A sudden heavy shower of summer rain
slows the early evening motorway
to a blood red blur of brake lights.
In my mirror, I see two cars collide,
career across the lanes – and others stop,
receding out of sight into the downpour…
I am thirteen and a half and tall for my age –
the year of Hungary and Suez;
am sitting on the red leather back seat
of an almost straight-from-the-showroom
Morris Minor (in the inexorable green),
having dined at Heathrow’s new, five star
restaurant and sampled hors d’oeuvre
and tasted Riesling for the first time;
am being driven back to Golder’s Green
by Yvette, the car’s owner, a fashion designer
and childhood friend of the other passenger,
Angela, my aunt, a night club pianist,
briefly home from Johannesburg –
both daughters of Tzarist refugees,
both light years from the Pale,
bleached blondes, smoking Sobranie
Black Russian in ivory cigarette holders;
am listening to these nubile women,
our daughter’s age now, talk acidly
of their exes, wearily of their dads
when a four door car, overtaking,
somewhere on the Great West Road,
comes seemingly too close and Yvette
swerves sharply right, her bumper
striking its fender with a metallic thump…
Fifty and more years later I forget
the dénouement. Certainly, no one died.
I think of you, somewhere perhaps without rain,
watching the sun set, perhaps wondering where I am,
why I am late, while I drive homewards.
Note: this piece has been subsequently published in ‘A Jar of Sticklebacks’ – http://www.armadillocentral.com/general/a-jar-of-sticklebacks-by-david-selzer.
By David Selzer