We are watching the cricket. Mark understands the rules, which is helping a bit, and it is also lovely. I do not have the first idea what is supposed to be happening, but every now and again there is a gasp, or somebody shouts something, which could be Bring Out Your Rags And Bones for all I can tell, and then everybody ambles around the pitch, changing places like curious British shoppers at a French market. There’s is a ball, but without my glasses it is difficult to work out where it is.
I can’t imagine it will catch on.
We are sitting in the camper van and the sun is shining. We ought really to go and join the milling handful of immaculately groomed parents by the pavilion, but I am mobile only with crutches at this moment, and it is just too difficult, so we are sitting peacefully in the camper van where I can put my feet up.
All the same, it is a marvellous time. Oliver does not care if we are watching him or not. He has dived off into a chattering huddle of tall, energetic young men, and has merely waved to us occasionally from the other side of the pitch. He batted the ball once or twice, and scored some runs, although I could not tell how many, but eventually he was Out. I knew this because Mark groaned, but I would probably not have noticed, so I don’t suppose it was serious.
It is a very nice afternoon. The match is between Old Boys from Oliver’s prep school, all of whom are now either in the middle of, or just finishing, their public school careers. Only two of them are at Gordonstoun, the rest are all scattered to the four winds, at Oundle and Harrow and Rugby and Eton and Winchester, and the reunion has been as understated as teenage boy emotions usually are, but beaming with happiness nevertheless. It is odd to see them together. In my imagination they are still little boys, but they are not. They are drinking beer and laughing outside the pavilion.
Oliver came over to us afterwards to enthuse about the skill of the bowler who had got him out, it was a Good Ball, he told us. They were all taught to play by the same ex-Sedbergh man called Big Gordy, who had a crew cut and a pugnacious expression, and so they are all familiar with one another’s style.
We had not expected the match to be on, because the rain last night had been so terrible. I had taken one fare through a thunderstorm which was actually quite scary, the rain battering the taxi until I couldn’t see where I was going, and the lightning flashing all around us. This was fine, because we were not struck by lightning nor drowned in an excessive puddle, but it was an adventure all the same. I liked my customers, which always helps, one of them made a living as a cow chiropodist, trimming their hooves in a bovine version of pedicures. I do not know if he played them tranquil music and rested their weary feet on a fresh white towel whilst he did it, the way they do in the PamperMeLoveliness spa in the village, perhaps they would kick him less often if he did. Certainly I would not decline his services at the moment, my foot is very sore.
The nail is nearly off. Any day now it will burst free and leave my poor blackened toe shivering and defenceless in a scary world. I am not looking forward to that moment.
It is now very much later. I am still in the camper van, but we have relocated to my parents’ house, where we have had a cheery Chinese takeaway for dinner and have been reunited with Lucy, who is now once again tucked nostalgically into her own bunk just above me. It is a long time since we have been four of us in here, and it is rather nice, if crowded, because we are not four, but eight because of the dogs and cats, all of whom are energetically pursuing one another around the van whilst we try and get ready for bed.
I do not mind this. It is lovely to be all together, and tomorrow we are going to Do Things. Lucy is going to prepare for her interview, and Mark and Oliver are going to faff about with the internet.
I am probably going to take drugs and whinge about my sore foot, nothing changes even a couple of hundred miles along the road, I am afraid.
Ah well. Life is nice anyway.
