“Congratulations on the new job!” called out one of DB’s neighbours as we walked along his street.
He now had no option but to confess that he would be taking up a new post at King’s College London in the new year. I wondered how all this fitted with his REF panel work?
Marcus Brigstocke had set the exam paper so it was only natural that it was also he who accompanied me and my sister J to the stationers. Here we would purchase some scrap paper on which I could plan my essay answers.
My preference was for coloured multiple-lined paper of the type that was sold by Gibert Jeune on the Boulevard St Michel in Paris in the early 1980s. After much hunting around we found what we were looking for and paid for it. It was only when we opened the pack out on the street that we discovered that this paper was already used. On the reverse of each blank sheet there were notes about French literature in my very own hand. These dated back to my undergraduate days in France over thirty years ago.
When J and I eventually returned to the White House in Stockton-on-Tees, we learnt (40 years late) that (1) Grandpa H had died, (2) our father had taken up residence in a hospital fridge, and (3) our sister S had transformed the upstairs pantry into her new bedroom.
We would never be allowed to stay at this bed and breakfast again now that I’d written all over the pink sitting room carpet in marker pen. My defence was ready: I mistook the carpet for a whiteboard.
I lost TPR during the final stage of the long journey to the US aboard an ocean liner. Occasionally I would spot him in the distance across deck, usually driving one of the small open cars used for deliveries by the ship’s staff. He never acknowledged me. It was as if we had no shared past at all.
One day I had the opportunity to confront him. I was chatting to a family when a silver car approached us. “That will be our driver Pedro” said one of my companions. TPR emerged from the driver’s seat. The moment he saw me he ran to the back of the car and jumped into the boot to hide. He was trapped and had no option but to answer my questions. How did he expect me to go through labour all alone to deliver our baby? Did he have any intention of joining me again in the future to help bring up our child?
“Get lost”, he hissed. “I’m an illegal immigrant, so my best disguise is that of a Mexican driver”. I had to admit that he had done quite a good job with his new image. He’d lost quite a lot of muscle tone so now looked very skinny. It was also obvious that he’d been working hard on his tan to develop a Latin complexion. His little moustache added to the authenticity of his new image.
Then I noticed the tattoos! This was a step too far. He knew how much I hated “body art”. How could he do this to himself (and, by association, to me)? His pathetic excuse was that the tattoos were the only means he had to connect to his former life in Scotland. When I looked more closely I began to appreciate my husband’s strategy: every tattoo was based on a Harry Potter theme. My favourite was the representation of George Heriot’s School in Edinburgh as Hogwarts. However, it was still quite a blow to realise that not a single one made any reference to TPR’s former life with me.
I thought that I had left my belongings far enough up the beach for them to be safe. Then a huge wave appeared from nowhere and dragged everything in its path back into the sea. With the help of my university friend SB (now SD) I managed to retrieve six or seven bikinis from the sea floor. When I gathered them all together afterwards I doubted that they could be mine. They were so tiny. Was I ever that small?
At least neither SB nor I had been injured. I pitied a man whose ear had been severed off in the watery crush and who now appeared to have lost his hearing. I vowed to support him as best I could. He was clearly someone less fortunate than me and it was now my duty to take care of him.
British Airways’ new welcome service for first class passengers coming into Heathrow Terminal 5 was second to none. A smart uniformed man met you off the plane and guided you through the terminal, ensuring that you by-passed all the queues. He also kindly held your hand on the mid-air motorised walkway all the way to the point where you fell through the beaded fibre optic curtain into the departure lounge (in reality a field) for your connecting flight.
Unfortunately the BA minder left you at this point and you were now left to your own devices for the rest of your journey. I sat on the grass between two young men while I waited for my flight to be called. They were catching tiny transparent water-filled balloons. I soon worked out that this was a game in which you were meant to match a pair of identically-shaped balloons to win a prize. This was just my kind of thing and I immediately joined in. However, the distraction of catching balloons meant that I left my handbag unattended and before long one of the young men stole it. I caught him just as he was pulling the credit cards out of my purse. I confronted him with a reminder of my influence over the employers of south east Scotland. If he ever hoped to find a decent job when he left college, then he needed to start behaving like a responsible citizen.
When I eventually made it back to Edinburgh I discovered that very few colleagues were still at work, and someone had switched the hard drive and keyboard of my computer. All that I could see when I booted up the machine were dozens of files that belonged to a mysterious stranger called Jon.
The National Library of Scotland stretched up to the sky in its brand new twenty-two storey building. I joined a guided tour for the afternoon, partnered up with the young man known to be the object of KT’s affections. This was handy: I would check him out further on KT’s behalf. I began my mission by chatting to him on the escalator as we travelled up to the top of the building.
My companion and I were parted for the journey back to the first floor. There were no downward escalators. Nor were there any stairs. Instead you were expected to jump onto an almost vertical conveyor belt to make your descent. This looked much more like a contraption for carrying books than human beings, but there was no other option if you wished to get downstairs, so in I hopped.
I emerged at the other end rather sore and battered, but at least I survived the trip without getting my hair all tangled up in the mechanism. It was a little shocking, however, to discover that the landing pad was also home to a colony of wriggling reptiles. Each creature was about 10 inches long, and they all came in different see-through colours. Had they been static, you might have thought they were just rather large sweet jelly dinosaurs. I stepped away from them as fast as I could. I didn’t want to be bitten, especially if these creatures turned out to be poisonous.
TPR ran ahead of me, clearly appalled at my lack of athleticism. If that was how he felt, I would just give up. I stopped for a while and read the discarded Argos catalogue that I picked out of the gutter. Then I realised that I was carrying no money, nor my mobile phone, and without TPR by my side I had little hope of getting back home from London. I needed to catch up with him.
I started running along Kensington High Street again, but my mission was hopeless. Assuming that TPR had run continuously at his own speed since abandoning me, he could be miles ahead. This was it: without my husband I would end up a homeless bag lady.
Then a teenage boy beckoned me into a pub. “Are you Rousse?”, he asked. He’d recognised me from a description of my yellow vest top, and had a message for me. TPR was waiting for me in Winchester Church in the City, and would I please get there straight away?
I explained that this was impossible. I had no idea where to find this church and had no cash for a taxi. A long-haired man at the bar reached into his pocket and brought out an A-Z. “I’ll pay for your taxi”, he said. Such is the kindness of strangers.
Dreamaticus 