The one thing that my wife and I argue about

Arguments with my wife usually occur when we are in cars and especially when I am driving. She doesn’t think I am a good driver, so a lot of our angry exchanges are based on this premise: our vehicular deaths brought about by my poor road skills.

Whether this is true or not, I’m not sure. I make mistakes, but to extrapolate this upwards to maniac stunt driver, or downwards toward Mr Magoo style blind incompetence, seem unfair. These are the two sides of the argument:

• Oh my god. Watch out!
• I can see, calm down

A lot of her nervousness will come from the fact that she has changed position from driver to passenger. The passive partner in any journey, your control of the situation is non-existent. You are trusting your life to the skill, concentration and hand/eye coordination of another person. You are wholly controlled by the decisions that this other person makes.

I don’t know what this says about our relationship, that my wife is uneasy trusting my with her life. Whether this is a deader uneasy at my ability to navigate us through life, it only manifests itself during car journeys.

It may be my hope that this mistrust isn’t a symptom of something deeper, that I tend to put her nervousness and nonplussed reactions to my driving style down to a change in her relative position in the car. The passenger seat being closer to the side of the road means that everything from pavements to trees and cyclists looms much more in that side of the windscreen. The green blur of hedgerows rushes past mere metres from your face. For someone who’s used to navigating a journey looking at the centre of the road and the on-coming traffic this new position is disconcerting. You are too close to the side of the road!

In fact, one of her major complaints is ‘You’re too close to the side of the road!”. This injunction to panic is normally delivered when we’re travelling down country lanes. Roadways that, by their very narrow, windy nature mean the side of the road is encroaching, no matter what. To steer away from the road edge on her side of the car would be to introduce the front end of the car to the other edge of the road on my side.

My main fear in country roads is that I will meet oncoming traffic and have to reverse. Because reversing is not a strong point in my driving skills. When I have to, for instance around the occasional corner, maybe even a parallel park, but a 60 second journey backwards as I try to find a passing point – terrifying.

The second contention between my wife and I when I am driving is the distinct difference in our driving styles. That I am happy to drive down hill in a high gear, unless advised by roadside signage that this is a bad idea, fills her with terror. Steep hills are meant to be driven down in third gear or lower. While I concede that this is a much safer option, it’s much less fun. If she knew that occasionally I like to pop the car out of gear and let gravity pull the car down the decline, I imagine that divorce papers would be drawn up. As an aside to other drivers, yes I do realise that this is much more dangerous than other forms of propelling your vehicle downhill, it’s an infrequent treat, like doughnuts: it’s okay once in awhile, but every day and it’s becoming a problem.

The difference in our styles is probably best illustrated with our attitude to parking. My mantra is simple: between the lines is fine. If the car’s a little wonky, so what? As long as I’m not encroaching on other drivers’ space or creating problems for them either accessing or manoeuvring their cars, who cares?

The answer: my wife. She is happy to take the extra…however long it takes…to get the car bang in the middle of the space, equidistant from the white lines on either side. When I am driving, my lackadaisical approach to precision parking causes short bouts of intense shouting and the slamming of car doors when we exit the vehicle. My slapdash attitude to fitting the car perfectly in its allotted spot is partly to do with my reluctance to reverse unless entirely necessary and partly because I just don’t care enough about parking cars to give it the mathematically precise operation that she thinks it deserves.

Sexism dictates that men are good at parking and women bad. You might notice here that the roles are reversed. So does this make me the feminine element of the relationship and my wife the masculine? No. I would say that her need for precision versus my slacker, this-will-do approach reflect appropriate gender responses that people expect in other stereotypical husband/wife, man/woman exchanges.

For instance, the washing up. On the occasions when washing up liquid and water need to be poured and dishes cleaned (we have dishwasher, so this is a rarity), my wife will wash up, rinse the cleaned plates, stack them, let them drain, dry them and return them to their appropriate cupboard. She will them clear the plug hole of of food debris, wipe the sink and side, before returning everything to its allotted place.

I will do…most of that, but definitely miss at least one glass from the washing/rinsing phase. I will also not dry and replace any of the cleaned and dried crockery – I washed up, what more do you want? Meanwhile my food debris removal will be cursory, at best. And even if I did perform an industrial scrub down after washing up, there’s still the bloody glass. How did I miss that, how?

Come to think about it, there’s two things that my wife and I argue about.

Written in response to Daily Prompts: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/argument/

Stealing

On Saturdays Jon and I take the bus into town and go stealing. The bus chuffs and chugs, down the small country lanes, with branches lancing out of the hedges to clatter against the windows, while everyone sits wet and hunched inside, like unhappy chickens inside the damp swelter of the coop.

Town is 60’s bleak: a concrete scab amongst all the green. And there is nothing there: a Woolworths, five inhospitable pubs, a travel agents with bright, optimistic light spilling around the destination cards stuck in its windows; a three screen cinema with red velvet seats, the arm rests all worn down to the nubby beige thread. A set of concrete blocks arranged haphazardly beside the council chambers and county courts. All of it named after a forgotten saint.

We trek round Woolworths, stuffing penny sweets into our coats, steam rising from our damp backs. Jon always braver than me, acting like he had nothing to lose; a ruffian. Underneath his lank hair: a sneer.

Me, my reality is more prosaic: I steal nothing. Instead I follow Jon down the ranks of cheap kitchenware, winding through aisles of thin, polyester pillows, my heart furious and fiery with terror, because I am secretly a civilian, a citizen. I am no more likely to shoplift from Woolies than I am to rob an old lady at gun point. Not even a lookout, because later, in the corner of the grey echoing multi-storey car park, I am almost boastful in my tales of near misses: I would of, but the man in the blue shellsuit had the look of a store detective, else I definitely would of. My mouth working to convince myself as much as Jon against the cowardice that compresses my hypocrite heart.

And one day, I know that Jon knows it too. He says:

“This is bullcrap. You’re scared. You never do anything. You’re a coward.”

My mouth works up and down, supplying the mechanism to say the words that my brain won’t supply – a piston rasping away to itself; wearing down. Why won’t my brain pull the pin and provide the words that my piston mouth needs? Because they are words that could lead to terrible things: prison and ruination; tall policemen with black hats and boots who will treat me with the polite and courteous contempt that a criminal deserves. I see my mother weeping, leaning against a white institutional wall, while road safety posters and duty rosters glare down from overcrowded notice boards.

But I am trapped. The brave person’s option is to refuse. To confess: no, I will not steal from Woolworths because I know that theft is wrong and secretly I am ashamed that I associate with someone who would flout laws and moral codes so flagrantly just to acquire sweaty fistfuls of fizzy fish. Heroes would stand now and say “I am sorry Jon, but our lives are precious, our time scarce and there is so much more to do than pilfer for petty thrills. But I am not a brave man. It is 1993 and I am uncomfortable teenager with one friend and little imagination.

We head back to Woolworths.

Jon’s voice is low and bubbles with spite: ‘you better thieve something pretty spectacular, less on Monday morning I’m telling the whole class how much of a little prick you really are.” So we got through the double doors, with their chrome frames and finger-smudged glass, back into the rank damp stink of the department store. Up and down the aisles we go, Jon behind me, the rough feel of his anger pressing against me, pushing me up and down the corridors of goods, looking for something to rob.

And what to choose for this sacrificial offering? What token to propel me from the light into the dark of being a criminal mind? We cruise the shelves of music, but there’s nothing here – the cassette cases are all empty and the kiosk is too close. Perhaps I can snatch a batch of blank tapes – five Memorex cellophaned together. But no. These are kept in the cashier’s eyeline. Too risky and a sure sign that the company knows it is an easy victim of teenage crime and protects itself accordingly. From the corner of my eye I can see the bland but eloquent warning ‘Shoplifters will be prosecuted’.

Meanwhile, all this time, my minds is narrating its rushing stream of desperate logic. If we take too long, we will look suspicious; they have seen us leave and come back again; murders always return to the scene of the crime; looking too closely will make you look guilty; not stopping at all makes you look guiltier still. And then, there is was.

We are in the kitchenware section and hanging from a long finger of metal a solitary pairing knife dangles, beckoning. Cable-tied to a rectangle of white cardboard with a drawing of tomato slices on it, the knife is perfect. After all, what boy doesn’t appreciate the potency of a knife? Jon couldn’t argue that this wasn’t a suitable object to pocket. The sharp blade added its own danger – weapon. It is also on one of the end displays so out of sight of the tills and customer browsing mugs an aisle away.

I stand there and stare at the knife and it stares back, goading me. Its dull, black plastic handle and short snub-nosed blade are as distant and precious as the crown jewels. I feel Jon’s breath on my neck as he presses over my shoulder to see what I have decided to pocket. In his dsire to see more, or to intimaidate me and prove that this act of rebellion and danger is beyond me, he is jostling, pushing me into the display. An image flashes through my head of a startled shop assistant finding me impaled on rows of hooks that jut twenty centimetres from the metal backing.

I push Jon back and he wheels back. His reaction overemphasised, almost dramatic enough to draw attention. He’s having fun and more importantly, I suspect he wants me to get caught.

“Go on, grab it.” His hiss is stagey and in my ear sounds like a shout that should echo as faraway as bedding and light fixtures, over at the other side of this store. I tell him to eff off, and nudge him backwards again.

“Give me room you git.”

And I realise that if I pull this stunt off, I have beaten him. Anyone can rob fistfuls of pick n mix: reach a grubby hand beyond the ranks of plastics lids to squelch together gummy sweets. But this. This is something real and serious, beyond playing at tough. An action that might even stretch outwards away from my awkward, sweaty, uncomfortable self and towards that shimmering other, the willow o’ wisp of Cool. Not cold, like September mornings huddling towards school. But Cool, with it’s capital C and its undefined promise of a sweeter life. What happens in Cool is nebulous and unreal on the outside, but it’s rewards and riches, I’m sure, would swim drastically into life once you have arrived there. A psychic Brigadoon that straightens your back, makes your long hair less greasy, clears the galaxies of blackheads that sprawled across the map of your face.

My hand travels a million miles to get to the knife. It takes years. Civilisations rise, prosper and crumble in the time it takes for my arm to extend and my fingers to open and touch the mat roughness of the card backing.

And the knife fights back. The friction between the card and the metal hanger it is suspended from, means I have to wiggle it along the length of the hook. At the end of the hook, it turns up slightly towards the bulbous rubber tip at its end. Like a tired child, the knife sits at the bottom of this small slope and refuses to go any further, no matter how hard I tug.

Suddenly everything, I mean everything, rushes in. Space puckers around me, the shop’s lights get brighter, the shushing noise of people shopping becomes a clamour. Above it all the PA system announcing “Patricia to Aisle 3, please” screams above everything else. Are we in aisle three? Have I been discovered? Patricia flashes in my mind as having forearms that bulge with muscles, like Popeye’s. In fact even the two anchor tattoos are there. Her hands like steel grabbers grasping me firmly by the throat. I gag as I feel them clamp down on me. Quick, my heart yammers, quick.

A final yank and the knife lurches over the upturn and rubber stopper and comes free.

In my hand, the knife and its packaging feel huge: too big to fit in any of my pockets. Pulling up my jacket and T-shirt to stuff it down my jeans seems too ostentatious a gesture, especially with Patricia and her car-crusher hands coming my way. Pushing the knife down my top also feels like it would draw attention as well. I curse myself for having not planned this better. There’s no option but to hold the knife in my hand as discretely as possible and just walk out of the shop. So that’s what I do.

With every step, the exit shrinks further away from me. Shoppers crowd aisles and lurch in front of me, like so many obstacles. Where’s Jon? I can’t bear to turn my head to see if he’s following me. I imagine him behind me, making exaggerated pointing signs, leaping and waving, miming look look, thief. Inside my chest I feel a flush of hatred. I hate Jon so much that for a second it’s so hot that the fear shrinks back, my breathing stills, I feel calm. Knowing that I am going to effing kill that prick becomes a boost, a charge of calm, and I am out.

Wet September rain slaps me, tugs my coat. I ma outside and still calmly walking – fast yes, but calm – past the butchers, past the Lord Harding public house, past the travel agent with its Corfu package holidays and cut out palm trees, to the carpark, lower level two.

“Man, that was a rush” Jon is shouting. My breath is coming in huge gasps, as if I have run miles. “Let’s see it,” Jon says, and I hold out my hand, with the purloined knife sitting on my palm. The card backing is squashed and soggy where I have grasped it so tightly. We both stand and stare at this stolen article, as if it was some alien emblem, out of place and disturbing, like a sunbather in the Arctic.

It is five o’clock and autumnal dark is seeping through the cloth of the sky. Our corner of the car park is becoming a square of darkness. As a car swings past, its lights wash us and Jon and I turn our faces up in surprise. The white Os of our surprised faces are a guilty white. We run to the bus station.

For days I wait to feel different, for the miasma to part like a curtain so I can enter the realm of cool. But the shimmer never recedes. Jon tells people at school. He at least is impressed, but no one else is. Sarah Black and Tracy Bills jeer ‘thief, thief, thief’ at me in the corridor on Tuesday as I walk past them on the way to Maths. The words tear at me and panic dives into my chest causing a splash I thing the whole school will hear. I look around to see if any teachers have heard, but the corridor is a huddle of children. Even so the fear continues to do back stroke up and down my heart for the rest of the day. Now I’m also terrified that Thief might become a nickname.

I’ve kept the knife in the back of a draw in my bedroom. It’s still attached to its cardboard backing. I’m unsure what to do with it. I worry that if I remove the packaing my mum might discover it in the bin. I can’t face that confrontation – why do you need a pairing knife? Me: wordless and shifting from foot to foot under her concerned gaze. It sits there like the key to a lock that has been lost. Somehow this cheap kitchen utensil grants me access to a place I desperately want to be but don’t understand. Sometimes I take it out of its hiding place and just stare at it. If it looks back at all, it’s to accuse me of some stupidity. It goads me, reminding me that I own something sacred and precious but am too callow, too ignorant, to know how to use it.

Jon telephones the next Saturday and the Saturday after asking if I want to catch the bus into town to go shopping. He adds an emphasis to the word shopping. I say no; make my excuses.

Life of dolls

As a child, he’d always been told dolls were for girls. Which was why the collector made him uneasy, cradling the porcelain doll lovingly between his grey fingers.

Buster sensed the doll’s huge cash value and his greed had made him hunt out the collector.

He was beginning to regret having it valued in this squalid little shop. But it was called ‘life of dolls’.

Small, wet tuts of appreciation escaped the old man’s mouth..

“I love dolls. Especially when they bring me something so fun to play with,” the old man says. Slipping past Buster to lock the door.

Max

Max’s eyes look so big and beautiful as he snuggles closer in bed and whispers ‘I love you, Juliette’.

But I prefer the other look that floods his face, when he realises I’m not Juliette.

Snow

Whenever we are off shift, Lafferty drinks. He scrounges sherry; bottles of bathtub hooch; black market whiskey; anything he can find. Then he retires to drink with the steady persistence of someone trying to solve a puzzle. As if at the end of it there will be a verdict.

He lurches from his canvas cot to greet me and pats me on the cheek. His open palm both benign and surly.

You’re drunk, I tell him.

In the Eskimo language there are twenty-six words for snow, he replies, and I find I cannot meet his bloodshot eye with my own.

What I would tell my younger self

Forgiveness is a quality of mercy. Or maybe it’s the other way round. I forget which and who said it. Either Mark Twain or Frederick Nietzsche. Damn, you don’t even have the Internet. Okay. I’m rambling. We don’t have much time. The Internet? Um, it’s like books but online. Online? Um, it’s…everything is kept on pages, but they’re on computers…like books that no one ever gets round to printing. But it’s good, because without books more people get a say in things. Not that it’s good. Everyone things what they’re profound, but so few of us ever say anything useful…

I never would have married him if I’d have known…

Elephants don’t make good husbands.

The crockery was the first thing to go. His massive rump, one would think it almost comically matronly – the way it swung and jostled behind him. A pompous arse and one that sent the welsh dresser crashing over, along with mother’s two Wedgewood spaniels.

And then the carpets.

Ghastly. He never apologised once the whole time we were married. And all he ever wanted to eat was buns and peanuts.

In the end I took him to the zoo and left him there. I visit sometimes, just to see his fat, useless arse behind bars.

A game of pool

I saw Sam again this evening. We were sitting across from each other on the Birmingham train, playing the polite commuter game of trying not to make eye contact, even though everyone’s squeezed in like cattle and those tables aren’t exactly big. And under normal circumstances it’s not a problem, but I realised I know her. Or rather knew her. I could see that she’s trying to make her glances as blank as possible, but it’s clear she recognised me too.

She’d been Gary’s girlfriend for a little while in 2003. That was when he was still hanging around with the gang. She had been a lot younger that him; it had been a little awkward. Not just the age difference, most of us were in our late twenties, but because of how Gary was acting.

It wasn’t that he ignored her, which he certainly did, relying on the girls to take Sam under our wing and include her. It was that he was becoming more obnoxious, louder; more embarrassing. It wasn’t like we’d had a meeting and decided to ditch him, but we’d all sort of reached that conclusion independently and then, it was like a psychic connection, decided to drop Gary from the group.

He’d always been boisterous, loud and opinionated, and our traditional Friday night at The Feathers usually ended in all of us drinking a bit too much and getting rowdy. Just, there’s a difference between a night out as a teenager and a night out at twenty six, you know. He didn’t seem to have that filter. I mean, Christ, he still lived at home with his mum. He thought that was brilliant. He used to boast about it – how his mum would make him his tea. It was tragic really. The sort of thing that stops seeming heroic after the age of eighteen.

We’d be walking back from the pub, maybe being a little loud, singing, that sort of thing. But Gary always wanted to push it. It’s not a night out unless the police get called out. And he did get arrested, too. And he deserved it. But he thought it was some sort of badge of honour, being banged up for the night. Then suddenly there was Sam. And she adored him.

You could tell by the way she’d be all puppyish with him. She never said a lot; just gaze at him. She was nice, just not very talkative. But pretty. And young. Much younger.

She had this thick, black curly hair that kind of cascaded over her shoulders. And it was shiny; professional-looking, like in the shampoo adverts. And big, brown eyes. Disney Princess eyes, that’s how Darren described them. I said he was talking rubbish, but he was right – large oval eyes. It made her look beautiful. And a little bit helpless. It made me resent her a little; that Darren thought about her. With her being younger and everything.

Not that Darren would be unfaithful. And anyway, she only had eyes for Gary. And Gary was gross about it. When he’d finally bother to pay her attention he’d give her these big porno kisses. It was disgusting, he’d come over, lean across the table and really paw at her; it was like she was meat, with his hands on her tits and everything. In the pub. It was indecent. One of us should have told her, really. You don’t have to put up with that.

Go to the bar, love, he’d say and peel a £20 off the roll and just chuck it on the table. Insolent. That’s the word for it. It was ridiculous, if you think about, he had that huge roll. You could tell he thought it made him look gangster. But he worked on a building site. I think off the books, because his boss always paid him cash. And off she’d go. Perhaps she didn’t know any different, perhaps she liked it, you know showing that she loved him. Me, I’d of told him in no uncertain terms. Perhaps I should have taken her aside. It’s about respect isn’t it

Anyway, we’d all kind of decided to ditch Gary. Plus, he was getting to the pub earlier and earlier. He was always pretty far gone when we’d get there. Kind of slurring a little bit. Don’t you have a job Gary Dunston, I asked him. And the look he gave me!

Anyway, that was the night that Sam brought her friend to the pub with her. She’d texted and asked if she could. It was kind of sweet, if you think about, asking our permission! And when she came in with the friend, it was a boy. He did the same course as her. He was young too, with pink hair and eyeliner. Still, each to their own, I suppose. But Gary. Christ, Gary. It wasn’t like he lashed out or anything. He just got sullen; argumentative.

He was talking about queers all night, being really offensive. But the boy was nice as anything, and Sam was really talkative, she really came out of herself, you know. I think with her friend there, she was much more confident. And he was really funny, too. I don’t think I laughed so much. And all this time, Gary off on his own, sitting at the bar, talking loudly about how he hated poofters. At the bar drinking pints and sambuca shots, acting all sullen.

Anyway, it was about nine thirty and the boy, Sam’s friend, said let’s play some pool. We’ll have a mini tournament: boys against girls. And I’m trying to say I’m no good at pool, so count me out. But he’s insistent – it’s only fun, plus lets all play. You know, everyone takes turns; girls versus boys; have a bit of a knock around. And he’s off to the bar to get some 50 pence pieces.

Perhaps I should have gone to the bar, or Darren, or one of us. Gary’s there, see. And I think maybe he’ll try and hit the boy. But instead, he challenges him to a game of pool.

“It’s easy playing pool against girls. You want to play, you should play against someone who’s a challenge.”

“Why don’t you join the tournament,” says Sam’s friend. I think he’s trying to be friendly, he knows Gary’s Sam’s boyfriend, so maybe it’s a good way to include him. Join the tournament he says.

But Gary’s leaning forward now and poking his finger into the boy’s chest: “fuck that. Let’s go mano -a-mano. See, I’m a fucking pool legend. Never been beaten.”

You can tell that the Sam’s friend just wants it to be fun: “Let’s play the tournament,” he repeats. But Gary keeps going on about going mano-a-mano. That was the sort of nonsense he’d say. So in the end the boy agrees to play one game against Gary. He does it in a half-hearted way; it’s a trap of some sort. A stupid trap that Gary’s trying to set. And Gary’s got this sort of smug, furtive look.

But he can hardly stand, can he. He was already hanging when we came in. It’s excruciating. He tries to flip the coin but he doesn’t catch it and has to crawl around on the floor to find it. You can see that it’s making him madder, especially as everyone’s crying with laughter: the way he’s on his hands and knees under the table and he keeps banging his head. And all the time he’s got this talk going about how he’s a big pool player, never been beaten mano-a-mano.

Then Sam goes ‘it’s here’. The coin had rolled in the opposite direction to where Gary was looking, it was sitting plain as day on the tiled floor. So she hops up and hands it to her friend.

“Oh, it’s like that is it?” Gary’s saying and Sam and the boy are looking at him like he’s crazy. He does look at bit crazy, swaying around with his trousers all dirty where he’s been shuffling around on the floor.

“Let’s just play, shall we.” the boy says, but in a tired way, as if he’s had enough of being friendly.

“That’s all I ever wanted,” says Gary and he goes over and squeezes Sam’s bum. “For luck,” he says, looking leery. But you can tell he’s done it really hard because she squeals and jumps away from him.

And they play. But Gary’s really drunk and he can hardly hit the balls: he keeps missing, or sending the white ball off the table. And every time, the boy let’s him take the shot again. “Oops, it must be the table,” and all that. But every time he misses and every time the boy lets him off, Gary’s getting really furious.

“If it’s the table, you have a fucking go at it,” he tells the boy. So the boy, he chooses a cue. He goes through all of them on the rack, weighing them in his hand. It looks odd, the boy with his bright pink hair and a serious look on his face, like choosing the right cue is the most important thing he’ll ever do in his life. And all the time Gary’s muttering, calling him Steve Davis; like the snooker player.

Then the boy has chosen his cue and he’s looking at the table. I don’t know much about, it’s pretty boring; just a way for the losers to occupy themselves while they’re getting drunk. But the boy’s got a look on his face. He’s more serious than choosing the cue. Then suddenly, bang. Bang. Bang. He’s potting the balls. And he keeps going. I’ve never seen anything like it. Soon he’s potted all his balls, he was yellows, and it’s just Gary’s reds and the black ball on the table. And the boy’s got a faraway look in his eyes, as he leans down over the table aiming at the black.

And that’s when Gary hits him with his cue. Across the back. The cue’s aren’t weighted any more and Gary’s so drunk that he doesn’t do it very hard. But the boy shouts out. I think in shock more than anything. And then Sam’s between them. And the boy, you expect him to hit back or something. Or even cry. But he just stands and stares at Gary like Gary’s nothing; worse than nothing. Like he sees him for what he is. The boy says “come on Sam.” and holds his hand out.

But Gary grabs her hand and says “No!”. The way he says it, like it’s him that’s been hurt, like a spoiled child. And he actually goes “Mine!”

The whole place has gone silent. It was a Friday night, so it was really crowded, but everyone’s just staring. Darren starts to get up, but I grab him. There’s something terrible and my first thought is I don’t want him to have anything to do with it. It’s like this whole thing is happening to strangers; at a distance.

Then it’s Gary who’s moving. He’s dragging Sam out of the pub door, and she’s fighting him. Digging her heels in, but it’s a tile floor so it’s easy for Gary to drag her. But she’s struggling, so Gary grabs a big handful of all that black curly hair and twists it. And Sam screams in pain, and someone – a man sitting at the bar – shouts Oi, but Gary keeps dragging her and everyone just sits there.

And then they’re outside and we can all hear Sam screaming and then there’s the sound of Gary’s car starting and it roars and wheel spins out of the pub car park, the wheels are really screeching.

And all this time, the boy’s kind of just standing there, then he’s out side after them. You can hear him shouting stop, stop, stop, as he runs outside. And all this time, I still have my hand firm on Darren’s arm, pulling him to me. Like I never want to let him go. And we all just sit there.

That was the last time I saw Sam. Until today. We even got off at the same station. I followed her out. She was picked up from the station by a young man in a Mercedes. I didn’t see his face.

It’s been years since I’ve seen Sam. Perhaps I should have said something?

Oops

Don’t unplug that, Lafferty said, it’ll screw everything up.

But I didn’t believe him, so I yanked the wire out of it’s socket.

We’d been going at the machine for three agonising hours. So far we’d only got the front plate off and Lafferty was whistling while he tinkered with some wires. Glancing over his shoulder, I could see a jungle of more wires tangled behind the ones he was slowly unravelling.

The anxiety popped like a firework and I couldn’t stand it.

You idiot he shouted, as the countdown collapsed downward.

All I could think to say was Oops.

He shouldn’t

He shouldn’t even be driving, officer,

The old woman said. And she fished a hanky out of her black handbag and wetly and volubly blew her nose. We were standing on her once pristine driveway, looking at the two scorched lines of mordant black rubber that stretched away into the distance.

“We were all in the sitting room when he sat bolt upright, said bugger this, and snatched the car keys.”

Inside, the guests milled politely, nibbling egg and cress sandwiches.

In the corner, his coffin lay across two trestle tables, looking as empty and useless as a wheel-less hotrod.