The Boarding Card

Sometimes you learn valuable lessons in life the hard way. Today I learnt when it isn’t a good idea to call yourself a writer. I’ve been battling with this for a while now. When do you go from being a person who writes to being a writer? Do you have to make money from it? Do you have to be published? Do you need an agent? Or do you just need the chutzpha, the cojones to give yourself a new title. 

So I’ve been toying with the title, using it in safe environments, when no one is looking. Slowly getting used to calling myself ‘a writer.’ I imagine it is like a man dressing up in women’s clothes for the first time. You don’t go straight out into the street in your new attire. First of all, I imagine, you do it in the privacy of your bedroom, your house, maybe your back garden before you graduate to waddling down the street with your best supermodel gait.

So, like a trainee transvestite, I’d been checking into hotels or filling out doctor’s questionnaires with the job title writer and so far it’s felt good. It suited me, it made me feel good about my writing, made me believe in myself. I was wondering if it was time to ramp it up a bit. To introduce myself to people as a writer, but 3 hours in a Moroccan police cell at Marrakech Airport is enough to make anyone think twice.

To leave Morocco you need to fill out a boarding card, which for all intents and purposes is identical to the landing card. On the way in I had stated I was a teacher but on the way out I thought I would try my new occupation so boldly wrote writer. As Julia Roberts once said to an Ocean Drive shop assistant, big mistake, big!

The immigration official smiled at me as I handed over my passport and boarding card but her smile quickly turned to a frown as she read the info.

‘A writer?’ She said.

‘Yes.’ I said. It sounded good, I liked it.

‘Who do you work for?’ she said.

‘Myself.’ I replied.

‘Newspaper? Magazine?’

‘Sometimes, but mostly fiction.’ I said boldly, I was enjoying this. 

She looked around and beckoned a man standing behind the row of booths. He stepped forward and they gabbled in Arabic while I waited patiently. I wondered if they might ask me for my autograph; surely they hadn’t read Maggie’s Milkman.

‘Come with me.’ The man said. His English was public school perfect.

I followed the David Cameron sound-alike into a small room and sat down when he gestured for me to do so.

‘Why were you in Morocco?’

‘Giving talks to teachers, for Oxford University Press.’ I said.

‘Press?’ he said and wrote it down.

‘Where?’

I rattled off my itinerary.

‘Come,’ He said. I stood up and followed again. This time the room was smaller, smellier and much more cell like. It became even more cell like when the door closed and a key clinked in the lock.

There was a thin strip of concrete jutting out from the wall to sit on but it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned this century. I decided to stand. 30 minutes later my aching feet persuaded me to risk the germs so I perched on the edge of the ledge. Two hours I was in that position. Two hours wondering what the hell was going on.

Then the door swung open and the man led me back to the interview room.

‘On your landing card it says teacher,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m an English teacher.’

‘So why have you put here writer?’

‘I’m both,’ I said.

‘And here, were you teacher or writer?’

‘Teacher, talking to teachers. Oxford University Press, they publish course books.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Change it!’ He said handing me back my card.

I did what I was told and then with a flick of his head the policeman indicated I was free to go.  I went but of course, so had my flight.