I have passed my test and can now drive my dad’s beige coloured Skoda. The sense of freedom almost outweighs the embarrassment of being seen in this car. I’m driving my brother and his friend Nigel to the train. Our house is at the edge of the woods above the A4074. Goring & Streatly train-station is the other side of the hills that lie beyond this main road. It is twilight as we leave our gates. Nigel in the back, my brother beside me. I am disagreeing with my brother. He doesn’t understand and I am trying to make him see. I cross the A4074 and everything becomes very strange and slow.
We are spinning upside down and gravity is lurching in irrational directions. The jump cut edit in reality makes no sense but during the treacle drips of slow time I think clearly to myself that this feels like the Waltzer ride at the Reading funfair.
Everything is very still. The wind blows across the barley that surrounds our car. We are all still sitting in our seats but are now staring out of the broken windscreen at the A4074. Still on the road, the car we hit is crumpled along one side and two people are looking back at us.