“Can you pick me up from the station?”
My husband has spent the day at a snowboarding show, collecting key rings and drinking schnapps, while entering multiple competitions in the hope he will win a dream drop-off for backcountry boarding in the Japanese Alps.
I stuff the children into the car with the promise of some “stuff” from daddy and we park up, watching train passengers spill out into the car park and disperse into the night.
I don’t see my husband at first but when I do I find my mouth dropping open.
He is walking down the ramp from the platform like a Zombie, his head tilted on one side, his arms outstretched.
“Look it’s Daddy” squeals Midnight kicking the back of my seat in excitement.
Milk and Mayhem lean forwards to watch their father.
I look at my husband limping like an extra in Night of the Living Dead. Maybe he’s had too many peach schnapps or perhaps his head got trapped in the train doors as they opened and closed – either way it is definitely my husband limping towards a car which is not ours.
To be fair the car he is approaching is exactly the same model and strange gold colour as ours – but it does not contain his family. It contains someone else’s.
“Where is daddy going?” Milk asks.
“Has he turned into a real Zombie? Mayhem says, looking worried.
I still have my mouth open and although I want to speak I also just want to see what happens next.
My husband is a few steps from the wrong gold car when the doors open and a whole family jumps out, the parents nervously eyeing my husband and guiding their children around him to catch their train.
My husband drops his outstretched Zombie arms and looks a little flustered. I flash my lights to show him where we are parked.
“I totally thought that was our car,” he chuckles as he passes his exhibition paraphernalia to the children. They dive into the bags and giggle with glee at all the stickers, pens, postcards and other “stuff”, which will soon be sprawled across the house and forgotten about.
“I think I freaked that family out.”
“I think so too”, I say, wondering if he is having a delayed midlife crisis. The other day we had an argument about how ill he was when he took the day off work, but then decided he wanted to come with me to pick up Milk and Mayhem from their Halloween Disco.
“I’m going to hide in the boot and scare the kids when they get in,” he declared.
“But I thought you were too ill to do anything?”
“All I’m doing is lying down in a car instead of a bed,” he replied gruffly.
I drag Midnight up the road to pick up the other two from the school disco.
My artist friend asks me how my husband is. “Is he “ill ill?” she says. “Tucked up in bed?”
“Errr…” I look at her and then at Midnight. If I say anything about how actually my husband is outside a school hiding in the boot of a car, Midnight will remember and spoil the surprise, but also my husband may be arrested. I weigh it all up not wanting to deceive my good friend.
“Errr.. he’s definitely not very well,” I say diplomatically.
I am greeted by a dripping wet Werewolf and a Swamp Zombie clutching sweets and buzzing with songs and halloween dance off stories. Midnight gets given a lolly and we head back to the car. I realise it’s been 40 minutes.
I let the kids into the car and walk around to the driving seat. Before I can open the door the whole vehicle starts rocking with high pitched screams. People walking past with their children are staring at our car.
There is a man hiding in the boot scaring my children and I am standing outside on the road paralysed with the realisation I am married to this strange human being. And the rain begins to fall.
Milk and Mayhem 