matched her leather skirt as she gripped on to the past as tightly as she could. He instead wore a pastel polo shirt and slacks, somehow managing to look too old for jeans. Pipe and slippers next. They’d pulled off the drive and left their quiet side street and were turning onto the main road when Emily remembered the handful of books she’d left on the side. ‘Sorry, no’ stated Dave. ‘The traffic’s bad enough as it is. We’re not going back.’
‘There it is, Emily’ added her mother, sounding more
like a petulant older sibling than a parent.
‘But I need the books,’ she pleaded.
‘Not with the way the roads have been’ concluded
Dave, tapping the sat nav to emphasize the expected time of arrival.
‘We’ll get you something down there’ her mother
added, suddenly trying to reconcile. Negotiations over, if they ever started, Emily slumped into a sulking huddle. The seatbelt suddenly felt like it was rubbing in an odd position and she just stared out of the window as The Clash or The Ramones or something else she hated began playing on the car stereo. Dave just kept going as their mundane world slipped by. A young woman pushed a buggy, dark green material with chrome fittings, an infant silent within. Three lads, about Emily’s age, loitered at a bus stop as an old woman felt obliged to
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