Driving in the Dark

Driving in the Dark

Deborah Moggach

One

If only women had four wheels. They’d be easier to understand, wouldn’t they?

I’m thinking about one day in September, when I came home and found all my belongings in the front garden. It was starting to drizzle; there were my records, and my woodworking tools and all my back copies of Motor Sport, getting damp.

I thought at first that my wife was having a clean-out; To tell the truth, I was surprised. She wasn’t fond of housework. Besides, it puzzled me that none of her stuff was there, filling up the lawn.

I didn’t have a clue. I’d been away on the Isle of Man, on a Weekend Break, and my back was playing up. I went into the kitchen and there sat Eleni, smoking. The ashtray was full, which was a bad sign. She was usually well-groomed but she had a ladder in her tights, probably from carting all my stuff out.

She said: ‘My brother’s coming round.’

‘Pardon?’

‘My brother’s coming round with his van. He’ll help you with your things.’ She repeated, patiently: ‘Costas, my brother.’

I thought: why does she have to explain who her brother is? I know him. She had put on too much of that blusher stuff; it made her look like an actress.

Then she said: ‘I can’t be having you here any more.’

That was an odd way of speaking. For a moment I thought she was referring to one of her usual annoyances—my rotary lathe, something that tripped her up. But then I realized that she was referring to me. She sat there, tapping her white cowboy boot and looking at me as if she had never seen me before. It was then that I realized what she was saying.

She already looked different. Her face looked as if it had been a little bit reassembled, like somebody’s face does when you’ve just learnt their name. Her cheeks were two pink smears. She stared at me as if I shouldn’t be standing in my own kitchen. I thought of the six coats of Ronseal I’d put on the units.

‘Did you hear me, Desmond?’

She never called me that. I heard the rain pattering on the veranda and I thought of my Motor Sports and knew I shouldn’t be thinking about them. I felt a surge of anger, that she had never exerted herself like this before, on my behalf. It must have taken her ages to fill up the front garden.

She said: ‘I don’t want to be married to you any more.’

I replied: ‘But we haven’t started yet.’

I don’t know why I said that. She got up and went into the lounge. I heard the ting of the phone; she was probably ringing up her family.