I rode my horse, the midges got to him, we cantered through woods, my friend and I, we spoke about Armenia, was my son safe. Her husband heading north to Georgia knew things ordinary people didn’t, she said she’d call him. A dash home to change and out the door again to catch a train to London, my mobile wouldn’t charge, water detected, it must have been from slinging a bucket at Tommy’s undercarriage, he hadn’t liked it much and neither had my phone. One hand holding it to air con while the other steered. At traffic lights, I tried again, relief, it charged, I showed my ticket at the station and missed the train. At Waterloo I took the underground to High Street Ken, a message popped up as we popped up from London’s tunnels I hear your son is in Armenia, pls call. Immediate worry. I called. The line kept dropping out. He said caution was the better part of valour. He said send a pin drop, I can pick him up. James Bond style I saw my son being slung on the back of a motorbike and driven to safety. I ran for my godmother’s, burst into her shop and asked in somewhat hysterical style if I could use the office for a zoom call, oh, and hello. I spent twenty minutes listening to the school assess the danger while asking on the parental back channel what do we think? So hard to get a handle on danger when it’s two and a half thousand miles away. Refugees are pouring out of Nagorno-Karabakh. The founder of the school was arrested at the border. I messaged James Bond on his motorbike, I think he’s safe. Tea with my godmother, an hour’s gossip. A taxi to Marylebone and coconut curry in Daylesford amongst thin women fretting over broth. I walked up the street to Daunt’s, my brilliant cousin, her book filled the window, I waited for her to appear like Mr Ben out of a cupboard in glorious green dress ready to launch herself into her book launch, which she did with verve, a superb writer, she taught me how to write. Her best friend from Paris in white, floor length frills told me a story of a woman who bought a cellar and drilled into the rock to make bedrooms and took over the street with her dinner parties because there was no room for a table inside. We swapped numbers. I hurried off to find a taxi and missed the train again and sat for half an hour in the evening rush of Waterloo trying to remember the faces. The man who pushed the pram with the bag in it but no baby, the gait of a walk hamstrung with cerebral palsy. The red velvet bow tie on his way to the theatre. The woman in black leather shorts with elasticated waist to whom in my mind I said No. The waist length blonde peroxide with the silver butterfly clip, her black tights on thin legs, the young station master in flimsy blue tabard who arrived at his desk after I had sat down with sandwich and bottle of water, both of us aware I’d taken position in an area marked out for those needing assistance, but there was no one else there, and I was in my gold jacket, and over fifty, and I could see he didn’t dare, or couldn’t care, or was kind.
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What a crisp accounting of emotional beats. Every day is a box of jewels if you write it down. Other than the low grade terror over your son - and the phone perhaps - all this would have been forgotten. A lost Wednesday among lost Wednesdays. Writing is a blessing. Don’t forget to shoot your cousin a note thanking her for her gift to you.
So...is son safe? What a rich tapestry you weave out of a day in London. Makes me feel I've got to get my inner eye out, and observe my life more closely.