It is cloudy and still in the Lake District, and reversing a taxi has become a perilous occupation.
There are people everywhere, sitting wearily on sticky pavements, and distractedly shepherding straying children in the direction where they think they might have left their guest house. There is a drunk man, burned scarlet by the sun, fast asleep on the wall by the taxi rank. Everybody is hot, and uncomfortable, and eyeing the slate skies for the onset of the approaching storm.
I took the washing in before we left, and I am in my taxi, so I do not mind about the storm. My children are not small enough to be squalling over dropped ice creams even if they were here, and thankfully, I am sober, and unlikely to wake up with a splitting dehydration headache later.
We were so busy last night that I had to finish writing this at home, at half past four in the morning. The day was already bright and full of birdsong, and I could hear some of the last stragglers of the night’s revelries bawling at one another somewhere in the village.
It was a very busy night.
I chucked one car load of muppets out in the dark in the middle of nowhere because they would not stop eating their pizzas in the back of the taxi, and Mark had a chap who thought that he might like to punch him, until Mark got out and stood up. The chap realised then that Mark was a foot taller than he was and changed his mind, which was lucky, because Mark does not at all like having to fight with customers.
My almost-last run of the night was to Ambleside, and was a girl and a young man, who appeared very occupied with one another in the back seat of the taxi. I ignored this, as with any activity that doesn’t actually make a mess on the seats, and didn’t pay them any attention until the chap said that he would need to stop at a cash machine.
When he got out the girl leaned over to me and asked if I would drop her off at her house and not take her back to his.
I assured her that I am not interested in abduction, and drop people off wherever they feel they would like to go, unless of course they are eating pizza on my seats, in which case they can go halfway to wherever they feel they would like to go.
Something was quite clearly not all right, so I asked if she was feeling worried about the young man.
She sort of gasped, and sniffed, and said that she was frightened of him.
I told her not to worry, and that I would drop her off at her house, and then take him to his, which was only just around the corner anyway.
When I stopped at her house, she got out, and he got out after her.
She looked horrified.
I told her to get back in.
“I thought you decided you were going to go to your sister’s,” I said, helpfully.
She agreed that she was, and dived back in the taxi, leaving him standing on the pavement to make his own way home. We roared off before he could try to join her, and during a couple of laps of the village she explained, in between sobs, that he was not her boyfriend, but somebody that she knew slightly who had jumped all over her in the nightclub, and would not now take no for an answer.
I said, not terribly sympathetically, that she had not been saying no in any sort of way that would convince anybody, especially not an intoxicated twenty year old young man. Her saying no had sounded to me, as a disinterested party, rather like: “gosh yes, what a splendid idea.”
We had a discussion about Saying No And Meaning It, which made her cry again in case I thought that she was stupid, even though I hadn’t mentioned it very much at all.
She promised that she would be more assertive in the future, and I dropped her off at home. I waited, and watched her go in, just in case.
I was glad that I had. As I drove off I noticed the young man across the road, standing in the dark under a tree. Clearly he had been watching her as well.
I considered telling the police, but when I saw them they were busy handcuffing a drug dealer that they had found in the nightclub, so I decided not to bother them. It is not, after all, a crime to hang about Ambleside hoping that somebody might change their mind about your desirability.
All the same, I hoped very hard that she had locked the door.
We will never know.
LATER NOTE: It is gone five in the morning and I am just finishing this off.
I thought that you might like to know that we have heard from Lucy.
That is to say, Mark got fed up of me flapping about wondering if she was all right, and rang her up. She had sent me a text last night telling me that she was having a brilliant time and behaving badly, which of course made me panic terribly. Lucy is quite capable either of saying something like that to make me flap, or of behaving entirely badly and just letting me know, in case I was wondering.
Mark spoke to her briefly, and reported back that she was most certainly not dead, and if she was behaving badly she seemed to be enjoying it very much. He said that she sounded entirely chirpy and full of the Glastonbury spirit, and was off to go and see some bands tonight.
I do not know which ones.
I just thought I would let you know as well.
Have another picture of some flowers. Sorry.
