I am on the taxi rank.
I am not expecting to be here for very long. We have got to go to a carol concert at Lucy’s school in the morning, so we are going to finish work at midnight and drive across after that.
Mark has been at home today. This was because he has had to fix some broken bits on the camper van so that it would be ready to go, and also because his friend Ted had got other things to do instead of working.
Ted is as old as we are but has got three children all under five years old, because of the Land Rover and motor boat racing and also being a late developer. Like us he is horribly busy now, because it is the season for Nativity plays and carol concerts. Mark likes children, and is enjoying being around Ted’s. He says they are lovely, each to his own. I don’t suppose it will be too bad for too long, they can board at school from being eight, it gets easier then.
It feels very odd to be back to normal.
The whole thing has left me in a state of complete confusion. After years and years of being out at work for most of the night, and sleeping late in the mornings, the whole early nights and rising-before-the-dawn thing is entirely, disorientatingly weird.
This sounds unlikely, because it is the pattern that most people live to, but I promise you it is true. Everything is happening at the wrong times, dark happens too late in the day and doesn’t herald the start of an interestingly busy time. I feel like an experimental bird which has been shoved in a cage with a magnet and a pretend sunrise, and then doesn’t know which way to migrate and finishes up in Dublin for the winter.
It was a relief to have a couple of hours sleep this afternoon and then go to work once it was dark. I know where I am with that.
So far my sleeping pattern is just refusing to co-operate, and I am being overwhelmed with sleepiness at all sorts of unlikely times. We had a friend once who had an illness called narcolepsy. He could actually fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, and I am coming to understand exactly how he felt.
Tonight, therefore, should be a breeze, it is easy and predictable and sensible. We will finish working at around midnight, shower and set off for York, where we will arrive at about three or four in the morning. I like my life like that.
My soul is actually quailing at the prospect of this unexpected change.
Mark is going to carry on with this job. He likes it very much and is beamingly happy.
It won’t make much difference to us straight away, because we have still got to carry on earning taxi money, and so for a while we will both carry on working in our taxis in the evenings. But Mark can’t do that for ever, it is too tiring and awful, and in the end it means that I will have to make a choice.
Either I can go out to work in the evenings and not see Mark at all, or I can find something else to do.
I can’t drive a taxi during the day. I have done that before sometimes, and don’t like it one little bit. It is all old ladies with shopping and visits to the hairdresser. The only people who are ever sick are horrible whiny children, and you are supposed to be sympathetic, not livid. There are Arabs with tons of luggage, and people taking their smelly dogs to the vet, and mothers who have forgotten to send their children to school with lunch and want you just to drop it in at the school office for them.
I don’t like working days at all. I know where I am with nights. Nobody requires you to be friendly at night. The customers have got drugs and illegal weaponry and are all drunk. It makes life uncomplicated and I like it.
I like my life happening at nights. I like having the day to myself to do interesting things and sleeping.
I don’t want to change. I don’t know what I am going to do.
I am going to have to think about it very hard indeed.
