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Back Driving in the Dark Save as PDF
Chapters (27)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. About the Author

I needed Hilda, with her knitting, to stop my fear. Or to stop me thinking that it really wouldn’t make any difference at all, whether I met him or not.

Nineteen

Nineteen

It’s three o’clock and I’m freewheeling into Deal, my engine switched off. My coach feels as light as kitchen foil. This is my final trip, the Mystery Tour to end all tours. It’s a moonlit night and all along the beaches of Southern England people are playing on the sand. I have carried them there—this year, last year, who knows? Senior citizens are dancing silently beside the sea. Their hair is silvered by the moon. They have been dancing all this time because I have forgotten to take them home. Who wants to go home anyway? You go home and there’s no home to go to. Address unknown. There’s a stranger looking out of your window. Where your home used to be, there’s empty space.

No wonder the beaches are filled. Some women have set up camp; their plastic tents flap in the wind, like hands attracting my attention. Nothing can be relied on, these women would be saying if only I could hear them. Radios are planted in the sand; they glint like bombs. They must be playing music, from Margate to Hythe to Hastings to Brighton. The foam is lined with young women, prancing like fillies, rows of them tossing their heads. They’re neighing for men, they’re baying at the moon. They have small breasts and slender hips. Their unborn children fill the beach, jostling for space. Some of them are playing and some of them are half-buried in the sand. One or two, just their heads are showing.

In my coach the cassette is singing; it’s something from West Side Story but I can’t hear it. I’d like to find my parents in this crowd but I know I never brought them here. They’re in disgrace. They didn’t deserve to come, though I loved them better than anybody in the world. Anyway, they might have brought my sister with them and I’d rather not, just now.

The moon shines on the swollen sea. What is this thing called love? Amongst the crowds there are couples, there must be, I’m sure they must be married. I’ve met so many of them, I’ve driven across England, my back’s aching. If only I could see their faces I might recognize them, but they’ve all turned away. I don’t know what marriage is, any more. Piff might be able to tell me, but when I spot her sitting on the sand she has shrunk into an old woman; when she turns away, her sequined jacket winks.