The yellow Morris Minor, remembering Puccini ...

When I was a teacher at Seaford Head School, I got to know the Head of Music - he lived in a house in Lewes which had three floors - his was a cultured, disordered, household - one room on the third floor was full of heaps of clothes, waiting to be ironed - 

Chris told me he was a Puccini man - small busts of the composer decorated the mantle piece - he'd made his pilgrimage to Lucca - 

So I discovered a glorious unknown world - I'd listen, rapt, to the aria Tre sbirre una carrozza - I'd shiver, wide eyed, overcome by the beauty and cruelty of Turandot - my eyes would brim with tears when I heard Callas sing O mio babbino caro - 

Chris told us that Elspeth had done a runner - I'd only seen her a few times before she bolted - I've a vivid memory of a dark haired woman, shapely, elusive, darting up the stairs -  

Chris drove a Morris Minor Traveller - sometimes he'd give me a lift from Lewes to school - he'd remove crumpled sheets of music from the front passenger seat - I'd sit there, in my dark suit, planning lessons for the mad boys - 

We'd drive through the outskirts of Seaford, past the bland houses - Chris would sit hunched over the steering wheel - I'd breathe the strange damp air inside the Morris Traveller - Chris never said much more about Elspeth - 

We saw a yellow Morris Minor in a Sainsbury's car park - I thought of Chris, and of his bolting wife - I imagined her, sitting in the car, reading a letter, smiling her unsettling smile -