Ryan and Chloe drove a wood-lined Lexus. The grain swirled like the foam of a pouring Guinness or the clouds of a Martian storm. I could contemplate these things because Ryan and Chloe barely said a word.
They picked me up from a slip road onto the A120. They were the first car to pass. It had taken them a moment to decide, pulling over near the confluence with the carriageway. I ran the hundred yards between us.
They said they were only going as far as Braintree, about 5 miles. I jumped in anyway and asked what they were doing there.
“Not much. Shopping,” Ryan replied, half looking over his shoulder. They must have been about my age.
“Oh nice…Looking for anything in particular…?”
There was a moment of silence as they decided who should reply. “Sunglasses,” Chloe said.
“Oh nice…Guess it’s good to get some before the summer.”
“Yep.”
“Good shops in Braintree then…?” I tried again after another pause.
“Just designer shops really.”
“Oh nice, which ones?”
“Tommy Hilfiger.”
After several more questions, I learned that there’s a big outlet centre in Braintree called Freeport which was, they confirmed, a little like a mini Bicester. Silence returned and I had a moment to quip to myself that I’d put the ‘earn in learn’.
“Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker before?” I searched.
“No, you’re the first one.”
“Is Braintree nice?”
“Nah not much going on.”
“What’s Clapton beach like? I’m thinking I might head there…”
“It’s just a beach really, to be honest.”
I thought that perhaps I was being rude by asking so many questions so I sat back and lost myself in the grain of the wood. The golden spirals now looked like some Nespresso advert, velvety coffee plunging into a cup and swirling. It made me want a coffee.
We came to Braintree. The roundabouts were busy so Ryan pulled into a petrol station. I got out and they gave a fittingly short goodbye.
A lady came out of the kiosk in a blue fluffy dressing gown. Her fluffy slippers had antennae with fluffy balls on the end that trembled with each step. I went behind her into the shop. The paint in the toilet was peeling and there was an abandoned coffee cup sitting on top of the rusting hand drier. It fell off when the drier turned on and the coffee spilt across the grimy floor. It looked nothing like the Nespresso advert I’d been imagining.
The only place to catch a lift was the turning into the petrol station. Cars sped away from the roundabout, streaming up the dual carriageway. Some indicated and swerved past me into the petrol station. Each time I thought they were stopping for me. Each time, as I peered round the hedge to the petrol pumps, I realised they weren’t.
The traffic on the other side was moving slowly as it approached the roundabout. A young man with a bald head wound down his window. “I’m going to Colchester,” he yelled over the traffic, looking at my sign. He broke my sudden enthusiasm with a jeer and a middle finger. The window wound upwards and the traffic lurched forward, his laughter now only visible.
After 20 minutes I moved to the other side of the hedge, to catch the cars coming out of the station. I got lucky shortly after. A father and his son welcomed me in. The dad, Rob, had warm worn lines around his eyes and his hazel brown hair was pushed behind his ears. The son was on the upper bounds of adolescence. Both had blue eyes.
Rob said they’d turned past me on the other side of the hedge. I’d been right to come to that side he thought. Rob had hitchhiked in South Africa when he was younger, “It was…interesting,” he said though didn’t expand. Nevertheless, he thought you had to be careful nowadays.
They were returning from Stansted where Dan, the son, had just landed from Florence. He’d been to see his girlfriend. I said I’d been to Italy the week before too, with my girlfriend. “She Italian as well?” Rob chirped. I said she wasn’t, we’d gone on holiday.
“Dan’s girlfriend lives in Florence,” he replied with a proud sideways nod towards his son.
Dan confirmed with typical teenage embarrassment and explained, in as few words as he could, that they’d met on holiday in Mallorca and stayed in touch. He goes there or she comes here every month or so. They’d kept it up since summer.
Rob said he’d been in Morocco the week before that. I said with a laugh that I’d also just been there with my girlfriend. Rob had hired a car and driven through the country, through Marrakesh and Fez. He loved it though was surprised it had snowed.
Having grown up in Chingford, Rob started his first business barely a few hundred yards from where I live. Shacklewell Lane used to be really rough, he said, it was where several gangs were based. We agreed it’s come up a bit since then.
“Yeah it’s a great spot. Borders Shoreditch, Upper Street in Islington isn’t far…”
“You don’t wanna hang around Islington,” Dan added drily from the passenger seat, “Got a shit football club…”
They revealed they were Spurs fans. When I announced I supported Arsenal there were lots of angry moans. Luckily they didn’t kick me out of the car.
We slid into the comforting prattle of football chat. Had we seen so and so’s goal and what did we think of the decision? The referee’s a dick and were Arsenal going to go all the way? Naturally, they hoped not. “Whatever happens,” Rob said with predictive authority, “I think we’ll have a say in it. All three have got to play Spurs before the end…”
What always amazes me about football is how little most people really know about what’s going on, and how little difference it makes. Yet despite this, it’s still deeply nourishing talking about it - predicting, gossiping, reminiscing, even if it’s mostly lamenting. There are few things in the world as unifying as football. After a smile and music, I’d say football comes in third.
We came off the main road and Rob pulled into the car park of a white bungalow. The tips of five red tulips caught the sun over a low brick wall. I asked if they thought it was worth going to Clapton.
“No, it’s a shithole,” was Rob’s simple response. They suggested I go to Walton-on-the-Naze or Mersea Island. “Careful of the tides,” was his parting advice. I waved them off and made my way to the road to Mersea.