Wednesday

I had a letter from the Prison Service this morning.

They would like me to go in and talk to them in a week’s time.

This made me feel sad and worried all at once.

I was not sad because of anything that the Prison Service was doing. In actual fact I don’t think it would have been possible for them to be any kinder. They have been unfailingly polite, helpful, and as gentle as it is possible for the Civil Service to be.

I was sad because the letter meant that they would soon be deciding whether or not they would like me to come back and work in the prison again.

If they decide that they would not, then it will all be over and I shall have to consign that particular daydream to the dustbin for ever.

I would like to be a prison officer very much, but it does seem that all of the things that are most important about me, like having a ridiculously painted camper van, and writing diaries about my adventures, are probably the things that make me completely unsuitable. You have to be patient and cautious and discreet and sensible, and this morning I had a horrible feeling that I might not be enough of any of those things.

I explained carefully to myself that this did not make me a failed human being, but underneath it felt like it.

I was settling in nicely for a day of self-pity and gloom, when Mark came back from the doctor’s.

We had got up extra early so that he could go and do this before he went off to rebuild a rural broadband mast, but he popped back in at home on his way out.

He bounced in with the joyful and astonishing news that the results of his scan have come back, and he does not have a faulty heart valve at all.

Until he said it I had got no idea how worried I have been for weeks, ever since the electrical testing thing that made the doctor frown. I mean absolutely no idea. If anybody had asked I would have assured them that I was not thinking anything about it.

I had not expected to feel so utterly light-headed, so giddy with relief. It was like opening the curtains a bit wider. It is not until the light pours in and the shadows melt away that you notice that it was even dark in the first place.

We both realised that we have been scared for ages. We have been thinking bleak thoughts about incapacity and death: not all the time, obviously, but in quiet moments, secretly, to ourselves, so as not to upset each other. This is a weary thing to be doing, and eats away at you from the inside.

After that I did not feel sad about the prison service any more. I did not feel sad about anything, not being flat broke nor about the conservatory not being built, nor any of it. It is all trivia, and it scattered in the breeze. I felt light, and free, and ready to laugh.

Nothing is as nice as not being ill. Mark is not ill. His heart irregularities are being caused by his tablets and are nothing at all to worry about. He is going to live to be a tiresome old gidget, and we will do reckless things together and waste our pensions on wine and good times, and drive our camper van around the world until it collapses, probably when we are in our nineties, halfway up a remote mountain pass in somewhere like Kazakhstan, so that we have to build a tent by the side of the road and live there.

We have been planning this adventure for a while. One day when the school fees are over.

Mark went off to work then, and I had the rest of the day to myself.

I was not self pitying then, which improved the day enormously, and after a while it turned out to be absolutely blissful. We had already cleaned everything, and cooked things. The house was tidy and warm, without a single guilty chore lurking anywhere.

I spent the whole day making Christmas things. Mark has made me an easel, because it is hard to paint things when the shadow of your hand gets in the way all the time. I propped it up on the table and glued things and painted pictures and cut things out. This was an absorbing and soothing activity, and occupied almost all of the day. In the end I looked up and realised that evening had somehow started to creep in, and the dogs were milling around my feet, restless to go out.

We did not go to work tonight, because last night we sat on the taxi rank until almost midnight and made just less than fifteen quid each, which was so astonishingly rubbish that we were not tempted to repeat the experience today. Instead, we opened some ginger wine that we have been saving for an emergency. I have never had this before. It turned out to be an entirely surprising beverage, a little bit like sherry, apart from the ginger. It was sweet and rich and strong, and made me feel instantly, gloriously tipsy.

I think that we are going to have an early night.

Have a picture of an easel.