“This is my husband, Desmond,” Gemma tells the driving instructor. “He wants to sit in the back.”
“Des!” Desmond jousts forward with his pale hand.
The driving instructor—a man in his late seventies, of a chimney sweeper’s build that makes Gemma envious—accepts the hand as he might a cup of milky tea when he’d asked for it black, and waits for the situation to explain itself.
It’s a Sunday, at 8 A.M., and the three of them are stood around a white line in the almost-empty Lidl car park in Newbridge beside the replacement vehicle. Before it was totaled, their car had been a baby blue second-generation Fiat Panda with an Italian registration and a bumper sticker of Michelangelo’s David gesturing “Ma che cazzo?!”
When they repatriated to Ireland after…
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The Paris Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, Winter 2024 (250)