Yellow Datsun Sunny

I am in a yellow Datsun Sunny with Elvis and it is on fire.

We are carrying a record collection from one house to another. Though four boxes is barely a record collection. Even then it is only four boxes because they are half filled and we cannot carry a full box of records any more. When did I get so old?

The car is not on fire but there is a lot of smoke outside and I see now that the inside of the car is also black mainly because it is the underlining that I see. Whatever type of cloth there was over the doors and ceiling has been torn out.

We turn a corner. Nearly there. My son Joe has talked the entire way. I have not followed what he has been saying. It is a continuous stream of chatter that I have difficulty following. I want him to stop but I do not want him to stop as it is nice to hear his voice. He talks and he drives. I can only see his left shoulder from where I sit in the back. His old gaberdine coat is dirty and smudged with stuff I do to want to think about. I am not sure how I got in the car as it is so dirty and normally I would be very uncomfortable coming into contact with such grime.

But what I am doing, as I sit more in the footwell of the back seat with Elvis smiling at me from the nearest box, is staring into my wife’s eyes.

Lucy’s eyes are like aquamarine radio crystals. Pouring out information. In a face I do not entirely recognise. My we are old! But the eyes, they are talking almost as continuously as my son. There are lots of messages: ‘Don’t worry we will be there soon. You don’t have to say anything. You’ll be fine. Hold on. It is a little dirty but it is OK. We are fine back here. It is just lovely to see you.’ I think some of this she says out loud.

“Its good she let you get your record collection back.” She is saying over the noise of the exhaust.

I think the tyres are bald. There is a screeching sound and some bumps. How did this car pass an MOT? I can see a hedge over Lucy’s shoulder and we stop.

“Lets get these in.” Lucy opens the door almost before Joe can get out himself. She grabs a box of records and is off. I am still struggling to get out of the footwell. Joe follows her round without taking a box and I clamber out of the car, lift a box of records and follow.

The gravel and paving stones are covered in weeds and I stop to look at the rear tyre of the Datsun. The wheel is the wrong size surely? But then I see that it is in fact one of those funny emergency spare wheels with the super-thin tyre.

Joe’s bungalow is much as it has always been but worse. I duck under an overgrown bush. WASP! I swerve to the side and bump into what seems to be an upturned pallet of Silver Spoon sugar packets. It looks like its been here for some time. THEY WILL HAVE GOT WET AND GONE HARD AND MICE! My coat brushes against the pile of sugar. STICKY! And I am trying to bend my head to keep it out of the bush as I come round to the front door of the bungalow. There is a Traffic Warden there. But she is not a traffic warden she is a Domestic Rubbish Warden and Lucy is chatting and laughing with her as if they know each other well. The warden smiles at me.

“Hello Mr Cowie. Nice to see you.” But I cannot remember her name. Do I know her?

“Fine thanks.” I reply and smile and step into the Joe’s hall. My foot stops in mid-air. CINEMA CARPET! I don’t want to put my foot down and I can already feel the sticky filthy ooze managing to squeeze through the frankly non-existent cracks of my shoes and I watch as my foot slowly goes down on the carpet. But there is mess everywhere.

Paths exist into every room through rubbish that climbs up the ways in sloping mounds of boxes and papers.

“In the sitting room.” Lucy gently taps my shoulder and I turn left into the darkened sitting room. The curtains are drawn so I cannot see well but I can feel things brushing my coat and my cheek. DUSTY STICKY GRIPPY! But it is probably just a cobweb or maybe it was a standing lamp shade. There is a table covered in books and videos, more than I can count, and I put my box beside Lucy’s.

Lucy is still chatting with the warden.

I am glad Joe still has the bungalow. I wonder how he has managed to keep it. I am not sure if he works. I doubt it somehow. Not any more. I wonder how I let it come to this. Where have I been? In my head I hear the phrase ‘a cracked and broken man’ and I have to see that Joe, my own wonderful happy smiling wee boy is cracked and broken. And I don’t know why. I was never a good hugger, is that it? I didn’t do enough things with him, didn’t encourage enough?

I realise I am crying in the dark and that helps no one.

So many of my friends did not make it even this far and I am not at all sure how far this is. Some died early but so many of their lives never really started. They waited for a life that never began. Were they flawed, already cracked?

I find a tissue in my pocket and wipe my eyes and carefully make my way out to the hall. Lucy and Joe are talking. They hug. Joe turns to me and we pause, unsure what to do, but I close the gap and hug him as hard as I can. How old am I? But I don’t want to leave. Surely I can do something or say something that will mend this and fix Joe? But Lucy takes my arm and we leave the house SUGAR STICK and walk round the BUSH WET house WASPS and out onto the road.

“Lets find a taxi,” suggests Lucy. I worry about the expense but Lucy does not and she is always good with money. We walk down the road our arms linked. It is a sunny evening.

“We’ll be round again tomorrow.” Lucy gives my arm a squeeze.

“Hello you,” she says. But I can feel the fog rolling in again.