M for Memories

It's dark and it's raining hard. The inside of the car is womb-like in its comfort and warmth. Music, friendly in its familiarity, swirls around. The rain forms slithering sheets across the windscreen and is shunted sideways by the wipers thumping back and forth. I focus on the tail lights of the car in front and fix my speed to match. The rhythm of the wipers cuts across other patterns; the neon lights flashing above, the cat's eyes pulsating just ahead, always just a few more. The eye's turn to emeralds for a moment as a slip road melts into the darkness. The big blue sign takes on an iridescent glow in the headlights. A huge shimmering Mother-of-Pearl finger points out my destination in reassuringly confident font - I am on the right road, going in the right direction. Pairs of sparkling diamonds string along the opposite carriageway, throwing shadows like spokes onto the fast lane from the crash barrier stands. The rear wiper judders as rubber frays from metal - I should have changed it a while ago, and now curse that I can't see properly out of the back window.

I relax a bit and let my mind wander. Memories of past journeys come back and with them, little spikes of tangential thoughts. 'Hero' the fur-trimmed Anglia Estate with an MG Magnet radiator grille, that coughed us across Scotland in a haze of passionate happiness. Of cheering D on as he drove faster and faster at a hump back bridge and screaming in delight as Hero took flight and all the camping gear in the back hit the roof. I remembered the moment a man came to clear rubbish from the garden. He found the radiator grille which had outlasted the car by about twenty years, and asked whether I wanted it taken away. I said yes, and went into the house. As I closed the back door, I leant on it, wondering whether I had done the right thing. I was very relieved to hear a knock on the door, and when I opened it, to see the man still holding the grille asking, 'Are you sure?'.

The windscreen wipers were still thumping left and right, creating their segments of momentary clarity. The lights in front had halos of red fog, and the cat's eyes were still coming, always a few more.