Three things just happened to Riva Cercas.

First, the high heel of one her borrowed shoes snapped, leaving her hobbled, until she figured out taking both her shoes off to even up her keel.

Second, running, barefoot, for her train Riva turned her ankle. She missed the train and threw the broken, borrowed, shoe after it as it pulled out of the platform jerky and slow.

Third, on swearing with a sailor’s grace while trying to decipher the sun faded timetable at the station entrance, a crumpled elderly lady pulled up in a car-like eggbox and offered Riva a lift. ‘Where are you trying to get to, pet?’ asked the lady, peering out from jamjar lenses. Riva swallowed a ‘fucking fuckity’ and said instead, ‘eh, Peele, for a job interview.’

‘It happens I’m driving that way. I’ll give you a lift,’ said the woman. Despite the heat of the day she seemed to be padded under her heavy coat. She had a rough thicket of hair which crackled in the dry air, full of static. Her features were indistinguishable from one another, giving her face the impression of thumb pressed play-dough.

Riva is now one shoe down. She calculates that if she can get into town in time, she could buy an emergency pair of shoes. She accepts the lift. ‘It’s very kind of you, it’s not out of your way is it?’ Riva folds herself into the eggbox car, taking care not to slam the door which appears to be hinged on by rust.

‘It’s no bother. I said I’d go into town to pick up Mrs Rumker’s prescription,’ the woman jerks the gear stick. The car coughs, and moves.

‘Oh, well, it’s kind. I’m Riva, Riva Cercas.’

‘Molly Munnatree’

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you Mrs Munnatree.’

‘Oh, we’ve met before. I knew your parents,’ Mrs Munnatree hits a lever and a steady click sounds from the direction indicator. Riva humours her; her parents have been dead for 29 of Riva’s 30 years. ‘Before I was born?’

‘Mm. And after,’ Mrs Munnatree swings the eggbox at an improbable speed around a blind corner. Riva decides not to look at the road. She looks instead at Mrs Munnatree. The woman’s skin seems to have a texture of pumice. She has a silk scarf wrapped around her chin. The scarf has a pattern of blue and yellow swirls. Riva feels a little car sick. She looks out of her passenger window. Outside smears by in green and brown. A thorn squeaks the glass. Riva doesn’t know where they are. ‘I don’t think I’ve taken this route into Peele before,’ she says, controlling her voice.

‘Shortcut.’

Riva remembers a detail. ‘My nan did say I had a godmother,’ she says, putting it out there, tentative.

‘More than one,’ Mrs Munnatree says. The eggbox’s gears rattle as she mis-steps the clutch. Mrs Munnatree intones names, clicking her tongue at the end of each, ‘Mona, Megan, Manta, Mullin, Mia, Myrrin, Maude.’ Riva has something tickling at the back of her mind. ‘My nan’s name was Maude,’ she says. Mrs Munnatree’s head twitches from side to side, as if watching for traffic. Riva hasn’t seen another car in – a while? ‘She passed away last year, did you know my nan?’ Riva’s memories of her nan’s funeral are slotting back into the foreground. She scans the faces of the mourners. Mrs Munnatree’s is not there. ‘It’s funny, the number of people I’d never met before that came to nan’s funeral. From all over, places I’d never heard of. They all knew me though, seemed to. They loved my nan, talked about the charmed life she’d given me.’

‘Not much of a charmed life with both parents dead,’ Mrs Munnatree’s voice holds a snicker. The eggbox doors rattle. Bits of rust glitter onto Riva’s lap. She checks her watch: half an hour until she’s late. ‘How far out of town are we?’

Mrs Munnatree bends in close to the steering wheel. ‘Oh I knew Maude. I knew her quite well. Her and the others, getting in my way. I could’ve had the hat-trick, weren’t for Maude and her pals.’

Riva begins to suspect a wrong turning somewhere. ‘I can get out and walk,’ she offers. Mrs Munnatree’s attention is fixed. Her knuckles whiten, where her hands tighten, on the steering wheel. ‘Maude and her cronies. Had a thought they could stop me, but I’ve outlasted them all. Never one to leave a job undone, my dear,’ Mrs Munnatree breaks away from looking at the road ahead. She leaves hold of the wheel and fastens her fingers onto Riva’s wrist. Her nails break Riva’s skin. Beads of blood emerge. ‘What are you doing?’

Mrs Munnatree declines to answer. The eggbox’s engine picks up in pitch. Riva sees herself reflected in Mrs Munnatree’s saucer spectacles. She meets her own wide eyes in her reflection and senses that the end of the story is very close.

A branch, or a bough, smashes through the eggbox’s windscreen. Things are shattered. Other things are destroyed. Riva Cercas will not make it to Peele.