jml297

‘Logan Street, thanks.’

Donna nodded, flicking a glance in the rear-view mirror. The young man had slid into the back seat of her cab and slammed the door, dropping a small bag on the floor. She could smell something on him. It wasn’t aftershave; it was earthier than that. She flicked her indicator and pulled out onto the road.

It had been a quiet shift with the handful of taxis in town jockeying for any jobs. It was good-natured enough on the surface, but they all needed any work that came along. There wasn’t much money in the taxi game, and Donna wondered again why she bothered. But it was something to do, it filled the days. She knew most of the people that she ferried about the town. But she wasn’t sure that she knew this young fella.

Donna looked at his face as they waited at one of the handfuls of traffic lights in the town. There was a coal train rumbling over the crossing, and as she watched he began to fidget with his seatbelt, as if it was too tight or something.

‘Everything all right? It won’t be too long now.’

He looked at her in the rear-view mirror before his eyes darted back to his phone. She tried not to stare at him, but she could hear him wriggle in the seat. He reached down into the bag and for a moment she held her breath, reaching slowly towards the duress alarm that was located near her left leg. She’d never had to use it before, but there was something about the young man that unsettled her.

With flashing lights and loud beeps, the railway crossing opened. The traffic lights clicked over to green, and she eased the car forward, still keeping an eye on her mirror. She heard the beep of a mobile phone message but knew that it wasn’t hers. She kept her phone on silent when she was driving.

‘No way.’

Donna half-turned her head, though she knew the words weren’t aimed at her. She could hear furious taps on a phone screen and wished that Logan Street was closer than it was.

Then he was leaning towards her, his breath warm on her neck. ‘Can’t you get there any faster?’

‘I’ll do what I can.’ Donna leaned closer to the wheel, instinctively wanting to increase the distance between them. The earthy smell was getting stronger. There was something primal about it. She was used to the various odours that entered her taxi. The blokes that she picked up from the pub after night shift, smelling of beer and rum at eleven in the morning, which was their nighttime, as they liked to tell her. The talcum powder-scented little old ladies that did their fortnightly grocery shop each pension day, sometimes with a waft of Yardley perfume. Donna drove on, trying to think of any passenger that had smelt like this. But maybe it was something that he had in the bag. He had it on his lap now and was peering into it.

‘We’re nearly there. What number Logan Street?’

‘Sixteen.’

Donna turned the corner and pulled up outside a house that had seen better days, like most of the houses in the town. She stopped the meter. ‘That’s $12.70.’ She turned to look at the passenger as he zipped up his bag.

‘Keep the change.’ He passed over a $20 note.

She saw the glint of a blade as she reached out to take the note from his hand. He must have seen something shift in her face as he met her eyes and didn’t move, one hand on the door and the other wrapped around the bag.

‘Mind how you go,’ Donna said. She turned back to the steering wheel and flicked on her indicator, the seconds stretching until she heard the door open then thump closed. Donna pressed her foot gently on the accelerator, her heart hammering in her chest.

This was written to a prompt at my local writing group. Moving car: set a story that takes place entirely within a moving car.

Photo: old Holden advertisement, Portland NSW