He hadn’t slept since the text message that said, Pick you up at 0700. The unknown number could only mean George. He lay awake all night beside his sleeping wife and thought, if it wasn’t for her, I could get up and leave, run away somewhere. But that was pointless, George would find him.

He rose slowly and crept into the kitchen and when he turned on the light, it stung his eyes. He thought about eating breakfast, but his stomach was churning, and he had no appetite. He only took a shower because he could never leave the house without one.

He dressed in jogging bottoms and a light hoodie thinking he may as well be comfortable. He crept back into the bedroom and kissed his wife on the cheek and inhaled her scent warm with sleep. Then he walked into his son’s room and over to the little green car bed and watched his soft face in the amber nightlight. The boy was snoring quietly, his arms up by his head as though he were falling. Martin bent over to kiss him on the forehead and again on the cheek and thought how much he smelled like his mother.

The digital clock changed to 0655. George was never late so Martin padded down the carpeted stairs and put on his coat. Then he opened the front door and the cold morning beat his face and when he closed the door behind him, he felt a last pull of warmth from inside.

He locked the front door and put the keys through the letterbox. He took out his phone and deleted the message from George and turned the phone off and posted it through the letterbox.

Light was coming to the sky in lazy blue bands and he noticed a black shard sticking out of the lawn; a slate had fallen from the roof now erect like a dragon scale.

His heart beat faster when he heard the car and it stopped outside the house with the engine running and the lights on. It was an old Rover with leather seats, dark green perhaps.

George rolled down the window and looked at the slate in the grass and said,

‘You ought to get that fixed, chop your head off.’

Martin walked around the back of the car to get into the passenger seat beside George who shifted his immense frame toward Martin and said,

‘You look fuken terrible.’

Martin looked away and forced a small laugh. He could smell cologne.

George accelerated and said,

‘Put your seatbelt on.’

Martin obeyed and he glanced in the rear-view mirror at the house he and his wife had bought four long years ago.

They remained silent until the car left the cul-de-sac and George asked,

‘How’s Fiona?’

‘Good, ye good. Getting by.’

‘And the kid, whatshisname?’

‘Kevin. Ye he’s good, thanks George. Where we going, George?’

George, in his big coat, didn’t answer and looked instead at the road ahead, sticking to the speed limit. Martin thought, I wish he would just hurry up, at least put the radio on. He pictured knocking George out with his elbow but dismissed the idea and he heard George chortle as though he were inside his brain. Then he thought he could jump out of the car and make a run for it, but Fiona and Kevin weighed on his tired mind like an anchor on some doomed vessel.

This Sunday morning they drove into town but there was nobody about. They passed the church where Martin’s gran used to take him; she would make him go every week, even on holidays abroad she’d find a church somewhere. He used to hate going but would gladly now beat down the doors mouth open to eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus Christ.

He wondered how George had found out but deep down he’d known that he would eventually: anything George didn’t know he had someone to tell him.

George braked suddenly and it startled Martin when the seatbelt locked in his shoulder and the car swung left toward the Ultima 24hr Carwash.

‘You don’t mind, do you? Car’s manky.’

Martin said he didn’t mind but he had always hated carwashes, the noise the darkness the claustrophobia.

No-one was working at the automated carwash. George braked behind the barrier and rolled down the window to read the options on a screen: Basic, Deluxe, Ultimate.

George took out a wallet and leafed through the notes with a fat thumb.

‘Got any change?’

Martin shook his head.

‘No, sorry George.’

George sighed and took a ten out of his wallet and fed it into the machine. It sucked the note inside and spat it out again. He tried again three times before it was accepted, and George pushed the button for Ultimate. When the barrier lifted the Rover crawled towards the entrance and George wound up the window. He stopped behind the red light and shifted the car into neutral and left the engine on and the conveyor belt began to swallow the car with a long rubber tongue.

Martin unclipped his belt and shifted in his seat. He jumped when the car was shot with sprays of water under the rinse arch and he could hear thuds on the car roof. Ahead the brushes begun to spin red black and he asked in the din,

‘What’s this all about George?’

George said nothing watching the machinery. He looked like he was smiling but it was dark inside the car. Foam spat from a high-pressure hose,

‘George.’

Martin said, as the windscreen blurred with white soap and the car darkened further so only their faces were lit in amber and George looked demented with that black mouth. The foam slid down the glass like spilt cream and there came the sound of the brushes clamping left right, scraping along the car body.

Sweating, Martin took off his jacket and began to plead with George,

‘It was only money, George. Please.’

George pushed a button to lock the doors and from the glovebox drew a blade and held it silver flat on his lap. Martin was frantic now slapping the windows and banging the roof and tugging at George’s coat.

The front brush mounted the bonnet and rolled thunder up the windscreen stabbing black knives in the foam and Martin covered his ears with his hands and shut his eyes tight and rocked back and forth in his seat.

George put his arm around Martin and brought him close,

‘Do you think I’d leave a son without a father?’

he said, but Martin couldn’t hear him he couldn’t hear anything now.

When the glass was clear sunlight sprinkled jewels through jets of sealant. The brushes slowed to a stop, wilting in heat from the drier fans. The conveyor stopped the Rover behind a light that said RELAX.

The automatic barrier lifted, and the light changed to green.

George hung the jacket over Martin’s head and drove slowly out into the morning.

November 2018