This is my second attempt at writing this.
The first one was so angry and strident that I have scrapped it and started again. I do not think that people want to read outpourings of frustrated fury along with their bedtime hot chocolate or breakfast cornflakes. There is already quite enough to worry about in the world without me making a contribution.
The outburst of bad temper was because the police, whilst not bothering to interview Mark’s assailant yet, have told Mark that he is going to have to come in to the Custody Suite in Kendal and make another statement. The reason for this is that it looks as though his assailant, on the principle that attack is the best form of defence, has told the police that Mark assaulted him first.
The other chap has not made a statement yet. We will have to wait and hear what he says. The police want Mark to come in after that so that they can listen what he has got to say about it.
It is too ludicrous to be imagined, and also stomach-churningly horrible.
Mark does not seem to be especially worried about it. He says that he is not going to make another statement because he can’t possibly add anything to the first, and that he is not going to dignify lies by refuting them.
Of course he is absolutely right, but I am boiling with so much rage that I can feel a stress-related illness blossoming as I write.
I am going to try not to think about it at all tonight, but I feel a long letter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission beginning to simmer into life.
I will do that tomorrow. Instead, tonight, I will tell you about our otherwise quiet lives.
The Bank Holiday is in its last throes. We are on the taxi rank, and it is double time, but of course it is very quiet now, because everybody has got to work tomorrow and they have gone home.
I am not sorry. I have driven an awful lot of drunk people from Liverpool back to their guest houses this weekend. They have sung and shouted and argued and laughed, all at maximum holiday volume, and whilst I am all in favour of people having a good time, it becomes wearisome after a while. The current tranquillity, although not so lucrative, is rather lovely. I have read four chapters of my book in between scowling and chuntering to myself about the police.
Mark has spent the day repairing the wing mirror on my taxi. This was not because I have bashed it into anything, but because last night an intoxicated young man leaned on it heavily and swung about, at which point it snapped.
Fortunately it was held on by some sort of wire arrangement, which meant that I did not lose it, and it dangled, uselessly and embarrassingly, for the rest of the night, making me look as though I had lost the ability to judge the width of my vehicle. These things are a point of pride for a taxi driver. We all ridicule the one or two who can’t reverse properly, mostly when they are not there.
It was a bit of a night for embarrassing accidents. The back of my taxi is adapted to carry a wheelchair. I hope nobody ever asks me for this facility, because I don’t have the first idea how to make it work, and would have to ask Mark to come over and do it.
Anyway, because of this adaptation, there is a tiresome plastic bit sticking out at the back of the taxi. It hangs a couple of inches below the level of the rear bumper, and if I am not careful when I back on to the taxi rank, it catches on the high pavement kerbstone at the back of the parking space. This makes a truly horrible grinding noise.
I did this last night, for the hundredth time, and of course hastily pulled forward to free it, which made another nasty crunching sound.
A young man across the road was determined that I had backed into the car next to me, and started shouting at me and waving his arms about.
He was too far away for me to make him hear, and he was drunk anyway, so after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to reassure him in sign language I gave up and ignored him.
He took lots of pictures of my taxi before staggering away into the night, where presumably he instantly forgot all about it.
Tonight there are no drunk people with cameras. It is peaceful and quiet again.
I think I might read my book for a while.
Have a restorative picture of the Lake District.
