Driving Rain

It’s raining – no, it’s more than raining. It’s hideous. Driving relentless rain and wind - dark, gloomy, unbelievably depressing, even in this beautiful place. It’s three thirty and I have to put the headlights on. We slide down the narrow road – it’s not really a road at all – path would be more accurate. It winds through the estate and past the tiny church which they’ve tarted up now and you can get married in it, but I think that’s the only churchy thing you can do there .

Marnie’s been silent ever since we left – suddenly she says: “ I know I’m being stupid” and she gives a light, self-mocking laugh. I don’t really want to take my eyes off the road because we’re inching across a bridge with no sides - very picturesque if you’re not driving, and it’s not pissing it down, but I glance sideways for a second, and I can see her jaw is clenched tight. She looks like that David sketch of Marie Antoinette on the way to the guillotine. Chin forced up in defiance. Good. Not beaten yet.

“ No you’re not” I say, and I really understand. Completely

“They think I’m mad at the garage – I know they do. It’s so old – more than forty years. Joe used to call it the battle wagon. It’s just I can’t bear to scrap it – they can go on forever you know – they’re very good cars”

A deer runs out and I have to brake which of course makes all the anti-skid lights flash and momenetarily I have no steering or anything. I hate this car with a vengeance and I apologise to Marnie. Today’s bad enough for her without me plunging into a ditch somewhere there’s no mobile signal.

“I shouldn’t have run away. I just couldn’t….oh here it comes now. I don’t’ think I can bear to see it..” She sounds as if she's going to cry.

There’s no time to do much. I pull onto the grass and I feel the car lose all grip again and I wonder if we’re going to be able to get back onto the path afterwards– this is the worst car I’ve ever had.

I say “Don’t look. Close your eyes. I’ll tell you when its gone”

It doesn’t take long because they’re coming at us full pelt – much too fast for the weather and the terrain. I watch, eyes narrowed with hate, as the convoy rushes past us back towards her cottage, flinging mud and water in its wake.– a great big fuck you four by four, lights blazing, followed by a huge flatbed truck with what must be Marnie’s car strapped to the back. The garage are bringing it back because she can’t pay the restoration bill anymore. The noise of it all makes me feel sick.

When it’s gone we slide back onto the path – for a minute I don’t think we’re going to manage it and I curse everything Japanese.

“How much more do you think it would cost?” I say it quietly to break the silence,

“Another thousand or so –they think I’m mad, but it’s quite rare – the two door version – and if I can just get it onto the island they can do the rest there – and I have a friend – has a manor house in France, you know the kind of thing – anyway I thought she could possibly do it for me, only she’s getting on a bit too now….”

Dear god she is thinking of driving it the whole way across Europe – then Sicily, then the island – it’s almost Africa.

Now that the worst has happened she seems less tense. When we left the cottage she was almost frantic. Suddenly I think this must be the running away – how she copes. When Joe died, when David died – this is what she does. It makes me feel so protective towards her. I want to turn back and tell the men to go and fuck themselves – ask them if they’re proud of what they’ve done. I won’t though, because that would be interfering and it might make her feel awkward.

When I sell my house though, that’s what I’ll do – I’ll pay for finishing the restoration. I can see why they think she’s being stupid – that there’s no point in doing it, and I don’t think there’s a point either, not in the way that the men from the garage mean, but I don’t think that matters.

Perhaps if it does ever get going again I can ask him to come over and we can drive it to the island together – make an adventure of it. I would love to do that. Do a lap of triumph at the end. The thing is he seems to have disappeared again.