Waze

By now the sun had set. Its orange farewell was mirrored in miniature by the reddening fuzz of streetlights and road signs. Flashing red and blue against jealous drivers in stationary cars, we lasted in the bus lane for three minutes until rolling up to the rear of a bus. Its back was plastered with an advert for SMART WATER. I tried focusing on this to avoid the increasing dread.

‘Open Waze,’ said Mr Lewis with a violent finger at his daughter.

The bus crawled forward. We followed.

‘I am, I am,’ said Jennifer, squinting at the app. ‘Here, take the next right.’

Travelling at ten miles an hour we pulled from the bus’s behind and entered a side street busier than the one we’d left.

Mr Lewis braked.

It wasn’t only full of vehicles. There were people here too. The road was flanked on each side with long lines of huge trucks. In the narrow path between men in orange hard hats waved directions at a fleet of forklift trucks. Each one of these yellow surprises held slabs of stuff unloaded from the lorries.

‘Where have you taken us?’ asked Mr Lewis, wrists balanced on top of the steering wheel, palms flapping at the chaos ahead.

Obviously it was a warehouse district. These trucks unloaded into the buildings stalking either side of the road. It was the exact reverse of a short cut. It was a long addition.

‘It looked okay,’ said Jennifer. ‘Blame Waze.’

‘Waze is never wrong,’ replied her dad.

A huge klaxon filled the air and made my shoulders jump nearly as high as the roof. I turned to see the huge silver grille of an articulated lorry, the sort that drives shipments of guns from the east coast to the west, filling the entire rear windscreen.

‘Here goes nothing,’ said Mr Lewis, putting his foot down.

We swept forward and at a speed ten times faster than was safe. Jennifer and I took turns to gasp as the car threaded, like a sewing needle, back and forth between the forklifts and lorries. Every so often, a hard-looking man, with biceps larger than my waist, would swear and raise a fist. Mr Lewis didn’t care. It was like there was a rocket strapped to the car, like he couldn’t stop if he wanted to.

How we got through the channel of trucks I’ll never know, especially as we hit nobody or nothing.

I think.

At the end of the road there was a stack of cardboard boxes.

‘I’ve always wanted to do this,’ said Mr Lewis, and he steered the nose of the car to nudge them.

He’d watched too many films, supposing the boxes to be empty. Instead they held blackcurrant cordial or juice or something dark and sticky and a thick purple cloud splashed against Jennifer’s side of the windscreen.

She shrieked.

‘Damn,’ said Mr Lewis, as the car continued. ‘But how about that for expert driving?’

He turned his head for my approval. I stared past him. At the horror ahead.

‘Stop!’ screamed Jennifer and the front grille almost kissed the ground as Mr Lewis slammed the brakes.

In front of us, past a barrier gate, rushed a snub-nosed train engine, pulling a dozen thick rounded steel containers.

Its wheels screamed energy. The car rocked in its wake.

I wanted to say something like ‘that was close’, but I was too busy concentrating on not being sick and, anyway, I don’t think my voice would have been heard over the beating of my heart, let alone the roar of the train.

When it had passed, the barriers rose.

‘You want to take a left after the tracks,’ said Jennifer, sounding like she might need a wee.

Mr Lewis did as suggested, turning back on to the same two-lane thoroughfare we’d started on, and just about missing a passing bus. Had he jumped a red light? I don’t know, but it was our second near miss in about three minutes.

‘I don’t want to die,’ I said.

I could see Jennifer’s head nodding.

‘Chill, Dad. It’s no use if he gets to the studio dead.’

Mr Lewis wasn’t chilling. After the close call with the train and bus, he ran another stop light and narrowly avoided a head-on collision with an ice-cream van. Mr Whippy screamed swear words as we passed. We turned a corner, tyres squealing. The windows steamed up as we fought to keep our breath.

‘Are we far off?’ asked Mr Lewis as if he’d been motoring along at a grandmother speed, out for a spin in the country, the car’s MPH now regular.

‘Are you kidding me?’ asked Jennifer. ‘The studio’s three minutes up this street.’

‘There we go,’ said Mr Lewis. ‘No problem at all. Didn’t I say I was going to get you here, Jacob, pal? Jacob? You okay? Yippee-ki-yay! Jacob?’

After some retching, I spoke. ‘Where did you learn to drive like that?’

‘Afghanistan, baby,’ said Mr Lewis, and Jennifer rolled her eyes.

‘He worked in an office,’ she said.