Out of control – and not liking it very much

Tuesday, February 10 09

The Scooby-Doo van was in trouble. It was slipping and sliding. Mrs Bennet was in trouble. She was streaming and screaming. The more the car cruised out of control, the more the driver cried. It was a horrible sound. Mrs Bennet turned the steering wheel, pressed the accelerator, but the car couldn’t obey. Caught on a patch of ice, it could only swerve.
Mrs Bennet – with the twins on board – was in a car park, which like most of her home town, was based on a slope. She was desperately trying to avoid crashing into the collection of metal objects before her. So many tears were forming in her eyes, the cars no longer resembled cars. They looked more like a colour swatch. Earlier, a blob of snow had fallen off the car roof onto her head as she got into the driver’s seat. Now it had melted and was joining the tear stream. Mrs Bennet sat crumbled over the steering wheel. The Scooby-Doo van sat motionless on its ice blanket. As Mrs Bennet’s mobile phone was sitting on the dusty kitchen work top, the crying mother couldn’t ring for help. Instead she sat like Alice in Wonderland in her own pool of salty tears, with her twin dormice for company. Of course it wasn’t really the scary-out-of-control-feeling of this experience which had provoked the outburst. Rather it was the fact the experience epitomized what she felt inside. Last night Mr Bennet had walked through the door with such a long face, she feared a death had occurred. But it wasn’t the death of a person, it was the death of a dream. A dream that sometime soon bite-size Pemberley would be finished. Mr Bennet explained that the house – with all its extended glory – was, in the current climate, only worth £10,000 more than what it had originally been valued. As the next phase of the build was dependent on borrowing 75% of that figure, it now meant Pemberley could not be completed. It would be built, but there would not be enough funds for carpets, windows, furniture, cupboards, driveway, bathroom refurbishment, porch and even a front door – all the essentials which made the house a home. Today it was too much for Mrs Bennet’s nerves and she cried - cried because she was fed up with dust and upheaval and because even after all of this, the house would not be finished.
After her emotional outburst - made even more dramatic with the twins’ whimpering discords - she felt marginally better and somehow managed to cajole the Scooby-Doo to swing into a car park space. It was only when the snow had melted, she realised just how badly she had parked. Thankfully she was not alone. Cars were jutting out at strange angles all over the place.
Momentarily back in control, her emotions and car in order, Mrs Bennet got through the day. Wearing her heart on her sleeve, she later revealed her frustrations to a couple of ballet mums, who had asked about the building project. Eager to help, one of them came up with the obvious solution.
“Well you can always sell one of your girls!” she announced.
Mrs Bennet smiled. She would live in a shack rather than do that. And some people did live in shacks which to them were their mini-Pemberley and they were grateful. Mrs Bennet knew really where her riches lay. After all without her five daughters and Mr Bennet there would be no need for a home. It was just that sometimes life didn’t always go the way she wanted. But press on with a smile she would.