The silver Volvo was now our responsibility. TPR parked it haphazardly at the other end of our Edinburgh street, even though there were plenty of parking spaces right outside our flat. Was he ashamed of our vehicle, I wondered?
I took charge of the car and, with the help of a friendly policeman, sorted out a problem with the fuel. Then I decided to move it out of the paid parking zone. The car would be well out of TPR’s sight half a mile away.
My cousin BB was already bathing in the warm estuary while I was still struggling to get my dress over my head so that I could strip off to my underwear and join her in the water. The two women that I asked to help me gave up. What a stupid idea to wear a tight red and white lycra dress in the middle of summer.
Meanwhile, in the distance, I saw EB struggling in the muddy sand across the bay. She was sinking fast. Her father raced to her side, and – with moments to spare – managed to haul her out.
HJ and RJ were very, very wealthy.
When RJ decided that he wanted to enlarge their house, he did not consider an extension. Instead he issued an order for the old house to be knocked down and an identical one built – just to slightly larger proportions.
I tripped over 15 old pairs of roller skates – just another pile of unlikely detritus unearthed from my sister’s chaotic bedroom hoard.
I climbed into my bed in the lobby of the London hotel under the watchful eye of the staff on the reception desk. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, one of them informed me that a PhD student of mine had checked into the same hotel.
Surely this was a mistake? My student had no need to be in London, and certainly couldn’t afford the room rate. The reception staff passed me a small sheet of paper. On it were notes in my handwriting that included the names of two of my PhD students. Their other guest had used this as a form of currency when checking in.
The next morning at 07:30, my student sneaked past my lobby bed on her way to the reception desk. She was attempting to check out without my noticing. When I intercepted her, she explained her overnight stay was a London lay-over on her journey home to the US for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” I asked, “Like the conference in a fortnight that you and I are organising?” I had no idea how I would get through the next two weeks without her help.
I walked out of Goldsmiths College to take a walk. I bumped into a group of local red-haired squatters. They were riding red horses that were being led by red dogs. I stopped to chat with the group. They told me they were carrying “The red banners of Benfica“…
Most of the mature students gathered around the table contributed enthusiastically to the discussion of the Coronavirus. The general consensus was that all efforts should be made to protect children from the disease.
The man in the corner was a little quieter than the others and, even though he appeared to seated next to his partner, was paying a bit more attention to me than was probably decent.
Later, he caught up with me while I was inspecting vintage cars exhibited in the High Street. I then remembered that we had once met years ago. This was Richard, and he was in love with me.
As the coach left the outskirts of Glasgow, I tested the reclining bed that I had discovered next to the window. It was very versatile, with several options for its positioning.
The traffic had thinned out by the time we reached the shores of a loch. The same was true of the road, by now just a slender line of tarmac clinging close to the water’s edge. The driver should have been taking more care as we skirted a bend at too high a speed, but I was impressed when he corrected his mistake with the expertise of a racing driver.
On the next bend the driver was not so lucky. He was too late in his attempt to correct his steering and the coach plunged straight into the loch, leaving a few ‘lucky’ passengers to struggle their way out of the vehicle and swim to safety in the freezing water, fully clothed. At first I tried to reach the nearest bank, but wasted far too much energy fighting the current that was pulling me in the other direction. It made more sense to give up, drift to the far shore, join my fellow passengers there, and await rescue.
When I eventually pulled myself out of the water, there was just one thought on my mind. Where was TPR? Had he survived the accident, or was he trapped in the submerged coach, presumably drowned?
The signs were not good. TPR was nowhere to be seen.
PS and I had a vital message for the mistress of the Oxford college. Unfortunately, we did not manage to pass it on before the auditorium started to fill with students.
The topic of the lecture was a 1930s film that starred Greta Garbo. I was a one person site of shame when it became obvious to all that I had never heard of it, let alone seen it.
Afterwards PS and I paid a visit to my old house in Northfield, Birmingham. As we hung out the laundry to dry in the warm attic, we agreed that the street looked much smarter than it did when we left the area at the end of the 1980s.
I knew that I had blown it when DM refused to hand over her car keys. I wanted to retrieve my flat shoes from the boot and exchange them for my high heels. Then I would be able to manage the steep cobbled streets of Pitlochry more easily and keep up with other members of my book group as SC showed us her home town.
DM was cross with me for my childish behaviour over the past couple of days. I really had done my best to be a grown-up, but I just couldn’t help myself. The last straw came when she caught me swinging on the front passenger car seat.
‘I will keep you on my list of contacts’, she sneered, ‘But don’t expect any favours from me’. In that instant I also understood that our wee holiday together in May was cancelled.
Dreamaticus 