For years, my husband and I had travelled almost everywhere together. On this particular trip, however, a mistake in our flight bookings meant that our European journey ended with us heading to different terminals at Heathrow.
His flight was leaving from Terminal 2. Mine was from Terminal 5.
We got out of the car separately, which felt surprisingly strange. After so many years of arriving at airports as a pair, suddenly there I was with my own suitcase, heading in one direction while he disappeared in another.
Terminal 5 had several lounges, countless shops and more restaurants than anyone waiting for a flight could reasonably need. I decided not to go straight to the lounge. I had heard so much about Gordon Ramsay’s burgers that this seemed like a good opportunity to try one.
Surely it would be better than lounge food.
I walked into the restaurant alone.
The hostess looked at me.
“A table for one?”
I smiled and nodded.
There was something in her expression that made me feel, just for a second, as though dining alone might be a minor offence in England.
I had barely sat down when I noticed a missed call from my husband.
His terminal was apparently a different world. He still had an hour before he could check in. There were no proper restaurants where he was waiting, only refrigerated snacks, and even the seats were full.
I expressed my deepest sympathy.
Then I told him I would let him know whether the burger was good.
Marriage has its cruel moments.
The menu offered plenty of choice, but ordering alone has one obvious disadvantage: you can only eat so much. There is no second person at the table to help justify three starters, two mains and something ordered purely out of curiosity.
I settled for an airport set menu.
The chicken wings arrived first. The sauce was fine; the wings were dry.
I tried a mocktail. It tasted to me like a drink invented to keep children amused while the adults had something more interesting.
By then I was looking down at Caviar House & Prunier on the level below and wondering why I had not gone there instead.
Then another problem occurred to me.
I needed the restroom.
And there was no one to watch my luggage.
This, I decided, was one of the less romantic aspects of solo dining.
Eventually the burger arrived. It looked promising.
I took a bite.
It was a burger.
Not a bad burger. Not a life-changing burger. Just a burger.
At that point my priorities became very clear: finish eating, retrieve suitcase, find restroom.
So much for the great Gordon Ramsay airport burger experience.
Heathrow has appeared repeatedly in my life. My first backpacking trip to Europe passed through here. Over the years, I have watched luggage pile up during strikes, once stared helplessly through an airplane window as my suitcase sat outside in the rain, and even arrived in Sweden with nothing because my belongings had decided to remain elsewhere.
Airports collect these memories.
They are places where journeys begin and end, where plans go wrong, where people separate for a few hours or much longer, and where a very ordinary lunch can somehow become part of the record.
That afternoon, my husband and I were travelling separately. He had his refrigerated snacks. I had my rather unremarkable burger.
We would meet again soon enough.
Until then, a table for one was perfectly fine.