We had a plane to catch. Due to depart at midnight. I confess, actually making the flight had not been on my list of concerns. Upon learning the airport transfer collection time from our hotel, it seemed like we would have time aplenty. In fact, at the airport – I insisted nonchalantly while waiting for our bus to arrive – we would be killing time. Soon, such certainties were thrown into doubt.

He arrived at seven, on the dot. I’d been expecting a coach, but when a minibus rolled around the corner into view, I realised that we must have been one of only a few couples brave enough to travel into the night. It had been intentional. We’d eked out an extra day by the pool, making use of the facilities, and filling our boots of the all-inclusive. But now we were going to pay. Life gives with one hand, only to rob you blind with the other.

In truth, I wasn’t ready to leave, but a holiday isn’t a holiday without the taunting of fugaciousness. On day one, the end had been a vague blemish on the horizon. By day five, it was a cloud moving threateningly across the sky. By day seven, it tainted the taste of ice-cream. Now, there was no place to hide from reality, and what greater reality is there than sitting with your luggage in the hotel lobby on your final day having to watch others arrive for their first day? It made me want to drain the swimming pool and burn down the buffet. I didn’t want anyone else experiencing bliss if I was about to be deprived of it. These are the sort of things that reminded me I would die one day. Worse, others would remain alive.

I digress.

As we waited for the bus, I knew my pending spouse would not take kindly to delays from here on in. Once something was, for all intents and purposes ‘done’, she became viciously committed to closure. It was as if a gravitational field yanking her violently back towards normality suddenly kicked in. There was no transition period. No cooling off. It was an unforgiving trait I had come to recognise and, if I may be frank, fear.

The driver – a Turk so devoid of emotion as he handled our luggage that it was enough to undo all the grace and kindness of his fellow countrymen in about the space of ten seconds – tossed our luggage into the back of the minibus without a care for its contents. It landed with a thud and, for a moment, I stared at it, disheartened. I looked at the driver. He gave me a nod. I wanted to say, “You just flattened my Turkish delight.” Instead, I nodded back. A maths teacher had once called me “weak”. Maybe that was harsh, but I was a pushover. Deflated, we got onto his bus, took a seat towards the back, and made a quip about this guy being “a bit of a mope.”

Having become accustomed to the road etiquette of Turkish men on our holiday, I had expected his driving to be – how shall I put this? – dangerous and care-free. Then, he put the minibus into first gear, and I soon realised we were being driven by an outlier. Half an hour later, I got the impression we had just about managed to cover the length of two football pitches. A bicycle overtook us. I felt as if we might roll backwards down the slightest of hills. Soon, quiet, clandestine murmurs – fearful of causing offence – started to circulate with the air-con…

Weren’t we going a bit slow?

Slow? We were crawling.

To my left was my pending spouse. She was starting to get antsy. My heart rate climbed a few beats, fearing that impatience was about to get the better of her golden nature. To my right was the health and safety officer from Norwich, who I’d had the displeasure of overhearing poolside all week banging on about his new air fryer. I’d been trying to read The Grapes of Wrath, but Steinbeck’s bitingly bleak social commentary interweaved with his hauntingly poetic prose had been punctuated too frequently by a proud refrain of, “You won’t believe what my new air fryer can do”. Given the chance, I would have put his head in it and turned it on.

But now, on the bus, this proud human proponent of safety and health was gradually starting to alter in his disposition. His eyes began darting, on the hunt for reassurance. They found none. He started to get tennis leg. His ear started to twitch. He looked at his wife, grabbed her arm, and with fear in his eyes, said; “Honey, we’re going to be cutting this awfully fine.” She was already biting her nails and couldn’t manage a response. She blurted out a muddled, stress-induced half-word, then wiped her brow and went back to biting her nails.

We meandered on through Turkish villages. It was already eight-thirty and according to my phone, we were still two hours away from the airport. Time certainly wasn’t waiting for this driver, and my hopes of enjoying a leisurely Big Mac at Dalaman Airport had, by now, faded. But then, a flicker of hope… My famous propensity for reasoning came alive. What if the driver knew something we didn’t? Surely, he’d done this trip a hundred times before. Probably more. And the travel agency wouldn’t hire a hack for something as important as getting British tourists back on home turf. They were a big company! They had legally binding responsibilities. They had shareholders. It would be fine. Ah, but the excursion… That had seen us nearly hurtle off a steep cliff as the ebullient Jeep-driving tour guide took dusty corners with the enthusiasm of Niki Lauda. Christ. Maybe this is why holiday companies were always folding. Too much litigation.

Finally, an alarmed voice snapped me out of my daydream. A woman at the front of the minibus spoke up:

“Excuse me, drive? Aren’t we going a bit slow? Our flight is at midnight.”

The driver didn’t take his eyes off the road but, after a few seconds of silence, he replied in a low, barely audible drone:

“Yes, airport.”

This did little to calm the nerves.

The woman tried again:

“No, we’re going too slow. We won’t make our flight unless you go faster…”

Again, a pause. Then:

“Little speed. Okay.”

He shifted into third gear and carried on tottering. That’s when the panic set in. The health and safety officer suddenly vaulted to his feet and nearly banged his head on the bus ceiling.

“Bloody hell man we’ve got a flight to catch put yer foot down will ya for the love of God!”

A few minutes later we found ourselves not at the airport, but in a ditch on the side of a Turkish road somewhere between two small towns. No one was hurt, but after we had clambered out of the vehicle, cursed the scenario, and eventually found ourselves killing time while waiting to be collected by a replacement vehicle, I remember seeing the Norwich-born health and safety officer. He was curled up in a ball on the dry, dusty floor, weeping as his wife tried to talk sense into him. She wasn’t getting through. Even a mention of the air fryer couldn’t console him.

Slightly beyond the whimpering shell of a man, stood coolly indifferent in the dying embers of evening light and smoking a cigarette, was the driver. He looked down towards the health and safety officer, threw his arms wide, shrugged a little, and said in a monotone voice:

“Little speed. Not safe.”

It soon became apparent while filling in the legal papers that there had been no need for a panic. We’d simply been diverted to a closer airport due to flight changes. The timings had, in fact, been perfect. Our driver had been pacing the journey to perfection. Upon being pressed by the tour operator’s accident investigators, he explained how he’d simply wanted his guests to have a final chance to take in the Turkish terrain and enjoy the sunset at a leisurely speed.

“Nice sun. Turkish sky. Why rush?” he said, seemingly indifferent to the outcome that had come to bear.

He had a point, I muttered to my pending spouse. “Perhaps they’ll send us back to the hotel and put us up for an extra night,” I said, dreaming of the buffet. She gave me a dirty look. The gravitational pull had taken too strong a hold and I had to accept the bitter truth: this holiday was over. Even the Turkish driver couldn’t forestall reality, but I admired him for finally shutting up the dull bastard with the air fryer.