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I continued to drive slowly, trying to save petrol, so it was another hour and a half before I reached Junction I of the M42. – In half a mile, exit left, towards Birmingham South. It was the first time she had spoken to me for about ten minutes. I
I continued to drive slowly, trying to save petrol, so it was another hour and a half before I reached Junction I of the M42. – In half a mile, exit left, towards Birmingham South. It was the first time she had spoken to me for about ten minutes. I had worked 5 out, by now, that I could summon up her voice whenever I wanted by pressing the ‘Map’ button on my steering wheel. If you did that, she would usually tell you to carry on doing whatever you were doing at that moment. So every few minutes, I would press the button, and she would tell me to ‘Proceed on the current motorway’. I wasn’t listening to the radio. I had tried a bit of Radio 2 and a bit of Radio 4 but I 10 didn’t want to listen to other people chattering away. I wanted to be left alone with my thoughts, and with Emma’s voice whenever I felt like hearing it. Oh – did I not tell you that she was called Emma? I’d spent most of the last hour trying to decide what I was going to call her. Finally I chose Emma because it had always been one of my favourite names. Partly it was a memory of having to read 15 Jane Austen’s novel for English O-Level at school: I hated the book (which was one of Caroline’s favourites, by the way) and only got a ‘D’ in the exam, but for some reason the heroine’s name had stuck in my mind as a sort of emblem of classiness and sophistication. Also, I used to have a bit of a crush on Emma Thompson, the actress – going back a bit, to the late 1980s, when she looked really boyish and did 20 that film where she had an amazing sex scene with Jeff Goldblum. So, what with one thing and another, Emma seemed an appropriate choice. – Exit left. Then, heading slightly right at the roundabout, take third exit. Our relationship was going to be put to its first test, now, because I had decided not to follow her instructions for the next few minutes. She wanted me to 25 head down the A38, all the way to the Lydiate Ash roundabout, and then take a right turn towards Rubery. But I had other plans. I wanted to drive straight over