So on the 17th December the students at Uni broke up for their Christmas break. I had asked The Teenager if he would like me to pick him up from there, or from this railway station, or from that railway station. To which he replied, ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know.’
By seven in the evening, when I still hadn’t heard, I sent him a Skype message and was told he’s like me to pick him up from that railway station on the evening of the 18th.
So that was the plan.
However, at 12:30 he rang to say there was a change of plan. He said he’d been diagnosed with Glandular Fever and that he didn’t have enough energy to get to the railway station in Uni Town, so could I pick him up from Uni after all.
So I put carpet, spade, extra water bottles, biscuits, warm coats, scarves and hats in the car, and hastily read a web page about Glandular Fever before I set off.
125 miles later I arrive. The Teenager was looking pale and very anxious. There is he tells me another problem. He tells me that there are train delays, and that The Girlfriend’s mum can not pick her up as she has had to pick up The Girlfriend’s cousin instead. ‘Would it be possible for me to give The Girlfriend a lift home?’ he asks.
The Girlfriend lives in Faraway Place.
They both look at me with imploring eyes. I don’t really know where Faraway Place is in relation to the Uni. So trusting that there really are problems on the trains, and that they’ve explored all other alternatives, and looking at their anxious pleading faces I say, “Yes”.
They load up my car, and off we set.
It is only a 45 minute journey they say.
We have already checked on the internet and Faraway Place we were assured would only have snow at around midnight. I told them I was very anxious about driving in snow.
It was dark by the time we set off from UNI. Then there was a slow moving farm vehicle and we were travelling in convoy at 25 miles an hour. Then there was a road block and a diversion.
The Girlfriend was on her phone telling her father where she was, and then she said would we like to have a meal when we arrived. After thinking about it for a minute or two, we said, “Yes.”
The Girlfriend speaks in Chinese in the back of the car, and it is arranged.
Then it starts to snow.
We still haven’t rejoined the main road after the road closure. The Teenager is navigating and we are travelling through some very small villages and the snow is starting to cover the road.
The Girlfriend then tells us that her father has just gone to the market to buy food for our dinner, and I’m now upset to think that we are putting him to so much trouble.
There is now snow covering the road and it’s coming down heavily.
We eventually discover the main road and we are on the way but we are still in slow moving traffic.
I’m now even more anxious about the snow.
“You could stay overnight,” The Girlfriend is saying. The Teenager seems quite keen on doing this too. I am not keen on doing this at all. The snow is falling very heavily now. I say that it would be best if we just drop her off and then turn back for Home Town; and then I ask her if she could apologise to her father and let him know that we will be unable to stay for dinner after all because of the snow.
The Girlfriend and The Teenager make more noises about having a meal and staying overnight, but I explain that I want to try to make my way back while there is still a chance to do so.
By this time we are negotiating endless Faraway Place roundabouts. I’ve never been in the town before and I don’t know the way. The roads by this time are thick with snow. At one roundabout a car that came from my right skidded wildly as it attempted to negotiate the roundabout.
Eventually, we get to a rather grand housing estate where The Girlfriend lives. The snow here is four inches deep and it’s still snowing heavily. The Girlfriend and The Teenager have persuaded me to have a cup of tea at least, and by this time I’m also desperate for the loo. I agree to a quick cup of tea. But I tell them I’m now very, very anxious about the snow and that I’d like to leave very quickly.
As we pull up The Girlfriend’s mother is also pulling up in her car. She has just travelled back from somewhere in the far south after picking up The Girlfriend’s cousin.
There is much Chinese being spoken. I beg for the loo. And after ten million shoes are removed from a closet under the stairs I find it.
Meanwhile everyone is talking just outside my shoe loo closet in a mixture of Chinese and English.
And someone is asking The Teenager if he would like something to eat…noodles?…and he says ‘Yes!’
I can hear every word and realise that they will also be able to hear every sound that might emanate from the shoe-loo closet.
So I am mortified and embarrassed when I finally emerge.
We are asked to sit down and then The Girlfriend’s Mother starts to talk to me.
She is, it turns out, responsible for ‘Yield.’
“Do you know what yield is?” she asks.
I’m thinking of the knights of old and battles outside castles. Noble folks on horses shouting ‘Yield.’
“I am responsible for yield,” she says proudly, as I sip my tea.
It turns out that she is some sort of shipping magnate. That ships and great tankers presently moored or making their way across the seven oceans of the world are all under her command. She is the one that is somehow eking a profit out of their movement and determines where they should go.
After more talk about ‘yield.’ The Teenager’s noodles arrive. He is the only one eating noodles. Everyone else is either sitting awkwardly on the edges of their seats or standing awkwardly by the door.
Outside through the window, I can see that it’s snowing even heavier while inside The Teenager eats his noodles with infinite slowness.
Not getting very far with her conversation about ‘yield’, The Girlfriend’s Mother then turns to The Girlfriend and asks was there a problem with the trains from Uni Town?
I look up at The Girlfriend expecting to hear in greater detail what exactly the problem was with the trains. I had trustingly not asked before.
The Girlfriend shuffles and looks awkward, and doesn’t really say, and then it dawns upon me that there wasn’t really a problem with the trains from Uni Town to Faraway Place.
Meanwhile, The Teenager seems to be knitting with his noodles, and all tactful hints from me that he needs to hurry up are met with long expositions from him which slows down his eating even further.
By this time all conversation has long since stagnated and vessels around the world are no longer yielding but have sunk.
I say I will turn the car around, thinking that it will give me something to do and extract me from the awkward atmosphere, and also give The Teenager yet another hint that he might need to speed up. I also want to spare myself the embarrassment of trying to turn the car around in the snow with six people watching me.
I go outside and with much difficulty I do manage to turn the car around. The snow is now so deep it creaks when you walk on it. I daren’t leave the car too close to the kerb as I’m frightened that if I do so I’ll never be able to pull away again. The road was very wide in this quiet cul de sac, so I parked it away from the kerb making sure that any other vehicles would still have plenty of room to get past should any need to do so.
I go back into the house, and by now there is still little in the way of conversation, but instead much in the way of looks that pass from one to another.
Then there is a knock at the door.
“Has your friend just moved their red car?” someone asks. “Does she know that she’s about a yard away from the kerb?”
It’s a neighbour who is now on the doorstep.
The Teenager stops eating his noodles and looks at me accusingly. The Girlfriend’s Mother, who turns slow moving tankers around in tighter spots to the cry of ‘Yield’, is looking at me.
I explain that we will be leaving soon and look at my noodle weaving son.
I guess that the kind neighbour was just wanting to be helpful, and just wanted to point out exactly where the kerb was, which had by this time vanished.
I tell The Teenager that he will have to leave his noodles, and that we really do need to leave now. The Girlfriend’s father says he will drain them for him.
Noodle draining takes an age. Everyone is now standing in the hallway. The Teenager now announces that he needs the loo and heads to the shoe-loo closet.
We are all left standing awkwardly in the hallway for an age. When The Teenager finally emerges he is presented with a plastic box containing noodles and handed the chopsticks.
We say hurried goodbyes and leave.
To my joy the car just manages to pull away.
But The Teenager of course is furious with me, “You could have let me finish my noodles,” he says.
I say something about the snow.
“Didn’t you get our hints? We could have stayed overnight,” he is really cross.
I say something more about the snow, and not wanting to put them to any inconvenience.
“I didn’t even get to hug her goodbye,” The Teenager complains.
I would have said something about the snow, but by this time I’m also cross.
“Why did you say yes to noodles?” I ask furiously, as I lose control of the car, and it slides to a gentle bump against the kerb just in front of a junction.
“I like Chinese food,” he explains simply, totally oblivious of the fact that we’ve just skidded dangerously.
I manage to get the car going again and somehow manage to get it onto the next road.
The Teenager though now wants to ring The Girlfriend to say a proper goodbye, and I have to pull over into deeper snow so that he can get his phone from the boot.
We travel on further glissading around roundabouts, and then I miss our turn, as The Teenager discovers his phone needs to be recharged.
I have to pull into a bus stop lay-by so that he can now retrieve his computer from the boot so that he can use it to recharge his phone.
The road signs are covered in snow making it even harder to work out which way to go.
When we finally succeed in joining the main road the police are already cordoning off the fast lane. The road is white with snow, and traffic that is trying to escape from Faraway Place is crawling away at 10 miles an hour. The opposite carriageway that we’d earlier come down is at a complete standstill and there are blue flashing lights.
The Teenager succeeds in sending his hugs.
He tells me he is tired and wants to sleep so he wraps himself in a blanket and dozes, as eventually it stops snowing, and we regain a road that is clear of snow and has been gritted.
The Teenager from time to time wakes up and tells me more about his glandular fever. He tells me that he’s been fainting and experiencing temporary blindness. He tells me that he’s had a blood test and that he was emailed the diagnosis. He tells me that The Girlfriend is again his girlfriend, and that she had waited at UNI with him as she was worried about him. He in his turn had been worried about her getting from Faraway Place Train Station to her home and so they had hit upon the plan of me giving her a lift.
I then realise that they both could have easily got a taxi to Uni Town train station and that I could have easily picked The Teenager up from This Railway Station and that The Girlfriend could have been home hours ago, and that I’m now emptying my petrol tank, and on the last leg of a three hundred mile trip through snow and ice because The Teenager wanted to save The Girlfriend a one mile journey from Faraway Place Train Station to her home!
However, I bite my lip knowing that I am dealing with irrational self-absorbed thinking that comes from someone who affected with yet another disease… love!
I am now most definitely the World’s Worst Mum for having dragged him and his noodles away from her, and for not allowing him to stay the night.
I am also cross with myself for not asking the right questions and for being so utterly soft.
I grimly refocus on the road and in trying not to skid off it and down a very steep looking embankment, wishing that I was not travelling so late at night.
The Teenager then tells me that he had an abnormal heart rate (very rapid) and that there was a problem with his red blood cells and that he was anaemic. He says he has been prescribed iron tablets which he hasn’t yet got. So now I’m even more worried.
I had a nightmare journey back with the screen wash running out, and having to pull in from time to time to remove the salt from the windows while The Teenager lay huddled in a blanket.
It was nearly midnight by the time we got home and I got him to bed. I was by then of course utterly shattered.
The Teenager is very poorly. He has no energy at all. He has a very bad sore throat and he is getting headaches and aches. He is also feverish. He has also refused the idea of taking the iron tablets, or of eating any meat.
So…
He is resting, and we are watching the ‘West Wing’ DVDs, so at least we are stress free.
I am cooking foods that are rich in iron, and other essential minerals, and making sure that he drinks orange juice with every meal to ensure that any iron present is more readily absorbed.
So we didn’t go up north for Christmas. Instead, we are stocked up with food as if for a siege.
Reading about Glandular Fever it seems he is likely to be very weak and tired for about a month, and also feel weak and unwell during the following six months. It seems to be a very debilitating illness.
I feel very sorry for him first Fresher’s Flu, and now Glandular Fever together with anaemia.
It is as if we are being besieged from every direction this year. I can hear the shouts from all around the battleground: ‘Yield,’ they yell in unison, ‘yield!’
But hey, we have chocolate and mint ice-cream and enough spinach soup to turn this ship around I hope!
Yield!
Seems Glandular Fever can be caught from a kiss…
