The Silver Car ...

We were on the M27, returning from staying with my parents for the weekend - I'd edged the tiny lawns - my dad had told us many stories of his youth in the Royal Navy - 

We were approaching Junction 10 - smouldering fragments of tyre covered the hard shoulder - Gardeners' Question Time was on the radio - we were in the middle lane - 

I glanced out of the window - there, just a few feet away, was a marvellous vehicle, the residue, surely, of a dream -  

I gazed shamelessly at the radiant bodywork, the furious wheels - 

The driver, with his goggles, grinned at me - 

I thought of the  photograph I'd seen of Alan Clark, driving one of his opulent vintage cars -

I'd read his last diaries in Herceg Novi, in a murderous street - 

I remembered the letter he wrote to his wife, after his terrible diagnosis - 

Fool Clark, fool - What's the use of saying you are, will always remain, the only true love of my life?

I felt my heart lurch inside its nest of bones - 

3.21

The Old School House

East Stoke

June 23 2014