by Danny King
“Why don’t you get her some nice underwear?” Elenor winked.
“What, some pants?”
“No, not some pants, some nice underwear. Some sexy underwear. Could be fun for both of you.”
“I don’t think so,” I dismissed.
“Why not?”
“Sally’s not really the sexy underwear type.”
“Why, what’s she got, udders or something?”
“What, no. I just mean, I don’t think she’d like sexy underwear…”
“… as much as a pen,” Elenor finished for me.
“No. Well yes. No. I don’t know.”
“I think sexy underwear would be a brilliant present,” Elenor said, and I liked the way she kept saying sexy underwear. It was sexy. “I’d be thrilled to bits if somebody bought me a nice pair of see-through lacy panties and a matching see-through bra,” she told me, raising an eyebrow provocatively. “Absolutely thrilled to bits.”
“Would you?” I laughed nervously, but Elenor didn’t respond. “Well, you never know, maybe Santa will bring you some in your Christmas stocking.”
“If he does, he’ll leave my house with more than a mince pie and a glass of sherry,” she promised before wishing me luck with my search.
I watched Elenor walk off into the crowd and gave her a wave when she looked back.
At that moment all the zombies returned, although Elenor just walked right through them. It was incredible how none of them noticed her. Not one of them. How could they not notice her? How could anyone not notice her –
– in her see-through lacy panties and matching see-through bra?
Sally’s Diary: December 25th
Another Christmas Day over. Boy, Christmas Day really is the Sunday to end all Sundays isn’t it? Personally, I’ve always preferred Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve for me is the best day of the year, the Friday to end all Fridays. I’ve always enjoyed Christmas Eve yet rarely enjoyed Christmas Day. I don’t know why this should be. Perhaps it’s because Christmas Eve is all about preparation, hope and anticipation. Even the travel is something I enjoy. The roads are calm, the air’s tinged with expectation and the journey’s like the start of a mini adventure.
Then you arrive, climb out of the car and suddenly you remember you’re staying with your parents for the next few days.
Maybe the reason Christmas Eve is so magical is because it’s the calm before the storm. It lulls you into a false sense of security and makes you believe that this year it might be different. But it never is. God, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Mohammed and anyone else I’ve forgotten to mention, please, I pray to you with every ounce of my soul don’t let me turn out to be like my mother.
In other news, Andrew excelled himself this year by getting me a painting by numbers kit. I can’t help but wonder why.
I know he’s not the best at buying presents but still…
Every year he tried to bludgeon me into telling him what I want for Christmas, but what I want is a surprise. Something thoughtful. Something little. Something nice. That’s what I want. I don’t know what it is myself, but that’s the whole point. All I know is that it’s not an engraved pen, it’s not a foot stool, it’s not a self-operated back massager and it’s not a painting by numbers kit.
Is this me being difficult? I hope not. I’d hate to think of myself as a difficult person. All I really want is a little surprise (not that the painting by numbers kit didn’t catch me by surprise).
We do both sets of parents in quick succession every year, Andrew’s first on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, then my parents afterwards for Christmas Day evening and Boxing Day. In years gone by we used to wrap each other’s presents up again so that we could ‘unwrap’ them in front of both sets of parents, but we decided not to bother with that this year. I’m glad. I found it hard enough pretending to be thrilled to bits with a painting by numbers kit once as it was.
I’m not sure I could manage twice.
Chapter 4. Motorway Madness
My rear view mirror flashed a couple of times and I looked up to see a BMW almost on my tail lights. I was in the outside lane of the M3 and moving along at a respectable 79mph. The two inside lanes were moderately busy with cars and lorries so I was overtaking the slower 60mph and 70mph traffic myself, but BMW man had obviously come to the conclusion that this wasn’t fast enough for an expensive car like his so he was giving me a taster of his front lights and badgering me to get out of the way.
I normally have no qualms about getting out of the way of other motorists if I’m blocking the fast or middle lanes of the motorway, but this doesn’t happen very often because I only ever use the middle or outside lanes for overtaking. When I’m cruising along daydreaming about my dinner I stick to the furthest inside lane and only pull out to overtake caravans, buses, lorries, coaches and Fiats, then I steer straight back in again when the road up ahead is once against clear. This is what you’re meant to do. This is how you’re meant to drive on a motorway. I know this because I passed a test in order to get my driving licence.
BMW man had obviously found his in a fucking Christmas cracker.
“What?” I asked the rear view mirror as it flashed me once again.
“Hmm?” Sally asked, stirring in the passenger seat beside me. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked out of the window. “Where are we? What’s up?”
“Oh nothing, it’s just this… what, you fucking fuck?” I yelled, as a wall of light filled the back windscreen.
“Andrew!” Sally exclaimed, shocked at the outburst. I don’t normally swear, especially not in front of Sally, but I do sometimes resort to it in moments of extreme stress.
Here is a list of things that will make me swear:
Smacking my head
Hitting my hand with a hammer
Stubbing my toe on the corner of the bed in the middle of the night
Catching a falling cactus
Seeing some sort of monster running towards me
Self-assembly instructions
Sally’s parents
Christmas shopping
Norman
Other drivers
If I had the road to myself, or if everyone just stuck to the rules and we all drove like we were supposed to, then I could scrub that last one off my list, but there were so many wankers on the road that I burned to turn my car into an instrument of death every time I got behind the wheel.
“You son of a fucking…” I growled, putting my foot down to get the arsehole off my bumper.
“Andrew, What’s wrong?” Sally asked, looking over her shoulder as my speedometer needle checked out the view from the 80mphs.
“It’s this fucking arsehole on my arse,” I told her. “He keeps flashing me and…”
Pharp!
“You bastard…!!!”
“Andrew!”
“Well he just hooted me.”
The cunt!
“What does he want?” Sally asked.
“He wants to get past,” I told her.
“Well let him,” she said, unbelievably.
Pharp! Pharp! Pharp!
“MOTHERFUCKER!” I screamed, almost snapping the steering wheel off in my hands.
“Andrew, just let him past!”
“But I’m not doing anything wrong,” I explained.
“What the hell’s that got to do with anything?” Sally asked, but I was too busy steering into a long sweeping curve and watching for gaps in the traffic to answer her.
“Andrew, just pull in so that he can get past,” she insisted.
“But I’m doing eighty miles an hour already,” I said, then saw I wasn’t, I was actually doing 92mph. 92mph and he was still only ten feet off my bumper. What was the matter with this maniac?
“Andrew!” Sally snapped, but I’d be fucked if I was pulling in for him just because this arsehole wanted to hare along on his own private road at 100mph.
I’d been doing 79mph as it was. The national speed limit’s 70mph but this fucking di
ckhead had flashed and beeped to overtake me when I was overtaking traffic myself. You know it’s one thing to speed when you have a clear stretch of road ahead of you, but it’s quite another when you have to intimidate other speeders in order to do it.
No, bollocks to him! I wasn’t getting out of his way. I was in the right and I had the law on my side. At least, I would have once I’d shed 22mph.
Accordingly, I eased my foot off the accelerator and slowed to a comparatively snail-like 73mph.
The stupid thing was that I would’ve probably pulled over and let him past if he had just sat in my rear view mirror and bided his time, but it was the fact that he’d tried to bully me off the road that got my goat up. Why should I have to slow down and get out of the way for him just because he had a faster car than me? Why should I? Who did he think he was? And why the fuck did he think that counted for anything with me?
BMW man began wearing out his horn and strobing the back of my car but he could go fuck himself as far as I was concerned. I was Gandalf of the M3 and he was not passing.
“For Chrissakes Andrew, just pull the bloody car over and let him past!” Sally yelled, but I refused to budge from the outside lane and explained that it would be wrong of me to knowingly allow someone else to break the law, “like that arsehole behind me. I mean, if I was on a train and he got on and told me to beat it because he wanted to touch up all the female passengers, should I turn a blind-eye and let him do what he wanted or stay and try to protect them?” I asked, congratulating myself for coming up with such a fitting analogy.
“What are you talking about, Andrew? The only female passenger around here in any peril is me because you’re playing bloody motorway cat and mouse,” she pointed out, then yelled in my ear, “Now bloody well pull in before you get us both killed!”
Sally was gripping the handles of the seat and bracing herself for a pile-up although we were only going at 73mph and I was in total control.
“Sally, it’s all right, don’t worry, we’re not going to crash,” I reassured her. We were now entering a long straight, the road was dry and the weather was clear, though this cut little ice with Sally who was adamant I was about to kill everyone within a five-mile radius.
“Fine, stop the car. Stop it. I want to get out and walk,” she suddenly demanded.
“Don’t be so silly.”
“It’s not me being silly, it’s you who’s being silly, playing with my life as if this is some sort of game. Now stop the car, I’m getting out.”
“I can’t stop, it’s a motorway.”
“Stop the car!”
“He’s the one playing games, not me,” I insisted, but it was no use. I was in the one in the wrong. Again. As far as Sally was concerned, I was always the one in the wrong.
“Stop – the – car!”
“Fine, have it your way, I’ll pull in but he’s the one who’s going to crash and blow up five miles down the road,” I told her.
“Would you rather he did it in the back of us?” Sally asked, but I was no longer listening, I was dipping my indicator lever and slowing down to pull in between a Volkswagen Polo and an old Ford Focus.
It felt oddly humiliating having to pull over and let this arsehole win, like everyone else on the motorway was looking at each other and smirking, and I wanted Sally to lean out of the passenger side and explain to the rest of the traffic that I was only letting him past because she’d told me to, but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
I eased into the middle lane and thought that would be it, but BMW man roared alongside me and sat there waiting for me to turn and look at him. Curiosity finally got the better of me and when I turned I saw a scrunched up face and five clenched fingers yelling and shaking in my direction.
I wound down the window and held a hand to my ear so BMW man did the same and called me a “wanker”, a “cunt”, a “fucking tosser”, a “wanker” again and “David Blunkett” in an impressively short space of time.
“You want to learn to drive mate, you shouldn’t be on the fucking road!” I yelled back.
“Wi.. ou. . n… ckin… ..up …. … . .g. … ou… nt!” he replied.
“Yeah, well have some of that,” I shouted, and gave him the finger.
“… ll… kin… . sh .. ur.. d. up.. . .. ntin.. .. nt!” he retorted, and performed a complicated ‘one-finger, wanker-sign, one-finger, fist’ routine while holding his car perfectly level with mine.
“You’re gay!” I told him.
“Oh for God’s sake Andrew,” Sally complained.
Beethoven in the BMW put his hand to his ear, so I repeated it several times and did a John Inman hand flap and pointed in his direction, so he came back with a few gestures of his own.
“What’s he doing now?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know,” I told her, charades not being my strong suit. “Maybe he’s hungry.”
“Just ignore him, Andrew,” Sally told me, though I felt strangely drawn to watch a bit more, and only wound the window back up when he tried to throw an empty coffee cup at me.
Naturally, the polystyrene vessel didn’t get within two feet of my car but it still panicked me into winding up the window. When I looked back, matey was laughing and giving me the V-sign, so I quickly wound my window back down and called him a “fucking moron”!
“Quick, have we got anything to throw?” I asked Sally, but Sally refused to join in and once again asked to be dropped off on the hard shoulder.
“Fine,” I conceded, then wound my window back up despite BMW man’s continuing gestures to concentrate on the road ahead.
When he finally got the message I was no longer playing, BMW man did the same and zoomed off into the distance with a final roar of indignation.
“You’re all the bloody same, aren’t you?” Sally observed, before crossing her arms and turning up the silence.
I was in no mood for a fight so I left it at that, though it annoyed me how little faith she’d shown in me. Like I’d said, it was a dry and clear day, we were driving along a long straight motorway at a safe and legal(ish) speed and I’d had the rules of the road on my side. What did she want me to do? Give way to everyone else just because they’d forgotten the Highway Code and apologise for being there in the first place? Christ on a bike!
You know what, you should never let yourself get pushed around in life. Weakness only ever led to more pushing around. Sometimes you had to push back, even if it meant taking a fist in the face. It’s not fair and it’s not fun but sometimes it was the only way. This was the price we all paid for being men. An X and a Y chromosome and bike with a crossbar simply didn’t cut it. Men had to act like men, not just look like them. What was it Kipling had said? Something about exceedingly good cakes? I can’t remember. The point is men weren’t born. Boys were born. Men were something we had to become.
This is a concept Sally never understood.
“Don’t say anything.”
“Turn the other cheek.”
“Don’t get involved.”
“Just look away.”
“Don’t forget to thank them when they’ve kicked you in the teeth.”
That was pretty much Sally’s philosophy of how I should behave.
Well that wasn’t my way. And it wasn’t BMW man’s way either, but Sally had stuck her oar into something she couldn’t comprehend which meant that BMW man got away with it and now he was off laughing at me. It was microscopic; barely a slither of a fraction of a percentage, but thanks to BMW man’s aggression and Sally’s fear, the world had become an ever-so slightly worse place to live.
Christ I wanted a fag.
I couldn’t blame Sally for how she’d reacted because Sally was just being Sally, and Sally had to be true to herself. It was more the hypocrisy that annoyed me. I mean, how would she have reacted if some little kid in her class had started painting all over the walls and every time she’d tried to stop him I’d told her to turn the other cheek?
Who would be in the wrong
then?
Me of course. It would always be me.
It was annoying and it was infuriating but what could I do? Sit her down, explain the situation to her and hope she eventually saw reason? Or give up and simply say “yes Sally”, “no Sally” and “three bags full Sally”?
Which held the greater promise of a peaceful life for me?
Singletons might think it would be the former; the sit her down and talk to her option, to get an open and frank dialogue going, but every time I’ve tried that in the past, the open and frank dialogue almost always got quickly hijacked and I’d have to listen to her dragging my self-esteem through six dozen different hedgerows for about two hours while she got everything off her chest.
No talking rarely worked. All talking ever really did was wake you up to the fact that you had ten times more problems than you ever dreamed of.
With this in mind, Sally and I sat in silence stewing over the same incident from different perspectives while a cold and wintry Surrey slipped by at an icy lick.
This was a real pity actually because we’d got on brilliantly over Christmas, better than we’d got on in years and I’d really been looking forward to getting away from the folks and spending some quiet time with just Sally at home. Now that looked to have gone for a toss with the BMW incident, which would no doubt hang in the air for the rest of the day and flavour every glance and remark.
“Shall I put on the radio?” I asked, but Sally didn’t answer.
I did so anyway, in the hope that a familiar song might soften both our moods, but all I had to show after five minutes of continuous tuning were Car Phone Warehouse adverts and euphoric DJs boasting about how drunk they’d got over Christmas, so I turned it off again and played “count the red cars” with myself for twenty minutes or so until I almost crashed out of sheer despair.
“Shall we stop at the Services?” I suggested, spotting a sign for Fleet Services.
“Why?”
I didn’t know. We had loads of petrol and neither of us were particularly hungry or needed the loo. I just thought it might’ve been good.
I liked motorway service stations. They were unusual places that you only ever visited when you were on long journeys somewhere and that didn’t happen very often, at least not to me it didn’t. I always thought of them as little islands in the sea, with tea and cake and light bulb-baked sausages, where ships passed in the night and truck drivers washed their armpits. There was also something slightly rough and ready about them that I liked, due no doubt to the fact that they were pretty much inaccessible except by motorway so that they weren’t full of annoying teens or cheerful pleasure seekers. Everybody in them was just passing through. Actually, forget the little islands, they were more like border towns, or no, better still space ports or something. Nobody talked to anyone else, nobody mingled, they just had their bacon and eggs and coffee and washes and contemplated the things that waited for them many miles away.