Worcester is a great cure for insomnia. Not that it's catatonically boring, I should add. Or at least I don't think so. Despite several very invigorating visits (who can forget the hike up the Malverns in flip-flops in 90 degree heat - I mean who does that on a first date?), I haven't seen much of it beyond a brief visit to the cathedral and the spire raising its spiked head above the rooftops, and the bell ringing practice on a Monday night is lovely to listen to, especially in the midst of a thunder storm (though come to think of it - metal bells, lightening, towers - bit of an extreme sport in those circumstances...) No, it's the gently chuffing train journey that sends me into dreamland - a trip that meanders through the Cotswolds, including a place called Honeybourne (which sounds like the sort of town where there's a portal to Hell and inhabitated by Stepford Wives, or the undead) that I've also managed to miss on all except the timetable, because I'm asleep by then, and on through Oxford to sunny Reading to which, even if not comatose, I try to shut my eyes.
'Did you meet your friend on the train?' I was asked on several occasions by Worcester Man though not, alas, with a tinge of jealousy (he rightly figures that in order to run away with me, my friend would need a fork lift truck and a stepladder). No, not either of them. Not Mr Tomliss or the woman who wrote to me after listening in on my one waking conversation. This time a large man in a dark suit (the platform at Worcester is littered with them, all identically clad - like it's some sort of cult) with sausage fingers and a fat briefcase sat beside me and looked at flow charts in microscopic handwriting, choo choo choo, eyes closed, and I was off, catching up on four valuable hours sleep on a round trip.
And so I arrive at work blissed out and bleary-eyed, ready for the onslaught of the preparations for our office move which I've carefully not mentioned here so as to avoid facing up to the fact that it's really, really happening. Inside it's hive of inactivity and further denial. Big Jock in Production looks at his completely untouched office and muses that he perhaps should get rid of some books. I murmur that this was on the timetable for yesterday and that there is a bookseller downstairs now, packing up every one else's surplus. We have a dispute about who owns five large bookshelves, double packed, that I had assumed he was taking with him to his new office. He isn't. The colour coded plan that I've made and measured is now shot and I now need to draw up another. The new furniture will not arrive until Monday - the day after we've moved. There are suddenly two sets of booksellers making a bid for the same books and the second lot have started loading up a van without my realising that we had agreed a price, because I've already offered them to the first bloke. Who is a friend. Or was. I have a meeting in Notting Hill Gate. It's hot. It's bloody hot. The tube sits at Marble Arch just long enough for me to start thinking that I'm not sharing my water with anyone until I reach into one of my three heavy bags (the plans are coming home with me to be reworked and there's the overnight bag for Worcester essentials - we're not at the toothbrush/own flannel stage yet there and I went to Sainsbury's before I set off, so yet another is full of shopping) and discover there is no water. It's still sitting on the bedside table a hundred miles away. I wonder plaintively if anyone will share their water with me. I look around at my fellow passengers, one of whom nearly knocked me over to get the last seat. Not likely.
And then.
I eventually arrive in Notting Hill Gate and struggle to Ladbroke Road where I parked my car the day befor to find
That, dear readers, would be a large empty space. It's gone.
There's an ominous yellow note on a lamp post about 150 yards away saying that the bay has been suspended and I realise with a sinking heart, elongated arms, and the thump of three bags on the pavement that my car has been towed. I flag down a member of the local Ton Ton Macoute Parking Militia who is loitering nearby sticking a ticket on another car who grudgingly gives me the number to call (because of course there is no clue as to who to contact on the suspension notice). I dial. Apparently I need a driving license or passport and one other proof of identity to get the car back. I don't have either. Worcester is a bit far away but they don't yet have border control. Furthermore I have left my house keys in the car so as not to lose them so I can't go home (a thirty five minute uphill walk) and get my documents, and I still have my meeting to go to.
Several phone calls later a supervisor tells me I can get my insurance company to fax them details of my policy. Despite having had my car towed previously and having a resident's parking permit, there is no record anywhere that I own the car. This is the only way. The phone is beeping furiously as the battery is about to run out while I arrange this, sitting on the steps of Kensington Temple where I figure nobody is going to think there is anything strange about a distraught, disheveled woman surrounded by carrier bags, in an emotional state. Indeed, I'm rather surprised when nobody offers me tea and God.
Dammit - can't they see when a woman needs saving? They're always stopping me outside Boots telling me Jesus loves me. Yeah, much like every other man in my life though - he fails to show it. Well I don't ruddy care if has no sway with the Parking Authorities.
I eventually get to my meeting where I only weep briefly once (pretending it's hay fever), and an hour later am on my way across town in rush hour traffic in a mini cab which I've been promised will cost £15 - the exact sum I have in my purse. (Okay, not purse, it's floating around in change at the bottom of one of my bags). I call the supervisor to make sure the fax arrived. It didn't. I lose it and my voice breaks. What am I supposed to do? I sniffle down the phone - or actually, more accurately...
'Sob, sob, BEEP what am sob sob BEEP supposed to do as my BEEP battery is about to go BEEP BEEP BEEP flat....?'
That for once was the phone not me swearing.
He takes pity and tells me to come anyway, and that he'll sort something out. The mini cab driver passes me a tissue and tells me not to upset myself. He'll wait for me and bring me back if they don't give me my car - free of charge. Never be kind to a sobbing woman in the back of your car, men - I know it seems like the decent thing to do, but it only makes the sobbing worse...
I eventually arrive at the fag end of the world and refusing his lovely offer, let the cab driver go. The fax still hasn't arrived. The supervisor does not want to unnecessarily detain an overly emotional vagrant and eventually comes up with the plan of telling me to write down ten things that are in my car to prove I own it.
It's like that game you play at childrens' parties with a tray and a cloth. I was always rubbish at that.
I can't remember a sodding thing.
I write down: house keys.
and then I look at him. He looks back. 'Anything..' he urges.
Toilet roll in the back seat. (tres chic, n'est pas?)
Oil can.
Red umbrella (maybe)
Shopping bag (maybe)
White shoes I've never worn (I think)
A-Z
'No, that won't do - everyone has an A-Z.'
I cross that out and venture:
Change in chill box in the middle of the seats - only 5p and less... I know this as youngest daughter raids it of any currency that's not too embarrassing to go into the shop and buy fags with.
He looks dubious...
And then, it comes to me:
A kitchen knife. Just the other week one of my sons told me to take it out on the grounds that it was an offensive weapon and the police would arrest me if they found it there. I can't even remember why I have it - certainly not for a threat - I think it was to cut open a tetra pack on a picnic many years ago.
This is how I come to be waving a long curved kitchen knife in the face of a Parking Supervisor ten minutes later shouting triumphantly: 'See see, I told you - a knife!'
He graciously gives me my car back. The Good Nazi. I love him. I almost kiss him, but that might not make him as well disposed as he currently is. I don't quite understand how they can lift a car off the street with impunity without caring a damn who it belongs to but can't give it back to anyone but you for - and I quote, reasons of 'data protection'.
A week's wages lighter, I drive home. (Long distance relationships don't come cheap.) It is quarter to six. There is one message on my answer phone - it is Kensington and Chelsea telling me my car has been towed. They know my fricking telephone number but I still have to prove it's my car. I open the fridge, take out the Mother's Day bottle of vodka, pour three fingers into a glass, and knock it back in one coughing whack.
The world instantly blurs agreeably.
I am supposed to go dancing later but I already know I'm not going anywhere having reminded myself of that other aid to oblivion - Alcohol. Though, I would much rather be lulled to sleep sitting on a train to Worcester.
After first checking the parking restrictions. Obviously.
