Ring Road: There’s no place like home. Ian Sansom

the furrows of his own brow: he felt pretty sure that they all reflected his new, different, more secure sense of himself. He thought that he’d found the perfect disguise.

      ‘You haven’t changed a bit,’ said Marie, hand on hip.

      ‘Really?’

      ‘You get back a lot?’

      ‘I haven’t been back in twenty years,’ he said.

      ‘Living in London?’

      ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

      ‘You’ll see a lot of changes.’

      ‘Uh-huh,’ he said. ‘Right.’

      ‘I’ll see what I can do about the luggage,’ said Marie, picking up her walkie-talkie.

      ‘Thanks,’ said Davey, turning to walk away.

      ‘Honest to God, you look just the same,’ repeated Marie.

      ‘Good,’ said Davey.

      ‘And that extra bit of weight suits you.’ And then she spoke into the walkie-talkie. ‘Maureen?’ she said. ‘You’ll never guess who I’ve got here.’

      There was a crackle.

      ‘David Quinn.’

      And then more crackle.

      ‘Yes. Him.’

      And then crackle again.

      ‘Maureen says welcome home. And Happy Christmas.’

      ‘Thanks,’ said Davey. ‘The same to you.’

      It was getting late and he caught a cab. The driver was humming along to a tune on the radio, a typical piece of bowel-softening Country and Western, sung in an accent yearning for America but tethered firmly here to home. Davey sat down heavily in the back, dazed, and stared out of the window.

      So this was it.

      Home.

      Marie was totally wrong. There weren’t a lot of changes. In fact, everything looked exactly the same: the same rolling hills, the same patches of fields and houses, the same roundabouts, the motorway. It was all just as he remembered it. A landscape doesn’t change that much in twenty years.

      Or the weather.

      It had been fine when they left the airport, but now the rain was sheeting down and about twenty miles along the motorway one of the windscreen wipers popped off – the whole arm, like someone had just reached down and plucked it away, like God Himself was plucking at an eyebrow.

      ‘Jesus!’ screamed the driver, having lost all vision through the windscreen in what seemed to be a massive and magic stream of liquid pouring down from the heavens, as if God, or Jesus, were now pissing directly on to the car, as if He were getting ready for an evening out, and they swerved across three lanes and pulled over on to the hard shoulder.

      ‘Did you see that?’

      ‘I did,’ said Davey.

      ‘Jesus Christ. Blinded me.’

      ‘You OK?’

      ‘Yeah, thanks. Yeah. I’m fine.’

      The car was rocking now, as lorries passed by, and then there was a sudden clap of thunder in the distance.

      ‘You wouldn’t be any good at repairs, would you?’ asked the driver, turning round.

      ‘No, not really,’ said Davey.

      ‘Would you mind having a look, though? It’s just, I don’t know anything about cars. And this asthma.’ The man coughed, in evidence. ‘It gets bad in the rain.’ He reached for a cigarette, put it in his mouth ready to light it and waited, his hand shaking slightly.

      ‘Right,’ said Davey, who did look as though he knew about cars and who felt sorry for the man, who reminded him of his father: it was the shakes, and the cigarette, and the thickset back of the neck; the profile of most men here over forty, actually. ‘I’ll just go ahead then, shall I?’

      ‘I’d be grateful, if you would.’

      Davey got out. The cars on the inside lane were inches from him, flank to flank, and the rain was busy pasting his clothes to him, and the wind was getting up, turning him instantly from safe passenger into a sailor rolling on the forecastle in the high seas.

      He checked first round the front. The whole of the wiper’s arm had gone – just the metal stump remained – so he then made his way round to the rear and started pulling off the back windscreen wiper, in the hope he might be able to use it as a replacement. He managed to cut his hands on the fittings and the spray from the road was whipping up his back, but in the end, with a twist and a wrench, he managed to get the wiper off. And in so doing he dropped the little plastic lugs that had held it in place – they rolled on to the road – so there he was, big Davey Quinn, not an hour back home, down on his knees, soaked to the skin in the pouring rain, reaching out a bloodied hand into a sea of oncoming traffic.

      It was no good. They were out too far and the traffic was too heavy. He gave up. He got back into the back seat, drenched, defeated, and dripping wet and blood.

      The driver was smoking. ‘Good swim?’ he asked, chuckling at his own joke. ‘No luck?’

      ‘No.’ Davey reached forward and gave the driver the back wiper. ‘Sorry about that.’

      ‘You’re all right.’

      The driver called into his office on the radio. They’d send someone along with a spare. It might take a while, maybe an hour or so.

      An hour.

      Davey thought about it.

      Davey had been thinking about coming home for as long as he’d been away – there was not a day went past when he didn’t think about it – but it was a journey in which irresolution might still easily overtake him. He had enough money in his wallet and on his cards to be able to go back to the airport right now and get the next plane out, and maybe wait another twenty years before returning. He was, therefore, a man who could not afford to hesitate.

      The time was now or never.

      He’d come this far: he was going to have to keep going. He was going to have to maintain his velocity.

      He said he’d walk the rest of the way.

      ‘Walk?’ said the driver.

      ‘Yeah,’ said Davey.

      ‘As in, on your feet?’

      ‘Yeah,’ repeated Davey.

      ‘Walking? In this rain?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Davey one more time.

      ‘Are you joking?’

      ‘No. It’s not far from here, is it?’

      ‘Next exit. He won’t be long, though, with the spare.’

      ‘No, I’ll push on, I think.’

      ‘Well, it’s your decision, pal. What’s the hurry?’

      ‘I just …’ Davey couldn’t explain it. ‘I need to get back. What do I owe you?’

      ‘Well, I’ll have to charge you full fare and extra for the damage to the wiper.’

      ‘Right,’ said Davey. He believed him.

      ‘No, I’m having you on!’ said the driver. ‘Jesus! Where have you been?’

      ‘London,’ admitted Davey.

      ‘Well,’ said the driver philosophically. ‘I’ll tell you what. This isn’t London. We’ll call it quits. OK?’

      ‘OK,’ said Davey. ‘Cheers.’ People at home, he thought: they were the salt of the earth.

      ‘Happy