It started after the first stop of our vacation, the stop after our visit to Trastevere in Rome.
We got into a taxi and before long we coming up towards Monaco. We were at the top of the hill on the way to our hotel in town. But we were driving backwards.
‘He could have turned the car around while we were in Italy, even though the streets there were narrow,’ I complained.
Our driver was resting his arm on the passenger side seat and craning his neck to look through the rear window, as he barreled the taxi down the hill, in reverse. We held on to the backs of the seats in front of us.
Sometimes the street curved from left to right down the mountain but mostly it was straight down but the driver did not let off the gas anyway. Instead he gunned it down those curves. Until we reached some steps.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll continue over those steps so it will be a bit bumpy.’
I started to ask questions but Liam and Siobhan interrupted.
‘Leave him alone Dad!’ Then I shut up, and the car juddered against the steps until we reached a small tunnel at the bottom of the hill.
It was at a tunnel that two cyclists next to us appeared. They cycled side by side through the tunnel and were so close to each other, and so close to our car, that I could see the whites of their knuckles on the handlebars as we passed them.
‘Why don’t they cycle one behind the other?’ I asked. ‘Or at least, can’t we slow down?’
But our driver continued to crane his neck backwards to see the road in front of him and we carried on out of the tunnel until we reached a flat beachside section of road.
I thought that would be the end of the crazy driver—left behind in Monaco— but it turned out that on the next stop of our vacation the new driver would also drive in reverse and he would just be the same—driving as if he was hell bent on oblivion.
Photo by Kevin Casper via PublicDomainPictures.net.
Elaine and I are on vacation in Indonesia and we are looking for a place on the beach but it is quite crowded. We find a place amongst some rocks where we can put our beach towels. The rocks are a pink hue and have been smoothed down by the ages so that they are fine for lying on. Their curves conform, closely enough with our bodies.
Elaine and I step out towards the waters edge. I walk on into the ocean. The sky is bright with the sun, and I find a low tide area where I can sit. In front of me are some black volcanic rocks, boulders piled up, that jut out of the water.
‘Are you ok swimming near the rocks,’ says a boy from the beach.
But I am okay. I know that the boulders may surround me where I am sitting but the biggest pile is further out to sea, maybe twenty meters away. They are not threatening despite their dark craggy look. I feel the rocks against my thighs where I sit.
Then I go back to shore.
‘It’s too crowded where we are,’ I say to Elaine. ‘Let’s go over there,’ and I point to another less rocky area where the beach does not have sunbathers.
I walk on ahead while Elaine goes to get us coffee. When I get to the area I realize that the old cove is under a huge barn which has wooden beams that are rotten with age. The sun projects through the holes of the barn onto the sand.
Then the sun disappears behind some clouds so the sand is no longer brightly lit. I step through the rocky path up into the main area of the barn further along the cove.
The barn I has an extremely high ceiling, perhaps three storeys high. Wooden trestle tables are scattered on the sand, along the cove. I find a table to sit at.
The sun comes through the holes of the ceiling’s rickety old beams. The beams remind me of driftwood. It is an ideal spot I think. And just I just beginning to wonder whether Elaine will find me when she arrives, balancing two coffees in shallow glass bowls. Each bowl has two or three coffee beans floating in it.
I take one of the coffees and as we sit a local man comes up with a large glass bowl of coffee ice cream.
‘Oh, I forgot I ordered that.’ Elaine nods at the man. Elaine and Dad settle next to the old wooden table in reclining chairs and face each other while we eat our ice cream and drink our coffee.
The sun shifts through the beams at us and I look up to make sure it will not go away.
I feel something clawing, or pawing my left shin. It’s Elaine’s ex-husband, Aaron. He sits next to Elaine but he’s playing footsy with me under the table.
‘Stop it you twat,’ I tell him.
Main photo of driftwood on an Indonesian beach via PickPik. Photo of boys larking about on another beach in Indonesia also via PickPik.
Elaine and David were further along the road, on the parallel, hundred of yards below me where the switchback bent round. The road was filled with traffic. They were at a stop waiting for the lights to turn.
From my car above (I was in the Mazda) I watched them set off only for the BMW in front to slam on the brakes. Elaine had to brake hard, so that their black Highlander was only inches from the BMW. The car behind them was a monster truck. It also slammed on the brakes. The monster truck was raised high because of its monster wheels, and its bonnet covered the back of the Highlander when it came to a halt.
The BMW in front set off once more. And before Elaine could start the car up, the monster truck set off. At first it tried to round them on the inside but when that was not possible it drove over the Highlander, climbed the roof and came down on the other side, rolling over the Highlander’s bonnet before it pulled away.
I looked down with horror, but the Highlander did not crumple under the weight of the truck.
At the loss adjusters I tried to explain what happened but really I needed more evidence.
‘I got the number of the truck,’ said David. He held out the paper plate that he had used to write the license number on. I guessed the insurance company had tracked the address of the truck’s owners after they had driven off without stopping. But he hadn’t taken pictures so he could only explain the damage.
‘The frame of the car was cracked.’ I’d seen how the frame had split under the weight of the monster truck, but it would difficult to associate the damage with the action of the truck.
The loss adjuster stood behind a clean light brown counter in his office as I tried to pitch in that we did not have a photograph. The owners of the truck were with us. I thought they were rednecks. They stood behind us awaiting their turn to explain.
‘I was not there, but I could see from my car which was higher on the series of switchbacks,’ I said.
I tried to describe where the accident had happened. It was on Chain Bridge Road, but I couldn’t be sure. After I spoke, the rednecks approached the counter.
‘Do you have the green blanket,’ the loss adjuster asked the younger man.
He must have been around twenty-five. The man handed the loss adjuster a smaller green placemat the color of olive. I assumed it belonged to a dining set.
