by Matthew Roy Davey
a can of Quatro
It was a typical
Saturday lunch, sausage, beans and mash, Dad telling us if Concorde had sold
internationally we’d have been living somewhere glamorous, eating by a pool in
California perhaps. In the seventies
he’d worked for BAC but the high hopes they’d had never materialised. I paid little attention, shovelling beans
down and glancing at my watch. In half
an hour Kate was picking me up for our first date. I couldn’t drive.
Kate worked in the
local record shop and after weeks of building up courage I’d asked her out. Astonished that she said yes, I floated out
of the shop with a new seven inch.
Later, as we arranged where to go, I could see her wondering if she’d
made the right decision, her expression faltering. I told her it was a feminist date, the woman
in the driving seat. She pulled a
face.
When her beige
Peugeot pulled up I hurried out, hoping my parents wouldn’t look out of the
window. Kate smiled from behind the
wheel.
“Hi”
“Hi! What’s that on your back seat?”
She looked over
her shoulder. I’d thought it was from a
joke shop. A cigarette with a tail of
grey ash.
“Oh
shit.”
She’d flicked it
out of the window as she was driving but it had blown back in. I opened the back door.
“No, let me do
it.”
She picked up the
filter and brushed hopelessly at the scorch mark. It was burnt to the foam.
“Dad’s gonna kill
me.”
There wasn’t much
to say. I couldn’t tell how close her
laughter was to tears. A grimace and a
smile are the same but for the eyes.
As we drove away I
stared at the dashboard. If we were in
America, I thought, there’d be a steering wheel in front of me. I imagined reaching until my fingertips
touched the black vinyl surface. I
didn’t do it, just sat motionless, staring.
A Pearl Jam tape hissed on the stereo.
She stared straight ahead, knuckles white on the wheel.
I hated Pearl
Jam.
About the author
Matthew was winner of The Observer short story competition and winner of the Dark Tales
competition. He has been long-listed for the Bath Flash Fiction award, Reflex
Flash Fiction competition and Retreat West Competition. His story Waving at
Trains was translated into Mandarin and Slovenian and was published in
anthologies by Vintage and Cambridge University Press. Recently he has been
published by Everyday Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Odd Magazine and Flash:
The International Short-Story Magazine. he has been nominated for the Pushcart
Prize.
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