They have gone and I am on my own again.
Mark has gone off to Aberdeen for a few days with instructions about not forgetting to shave and not wearing the jerseys with the oil stains. He has got to go to some meetings with companies who are suddenly keen to have employees and get oil out from under the sea again now that the Government has capitulated about the tax on the oil industry. This is exciting news because I have yet to be fully reconciled to the idea of being poor. I have economised by not buying any more Chanel soap this week but it has been a serious sacrifice because it is lovely. I thought I might see if I had enough points on a card that Boots have given me that I have got to produce at the till every time I buy something, but it appears that I need to do it another thousand times before there will be enough for a bar of soap. I have told Mark that if he really loved me he would get another job this week because I am fed up of living like a pauper. I am quite sure that that will get him concentrated on the project.
Oliver has gone as well, I took him back to school this afternoon. I took advantage of the journey back to give him a prolonged lecture about paying attention and not talking in Chapel and working hard on his spelling. We were almost halfway there before I realised that he had got his earphones in and was playing his goat game and not taking the smallest bit of notice of a single word I was saying. I made him remove the earphones and restarted: but like all these things, it lacked magic on the second performance. He was unmoved by not going to Eton and told me that I ought to change my mind anyway, unless I sent him to a school with girls in it sooner or later he probably wouldn’t find anybody to marry and then I would be sorry.
I relayed this opinion to Mark on the phone later, and he made a short, dry laughing noise, and said that it would be a very long time before Oliver could afford to marry anybody and that he had jolly well better pay attention at school and get a good job because women were the most expensive hobby he had ever had. Considering that he used to race Landrovers I thought that was a bit unfair.
I dropped Oliver off at school with a lot of instructions about not forgetting to wear his vests. Since we were a bit early I accompanied him up to his dorm and had a chance to investigate why his winter boots had not been worn. He said he couldn’t get his feet into them, a problem which was resolved when I undid the laces, but since it is nearly Easter there doesn’t seem much point now. I talked to Matron, who is delightful and cheerful and friendly, and she made a firm commitment to ensuring he wore a vest every day and undertook proper ablutions, which is actually more than I have managed at home, so I left him without any great sense of unease, it is only another week anyway now.
I allowed myself a small moment of lonely sadness on the drive back in the dark over the bleak fells, with all my family hundreds of miles away: but quickly reminded myself of the pleasures involved in being able to read at the dinner table, and eat all the cheese by myself, and not being squashed up against the dog in bed, and soon managed to become reconciled to my solitary state. Lucy phoned up on the way back, she has run out of money and wanted to let me know she has just been adding any necessaries to my school bill. She is going to have to marry a rich man even if she manages a dynamic and lucrative career of her own. One wage is just not going to be enough.
Once returned to Windermere I went for a reviving swim and padded reflectively round the hushed confines of the Holistic Wellness Beautiful Me Health Spa for a while, until my Inner Being felt sanctified and restored, and also until my skin had gone crinkly and I was bored: and then went home and ate slices of chicken wrapped round pineapple cheese, and felt that the world is a friendly place even if there isn’t anybody else in it at the moment.
I shall enjoy it while it lasts.
