Poor anaemic Lucy found our trip up the fellside horribly difficult this morning.
When we got home she consumed a small bucket of home-manufactured probioticness and then went back to bed, where she slept, on and off, for most of the day.
In fact she had been jolly brave. Oliver bounces up the fell like a wallaby playing on a trampoline. I was determined not to slow down after my weekend of idleness, and poor Lucy, white and aching, struggled along between us.
Of course she made it up to the top, not being inclined to give up, and staggered down with enormous relief.
Iron is a very useful sort of thing to have. I am sure she will do much better when she manages to fill up with it again.
When we got home Oliver applied himself to some Common Entrance papers and I went to the bank. This took much longer than it should have done because of stopping for a prolonged and enjoyable gossip with one of the neighbours.
Regrettably it was all far too scurrilous to be repeated here, and kept me completely captivated for ages. When I finally dragged myself away I could barely concentrate in the bank for contemplation of other people’s exciting adventures, all these things going on under my very nose in Windermere, and I always think that it is so peaceful.
I got home to discover that the post had arrived, and with it a rather unpleasant shock.
Regular readers might remember an incident reported on these pages some weeks ago, when a customer of mine decided to get out of my taxi and drive herself home, despite being dreadfully intoxicated.
She crashed into another taxi, was arrested, and I was obliged to give a statement to the police. I had pretty much forgotten about it, because I give statements to the police fairly often.
There was a letter from the police this morning.
It explained that they would not need me to be a witness any longer. The case would not be taken to court. This was because the defendant was now dead.
I was horribly shocked.
It is only a few days since last I saw her, she got in the taxi to be taken home. She had been young, healthy and perfectly all right.
I can only think that she has died at her own hand, since there have not been any fatal accidents around here lately. Windermere is a small place and I would have known.
I was terribly upset: and almost angry with her for not being able to face her future. There were bleak times ahead of her, but they would not have lasted for ever. She did not need to die. Surely she could have found the courage to meet them, to walk through them a step at a time, to face each little bit as she came to it.
Obviously not.
I felt deeply sad. One stupid, thoughtless decision, made after a lot to drink, and a life crashed to the ground.
I suspect that the shame of making such a colossal mistake in such a small community may well have played a part in it, and even then I don’t imagine that it was the only thing wrong. It can’t have been. People are arrested for drink driving quite regularly, and on the whole they don’t kill themselves.
It was too awful to think about. She is gone for all eternity.
Have courage.
