Minimalist Gossip Magazine Cover (49).pdf (13) - Flipbook - Page 58
in appreciation. The other man, the driver, who you feel to be slightly younger, is staring at
him with a pained look on his face. Slowly he reaches across, and with absolute tenderness,
takes the other man’s hands and slowly prises one finger at a time from the air freshener.
Once removed from his passenger’s hand, he re-hangs it over the rear-view mirror and then
playfully ruffles his companion’s hair, and says something indecipherable that makes the
other laugh, then turns to look out of the window and sees you staring. In embarrassment
you quickly look the other way. To your left is a small car that contains a woman of about
forty. She keeps rolling a can of 7Up over her forehead and seems to be counting or reciting
something, as her mouth keeps forming soundless shapes. She often bites her lip. On the
dashboard you can see a big orange flower.
After an hour you still haven’t moved, and the car is getting hot. People are getting out of
their cars and standing in the shade of lorries. You speak to a man who is on haulage from
Sweden and has a CB radio in his cab. He tells you that there has been a thirty-car pile-up
and hazardous waste is all over the lanes. The network of connected cabs is saying it will be
several hours before anyone can move.
You don’t know what exactly comes over you, what part of your brain takes hold of your
common sense, but the next thing you know is that you are walking away from the
motorway and through a cornfield in the direction of a row of cottages in the distance. You
have a snapshot memory of the houses like this from family holidays spent in traffic jams,
pebble-dashed and painted white, all with blue front doors and covered partially by ivy,
wondering who lived in these places that are passed, every day, by millions of lives. You
knock at one of the houses and a smallish woman answers, keeping her body behind the
door. You point at the traffic jam and ask if you can use her toilet, and she measures you,
observes you, measures you to be sure that you look like a good girl and then obliges. It
strikes you that this isn’t the first time this has happened.
The cottage is very cool inside and there is a smell of lavender and fresh lemons perfuming
the air. A budgerigar is going wild in its tiny cage, squealing loudly and flapping from its
perch to the newspaper lined base. On her mantelpiece are photographs. One is a sepia
tinted photograph of a man wearing a military uniform and smiling at you bemused. In a
smaller frame is a picture of the cottage. It looks like it has been taken quite a few years
ago, as the colours lack sharpness. In the image, a large group of people stand in formal
clothes, all sombre faced as if realising the significance of the photograph. Was that the last
time they all stood together?
Seeing that you are taking in the room, she abruptly announces that the toilet is ‘upstairs,
second door on the left.’ You turn, smile, and make your way to the foot of the staircase.
She stands at the bottom as you slowly ascend, the air growing stale as you near the
landing. ‘Second-door on the left.’ She calls after you and then retreats to the company of
the budgie. As you go to turn the handle, you notice that the door opposite is slightly ajar,
and the stale smell seems to be emanating from there. You gently push the door open and
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