It was a hot day in the summer, one of those days that glimmers like a mayfly, only to be trampled under the heels of an unseasonal downpour twenty-four hours later. Eleanor was staring at the parking ticket on the windscreen of her car. (Eleanor is not the most important person in this story, but without her the story could not have happened, and so this is where we begin.) Eleanor’s car was once an exclusive model, but it was too old and run-down to turn any heads now. Even the traffic warden beside Eleanor could see that this was a metaphor.
‘But I’m legally parked,’ said Eleanor. This was not the beginning of the conversation.
‘Residents’ parking until 6 p.m.,’ repeated the traffic warden.
‘But it doesn’t say that,’ said Eleanor.
‘It does,’ said the traffic warden, ‘on that sign, and that one, and that one, and that one, and that one.’
‘But not above this bay,’ said Eleanor.
‘There’s the paint that marks the bay,’ said the traffic warden, ‘and there’s the hole in the pavement where the sign used to be, before some kids kicked it down. You can extrapolate.’
Had the day been less hot, had the parking ticket been more fair, Eleanor might have noticed the traffic warden’s use of the word ‘extrapolate’ and wondered what kind of a person he was. This was the kind of thing that usually interested Eleanor. But not when she was looking down the barrel of a £35 fine (£70 if not paid within fourteen days, which she had no intention of doing).
‘I’m not paying it,’ she said.
‘That’s your prerogative,’ said the traffic warden, and turned to leave.
Eleanor found this unsatisfactory.
‘I’ll report you,’ she said, ‘for overzealous ticketing.’
‘Be my guest,’ said the traffic warden, walking away.
‘What’s your badge number?’
The traffic warden ignored her.
‘Hey! What’s your badge number?’
She ran after the traffic warden, feeling heavy and uncomfortable in the wrong clothes for the weather: tweed trousers, a synthetic blouse already patched under the arms with sweat. She grabbed the traffic warden by the elbow.
‘Oi!’ said the traffic warden. ‘Let go!’
But Eleanor refused to let go. There was a brief, undignified tussle, during which the traffic warden’s sleeve was undeniably ripped, and possibly – though Eleanor would deny this – he also received a kick in the right shin.
She’d never find her son now, Eleanor thought later, slumped in the back of the police car. Her children, she corrected herself. She tended to forget about Sally.