It’s a journey that’s fresh in my mind, and the same but different every day. The first time I went, when I first moved there, was with my flatmate. Then it was almost exciting (as exciting as a journey to work can be), to be starting a new job and going off together with an attractive stranger. (Four months later, he was still an attractive stranger, but that’s another story.)
The flatmate made the journey easy, but when I went on my own the next day, I got lost. I seem to lose my way on even the simplest journeys, often doubting my instinct and turning off on impulse, until I either get angry and stop to look at the map, or magically find myself right again after my temporary route-madness.
These days I make that morning run half in my sleep. As I pull the car out on to the quiet street, I let go of the wheel so I can put on my gloves, because it is so cold these mornings; the car doesn’t like it either, and doesn’t warm up until we’re nearly there. The engine usually cuts out while I’m waiting for a gap in the traffic on the main road, and then it rattles and complains all the way to the next village – it hates sitting in queues as much as I do.
I have to wake myself up to drive through the village, because of all the schoolchildren. They hang around the bus stop, or run across the road just when the lights are changing. Those girls with short skirts must be aching with cold; they stroll in twos and threes and don’t think of me driving to work, or that they’ll be doing the same thing, one day.
Then I cross the pedestrian crossing, and get to the place where I hit the cat. It was only a couple of weeks ago, and I still think of it every time I pass the Post Office. It was a Sunday morning, and there was no-one about except me, my car, and that stupid poor cat that threw itself unseeing in front of my wheels. I couldn’t stop, and I felt it thump somewhere underneath. I pulled over and looked for it, but it had leapt a wall and disappeared.
Every morning I have the same feeling as I accelerate away from the village on the small windy road, past the queue of traffic waiting to move in the opposite direction: I look at the faces of the people in those cars, one in each, staring forward, hands on their wheels; and I wonder if they’re wondering about me, or about each other, or about anything. I wonder if there is any way in which each tinned human can connect with all the other tinned humans who have one thing in common: they are all sitting in a cold car on a cold morning, and travelling very slowly towards the town I have just left.
This journey is bleak and grey, because I’ve only ever made it during the winter. The trees along this road have always been winter-coloured, and the roadside has always been muddy. I used to get up a fair old speed along here, but now that it’s icy, it’s not worth the risk. (Sometimes it is, on the way home, when he has been bugging me all day).
There’s a good sweeping long stretch, then a hill and an easy wide bend; but then a tight bend and you’re nearly there, nearly at the hospital where the speed bumps slow you down and bottle you up. Four bumps that jolt my spirits towards my sensible shoes – thick soles that won’t slip on the kitchen floor, and that’s all that matters.
good times then!