My car was at the garage for repairs so often last year that they asked me to their Christmas party. The event was snowed off and rescheduled for last Friday night. The prospect of a party scared as well as exhilarated me. I had been living exclusively among my own banal thoughts for so long I was prey to the peculiar fear that in company they might be laughably transparent.
I had a strip wash in the kitchen sink using stream water heated in a saucepan on the wood-burning stove, shaved with an old Bic disposable razor I found in the bathroom cabinet, staunched the bleeding with cigarette papers I found in a kitchen drawer, and put on my least muddy jeans.
It was still daylight when I emerged from the wood and headed across the open moorland to the car, which I leave beside the road. No matter which way I park my old Mercedes on the peaty, sheep-cropped turf, it looks like an abandoned vehicle.
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