All plans for the Easter vacation were switched when first year undergraduate A announced that she had accepted a marriage proposal from the King of the Netherlands. The wedding was scheduled for the following week.
‘Goodness’ I mentioned to A’s mother, ‘I’ve just realised that your grandchildren will be royalty!’
While BC gave media interviews about her forthcoming Edinburgh marathon appearance, I waited back at the flat with N and TPR.
TPR kept himself busy making batches of soup and serving them to passing friends. KT and her glamorous sister popped in for a bowl, as did my school friend RL.
When BC returned to the flat at 1pm she wheeled her bike through the porch and over the parquet flooring in the hall, leaving long, dirty tyre marks in her wake. TPR leapt up, grabbed the bike, and led BC outside.
‘This is where we keep bikes’ he explained, showing off the shed and his newly carpented raised bike rack.
At this point the pet pig from across the road scampered over to join us. We all gave him a quick cuddle then he wandered home again. (We didn’t say anything about the pet pig’s relation that TPR had butchered whole just a few hours earlier.)
Afterwards we took a walk down to the shore. On the way I had words with N about potty training.
I changed my mind about taking to the stage in white sparkly leggings to perform my latest ballet routine.
How could I possibly follow the magnificent display of the retiring prima donna? Anything I attempted would be a huge disappointment.
XY had been all set to leave her husband back in November, but had suddenly changed her mind. We really couldn’t understand why.
Then she revealed to me in a ruined medieval castle that after her husband had comforted her following her car accident ‘one thing led to another’ and now she was pregnant with their third child.
She couldn’t possibly leave her husband now because this time the baby could be a boy. Nevertheless it was a daunting prospect to become a new mother at 51.
I left all my belongings in a locker at the British Library. What a performance it was to travel all the way across London to find them – but without my house keys Id’d never get back into my flat.
We gazed across the table into one another’s eyes confessing our love while bemoaning our tricky marital predicament. There was also the further issue of our physical incompatability, but that only applied when we were upright.
When the object of my desire shape-shifted into an over-tall drag queen in a long pink satin dress standing in the stairwell I was only mildly surprised.
Now, however, we really would need to keep our secret love affair under wraps. It was fortunate that we both worked in an old hospital building where there were plenty of disused staircases that would serve as excellent clandestine rendez-vous.
B’s PhD thesis was beautifully presented. Everything was well laid out on the highest quality paper, with a fluent and compelling narrative. I had always thought that he was conducting research into the efficiency of wind turbines, yet – so far – there was no mention of them in the thesis.
Then I turned the page and hit streams and streams of mathematical formula. This was where the technical content of B’s thesis began.
Once again I was reminded that I, amongst others, needed some additional training to cover all elements of my job. (I had mentioned this to X in the past, but she dismissed the idea. At first I had thought that this was because she had a degree in maths herself, but had recently discovered that she had no qualifications – at all!)
The red-haired man in the queue behind us wore a pale turquoise cotton jumper and a sly look. I glanced down at his feet just as he shoved a 50p piece under the counter with his right toe.
It was the man’s turn to pay. While I was putting my change away, I overhead him complain to the cashier that she had short-changed him: he said that he had given her a £10 note, not £5.
Both TPR and I knew that the man was lying. We headed straight for a supervisor to report the crime. The man overheard us and confessed. The CCTV would show that he had been playing this devious trick on the canteen staff for weeks.
I wasn’t sure whether I was just tired or terribly ill, but I felt half blind while wandering around campus with BR. We decided to buy something for our supper on our way home. I quite fancied smoked haddock, so we popped into the Co-op to see if there was any for sale.
The Co-op was heaving so we changed our mind about shopping in there and instead peered into the Tesco Mini. This second supermarket didn’t have enough stock, so we then moved onto the larger Tesco Metro.
I got very confused as to where to find the entrance of this third supermarket – so much so that I ended up scaling a precarious ledge only to find that this was not the way in. I carefully retraced my steps, paying particular attention to the old mattress balanced against the wall.
I rejoined BR, then texted TPR to ask why he hadn’t been in contact for a full week.
We set off to visit my nephew and all his classmates at Eton. I travelled in the lime green car with my sister J, and our cousins T and G jumped on the ZZ Top style motorbike, with T on the back, his long dark hair flowing in the wind.
The staff in the school canteen loved me so much that they gave me a voucher for £50 off my next visit.
Dreamaticus 