Not having it

I was up early if not very brightly, with a day of travel ahead. Outside it was still deep with the shadows of night. Cold speeded my dressing and I hurried downstairs shivering, knowing full well I will have a lot of chilly, disorganised and uncomfortable times in the next few weeks.

Outside the sun was gleaming coldly on the chimney pots and the wind sighed through the gloom.

Lee and I struggled with heavy bags from Whincliffe bus station to the motorway slip road and got a lift fairly quickly to Thorpworth services, on the motorway near Dearnelow. We stood there, frozen and impatient, from one until four o’clock in the afternoon, lashed by hail and rain and cut through by chill winds: after three futile hours we finally gave up our attempt to reach London. We crossed the motorway and decided to get home.

It was horribly frustrating standing in the cold, completely at the mercy of motorists who had no mercy, a plight made all the more irritating considering how near we were to home. We alternately plead with and cursed the blank faces which passed, and I began to stick up two fingers at every car which refused to stop. It didn’t help but gave me great satisfaction. I suppose our four large bags were partly to blame. The light was fading from the sky and the wind biting even deeper when at last, a Ford Transit van with four students inside pulled up...

We got back to Easterby at quarter to six. It was a humiliating homecoming but I walked into the house little expecting the tongue lashing I received. Mum was nearly in tears, accusing me of thoughtlessness for not ringing, of leading a “parasitic lifestyle” and demanding angrily that as long as they are funding me I should travel like a “decent and normal human being.”

I could only stand in dumb amazement at the tirade. Robert sprawled in front of the TV and Carol sat on the sofa in embarrassed silence. “You take me for granted and I’m not having it” yelled Mum, near to tears again.

At Thorpworth Lee had rung home to ask his Mum to get him a coach ticket. I’d tried to ring home too but the ‘phone was engaged and so, innocently thinking I’d save Mum a lot of unnecessary worry, I decided to buy my ticket when I got back to Easterby. Lee’s Mum rang my Mum and there ensued a confused afternoon until it was eventually decided she would get me a ticket too. It was my ‘thoughtlessness’ in not ringing that caused Mum the upset.

So I retreated into the backroom full of sullen regret, wishing I were miles away. Even news of another Athletic win failed to rouse me from my gloom, and I’ve remained quiet and chastened all evening.