Dude, why's my car not working?

[Lexie Harrison]

One day back and Lexie had survived with month old cereal for half a day but a trip out to Morrison's to stock up on essentials was clearly necessary and it was pouring with rain, it wasn't as if she was going to do anything more exciting.

The meandering drive to the big out-of-town supermarket along narrow lanes surrounded by high hedges, half of the journey stuck behind a double decker bus, windscreen wipers going as fast as they could, might have been worse. She was cosy in her car and she had Caro Emerald to sing along to. Driving like this was liberating; until she had left the claustrophobia of London, she had never enjoyed driving. Now she loved it. The shop was predictable and her journey home in increasingly heavy rain equally so - until her car came to a sudden stop about five minutes out of town. In vain did she juggle the key in the ignition, rev the clutch and swear out loud. She was stuck in the middle of a narrow road and Hastings (for so the car was named) showed no inclination to move.

She got out, slammed the door, and raised her face to the grey and darkening sky. No mobile signal here either, for the network was intermittent. Another interval of swearing made her realise that all she could do was walk back to the village, call on Luke at the garage and get him to tow her away. Pulling the hood of her anorak over her head and cursing her boots that were already a darker colour from the rain, she started to trudge towards the village. 

Ten minutes chilly walk brought her to the garage, fortunately at the top end, and she went into the little office and shop, pulled down her hood and shaking out her damp hair, as she called out, "Hello? Luke? Anyone?"

[Luke Walsh]

Luke lifted his head from his tinkering, half-thinking he'd imagined a voice in the distance, but then--there it came again. Someone was in the shop.

"I am going to murder...that...kid..." he muttered as he hauled himself up from his workbench. Mattie was paid the exorbitant sum of five quid per hour to sit at the front counter and holler for whoever was in the back. It was a sweet deal for a twelve-year-old, but unfortunately the boy had a habit of wandering off.

Having left his coat hanging in the office, Luke hunched his shoulders against the rain and made a dash across the parking-lot--now mostly a mixture of mud and gravel that threatened to mire would-be parkers.

He paused at the back door to try and shake the worst of it off his boots before stepping inside, smiling apologetically at Lexie over the counter.

"Sorry--my receptionist seems to have taken off. That fancy piece of yours finally pack it in?" he asked, taking in the rather soaked and much-less-put-together-than-usual figure standing before him. The question was good-natured and empathetic, rather than smugly I-told-you-so. One's car was one's car--whatever the engineering failings of the sporty black thing, it clearly pleased Miss Harrison to drive it, and it was his duty to see she could continue doing so.

[Lexie Harrison]

Lexie tapped her damp foot against the floor restlessly as she waited, calling a few more times. Finally, the implausibly good-looking mechanic emerged and she tried to resist rolling her eyes.

"For the moment it seems to have done. Bloody thing just stopped right outside the village. Can you help?" She gestured outside. "It'll need towing, I reckon, because it's just sitting in the middle of the road at the moment and that's a disaster waiting to happen, right? No signal either. Sorry, Luke," she added, as an afterthought.

[Luke Walsh]

"I'll make the call for the truck to come, then--in the meantime I'll give you a lift back in the van and we'll see if we can't get it onto the shoulder or into a lay-by while we wait. If you put it in neutral and steer, I can push," said Luke.

Luke slid his phone out of his pocket and punched in the number for the tow-truck service in town, but paused as he held the phone up to his ear, glancing uncertainly at Lexie as he jangled his keys in his spare hand--an old habit. He liked the sound.

"...or is it an automatic transmission?"

[Lexie Harrison]

"Thanks," said Lexie and then thought that sounded ungrateful, so she added, "Good plan!"

She waited while he made the phone call, looking around the room, outside at the rain still lashing down the window, at the keys jangling irritatingly in Luke's hand, at her nails and at the floor.

There was a pause and she glanced up. "No, no - it's normal!"

[Luke Walsh]

Luke's jaw shifted every so slightly to the side and he nodded, once.

"Right." He half-turned away at the phone was picked up on the other end. "Hi, Finn, Luke here, out Penchurch way. I've got a non-starter that's gonna need a tow back to the garage, just outside the village--" He turned the mobile against his shoulder and stage-whispered to Lexie. "Road in from town, was it?" Without really waiting for her to confirm or deny it, he was back onto the phone. "Yeah, town road. We'll see if we can get it onto the shoulder and meet you there. Right. Uh-huh. Cheers mate, see you."

Luke slid his phone into his pocket and tossed the keys in the air one more time, catching them again in his palm.

"Shall we?" he said, jerking his head towards the door he'd come in by as he stepped around the counter and came towards her. "Van's 'round the back. I'll just need to lock up the front here." He reached around Lexie to flip the sign on the glass from open to closed, hitting the light-switch with his other hand.