Myra

Imagine a Michelin Man. Now imagine his wife. Dress her in one of those long leather motorcycle coats beloved of army dispatch riders during the 1940s. On her globular head pull a World War II pilot’s leather helmet, and add a pair of goggles. Give her elbow-length gauntlets, and a pair of Wellington boots (rubber) to complete the ensemble.

Myra, for some reason, elected to use the wheelchair ramp, so her descent to street level was reminiscent of an alien alighting from a spaceship, in one of those early science-fiction movies: a slow, stately rolling motion. She saw me and attempted to wave. But, encased in all that heavy leather, she could not raise her arm to shoulder height, so she looked like she was patting a very large but invisible dog.

The strange figure then trundled itself across the – mercifully empty – street, to where we were standing by the bike. Ignoring her husband, Myra, seizing me and clutching me to her leather bosom, kissed me full on the lips. Her tongue tasted of whisky: single-malt if I’m any judge. Such was her ardour that the metal rim of her goggles poked me in the left eye. But I hid my pain – she was so pleased to see me.

There then followed a rather unseemly argument with her husband about Myra’s fitness to drive a motorcycle combination – with passengers. This was cut short by the lady raising two gloved fingers to Hector, and climbing onto the bike. Hector looked at me, shrugged and made to get into the sidecar.
‘Hold on a minute’ I exclaimed. ‘Since I am the elder brother, I think it more fitting for me to ride in the sidecar.’
‘Ah, but it is my wife who is driving’ he riposted. And in less than a minute he was settled into the contraption, his legs extended comfortably into the nose of the car.
Too weary to argue further, I climbed onto the pillion, pressing myself up close against Myra’s bulk, hoping it would shield me from the worst excesses of wind and cold.

Myra raised her bottom off the seat, and for a moment I thought she was going to fart, but she was only lifting herself to get a good swing on the kick-start crank. An expert swing, I should say, for the engine burst into life first time and, without glancing behind her, she swung the machine round in the road and roared off into the night – only switching on the machine’s lights seemingly as an afterthought.

And me? I hugged her tightly around the waist (well, as far around as I could get) and tried to catch my breath. The one thought in my head was, what an irony it would be if, after two botched suicide attempts I were to be killed by a mad woman on a motorbike.