I am in Yorkshire, sitting in the camper van in my best middle-class cream linen shirt and pearls.
I am very drunk indeed.
Mark is sitting opposite me, eating Wensleydale and crackers. He is very drunk as well.
You will be relieved to hear that we are not going to go anywhere now. We are going to crawl into bed very soon and sleep it off.
It is eight forty five in the evening.
We have been to Oliver’s school.
They were having a special chapel service, for the swearing-in of the choir, or some such, where the most important senior choirboys had their hands shaken by the Headmaster, and some of them were given a medal on a red ribbon. I am not sure why.
Oliver is not an important senior choirboy. He has only just has passed the audition for the senior choir, and thus won the right to attend Chapel in a blue dress and a white pinafore.
Getting into the Senior Choir is big tomatoes, I can tell you. They sing in cathedrals and at concerts and things.
You have got to be able to sing in tune and hit the high notes and be able to read music. Oliver is only eleven, so the treble clef is sufficient at the moment.
We had a letter from the Head of Music inviting us to attend the service tonight, and since we have now got a functioning camper van and are pleased to have an excuse to sit in it instead of being at work, we accepted.
Also of course we were very excited to have the chance to see our little vanished chick again.
We got up far too early after a very late night at work. and spent the day flapping about trying to organise our lives into middle-class acceptability without very much success. I kept starting to say things and then forgetting what I was talking about, and actually I was beginning to have secret anxieties about dementia, but Mark pointed out that we had only had about four hours sleep, which was probably a contributory factor.
In the end we just slung all of our smart clothes into the camper van wardrobe and buzzed off. We stopped at a place called High Gillings not far from school, where we had jug-and-bucket showers and made ourselves look respectable. Mark does this better than I do. No matter how hard I try I inevitably look like a dishevelled person dressed in some middle-class shoes.
Everybody smiled at the camper van when we parked it, which was kindly. Oliver’s school is brilliant for that, they are the friendliest and most accepting people I have ever met anywhere.
We should not be there at all really, because of being importunate taxi drivers with neither money nor class, and live with the secret concern that one day somebody will notice and chuck us out. The giveaway is the contact list, which lists the names and addresses of all parents, and we are almost the only ones with a house number. Everybody else lives at Somewhere Smart Abbey, or Upmarket Farm, or Inherited Hall.
The school, and the parents, and come to that, the teachers, are lovely, and actually we like going there very much indeed. Tonight’s chapel service featured the senior choir singing Vivaldi’s Gloria, which is one of my favourites, followed by drinks in the Headmaster’s living room.
The choir and the organ were stunning, everybody, including the parents, bellowed their loudest and most enthusiastically through the hymns, and the Headmaster made the subject of his sermon Sing Lustily And With Courage. I liked that very much as an Inspirational Motto, and thought that one day I would paint it on something.
It was all brilliant and we loved it.
Afterwards the Senior Choir reappeared in their pyjamas, and we hugged Oliver as tightly as we possibly could before he disappeared off into a crowd of boys.
The problem with being tired and not eating enough is that when you get to the wine in the Headmaster’s living room, you are instantly very drunk.
We had one glass each, drove the camper van out of sight around the corner and here we are.
It is just after nine now.
I think it is probably bedtime.
I haven’t taken a photograph. Have another one of the camper van.
