Driving Behaviour

‘It’s like a helter-skelter for cars,’ she said. Their son, James, strapped into a safety seat like a soft toy in a gift box, didn’t respond. She glanced from the spiralling concrete to check her husband. ‘I said it’s like a helter-skelter for cars.’

He looked up from his iPad. He’d been reading how the star player of a European football team had injured his foot by dropping an ironing board. He didn’t think star players would need to do ironing. He’d not iron if he were a star player. He didn’t iron as it was, which explained his crumpled shirts.

‘It is,’ he said. ‘Only helter-skelters go down.’

His wife told him not to be pedantic.

‘And, anyway, you’ve got to get to the top of a helter-skelter somehow,’ she said.

He didn’t think he was being pedantic. The whole point of helter-skelters was sliding down them. Pointing that out wasn’t pedantic. It was … something else. He thought the spirals, one for the incoming traffic, one for the outgoing, was more like DNA. He didn’t say this. She’d think him pretentious.

The car stopped at a boom barrier. Anna didn’t accurately judge the distance from her window to the automated ticket machine well. She undid her seat-belt and pulled half her body from the driver’s seat to reach the ticket, sticking like a tongue from its metallic mouth. He stared at the denim of her ass as she did this. From behind, a car sounded its horn. His wife collapsed back into her seat as the boom barrier raised.

‘I’ve got short arms,’ she said.

He couldn’t tell whether she was joking. She always spoke with such an even tone.

Up ahead swelled a sea of metal, an ocean of automobiles. The roof of the carpark was low, making the space claustrophobic and gloomy. He could imagine being mugged here. It was a space in which deals were made and criminals were thrown over the side. How high were they? He couldn’t tell. There were no windows, only distant slits in the exterior concrete which glowed like glow-in-the-dark strips.

Anna swung the car around a concrete pillar, some hidden plastic squeaked, and up a concrete ramp to reach the next level. There was little point searching on the first level. That was the first rule of multi-storey parking. His eyes dropped back to the iPad. He finished reading the story about the ironing board. The player’s wife was a successful South American pop musician. The next story was about cricket. He switched off the tablet. He didn’t like sport. It reminded him of being miserable at school. Why did his iPad suggest he read about sport? Weren’t there algorithms? Hadn’t he answered questions when he’d first installed the app? The car bumped over a speed hump. There, directly ahead, appearing as they rose over the crest of the ramp and emerged onto level two, was a parking space.

‘Look!’ he said.

He rushed to point with such urgency that his iPad fell into the footwell. He left it there. He thought of the bookshop his wife had promised. Would it be a real bookshop? Or a stationery shop with a few bestsellers on a neglected shelf?

But, instead of rolling gently and directly into the free space, a perfect fit for their modest family saloon (inherited from his father), Anna followed the curve of the road left and drove on. The parking space grew small in the wing mirror.

‘There’ll be another,’ she said. ‘There’s always another.’

The layout had been designed to make incoming cars draw crenulations across the space. Up and down and up and down. All cars, whether they were coming or going, were forced to take the same route and at the end of their jagged path came a choice — descend (and exit) or ascend (and continuing searching).

As the family drove back and forth, they saw no further spaces. All manner of cars, new and old, of mostly muted colours, a few sports-cars, a few four-by-fours, all empty and safely parked. Yes, they saw many cars. But they wanted the opposite of cars. They wanted car spaces. Their heads moved to and fro as if they watched a tennis match. But, despite their close attention, no further space appeared. They finished their sweep of this floor. Anna drove the car up another ramp. Up to another level and the inevitable spaces there must, for the love of God, be above.

Up one avenue and, there!, he saw it first! Yes! A space up ahead. Anna saw it too. She crawled the car towards it. Simon turned and gripped his son’s leg in congratulations. The kid frowned. Simon offered a thumbs up.

Instead of swinging at it, front-first, Anna passed. A bubble of anger tightened in his chest as he feared she might drive on.

‘Anna?’ he said, turning from his son.

She gave him a ‘do not fuck with me’ glance, stopped the car and moved it into reverse. The car crept backwards. He placed his hands on his legs and tightened his fingers into his flesh. He couldn’t help but look in the wing mirror and its reflection of the fuck-off expensive Mercedes on the passenger side showed they were a hairbreadth away from collision and associated expense.

‘Stop!’ he said.

The car lurched. She turned to apologise to their son and with raised eyebrows as if all this was Simon’s fault, Simon noticed. James, holding his iPad tightly, had a face smudged with confusion.

‘What?’ she said to her husband.

‘You’re like an inch from smacking into this car. You’re not going to make it.’

Their car was frozen, emerging like the head of a baby, only its rear wheels between the white lines of the space. But, in parking lots, as in life, you’re either in or you’re out. There’s no in-between.

‘And there’s no room this side,’ she said. ‘I won’t be able to open the door this side.’

‘Well, there’s no room this side.’

She swore. She said something about everyone having huge cars and how there should be a separate space for huge cars. She jerked the car into first gear and they jumped out of the space. Their heads were pushed back into the headrests. But Anna had not checked for oncoming cars. A battered two-door Ford screamed to a stop, its tires whining. Its horn sounded twice. The driver, with a pony-tale so tight it pulled her face to her forehead, threw up her hands.

Simon raised a hand, acknowledging their mistake. His wife mouthed ‘sorry’. They moved out. More gently this time. He turned his head as they passed through the avenue of dead cars. Behind them, the Ford pulled into the space.

‘She’s managing,’ he said. ‘But her car is probably smaller.’

Their car stopped. Their heads lulled forwards. The handbrake was applied. It clicked sharply and something like the noise a dolphin makes. Anna opened the driver’s door and stepped out. He watched her walk around the bonnet and open his door. A Starbucks cup fell to the floor. It popped as it rolled under the car. He couldn’t remember the last time he drank coffee in the car.

‘What?’ he said.

‘You drive.’

‘Really?’

‘Really?’

He shrugged like it was no big thing. But he couldn’t help thinking that all this would have been easier if she’d taken the first spot they’d seen. They’d be in the mall by now and he didn’t even want to visit the mall. Essentially, he was doing her a favour.

There was a bookshop, she’d said. And it was good to get Adam, their son, out of the house. Even if it was only to a shopping mall. It was all stimulation and did she mention there was a bookshop?

He stepped from the car, walked around its rear, and got into the driver’s seat. He closed the door. He eased forwards. Good driving is all about calm control of the pedals. He steered them forwards, calling behind ‘Are you going to help, Adam?’, and around one corner of a row of cars, and so to the head of yet another avenue formed by two tight regiments of parked cars.

But this might be the one. Their luck was bound to change soon.

‘There!’ said his wife, her wedding ring catching the artificial light as she pointed, ‘Is that a space?’

He squinted. There! Ahead! He sped up, the speedometer’s dial jumping. Yes, she was right. It was a space. That’s karma. That’s cosmic justice. He only had to swap seats and a space appeared. Who’s the man? He was. He’d buy himself a nice book as a treat.

At the far end, a car rolled into view.

It was a yellow saloon, nondescript. It faced them down as if to play chicken. And it was moving in the wrong direction in a one-way system and it was traveling fast and gaining speed and its indicator was blinking in the direction of the space.

‘No!’ called his wife.

‘Come on,’ said Simon, defeated already.

The saloon would reach the space before they did. They heard the assertion of its engine from within their own car. And so, as predicted, and in one effortless turn, it filled the empty space, their space. They caught up a second or two later. Already the driver was out of the car. He was about Simon’s age and was pulling on a blazer. He looked like he might work in property development. There was an unnatural tint to his skin.

Anna wound down the passenger’s window.

‘That was our space,’ she said and she didn’t sound aggressive or accusatory. She might have been commenting on the weather.

‘Can’t see your name on it,’ said the man, smiling.

Simon drove on before Anna could reply.

‘I mean,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t even know our name … so …’

He’d wanted to sound funny. It was only a parking spot. There was always more parking spots. That was the point of multi-storey car-parks. Nothing to get upset about. But Anna didn’t reply. Her head was turned. She looked out of the passenger window. He should say something about her hair. It was looking good today. Hollywood good. It always put him on edge when she didn’t speak.

‘Why did the man take our spot?’ asked James.

‘Because he is a naughty man,’ replied Simon, wishing, for once, that James might return to watching his iPad.

Simon turned the car down a row of cars. And he turned the car up the following row. Nothing. They reached the end of the level. Simon took them up another ramp. The car growled over some uneven tarmac.

As he drove, he wondered whether his wife was angry with him or the other guy.

Would she have been happy if he’d raced down the road and, like, done a handbrake turn into the space? No. She would have been more angry. James was in the back. There were safety concerns.

Yet … he couldn’t escape the feeling that he might have been more assertive. Not least in front of his son.

He thought of the star footballer and his pop star wife. Footballers don’t have to drive to shopping malls. They have people to do that for them. Assertive people.

On the next level, they traversed two more channels. Anna thought she spotted a space, but it turned out to be one of those tiny cars that were once marketed to city-workers. The type that were briefly popular until one was involved in an accident and its driver was reported as having been squashed paper-thin.

Up ahead, a small silver car waited. Its indicator light blinked right. Simon slowed up. A car began to pull out of the space ahead of which the silver car waited. Such dumb luck was the pattern of the morning. The timing! If he’d not slowed down for the saloon car, if Anna hadn’t spoken from the window, they may have made this space instead of the waiting idiot in the silver car. If James hadn’t fussed about the coat he’d wanted to bring (dinosaur, not airplane), they may have made it, instead of the underserving single occupant, you could clearly see their dull silhouette, waiting politely ahead of the red Nissan that was now almost fully out of its spot. It only needed to reverse a little further towards Simon to give itself enough space to overtake the silver car. And, anyway, who waits ahead of a free spot? You wait behind. It’s understood. It’s carpark etiquette. He turned to check Anna. She was staring into the middle-distance, slowly shaking her head.

‘Eh?’ he said, but she didn’t respond.

As the red Nissan pulled off, he jumped the car into gear and sped forwards. The driver of the silver car was paralysed by this show of aggressive behaviour. The silver car didn’t move an inch, didn’t sound its horn. You snooze, you lose.

Simon swung the family car into the vacated space, showing excellent judgment of the angles.

Anna turned. Anna spoke.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

He turned off the engine and pulled the key from the ignition. The engine tutted.

‘I was fed up of waiting,’ he said. ‘I was being assertive.’

From the back, his son spoke –

‘Go, Dad!’ he said.

Simon felt his chest warm. His son understood. He was only four, but he understood. Go, James!

‘Look, we’ve got a space, right?’ said Simon. ‘Don’t worry.’

As he stepped from their car, the silver car reversed up. An elderly man, no hair, an ‘n’ for a mouth, leant from the driver’s window, elbow jutting.

‘That’s my space,’ he said. ‘I was waiting for that.’

Simon turned to catch Anna’s eye. But she was leaning into the rear of the car, freeing James from his seatbelt, so he could only see her ass.

‘I didn’t see your name on it,’ said Simon. ‘The space.’

The man frowned. The man opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. Instead, he waved a dismissive hand at Simon and drove the car slowly away.

As the family walked along a pathway painted purple, following signs promising they were headed in direction of ‘shops’, Simon held his son’s hand. There wasn’t enough space for the family to walk together, so Anna led the way, a step or two ahead.

‘Anna,’ said Simon. ‘This bookshop had better be good.’

As he spoke, an engine roared somewhere and his words must have been lost to its sound because his wife didn’t reply.

‘I don’t want to go to a bookshop,’ said his son.

With his free hand, Simon patted his son’s head.

‘How about I buy you something?’ he said, his eyes focused on Anna’s back.

His son looked up, smiling.