HOME

It’s sterile. Putting feet up is not an option, nor is making a cup of tea for oneself. ‘I’m going to make a cup of tea,’ I said once, ‘anyone else want one?’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said getting up from the white puffed up sofa matching the white pile carpet.
‘It’s alright,’ I said, ‘I can do it.’
‘I insist,’ she said not through clenched teeth because she’s too polite for that but in a way that made it clear the insistence was not to be challenged further.
The cup of tea she brought me wasn’t the cup I’d’ve made which would have the bag left in to brew stronger as I drank.
Back at the flat I said, ‘Now I can have the cup of tea I’ve wanted all weekend.’
The D said, ‘I hope no one ever says that after getting home from visiting me.’
We’d left their house at six thirty, now it was one in the morning. Why so long? We’d spent four hours waiting by the side of the road playing I-spy, listening to the radio, texting friends, writing a piece a word each, being frightened, and wondering how much longer we’d have to wait for help to arrive.
‘You feel safer with the hazards on or off?’ I said to the D.
‘On,’ she said. ‘At least we can be seen.’
The car had started wobbling out of my control on the M3 above Southampton but had corrected itself quickly before, on the A34 north of Winchester, it had wobbled again but this time with a grinding noise coming from the rear forcing me to pull over into a convenient lay-by and phone for assistance. Two hours later some arrived then two hours after that the truck to take us home.
When I said goodnight to the D who wanted to phone a friend she said, ‘Thanks for getting us home.’