘Yes’. And then they called our flight, our gate. We wished we could do something for you. We both impressed on you again that you would be OK, that you would laugh again, be happy again. We’d no more time. We had to leave you there to your tears, to your lonely journey home, to the misery of the airport sandwich and bottled water in that anonymous cafe.
I so hope you’ve found happiness again, Copenhagen girl. We both do. We’re really sorry we couldn’t stay with you that day. We want you to know we wish you the best. You deserve it. Much love, Mary in Dublin. Mary Butler, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin