I have become unemployed.
I am without a job.
It is Sunday night, normally a sufficiently busy taxi evening to top up the weekend’s takings nicely, and I am not there. I am at home. I am writing to you from the desk in my office, not from the taxi rank as I usually do.
My taxi has died.
Probably it has not died for ever, it is the Lazarus of the taxi world, and so you need not worry too terribly, but certainly it has died for tonight, and very probably tomorrow as well.
It all started last night. As you know, I have been faithfully topping up the water every twenty quid or so, which has kept it ticking along nicely. It was not using too much water, just a little, and as long as I did not forget then everything seemed that it would be fine.
Then at about midnight there was a horrid bang, and a nasty screeching noise, and it clunked to a stop.
By great good fortune my customers were far too intoxicated to notice, and by even greater good fortune, after several heart-sinking tries the engine started again, and I was able to deliver them to their hotel without more ado.
As soon as they had staggered off I leaped out and topped the water up, but it had not gone down very much, so probably it wasn’t that. I am eternally optimistic, so I rushed back to the taxi rank for some more customers, and we were halfway to Hill of Oaks when it started sneezing and banging again, and repeating its horrid screeching noise, as if I hadn’t heard it properly the first time.
These customers were too drunk to notice as well, and when I said we had a problem they had neither noticed, nor cared in the least, so I thought I would carry on so that at least I could still get the twenty quid out of them, which I did.
Then I and my poor spluttering, whining taxi limped back to Bowness together.
Oliver was busily guarding the door of one of the late pubs, but assured me that he would be able to get a lift home, which he did.
I went home, reluctantly abandoning the lucrative late night trade with no small pang, but it had to be done. Then I had an early night, which I did not enjoy nearly as much as I ought to have done.
I explained it to Mark this morning, and between us we worked out that the water pump had probably packed up, and was busily shredding itself all over the rest of the engine.
He said not to use it at all because it would ruin the engine if it got any worse.
I pondered this when he had gone, because I do not want to be without a taxi for the next couple of weeks. Obviously Oliver has got a car, but it is Oliver’s, and I can hardly press-gang him into taking me to the hairdresser, to Asda, and to sit on the taxi rank with a book because I feel all out of place when I am anywhere else. In any case he is going to Japan soon.
I called one of the other taxi drivers, who was not pleased because it was only half past two in the afternoon, and he was not out of bed. He said that he knew a garage called Any Time Seven Days Twenty Four Hours Autos, and gave me the number.
I rang them but they were shut.
I rang my taxi driver friend back, probably interrupting his breakfast this time, and he sighed and rolled his eyes, you know when people are doing this even on the telephone, but said to leave it with him. He rang me back shortly afterwards and told me to take it to Any Time Autos in Kendal tonight and the nice chap would try and fix it tomorrow.
I told Mark about this development.
Mark said that I had better hope it would get me there because he had got the towing eye for my taxi in the back of his taxi, which is safely parked in an Aberdeen car park.
In any case, Oliver was not at home. He has been employed all weekend guarding Bowness car park, preventing any potential villains from doing rascally things in it.
He has not had very many villains but he is getting a nice sun tan.
When he got home he agreed to follow me into Kendal and collect me from the garage, and potentially tow me there if we could find something to tie a tow rope to, probably the steering wheel or something, but I was pleased and relieved to discover that it behaved impeccably all the way.
And so the upshot of the story is that I am sans taxi. I am here, at home, unemployed, which I can tell you is very peculiar. I never, ever have a night off unless I am doing something important, like getting a Smiley Face sticker from Cambridge or watching Number One Daughter get an MBE, and I do not have any behaviour pattern that will cover it. I have been quite lost.
In the end I finished off the sums and ironed my way down the massive pile of back-from-school things in the loft, but I feel out-of-place and uncomfortable.
I want to go back to work. It is what I do.
I hope – I very much hope – that he can fix it tomorrow.
I suppose I had better go and have an early night.
