Car Club — The Pick Up

Cake crumbs are stuck to the driver’s seat, in the drinking cup well, and all over the floor. There’s a chocolate bar wrapper wedged in the glove compartment door when I go to get the keypad out. People are so messy!

I wipe off as much as I can. A sickly sweet smell still hangs in the air.

Using car club is like having imaginary friends or enemies. They leave traces of their everyday lives, drain the fuel tank, ignore the tyre warning light so it beeps at you, move the mirrors, leave it in or out of gear, and forget all manner of items, including barbecue charcoal, tins of paint, hoodies, glass cases, door keys, books, etc., in the boot, or trunk, as Americans like to call it. But you rarely, or never, get to meet the actual people.

Thankfully, this is just a quick trip to pick up my daughter from the station. It’s not far away, but she’ll have a heavy case with her. Last time Eddie came (she hates her name, Edwina — all those egg jokes, and no, she’s not a Tory), she arrived with a rucksack and ended up staying for two weeks. My credit card took a beating while she ‘updated’ her wardrobe. We named her for her great-grandmother; the whole egg and Edwina thing didn’t cross our minds. That and the jokes — hey, Edwina, make us a curry. So, Eddie, it is; it suits her. She’s more boy than girl with her elfin crop and penchant for dungarees. Her brother Joe…