“Right at that moment, I would have liked to text Stuart, but I didn’t have his mobile number any more. I would have liked to text him to say I understood, now, what it was that he’d been trying to tell me about cars. Cars are like people. We mill around every day, we rush here and there, we come within inches of touching each other but very little real contact goes on. All those near misses. All those might-have-beens. It’s frightening, when you think about it. Probably best not to think about it at all.”

Image: Chris Dent

J. Coe