Changes At Changi

In Singapore everyone gets off the plane.

Baby Pierre wakes up. He is swinging through the air in the Room of One's Own, or so it seems.

Gaius is embarrassed to be carrying the Room of One's Own through Changi airport.

This is because Margaret has made him aware that he ought to be embarrassed.

Carrying your dirty underwear through this beautiful airport, she tuts. You ought to be ashamed.

Gaius pretends he is not embarrassed, by changing the subject.

I'm going to find an internet connection, he says.

Ouvert is still inside Margaret's new bag, reading Illuminations.

He is disappointed. There has not been a single mention of stones for fifteen pages.

It is all about anything but stones.

Flowers, forests, idols, stars, spiders, sluice gates, the sea.

Suddenly he feels homesick for the sea.

He pops his head out of the bag and shouts at Margaret.

Hey! I want to go home. I want to go back to Pointe de Minimes in La Rochelle.

Margaret doesn't hear him, due to a loud cry from Gaius, who has just googled something.

The Tour De France! groans Gaius. It's less than two weeks away.

You won't be in it this year, says Margaret. Weren't you disqualified?

Nearly disqualified, says Gaius. I shall be riding with my usual team, don't you worry. But there's not much time for me to practice.

You should have stayed in France, says Margaret.

Let's go back, shouts Ouvert. I want to go back now!

No, says Margaret. You're coming home with me.

But Ouvert has jumped out of her bag.

Margaret searches the entire length and breadth of Changi Airport, but he is nowhere to be seen.