Most folk called her Pet

Pet held up and out a bent strip of cardboard, which was difficult to read in the rain, ‘London,’ block capitals, in blue marker pen.  The sign drooped as her arm grew tired. Not giving in. She punched out her destination, concentrating on the windscreen of the next car and the car after that and the car after that. Arm dropping.  Rucksack and tenor saxophone case poked out of a hedgerow bursting with nettles, ground elder and cowslip behind her keeping them dry, making them earthy smelling and giving them a home. The diamond badge in the metallic-blue Renault Megane glinted as the sun finally shifted through rolling clouds as the car shifted into the filter lane to pick her up outside Calderpark Zoo. A pause as she crept closer to the car.

The passenger window whirled down and the driver leaned across, peering up at her, a friendly smile on his face. ‘Where you going, love?’ Local Glasgow accent and didn’t sound too posh. She knew from cars leaving her standing like an idiot too much baggage scared drivers away. By the time she’d collected her stuff the car window was up, condensation scarring the glass, rain making it slick, the engine ticking, cars and a Self-Hire minibus gunning past the on the inside and outside lanes. Her forehead damp she patted down her hair to make herself presentable. The passenger door clicked open. With the sound Pet scrunched down, rounding her shoulders, leaning into the contrasting darkness of the car, an air freshener in the shape of a fir tree twirling from the rear-view mirror.

He angled his head, black-rimmed glasses, salt-and-pepper cropped hair, with a growing monk’s crown which his hand strayed from the wheel to pat. His ears were the sticky-out kind that would have led to name calling at school.  ‘Stow your stuff in the back,’ he said, smiling with snaggly teeth, shifting slightly in his seat. ‘You comin’ or not?’ Slight impatience in his voice. Frown on his forehead, looked straight ahead, checking the driver-side mirror.

Pet held her breathe, before making a decision and stowed her stuff on the back seat. The interior was show-room clean and smelt of chamois leather. ‘Sorry, about the mess,’ she said, sliding into the front seat beside him, not sure if she meant the stuff in the back or herself. He looked at her briefly, nodded and indicated. Checked all the mirrors before pulling out. The doors clicking and locking shut. In front of them grey miles of motorway.

Around eight-and-a-half-hours later Pet stumbled barefoot along the verge of a busy motorway. She didn’t know which one. Or where she was. Something about her appearance caught the attention of a woman driving a Clio. She slowed and pulled into the breakdown lane. Hazard lights flashing, she waited.  But Pet seemed not to see the bubble of the bright yellow car, stepping around it and onto the road. Car horns blared as she stepped sideways out of the slipstream of a red Kia.

When Pet raised her head there was a woman standing beside her, gripping her elbow and guiding her towards the Clio. Dark hair ironed into submission, sleek and shiny as cut glass. Her face tanned, high cheek bones, dusky green smudges on her eyelids and a flush for a mouth. She was alien, yet familiar. Pet, in comparison, felt crudely tailored, weathered and windblown as a plastic bag, she mumbled, ‘someone has stolen my saxophone,’ over the Crowded House track blasting out of the in-car entertainment unit.

‘You’ve been badly beaten.’ The driver of the Clio frowned as she clicked off the music. The hum and aftertaste of the motorway filling the gap and the faint far away lights of lights from a large town pulling them into normality. ‘You want me to call the police?’ She adjusted the earpiece she was wearing.

‘No.’ Pet shook her head. ‘No police. They said I needed public liability insurance and an entertainment license to play my sax. Sniggered at me. Called me a beggar. That’s why I was going to London.’

‘Quite. Quite.’ The tanned women tapped Pet on the wrist as a sign of commiseration. She clearly enunciated each word as if talking to a child. ‘I can take you to London. We’re not far. There used to be a social work department, or something, near Edgware Road. I pass it. You could go there for help.’

Pet let herself be led to the car. She flinched when the woman with the too-straight hair patted her on the knee and buckled her seatbelt for her. She flicked the indicator, clicking, as she accelerated and overtook a white delivery van, it made space and the Clio returned them to the inside lane and a dot-to-dot of normality.  

‘Well, I’ve got to admit it. I’m not that experienced with men.’ Pet looked straight ahead. ‘I was a virgin and he raped me and stole my saxophone.’

The tanned woman was watching the car in front of them, accelerating behind it as if to hurry it up, but turns her head. ‘You mean no experience? Never had a special man friend?’

 ‘Yeh, no experience.’

‘Well, that’s a first.’ Puffs out her cheeks. ‘My heads sore just thinking about it. That’s so-h depressing.’ Half smiled. ‘Maybe you’re right. Most men are murder. But to be fair, it’s quite awkward you being like that.’

‘Awkward?’

‘Yes. Awkward.’

‘Like what?’

‘Nothing.’ She laughed through her nose. ‘Someone tried to rape me once. A friend of my-then- boyfriend Mark.’ Her hand slipped from the wheel as she wagged a manicured finger. ‘I just told him that he if he went ahead and forced himself upon me there would be C-O-N-S-E-Q-U-E-N-C-E-S. And he could see I was serious.’  She almost tailgated the car in front as the traffic slowed and stopped, edging forward at walking pace. ‘Fuck.’ She banged the steering wheel. ‘I’m going to be late.’

When they got near to Edgware Road the tanned woman shifted in her seat and hooked her bag. The car stopped and started as they juddered forward. She pulled out her phone, checking her messages and opened her purse. ‘Sorry, I can’t take you all the way. I’ll need to drop you here. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Yes.’

She leaned across Pet, opening the car door while keeping her place on the road. As Pet stepped in near the kerb, the tanned woman called her back. ‘Look, I don’t usually do this.’ She flung a fiver out onto the road. ‘Get yourself a McDonalds or something.’

Pet picked the note up. Edgware Tube Station wasn’t far. She crossed the road and bought the cheapest ticket. Down under London’s streets the platforms were packed. Pet pushed and edged forward until she could hear the click and intricate rhythms of the rail. The light changed to green. The atonal sound of the train trying to brake went up and down, weaved a plaintive tune, as the notes passed through her.