Excerpt from Saved by a Woman
Avalanche of rain and traffic
Nightmare commute
I resumed my audio diary on 4 January 1994: ‘Good morning. It's extremely late. Twenty-five past seven. Holy fuck! And I'm only coming out of New Hall!
Expanding waistline
‘I'm fourteen bloody stone. I thought my body had stopped changing after adolescence. It remained static right through my twenties. Then I get married, contentment arrives, I buy a car, ditch me bike. Unbelievable. Fourteen stone! My waist used to be thirty-two, it’s now thirty-six!
Driving rain
‘It's raining. Rotten morning. I’ve an appointment with the hospital this morning and I feel guilty going to it on the first day of school. What the hell. Good excuse for being late.
‘I just made it to the A12. Last minute, impromptu decision. God knows if this is longer or shorter. I reckon it’ll be hell today. Traffic is heavy. Not pleasant driving conditions. Finally getting the heat going in the car.
Sex not included
‘We’d a lovely holiday, old cottage near Enniskerry, and we’d lots of thoughts about the coming year. I've set myself objectives, like writing three hours over the weekend. And at least a half-an-hour physical exercise a week, which isn’t much. A walk or a cycle. Sex not included!
Desire, discussion, discovery
‘I got thinking over the Christmas about the desirability of returning to Ireland and my willingness, for the first time, to teach in Ireland. The Irish school holidays are so long, it would be great for writing. And it would be much nicer rearing a family and paying a mortgage in Ireland. We had a look at Masterson’s. It’s a possibility. Lots of things have to be discussed, discovered and explored.
Manky dirty
A cloudburst battered the windscreen. ‘It’s really horrible driving conditions. The rain is lashing down. The spray is zooming up. You can see very little really. The skies are murky. It’s manky dirty.’
Dangerous driving
A truck passed me on the inside, then weaved to the outside lane of three, not seeing a car that was passing him. He had to jerk back in.
‘He must be very important altogether! Fucking hell! Really bad, bad, bad rain. Localized flooding. And my left wiper is coming off!’
Avalanche of traffic
I pulled into a lay-by. ‘The spray from the cars passing me on the right was so bad I decided I’m never gonna get outta here. Talk about disaster. I nearly locked meself out of the car. Now that I fixed the wiper, I can’t get back onto the A12. It’s extremely fast, like a fucking avalanche. Oh, fuck! This is just bloody hopeless.’
Rain cascaded onto the windscreen; wipers defeated. Cars sped past. ‘I could literally be here for fucking hours. They’re streaming past. Not a gap.’
I went for it
I opened the window, amplifying the thunder of manic traffic. ‘Jesus, Joe, get the fuck outta there. That was not fun. Saw a bit of a gap: I went for it. At least me wiper’s fixed and I’m fucking dead late. It’s ten to eight and I'm not even at Brentwood yet. I think my best bet is to forget about school and go straight to the hospital.’
Joe Armstrong is author of In My Gut, I Don’t Believe: A Memoir