M25

“Bye then” waved Nikki and John as they left the home of their friends, Julie and Chris. John drove away down the road towards the M25. For the last hour or so before they left, it had been snowing, and they wanted to get back before dark, and before it had a chance to settle and freeze over.

Actually, it was beginning to blow a gale and the snow got thicker so that visibility was terrible. The wipers were working full time and John had to drive at only 20mph to be safe. Everyone needed their lights on but those really didn't seem to make a lot of difference. You could call it a white out, practically.

The heat beginning to come out of the vents was very welcome. It had taken a good few minutes to warm up, starting at cold, then just a hint of warm and finally nice and hot, and very needed as the car interior had been freezing when they got in, and it had been almost painful sitting on the vinyl seats, even with thick clothing on.

Nikki was wishing she'd brought a coat out with her. John had lit up a cigarette and didn't seem too bothered about the temperature, but she was chilled to the bone already and just hoping that the hot air would help her soon and make her feel warm again.

She felt better by the time they were onto the motorway – at least not as cold as she had been and even slightly warm and knowing it would get better and better. Music came out from the car tape player – the new album, Africa by Toto, that they both really liked a lot. John stubbed out his cigarette and began singing along, and she joined in, just humming the tune as she could never remember the words. John had a dirty mind and changed the words to anything he could think of to do with sex, just like he did to that song about building this city, he always changed that one to something about titties. “Honestly” she thought to herself “He's pretty disgusting at times. I hope he'll stop that one day. That's something I really can't like about him. I don't know why I ever thought it was funny. Well, I suppose I've just grown up more. He'll catch up. He loves me... well... he says he does... and he does show it a lot... although... it does seem an awful lot more like lust than love these days.. mostly... but he did take me to see Julie – that was nice of him. I couldn't have got there without him driving me. Shame she doesn't like him. But good of her to put up with him so we could have some time together. Glad she's getting on well in her new house.”

Nikki was miles away in her thoughts, drifting relaxedly and definitely warm now. The car was comfortable and she'd forgotten that cold existed. Although they were making slow progress in the awful weather and John's bad temper was beginning to make its familiar appearance as he struggled to see the road and traffic conditions.

The traffic generally was moving at a crawl now. This was supposed to be a motorway, and it was looking more like a car park! “Oh well” she thought “So it'll just take longer. Good job Julie did dinner for us or we'd be starving. We'll only need to do some toast or something when we get home.” She began thinking about what was in the fridge and/or cupboards that she could throw together quickly when they got back. Actually she was beginning to get hungry already. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. They'd been travelling for 50 minutes already and only just got past the first junction since they joined the circular road. And they had another 9 junctions to go.

“Maybe we'll have to” she began, when suddenly there was a BANG and the car skidded sideways, just missing one in the lane on their right. John let out his standard string of expletives. He was a really good driver though, had taken advanced training, and was well able to handle the skid, or that might have been worse than it was. He was able to manoeuvre into the hard shoulder on the left and bring the car to a safe halt. He got out of the car and looked at the burst tyre that was on the back right wheel. Moving around the front of the car to avoid the traffic in the lane to their right, he opened up the boot to get the spare out.

Snowflakes, driven by the strong wind, hit him in the face, stinging. He had no gloves with him as they had only expected to drive from door to door, and it hadn't been that cold when they left either. Neither of them had even brought a coat. He worked with painful hands that gradually got numb so he could hardly manage to do the job, but he did get the wheel changed.

He threw himself back into the driver seat and glared at Nikki, who had sat waiting. “Thanks for the help.” he grumbled at her. She looked surprised and hurt and puzzled. “I didn't know you wanted any help, you didn't ask.” she said. He yelled at her “It's bloody obvious you stupid bitch but of course you're so bloody useless.” She had tears in her eyes as she apologised, even though in her heart she knew that he was wrong. She knew that loving also meant forgiving so she let him get away with it. She planned to talk with him later, when his foul mood had passed. Maybe after a good fuck. Although he wasn't really great, just used her and if she got anything out of it, that was a bonus. But she did feel attractive, knowing that he'd wanted her enough to marry her. And that helped her to be able to do what he wanted.

She couldn't understand why he kept accusing her of sleeping around though. If she dressed up for him like he said he liked her to, he never believed it was for him. Oh no, it must be for some other man. Or even a woman. He'd like to watch her with another woman, he said. But if she didn't dress up, then he said she obviously didn't care about him, otherwise she'd look nice for him.

Anyway... John had turned the key in the ignition but now what was happening? The car refused to start. He got out again and started to look under the bonnet and fiddle around a bit. Nikki got out of the car this time to offer some help. She began to speak to John but he just yelled at her to shut up and actually started towards her as if he might hit her. Which he had never done... yet. She was never sure that he wouldn't. He had threatened to often enough, even had a fist right up to her face one morning as she was leaving for work, and she had been so upset that she had got to work crying and her fellow workers had been extremely concerned about her going back home. And she still hadn't told him that she was pregnant, even though she felt like she really wanted a baby, but she wasn't sure that he did.

John got back into the car, which was getting colder by the minute now that the engine wasn't running. He had not been able to get it started, so what were they going to do now. Nikki knew that there were phones about every mile along the motorway, so they could call for help.

John agreed to let her walk along the hard shoulder to the phone and call Julie. Julie said she had jumpleads so she would drive out now with them to get the car started with those.

Nikki trudged back to the car. It was a good 10 minute walk each way between the car and the phone. John was sitting smoking in the driver seat.

“It's OK – Julie's going to come right now with her jumpleads. That'll get us going again. But it could take a while since look how long it took us already to get this far. But at least we know she's coming.”

John suggested that maybe they could snuggle up in the back seat while they waited. He was feeling randy. But Nikki didn't want to risk anyone seeing them. They sat, waiting, not talking, him smoking one cigarette after another. After 3 cigarettes a police car pulled up in front of them and a policeman walked back to their car to talk to them.

“You know you can't stay on here. You need to get off the motorway.”

“It's ok, we've got a friend coming out, she should be here really soon, thanks for checking us though.”

The policeman was contented with the reply and drove away again.

It got colder and colder and an hour had passed. Nikki was shivering, hunched in the passenger seat, knees up and arms wrapped around them, trying to keep as warm as she could. Then she began to feel the need to pee. “Oh no,” she thought “I don't think I can wait.”

“John” she said to him “I really need to pee.... “can you stand guard so I can squat on the edge of the doorway with the front and back doors open so they make a screen.”

John was quite happy since he loved to see his wife exposed. Nikki hoiked down her jeans and undies and a river of pee travelled under the car, melting a yellow line into the snow. Hitching everything back up again, she sat back in the car and he shut the doors and got back into his driver seat.

Nikki was so cold that her teeth wouldn't stop chattering. It sounded like some clockwork toy going.

Another hour passed and they had no idea what had happened to Julie.

The police stopped back again and told them they needed to move, then left them, so Nikki headed back to the phone to find out what happened to Julie, but there was no answer.

She got back to the car and told John that she had not been able to contact Julie. “I don't know what else we can do.” she sighed.

They sat back to wait and see what would happen as it all seemed now to be beyond their control and they were literally waiting for a rescue that no-one knew they needed.

Nikki was too tired to stay hunched up. She flopped in the seat and resigned herself to death. She was sure that was what was about to happen as she could not imagine anyone surviving how frozen she was feeling.

She did not know how much later it was when the police returned, but she was very relieved. They explained about not being able to access the help that they'd expected to and the police called a rescue service for them. Within minutes there was a huge car carrier with flashing lights on the front and they were in the warm cab with the driver and being taken off the motorway to a garage, where they were able to have the car fixed to get home at last.

It cost them an arm and a leg which they had a lot of trouble paying but as soon as they could after that they took out a subscription to a rescue service, which was a lot cheaper for the year than they had spent just on that one trip and they knew that they would not have to go through anything like that in the future.

Although as it turned out they didn't have much of a future. But that is another story.

Oh, and it transpired that their friend Julie had broken down in her driveway and had no way to let them know that she couldn't come out after all.