Januariad

Deb’s car smells like a sweet shop. The scent’s origins are not clear. A furry blue teddy and an equally furry tree hang from the rear-view mirror. The drawers and cup holders hold a neat but diverse arrangement of small bottles, pens, tubes and markers, which on closer inspection are revealed to be an assortment of both cosmetics and an eclectic range of office stationary. Any individual product might be the source of the sweet, slightly sticky odour that permeates the vehicle, but most likely it is a combination of their individual characters.

Deb finds this smell comforting. The car is, for her, a deeply relaxing space. It reminds her often of her grandmother’s back lawn and her father’s study. Not because the car’s interior and these spaces share any particular physical ambience, but because they are spaces in which she has always felt both safe and pleasantly isolated. She drives the car to work each morning, a journey of almost fifteen minutes. The interior is kept very clean, regularly hoovered, wiped down, minded. She takes less interest in the vehicle’s exterior, finding that maintaining a sheen through muddy winters is a depressingly impossible task.

The mirror ornaments swing gently as she takes the roundabouts. Deb is an attentive driver without being overly interested in perfecting the practice. She flicks endlessly between a selection of fizzing radio stations. The city buzzes silently outside, morning and evening. She never winds down the window. To do so would unbalance the air conditioning.