Celebration

She has passed.

She has passed, she has passed, and the relieved celebration in our house knows no bounds.

I cannot pretend that I was hopeful. I knew that she could drive perfectly well, but the tragic sight of her little white face this morning was not encouraging. Her lips were clenched so tightly they had almost disappeared, and when I gave her a hug goodbye I could feel her shaking. I waved them off as brightly as I could, but I was overwhelmed with sympathy, what an awful way to start a morning.

Their departure left me with the need to fill the morning. I washed the pots and filled the washing machine, brought firewood in and cleaned the hearth, and checked the clock again and again. In the end I was so desperate to distract myself that I cleaned the French windows. These were horrid because of being covered with cement splashes on the outside, and woodsmoke dust on the inside, and dog paw prints on both sides. I have been looking at them for ages and shuddering, but been too idle to do anything about them.

This morning I went round to the ironmonger’s for some window cleaning polish, and set to scrubbing them clean. 

I hoped that this would give me something else to think about. With hindsight, now, I can’t begin to think why I believed this. I can’t imagine any circumstances under which I might become so peacefully absorbed in polishing away muddy smears that I might forget that I was in the middle of an agony of worry. 

In fact I didn’t. I polished and worried and thought that I had finished and then realised that they were still smeary. I should have gone over them again, like a proper housewife, but I didn’t. I gave them a last cursory wipe and gave up. I had thought I would carry on ironing my dressmaking patterns, but I couldn’t be bothered to get the iron out.

I went upstairs and sat next to the telephone, which didn’t ring for ages.

When it did ring I grabbed it so quickly that I almost dropped it, and had to faff about trying to get it the right way up.

When I finally did get the right bit to my ear, of course she had passed.

She had been so astonished when the examiner said ‘congratulations’ that she just gaped at him for a minute, and then asked, cautiously, ‘Are you sure?’

He assured her that he was quite, quite positive, and gave her a pass certificate.

Mark drove home. Lucy couldn’t, because of the insurance, but was crying too much anyway.

I rang the insurance company whilst they made their way home, and shelled out the massive amount of cash that we have been grimly clinging on to in the saving account for the purpose. It is a huge relief not to have to keep trying not to spend it.

I was still on the phone when Lucy and Mark burst in through the door.

Of course they were very pleased with themselves, and told me all about emergency stops and reversing out of car parking spaces. It had been such a traumatic morning that Lucy was still shaking, and we thought that instead of a cup of tea we would have a proper celebration.

We went across the road to Cafe Italia and ordered three large glasses of wine and a pizza to share.

Then they told me about their morning all over again, and we thought, with satisfaction, that she has managed to dispose of one of her five talking heads.

It is such a relief that she has passed. She has got the interview with the police on Wednesday, and it would have been truly awful to have had to go knowing that no matter how well she did, they would not give her the job because she had no driving licence. That would have been too ghastly to even think about.

We all drank the wine far too quickly, and were all drunk. We thought that probably it would be better if Lucy did not go back to school. School is not expecting her until Wednesday night anyway, but she had thought that she might go in for tomorrow.

She didn’t.

We were suddenly exhausted.

We went home and we all went to bed, where we stayed until it was time for work.

We left Lucy anxiously poring over questions about the police code of ethics.

She is through to the next level.