The woman, fortyish, confident, handsome with a well-cut jacket and a load of attitude, was full of views at Gate 10, Terminal Four at Heathrow. "Have a chocolate," she said to a woman beside her. "I only do dark chocolate, so nothing fattening there."
We all listened with interest and some foolish hope. "Always choose an airline that lets you know where you're sitting," she said. "I don't do airlines with pre-assigned seats."
We the listeners nodded, amazed at her wisdom.
"I had to ask the waiter for a receipt, Yes, I know it was only a soda, but if they don't give you a receipt they could be keeping the money and buying their first yacht. I just don't do subsidising that sort of thing in any land."
The people she was talking to shrugged and said she could be right. "This trip? Part business, part pleasure, but of course I was abroad for Canadian Thanksgiving. Only way to go. I just don't do the family celebration bit."
I looked out for her, 10 hours later in Vancouver. I wondered if she would be met by a chauffeur, would she take a taxi, or public transport. Would there be family members, having survived Canadian Thanksgiving without her, and possibly expecting some dark chocolates? A porter asked her if she needed help.
"I don't do porters," she said. At the taxi rank she was walking up and down, asking people what direction they were heading. She didn't do single taxi taking, she said. It wasn't environmentally correct, nor was it cost-effective. She was going in the Cambie direction. So were we, but I felt I knew her, and all that she did, quite well enough. And possibly so did everyone else in the line. As our taxi pulled away in the sunset, I watched her, sure of herself, driven and desperate not be be made a fool of . . . walking up and down for who-knows-how-long before she got to her home.
Vancouver gets smarter and wealthier-looking all the time, and of course the particular tiger that keeps things going is oriental. The wealthy Hong Kong folk who bought property in western Canada as a kind of hedge against whatever might happen back home have settled in well and happily. It takes about half-an-hour to get accustomed to the signs and notices everywhere being in Chinese. Particularly in the estate agencies, the jewellers, and the banks.
They used to say once that the best Chinese food in the world was to be found in San Francisco, but Vancouver challenges that these days. These are not just small family-run concerns or takeaways, but palatial places with high ceilings which host huge civic receptions and grand dinner dances as well.
In the business world, Chinese investment is highly regarded and welcomed, particularly at the moment when elegant glass-domed Vancouver shopping malls are a little nervous because rich Canadians are inclined to go shopping in Seattle and San Francisco. A billion Canadian dollars is being spent on what they should have been able to buy at home. There's an enormous drive to keep it back at home. And Chinese money is up front on this campaign. I asked the Indian man who drove my taxi if there were many Chinese taxi drivers. A very few, he said, but the man who owned this vehicle and 11 more cars was a Chinese man. "Bless him and all his tribe for the good hours of work that he gives to me and to all my cousins," he added unexpectedly.
And the reason we are all gathered here is that the Vancouver Writers' and Readers' Festival has opened this week. It's on this place called Granville Island, full of studios and small theatres, workshops and galleries. It's nearly as good as an Irish festival, in that some of the participants go to every single thing, and some of them go to nothing, yet they all have a great time. There's a festival hotel every year, where the authors stay. This year it is the Plaza 500. It's probably one of those mixed blessings for any hotel: dozens of egos, all of us in a blind panic about our own appearance, and then rather over-relaxing when that particular one is over. It's a huge opportunity to meet people you might never come across anywhere else.
Everyone is stalking somebody. I am stalking Michael Connelly, author of The Poet and Blood Work, but I fear we may be gone before he arrives. I keep watching the foyer in case he comes in.
Each year the key event is the prestigious Duthie Lecture, given on the last night and sponsored by the Canadian Booksellers' Association. Tomorrow night, that honour goes to Frank McCourt, and the $25 tickets to hear him speak have sold out long ago.
SeveraL groups with vaguely Irish backgrounds will have travelled miles to hear him, and when they say miles, they mean around 600 miles. The Irish will also hear their poet Michael Longley reading from The Ghost Orchid, and Lillian Roberts Finlay reading from her latest novel, Cassa.
The suitcases all arrived safely in the first leg of the journey, thank you very much for asking. Well, thank you actually to the one kind person who asked: a man who like myself used to throw everything together in five minutes and wonders why on earth we can't do that now. He says it's one of the few down sides of getting older, and he's quite sure that we can all work it out. Not immediately, he says, but eventually, like once we all have palm-top computers and two sets of clothes which will dry in five minutes. And because I'm miles away from home I find that I can; I agree with him. No more fuss, fuss, fuss. Now there's a promise for the millennium.