The Open Door

THE OPEN DOOR

It happened 40 years ago, but the memory remains fresh in my mind. A newly-qualified young barrister, living in South Wales, I was on my way to Tredegar Magistrates Courts in the Rhondda Valley for a contested motoring case. I wasn’t thrilled at the thought of the day ahead of me. Like all young tyros, I liked to win, and the case I had studied the night before was a clear loser. The client was irrationally clinging to hope against what appeared to be overwhelming evidence. He was not alone in that, by any means, but it was a bit exasperating nonetheless. 

I had his telephone number, and had rung him just before I left home in order to clear up one or two points, and also perhaps to prepare him for the worst. I had let the phone ring for what seemed an age, but nobody had picked up at the other end.  In the end, I had given it up as a bad job, and left for court. No mobiles then, of course.

Naturally superstitious, I had seen only single magpies along the route. Although the weather was sufficiently clement for me to have the driver’s side window open, storm clouds overhead threatened heavy rain later in the day. My elderly Austin 1100, normally a reliable little bus, had developed what could best be described as a nervous tic. I could see all the signs of a lousy day in store.

The road I was travelling was the B-est of B roads, with a single lane in each direction, lined on both sides as far as the eye could see by houses which had been built by artisans who clearly believed that front gardens were an unnecessary luxury. Almost without exception, the front doors opened directly onto the road. That might not have been a problem in the days of superannuated horses who could barely manage a trot. It must have been a nightmare to the present inhabitants with modern vehicles, especially the rather large lorries that came out of the steel works at Ebbw Vale. No doubt, they had evolved. They must have become pretty agile over the years, and a bit deaf.

I was bowling along at about 50 mph when I rounded a corner to see a sight that chilled my blood. There were cars parked on the opposite side of the road outside a small shop, effectively blocking the carriageway to my off-side. Heading towards me was a 40 tonne articulated lorry, whose driver had pulled out completely onto my side of the road to overtake those cars. Neither of us had more than a few seconds to react. We both braked heavily. I could clearly hear the hiss of his air-brakes. My tyres squealed their protest and the car vibrated violently, jack-knifing slightly from side to side. A collision seemed inevitable.

Strange are the thoughts that invade the mind at such moments. I can remember very clearly thinking that my mother had warned me to wear clean underwear in case I had an accident, although some instinct persuaded me that, at that very moment, it probably wasn’t going to make a lot of difference anyway. I realised that I might be a bit late getting to court, and I would miss the squash court I had booked for that evening. The three letters “OMG” went through my head in a manner of disbelief. Then, quite suddenly, I spotted to my left a gap in the solid line of stone masonry. Steering violently to my near-side, with literally inches to spare, I drove into that gap. 

I had no idea what waited at the other side. For all I knew, my eyes might simply have deceived me, and I could find myself impacting with the solid wall, and being crushed between it and the lorry - not much of an improvement on the full frontal collision I was trying to avoid. It was an act of pure instinct, the similar sort of feeling our cavemen ancestors must have had when they encountered their first Woolly Mammoth, when “fight or flight” was the order of the day, and I had no illusions whatsoever about a contest between my fragile little saloon car and a 40 tonne truck. However, against all the odds, I found I had bought a ticket for the lottery, and won the jackpot. It was a double garage, and, at some time in the long distant past, its owner had decided to demolish the back wall. As if to compensate for the absence of any frontage to the house it served, the back-yard was a substantial 100 yards in length, so that I had time and space to brake in a moderately decorous manner, coming to a dead halt barely two feet away from the hill-side. 

I sat there, shaking slightly. I glanced into my rear-view mirror. I thought I could see the truck thundering by, and the startled, ashen face of the driver glancing in my direction. Perhaps it was my imagination. It had all happened so quickly. In any event, he didn’t come back. I didn’t blame him. But I could well have understood what he was thinking. There would have been difficult answers to give to searching questions if there had been a collision. However, those answers wouldn’t have come from me. I would have been dead. As it was, I had been the subject of a miraculous escape.

Still trembling, I knocked at the door of the adjoining house to explain my sudden appearance to the owner. There was nobody to be seen. There didn’t seem to be any alternative to getting back on the road. I still had a case to fight. I inched my way out of the garage and back onto the road again. The Magistrates Court seemed to be a place of sanctuary. I had left home with plenty of time to spare, so I was well on time. 

To my surprise, the case had been a shoo-in.  The star witness for the prosecution had turned out to be a supernova, burning out almost the moment he entered the witness-box. Unexpectedly quickly, both the client and I were in a position to leave court. By that time, the promised torrential rain had begun. I wasn’t looking forward to the drive home, but the client had a problem of his own. 

“My wife has the car,” he explained, somewhat glumly. “To be honest, I didn’t expect to be able to drive away from court, so I took a taxi. It cost me an arm and a leg. She was going out shopping with some friends.” 

I took the hint. “I’ll give you a lift home,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t expect to be able to drive away from court either.” I explained about my lucky escape as I drove out of town, following his directions. He made appropriate noises of surprise and wonderment. 

“Where did you say it was?” he asked.  

“It was along this road,” I replied. For, with something of a sense of déjà vu, I found myself recognising the way we were heading, saw the now familiar shop on the corner, and the houses to left and right, and the same solid, uninterrupted vista of beige masonry. But this time, I looked in vain for the gap in the stone-work that had given me sanctuary earlier in the day.

“You were bloody lucky!” he exclaimed. “Somebody up there must have been looking after you.” I laughed, and agreed. “I’ll have to tell the wife when I see her tonight. She’ll like that story. There she is,” he added, with a note of surprise. I could see a lady standing at the side of the road beside a car parked outside a house I thought I recognised. As we came to a halt, she gave a slightly guilty start, as if she had been caught out in some misdemeanour. 

“Oh, hello, Dai” she said, her Welsh lilt unmistakable. “I didn’t realise you would be home so soon.”

“I thought you were going out shopping with your butties,” responded my client. His tone suggested that perhaps he had been hoping for an hour or two of peace and quiet.

“Oh, we went.” she said. “I’ve left Betty and Myfanwy in town. They are waiting for me. But I had to come back.”

My client made a sound of exasperation. “Bloody ‘ell!” he exclaimed. “You don’t mean you did it again?”

She looked shame-faced, and started gabbling slightly. “Oh yes, I am sorry. But it really wasn’t my fault this time.” My client glanced briefly in my direction, with a slightly sardonic grin. ‘What excuse is she going to come up with this time?’ was clearly written all over his face.

“No, really, now,” she protested. “Some stupid bugger rang up this morning as I was outside, ready to leave. I didn’t hear it immediately, and I had to get back into the house. Just as I got to the phone, he rang off. I was that annoyed and confused, and I was rushing to pick up the girls, I totally forgot to close the garage doors.”