Tuesday 13th December
I cannot remember the day of the week when we left Cyprus – it may have been a Tuesday. But for a child the actual day of the week seems to matter little, except for that freedom from school which a Saturday brings, and the quiescent boredom of Sundays, with Grandma burrowed deep into the Sunday Telegraph and my mother busy in the kitchen spending all morning on an inevitably boring Sunday roast, consisting of a cremated piece of shoe leather masquerading as beef, potatoes that achieved the singular distinction of being slightly raw in the middle and yet almost black on the outsides, chewy sprouts and lumpy gravy. Ah, happy memories all. For some reason though Tuesdays seem to bring with them some augury of the fates; it was on a Tuesday that my 18th birthday fell, that fateful day when Grandma apprised me of the fact that my father, whose memory I had difficulty in keeping alive after years of no contact, had in fact written to me. Grandma in her wisdom had destroyed the unanswered letters he wrote to me, and had kept any chance that he could maybe retain a place in his heart for me well and truly bleak.
We always seemed to have sport, or gym on a Tuesday, and I can remember the dread I felt eating my lunch, knowing that in less than an hour I would not only be expected to swing from ropes and jump over a horse, but worse almost would be the ritual of the communal changing rooms, where the true cattiness of young girls had full rein. I was a late developer, not that this bothered me much at all, but seemed to be a source of derisory laughter for some of the more buxomly gifted. I was always a bit reserved, and felt quite embarrassed taking my clothes off even in front of my classmates, where those more confident like Jenny and Gwenny would almost delight in strutting around in knickers and trainer bra.
It was on a Tuesday that Grandma died; and so was finally laid to rest too my fateful relationship with Adrian, I can remember that day so clearly, and the knowing look in his eyes as he too realized that this was it, the show was now over, and I would be returning to Putney.
An even now, I don’t know why, I seem to suffer a small sigh of desperation as I wake up and realise that once again it is Tuesday. Mondays for most people are the depressing day, when the working week begins anew, though I had always enjoyed going in on a Monday, and a new start, a new week, and full of resolutions of finally clearing the backlog I was quite jolly really. But Tuesdays seemed to always hit me like a brick, that realization that actually the same old problems were there to be confronted, that Mondays confidence was somehow misplaced. I always seemed to have some sort of review of my work on a Tuesday, usually because the previous weeks results had been worked on, and I was expected to have all the answers as to why we were under budget for Sales and over for Expenses, the usual story.
And even now, when there is no work to go to, even now Tuesdays seem to depress me. And it is so irrational, why on earth should the day of the week affect me so – or maybe it is more in retrospect, when for whatever reason something un-towards happens, or I receive some bad news, I nod inwardly acknowledging the fact that, of course, what did I expect – it is Tuesday after all.