But that evening in September when I first came to Russia Road and Max’s house, I was as bad a claustrophobic as you can be. It had all started when Dad took me with him to wash the car. I was about ten. Our local garage had had a car wash put in, the latest thing, I suppose it was, in Suffolk in the seventies. Dad was thrilled, he’d never used one, and he hated cleaning the car. And, to do him justice, he thought I’d be thrilled too. It was to be a treat.

You had to put coins into a slot machine in those days, it was before punching in a code came in. Dad put in the coins, checked all the windows were shut, and moved the car forward until the light went red. I didn’t know what to expect and I don’t suppose he did. I probably thought it would be a bit like a bigger and more powerful shower and I had no idea it would start so quickly. The roar it made was like a threat. And the big red brushes coming so fast, covering the whole car in a swirling mass which shut out all light and air, which seemed to be swallowing the car in its gulping crimson throat, that was what started me screaming. Dad was angry, he thought I was fooling around, pretending to be frightened, and he was rough with me. I put my hand over my mouth to stop the sounds coming and then the worst thing happened. The whole roof came down, a metal bar moving toward the windscreen. It was going to smash the glass, pass right through the glass and crash into my face, it was going to chop off my head. I tried to get out, of course I did. I opened the door and water came into the car, I was screaming all the time. That the bar wasn’t going to cut my head off or smash my brains to a pulp—well, that was evident by then but I was still screaming. When they say someone is beside herself, that describes how I was. Dad didn’t know what to do, I can see that now, but I didn’t then. The car was filling with water inside. He had to get the door shut before the metal frame part of the car wash ripped it off and he had to calm me down, which he did by slapping my face. I suppose he was nearly as frightened as I was. I was afraid of being swallowed up by the car wash, but he was afraid his daughter had gone mad.