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Vets and Docs
I sat in the car unable to move, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my
knuckles had turned white. I had finally made it home but I was so tired, so tense and so emo-
tional at finally getting there that I couldn't actually move. I just looked out of the filthy wind-
screen at the gate and tried to will it open.
I don't often drive back from work, but sometimes the monotony of the Ry-
anair-easyJet-Eurostar merry-goround needs to be broken, even if it's a more expensive op-
tion, even if it's more tiring. The first few months of the weekly commute had been fun; never
short of a daydream, I convinced myself that I was some kind of oneman comedy SWAT team
flown in and dropped behind enemy lines to bring mirth to previously mirthless communities.
But even the most low-rent SWAT team doesn't have to argue about the weight of their hand
luggage or occasionally sleep overnight in a freezing airport.
So this time I'd driven. I'd missed the earlier ferry despite driving from the Midlands pumped
full of Red Bull and ProPlus at a ridiculous speed, and so limped into Dunkerque at 5.30 in
the morning to begin the six-and-ahalf-hour drive from there back home. The car, an old Golf
Estate we had had since Samuel was born, was suffering. The indicators, never the most over-
used part of a car in France, had packed up entirely, and one of the headlamps had gone which
I didn't actually realise until I'd got home - I just assumed my eyesight was failing or I was suf-
fering from mild hallucinations from the caffeine supplements. The weather all the way from
Dunkerque had been atrocious; misty, low cloud and heavy rain. It wasn't much fun.
And so I sat at the wheel staring at the gates, hollow-eyed and frozen still, relieved and over-
joyed to be home but a physical wreck, twitching as the last of the energy boosters wore off.
Natalie appeared at the gate. In her coat.
'The cats need feeding, Thérence needs changing and feeding and Pierrot needs to go to the
vet. I'll be back in a couple of hours.'
For anybody who thinks that I exaggerate the level of anarchy that is the Moore household,
then I can only say that I wish you were right. I wasn't exactly expecting a ticker-tape parade
on my return - a cup of tea would have been nice - but there simply isn't time for any of us to
stand on ceremony anymore. Things have to be done. Constantly.
Pierrot, while still exploring the darker areas of canine perversion, seemed to have turned
himself into some kind of water feature. Slurping in gallons of water at one end while simul-
