Moving Day

Moving day. Hours sleep: 4. Drinks consumed the night before: 5. 

Returned from London on the midnight bus. There’s nothing special about it – a missed opportunity if you ask me – but I did get the same driver that I had on the way in. Because I’d annoyed him by being short of change, we remembered one another. He was much softer at that time, which was surprising because I did the maths that he would’ve been on shift for at least eight hours. That’s in and out of London way too much. Once is enough for a year, if you’re driving.

We’d arranged to leave my place at nine, two girls and I. But late the previous night I’d received a text message from my quasi-landlord (sublet) saying later the better, really. She’s spending the summer on a boat that Oxford people come and freely party at whenever they please. A 7am checkout didn’t belong in her hemisphere.

The morning comes and, as is the case when actually undertaking a task as opposed to just visualising it, I realised that clearing the room was going to take me a lot longer than I’d accounted for. Luckily, the driver, who we'll call 'Q' for the purposes of this blog as it bears no resemblance to her real name, was running late. I say that. In reality she'd been put off by an argument that we'd had – the sort of 1am debate about who was actually out of line that is normally preceded by being in a committed relationship. 

Regardless, I could use the extra time to decide whether or not I was taking the harrissa paste and to marvel over how Blu Tack is the best – and only – thing for getting the stuff itself off the walls. Collects its stray little brothers for another life, another wall.

At ten a friend who was supposed to be coming for the trip called me to say she had too much work to do to justify coming and, seeing as we're leaving four hours later than expected – she hadn't been updated from the initial plan's 7am exodus – didn't feel it would be worth it. She would, however, come round to say goodbye, which she did. I gave her the CD that was supposed to be a gift for the ride – Patti Smith, Horses – and a notecard that thanked her for always being herself. 

Composed from a morning avoiding contact, Q arrived at 11.30 to us sitting on my doorstep, sipping the light brew from my last teabag. I liked that: there being a last teabag, and having it right then. 

Apparently I'd missed out on an important stream of messages. The news was that: as my friend that I thanked for being herself wasn't coming, she 'd set up a message thread with a friend of hers, proposing that she take her spot in the car. A few reasons that why, upon hearing, I was opposed:

1) Neither of us had ever met her.

2) There was a lot of unresolved tension between Q and I that

    i) I'd hoped we work out on the journey,

    ii) Without subjecting someone else to the inevitable bad atmosphere.

3) And, most importantly, it was becoming obvious that there wouldn't be enough space in the car. 

Q and I looked at one another, both thinking these same things (I think), and shrugged. 

'You'll have to tell her there's too much stuff,' Q said. My friend who is always herself pulled out her phone.

'She's already on her way.'

So there we were: standing in my driveway, surrounded by boxes of my jumpers, kissing the new arrival on the cheek as if she'd just arrived to a party we were hosting. But it was so far from a party that she wasn't even offered a drink. Instead, she was ushered to wait outside in the garden with my housemate, who I'd equally neglected, to shoot the shit for half an hour, or however long it took us to make a large deposit at a friend's house in Cowley.

Bless my friend who thought that I, like a rubbish van on a Thursday morning, was merely coming to collect. Every box I took out of her wardrobe I replaced with another. CDs and summer clothes came; utensils and hard-backed books stayed. Her girlfriend's eyes widened...

'I thought you were leaving, Eva...?'

'Oh yes, I am,' I said, 'but I'm coming back soon. I'll be back in a couple of weeks to collect those ones. Don't worry.' 

It's now almost two weeks later and I don't know when I'll be going back to Oxford.

Deposit made and tight, appreciate hug given, we made our way back to my place. There was still a hell of a lot of stuff there. I slumped in a giant box of mirrors and framed photographers that you get sick of looking at in the same way you get sick of listening to someone who repeats the same stories, and again came to the conclusion that we couldn't fit the hitcher in.

I trundled outside and announced myself.

'Hi. Umm. Sorry to interrupt but I've got some bad news. There's just so much stuff I – I don't think we're going to be able to fit you in.' She was silent and nodded after what felt like a minute but was probably only a few seconds. 

'I wish you'd told me sooner,' she said.

'Yeah, sorry,' was all I could muster. She tugged at the drawstrings of her bag then had a lightbulb moment. 

'I mean,' she started, in an accent that sounded more American with every word she spoke, 'how much stuff do you have? Because I have a shed that you could definitely leave it in if you wanted to.' Did I want to leave my stuff in this random girl's shed? Of course not. Did I do it anyway? Of course.

After I'd made some rash decisions about what was staying and what was going the three of us, who were now to be road-trip-buddies, loaded the car as best we could. As I followed them down the hill on my flat-tyred bike, I thought about how I didn't even know what those terms signified anymore. Did 'staying' mean keeping it with me, or transporting it somewhere else? Was it 'going' with me, or from me? 

Whatever it meant, my stuff wobbled its way over Donnington Bridge and, what felt like far, far away.

----

It was 3pm when we finally set off. The roads were choca. 
'It's Good Friday,' I said. 'We should've guessed.' Q was silent which I took to mean that she'd had this thought from the very start. 

I spent much more money than planned in the service station trying to make up for... What? I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it was because the hitcher, who we'll call 'H' because it's the first letter of her name, was having to sit cross-legged with her backpack on her lap and hold her neck at a constant crook. Perhaps because she would now be four hours late to meet her 'lover' at the Lizard – can't even make it up. Or perhaps it was the fact that her foot well was where my dirty laundry ended up. It was everything. Thankfully, I did manage to raise a smile through nuts in snack-pack size and for suggesting it would be a good idea for us to pump the tyres. (A good time to summon an uncharacteristic level of foresight and practical knowledge to the situation.)

We crawled along, 'The Cheltnam Way', which I'd agreed to like I had any clue, while Q enjoyed her CD gift (Graceland) once, twice, almost three times through. H asked us very deep questions and she was a great listener – very knowledgable and experienced. No fun at all. Just kidding. Like all judicious people, she made me want to be better and I was glad because she gave Q a really tight hug when she got out. I guess they shared a spiritual space, or something. 

So, it was 8pm and the sun was due to go down in under an hour. We were in Bodmin, somewhere I'd randomly been two weeks prior as I hadn't realised coaches left Falmouth for London, too. Now I come to think of it, my life has been punctuated with these misinterpretations. It's a bloody miracle that someone paid me to hold the title of 'strategist'. 

Naturally, I got the wrong location for our overnight accommodation, confusing it with somewhere I'd looked up on Google because I'd heard it was nice. We pulled into Looe, which was 25 minutes away from the Air B n B, in the form of an 'off-the-grid' yurt, and decided to attempt a romantic walk around the harbour. Amidst the beautiful, bobbing boats, we rehashed the argument from the night before and came to the conclusion that I was slightly more right about the whole thing. At least, that's my impression of how it went.

We found Yurts Corner (no apostrophe) at just before midnight and I was filled with glee. Little, solar lanterns marked the perimetre of our tent, which Q pointed out was in fact a bell tent and not a yurt. Fairy lights hung around the entrance. Inside, quilts were folded on three of the beds and I felt a pang of sadness for how different the trip had ended up being.

Despite dampness that encroached the duvet's edge, it was a comfortable night's sleep. We should've been up and out by 8.30am so that we would make it to Falmouth in time for my first shift at work, but everything takes longer when you're sleeping camping-style. It just does. An apple each in hand, we hit the road behind schedule and I text my new boss to inform her of the delay. Even with the buffer, proceedings were seriously rushed.

What needed to happen:

1) Pick up key to flat from Lizzy at the bakery

2) Retrieve car key from flat

3) Drive to car

4) Unload everything from Q's car to mine

I made it to number three and the clock stuck eleven. It's unfortunate that number four was a solo venture and that we didn't get much of a chance to say goodbye.

After my shift, I spent the rest of the weekend sleeping and wondering how the hell I got here. Somehow, over half of my stuff had made it into my sad, untaxed and uninsured car. I spent the evening of Easter Sunday sitting in the driving seat, with a view over Falmouth's harbour, feeling resurrected.

On the stereo: Lots, as it was a long journey, but The Acid sounded the best.