217 Babel Street | Harry's Taxi
Skoda Octavia Classic 1.8T, forty-four thousand on the clock.
Sometimes, when Harry first bought it, newly re-painted, new roof lights, no smoking sticker on the passenger side, covers on the seats, he would just sit in it and clasp the steering wheel, hands at ten-to-two. The radio would be on and he'd just watch the world moving around him from inside.
"Where've you been?" Margaret would ask, turning her head away from the window.
"Just out," he'd say. He didn't want to admit he'd just been sitting alone in his new taxi.
The main problem was where to park it when he wasn't working. He wouldn't want to leave it out around here at night. It wouldn't be safe. For a brief moment he'd looked into renting a garage but they were going for crazy prices.
Last week, two in the morning, he'd dropped a young lady off in a small private street he'd never known existed before, just up the road, behind Waitrose. It must have been workshops once, but they'd recently been done up into maisonettes.
The lady had dropped her purse as she was getting out, spilling change over the cobblestones. He'd watched her bending, fumbling drunkenly to pick up the cash.
"Nice place," he had said.
He started parking the taxi there, outside the lady's door. It was ten minutes walk away from where he and Margaret lived but it was free and no one had bothered him.