Exercise

It is Lucy’s last day at home.

Tomorrow she will be released back into the wild, to run free with all of the other policemen.

She is both looking forward to it, and a bit gloomy at the prospect. She likes being a policeman very much, but in between working she will not see anybody, or have anybody to talk to. This is not easy. When you have had a difficult day at work it is nice to be able to talk about it, most especially if you have got a glass of wine in your hand.

At least she is still able to work. I am massively relieved about that, how dreadful life must be for the poor university students at the moment.

School has written to us telling us that they will definitely not be opening next week, and to get Oliver ready for online learning. They are hoping, optimistically, that they might be going back at the end of January.

I have got every single crossable thing crossed.

Since it is the last time we will see Lucy for as far into the future as it is possible to see, Mark did not go to work. He stayed at home and mended the fan heater on her car. This was not working properly and would only blow air in at full speed or not at all. My own fan heater does exactly this as well, but I am not an anxiously departing young person, off to rely on my own resources in a scary world. Mark will fix mine either when he is milling about at home with nothing much to do or when we have a huge domestic about it, whichever comes first.

Instead of working and sewing aprons and making jam and cleaning the bathroom, we had a last celebratory breakfast in the conservatory together, with all the things that we like to eat best, like smoked fish and sausages and hot fresh bread with home made jam, and melon and yoghurt and a small but encouraging glass of single malt whisky.

Lucy told us stories about learning to be a policeman. She has not managed to get into any serious fights and so the police were worried in case she was too timid. They have been trying to send her to violent incidents for the last couple of months, but with no results. Everybody just seems to stop fighting when Lucy turns up.

In the end they set up an extra bashing-people class for her so that they could make sure she got braver. The class was scheduled to last all day but they stopped after an hour, with the instructor rubbing his bruises. They have decided now that there is nothing at all wrong with Lucy’s ability to get into fights, which after all was one of her chief incentives for joining the police force. It was one of the very few careers where a gently-nurtured young lady could legitimately expect to join in violent punch-ups, regularly. They have now realised that she is not getting into fights because she has simply got very good negotiating skills and a public-school accent. Even the worst rascals seem to be reluctant to duff up gently-spoken pretty girls who are making caringly sympathetic noises. They put their hands meekly into the handcuffs and come quietly.

Once we had eaten everything that we could sensibly make room for, we put on our coats and scarves and took the dogs for a walk along the lake in the sunshine.

We went to Bowness. It was odd to walk past all of the places where we once worked. They are shuttered now, and the nightclub is closed and dark, never to re-open. Bowness is a village which is practically made up of cafes and gift shops, and it seemed unspeakably sad to see so many lights gone out.

It was ace to be together in the glorious icy-fresh day, and we walked for hours. We found a tennis ball at the side of the path, and Mark and Oliver threw it to one another for a while, with Roger Poopy belting between them like Piggy In The Middle. He couldn’t ever be allowed to win even when he caught it, because he would have been rubbish at throwing, so he had to stay in the middle. He charged up and down barking ecstatically until he was just too tired to carry on, and hurled himself down into the frozen grass, with his tongue hanging out and his chest heaving.

It was the loveliest day. I took my boots off and paddled. It was numbingly, bitterly, melted-snow cold, but so exhilarating that I wished that I been wearing flip-flops and could just carry on and on, but I couldn’t, because the sharp little stones on the shore did not much lend themselves to bare feet. I would like to go down and swim one of these days, we will see if the weather lasts and I manage to pluck up the courage.

It was dark by the time we got home.

We are about to eat dinner and watch the last instalment of The Lord Of The Rings on the magnificent new television.

It has been a splendid last day.

I hope she is all right.