Tim’s uncle Harold is as ribald as they come. What is so ribald about him? Well, he’s just a dirty old man, but he is also bald – so, ribald. You ask: Why not just call a spade a spade? Because sometimes spades get so polished by the earth they are digging through – by its abrasive nature – that they become silvery and almost soft to the touch. How can a spade be soft? Well not soft, as in yielding, but soft like a woman’s face. All women’s faces are soft – but you’d never say an old woman who’d been out in a gale for eighty years had a soft face, yet if you actually touched her face, of course it would be soft, as in yielding. But you wouldn’t say, My, what a soft face you’ve got there Mrs -

Harold was touching Tim’s face one day because Tim had a hickey on his neck. He grabbed Tim by the face and twisted his head.

“Look at the size of that,” he said.

“Leave me alone,” said Tim.

“She must be like a suction pump,” Harold said, with Tim more-or-less in headlock.

Harold was driving Tim to school. It’s worth mentioning that. Harold passed Tim’s house en route to work, and picked him up at 8:35 each morning. Tim endured Harold with the faux-patience of a still-asleep youth.

“You’re the early learner, aren’t you,” said Harold. “You’re your uncle’s son alright.”

If the reader is curious or impatient – this story is more or less confined to this car journey between Tim’s house and school. You may finish this story and wonder if there’s any more to it. I assure you there is not. Here is a synopsis: Harold drives Tim to school. Tim is fifteen years old, and comfortably middle class!

Tim pulled out of headlock and leaned away, resting the back of his head on the fogged up window. He regarded his mother’s brother in the sleepy heat of breath and mechanically wafted hot air. Harold drives the car like it has wronged him. The bodywork is laced with long tears and dints. Most drivers would be embarrassed, but Harold says, “Ha, that’s a beauty,” and kicks the door. Tim is embarrassed, but he also thinks perhaps Harold is right. Why do dints matter?

Harold told a stupid joke, based on a pun, and laughed when Tim didn’t get it.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Harold?”

Harold turned and punched Tim in the arm – a left jab, then a right hook to the ribs. “Don’t use that language in my car,” said Harold.

Tim cowered and clutched his chest. “My ribs you fuck, aghhhhh.”

Harold returned his attention to the road. “You need some manners – don’t they teach manners any more?”

Tim said nothing. School got closer.

“Open that glove box,” said Harold.

Tim blinked and re-ran the order in his mind. Glove box. “The glove box?” he said.

“Open it.”

Tim pulled the handle and it fell open. Papers and letters spilled out at his feet.

“What’s in there?” asked Harold.

“Just, just random crap – letters – look,” said Tim, gesturing towards the mess.

“At the back.”

Tim fished through the papers.

“User’s manual, Wales Road Atlas, parking disks, parking tickets, The All New Road Map of Ireland 1992, empty envelopes, used tissues, tissues, pocket diary, melted sweets, sunglasses, biro, cigarette papers, a stamp. . .”

“Anything there you’d like?” said Harold.

“I’d like?”

“To keep.”

“Eh…”

“Go on, take something. I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want your old shit, Harold.”

Harold said nothing. He turned right at a junction, remembering to indicate when the manoeuvre was almost complete.

“Well shut it then.”

Tim stuffed the papers back in and forced the glove compartment shut. He stared out the window. The buildings were inconsistent – a redbrick Victorian townhouse, a petrol station, a Georgian semi with a functional boot-scraper, an ugly bungalow, another Victorian house. The walls separating these properties from the road were equally un-uniform. A four-foot stone wall. A black iron fence. An oily forecourt. A brick wall, painted blue. An overgrown laurel hedge. The car slowed as it approached a red light. Tim’s elbow slipped off the car door, and he sort-of punched himself in the face.

If the above is the part of the plot more confined to the car journey, what follows could be described as the less confined part.

Outside the car, nobody took any notice of anything, and everyone was doing exactly what they had intended. Inside, Harold decided to do something he hadn’t intended. A detour.

“This isn’t the way to school,” said Tim.

“I know.”

“Let me out.”

“Give me your phone.”

“Use your own phone,” said Tim.

“I’ve no credit.”

Harold braked hard and pulled up beside a payphone.

“What’s the school’s number?” asked Harold. He opened the door and got out without an answer. Harold inserted 50 cent and dialled a directory service.

“. . . . Yes, I would like to be put through. . . . Hello, this is Tim’s uncle Harold. Tim won’t be in today – there is a family thing, like a tradition – he won’t be in today. Yes, he’s fine – don’t you have any family traditions?”

Harold opened the driver’s door and removed Tim from the car. They stood in the drizzle. They were near a junction, a suburban crossroads, but not a symbolic crossroads. At the corner was a pub. They made their way towards it, passing an alluringly dry garage forecourt and carwash. A middle-aged man fumbled with the air line trying to inflate a rubber dingy, but the valve wasn’t compatible. The forecourt canopy didn’t quite shelter him, so his hair stuck to his face, and his protruding grey underwear clung to the crescent of his glistening lower back.

The pub was closed. Harold knocked on the door. An old lady answered eventually – the landlady.

“Can I help you?” she said, slowly.

“Can we come in?” said Harold.

“We’re closed – it’s 8:45.”

“We know, but it’s a tradition – a family tradition.”

Tim said nothing.

“You should come back at twelve,” said the landlady.

“We just want a quiet drink – we’re not alcoholics,” said Harold.

The lady raised an eyebrow.

“You could lock us in – a lock-in,” suggest Harold, “we’ll be no trouble – you won’t even know we’re here.”

“You should come back at twelve,” said the lady, and gently closed the door.

Tim and Harold stood with their backs pressed against the door, availing of what little shelter the doorframe offered. Tim wore a school uniform and a black coat that wasn’t officially uniform. He looks a lot like the image you have in your head of a teenage boy. Harold is fairly bald but still puts wax in what hair he has and combs it up daily in a slicked back style. It seems like a decent haircut for an uncle to have. He wore blue jeans and sensible shoes, and a strangely structural overcoat that made him look square, though he is actually convex.

If we were to back away from our heroes a little, it could be said that they look quite filmic – the pub picturesque and colourful – the road grey, the sky grey. We could have a man holding a boom microphone just above their heads, and some large white lighting apparatus, many cables, a complicated-looking camera with a rain cover, some poorly-paid crew members under umbrellas and a small truck with its back doors swinging open. But none of that is there – just drizzle and hissing traffic.

Justin Kidd lives in Dublin