My wife has pleasing news. Not good news, just the sort of bad news she enjoys being the bearer of. When I arrive home from a meeting early one evening, she cannot hold it in.
“Our car’s been recalled,” she says.
“What?” I say.
“You know when they mention some death car on one of those boring consumer things you’re sort of half-watching?” she says.
“Death car?” I say.
“And it never turns out to be yours,” she says. “But I checked – same model, same version, same year, same everything.”
The car, which we bought secondhand from Farouk the mechanic just after Christmas, has already had its fair share of issues. The engine warning light was permanently on, although Farouk assured us that the problem lay with the light itself and not the engine.
A few days later, the oil light came on, sounding a warning tone every 30 seconds. No amount of oil would make it stop.
After two weeks, Farouk took the car back to make the necessary repairs. For a long time we heard nothing. Farouk, when contacted, was apologetic, but mysterious: complications had arisen, he said, but it was clear he would rather not discuss them. I began to suspect that he’d accidentally sold our car to someone else. He offered to lend us his car. We accepted. Weeks went by, then months. Finally, in mid-April, our car was restored to us, fully repaired and fit to drive. Until now.
“What’s wrong with it?” I ask my wife.
“Either it goes completely dead when you’re speeding along on the M4,” she says, “or it bursts into flames while you’re parked.”
“Does it have to be the M4?” I say.
“It’s not funny,” she says.
“But it’s 10 years old,” I say. “Shouldn’t it have blown up by now?”
“Apparently not,” she says.
“What do we do?” I say.
“We’re supposed to be getting a letter,” she says.
Weeks go by. No letter arrives. The car does not lose power. I begin to suspect my wife may have got the model wrong, after all, and is refusing to acknowledge her error because she likes telling the story.
“I’m afraid we can’t come this weekend,” my wife says to someone on the phone. “Our car is a flaming death trap.”
“No, it isn’t,” I say. “Who are you taking to?”
“It was on TV!” my wife says. “I’m absolutely terrified of driving it.”
“You drove it this morning,” I say.
She gives me a stern look over the tops of her glasses. “I suppose we could take the train,” she says. “But I think we need to be here in case the car suddenly bursts into flame for no reason.”
A week later, I am hovering near the letterbox, hoping to intercept some lamp wicks I ordered. I do not wish to explain to my wife why I have bought lamp wicks, because it might lead to a discussion about the lamp I also ordered.
I hear the post hitting the mat, and run to the hall. There are no lamp wicks in the pile: just a magazine, a phone bill and a letter addressed to me informing me that my car has been recalled.
“It’s real,” I say, reading the letter a second time.
“Of course it’s real,” my wife says. “What does it say we should do?”
“It says at this stage we should do nothing,” I says.
“Is there a number?” she says.
“They will send us another letter,” I say. “Then they will fix it, and it will be free.”
“Does it say we should drive it?” she says.
“Just do nothing,” I say. “It’s the do nothing letter.”
The next day, my wife returns from the supermarket in a state of high excitement. “So, on the way there,” she says, “the engine warning light started flickering.”
“That’s actually sort of an improvement,” I say.
“And the seatbelt thing suddenly started bonging,” she says, “even though my seatbelt was on.”
“Is this because of the letter?” I say. “Are you being paranoid?”
“Then the indicator click stopped working,” she says.
“It begins,” I say.
“Next come the flames,” she says.
“Did you get bread?” I ask.
