Ruth is a great driver. She looks fantastic in her brand new sports car. I always felt a bit too small in the seat back in the days when I used to drive. If I bought a car now, I don’t think I could stomach driving in London. I’d have to go back to hating pedestrians and cyclists and I don’t think I have that much hate left in me anymore.

    “I want to get married,” says Ruth suddenly.

    “Why?” I ask.

    “Why?” she says as though I’ve asked a very stoopid question. “I think marriage would suit me. Don’t you think it would suit me? Because I think it would – I know it would. And I’d be validating myself. I’d be a fully paid-up member.”

    “Of what? The Tedious Twat Brigade?”

    “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Sorry.”

    “What?”

    “You don’t like weddings.”

    I shrug my shoulders, “I don’t have a problem with the idea of the union of two people in love blah blah; it’s the frilly, frothy, rosy-glow, show-home, ‘we’re-starting-together-so-buy-us-a-juicer’, saccharine-drenched nightmare that comes with it I have the issue with.”

    “So you’re never going to get married then?”

    I shake my head, “I never said that. But if I do, I’m going to skip the ceremony and speeches and just turn up for the disco. Can’t get enough of ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Come On Eileen’.”

    “You’ve been to some classy weddings.”

    “I rest my case.”

    Ruth flips the indicator to turn right and we stop and wait for a hole in the oncoming traffic.

    “Well, I feel left out,” says Ruth with a slight tinge of genuine sadness, “and I don’t like feeling left out.”

    “Well, who does?” I reply, a little too flippantly. “It doesn’t mean you have to saddle yourself to something that statistically won’t last the distance.”

    A car flashes it’s headlights at us and Ruth swings the car through the gap and into the pub car park. Her tongue rolls over her bottom lip as we pull up to the wall. She sits up and tries to peer over the bonnet.

    “Do you think I can come forward any more?”

    “Nah,” I reply. “You couldn’t get a Rizla in there.”

    Ruth turns off the engine and looks in my direction.

    “Marry me,” she says.

    I’m about to dismiss this until I see the expression on her face.

    “Say that again?”

    Ruth takes a deep breath and goes all wide-eyed.

    “Marry me.”

    “…………………………no.”

     Ruth blinks once, swallows, and then pulls a packet of menthols and a lighter from her handbag.

     “Do you want one?” she asks, lighting up.

    “No, thanks.”

     She sits back and exhales slowly.

     “At least,” she says after a few moments, “I know you hate weddings anyway. So I know it’s not just me you object to.”

     I nod slowly in agreement, “I’ll have sex with you though, if you want.”

     She gives me a withering stare and gets out of the car, “You wish.”

    I do indeed, I think to myself as I open my door, I do indeed.