I still find the events of that snowy evening a few short weeks ago quite unbelievable, although I was wide awake and I know it to be real.  I was driving home from the office in my lovely warm car, the thrum-thrum of the windscreen wipers relaxing me as surely as they were clearing the falling snowflakes as they landed softly  before my eyes.  On the car radio, the woman reading the traffic report tried to sound cheerful as she listed all the accidents caused by the blizzard, with their resulting traffic jams.  Didn't I know it!  I was in one such jam but, sitting in a stationary line of cars in Spaniards Lane, I mused that it was a very pretty place to be held up.  On either side of the road the trees, now laden with snow, blended gently with the white sky, making their connection to the heavens appear seamless.  Once this traffic starts to move again, I told myself, it will only be another ten minutes before I'm home.  The automatic timer on the central heating will have clicked on about twenty minutes ago and the welcoming warmth will greet me as I step through the door.  My husband will arrive an hour later, by which time I will have started cooking the evening meal and we can look forward to a cosy evening snuggled on the sofa, unwinding from the stresses of the day.  I love this predictable routine.

 

It was then that I saw him.  At first I thought he must have been a mannequin discarded by some feckless shop window dresser, so motionless was he as he sat on the bench at the side of the road.  He was dressed in a pinstriped city suit and carrying a briefcase.  No overcoat.  He must have been freezing, though he did not seem to notice.  He must also be in shock, I thought.  Maybe his car has broken down?  Anyway, he needed to get out of this sub-zero temperature or he would freeze to death.    I got out of the car and shouted over to him.

 

"Excuse me, sir.  Are you alright?  Do you need a lift?" 

 

He turned his head very slowly in my direction and on seeing me he nodded and sighed.  I beckoned him into the car and in an emotionless voice he said, "79 Witherington Road."  I knew the street.  It was a little out of my way, but I didn't mind.  I rang my husband in case there were more hold ups on the way and I'd be late.

 

 "Honey, I'm just giving someone a lift to 79 Witherington Road"

 

In these days, you can't be too careful.  You hear such stories, don't you, of women who give strangers lifts, so it was important that he would know where this man lived.  Just in case.  I still play back that voicemail message, to remind myself that I wasn't dreaming. 

 

The cars in front of me began to move as soon as my passenger sat down next to me.  I asked if he was ok, or did he need medical attention?  He stared ahead out of the windscreen and almost imperceptibly shook his head.  I tried to make small talk but he only responded silently, with a faint smile.  When we arrived at Witherington Road, the snow had made this minor road impassable.  I dropped him at the corner so that he could walk the few yards to his front door. 

 

He said, "You will be blessed,"  Then, as he started to walk towards his house, he turned to me and said slowly and emphatically, "I LOVE RUTH RICHARDSON."  His voice had an eerie quality and I began to regret not having dropped him off at the local hospital's Accident and Emergency Department instead.  I worried about him all the way home and for days after.  I had not asked him his name, so I couldn't look him up in the phone book so that I could ring him and ask how he was. 

 

The thaw had turned the virginal, crisp, sparkly white blanket of snow to a dull grey lumpy slush.  The winter wonderland had disappeared and only a few people hobbling around on crutches newly acquired as a result of falls on the ice reminded me of the treacherous conditions of the last few days.  My concern about my strange passenger had become an obsession and I wanted to put my mind at rest.  My husband insisted on accompanying me to Witherington Road once he realised that he was also not going to get any peace until I was satisfied and, to be honest, I was glad of his company. 

 

 

 

Here we were yesterday evening after work, standing now outside the front door of No 79.  The name on the brass plate under the bell said Richardson.  I rang the bell and very soon a middle-aged woman with a careworn face opened the door.

 

"Mrs Richardson?  Excuse me for the intrusion but did Mr Richardson get home safely last Friday evening?  I have been worried about him and so just thought I'd check.  He might have told you that I found him sitting on the bench in Spaniards Road.  I have been worrying about him because he seemed sort of, well, sort of shocked - sort of absent, you know? Sort of not quite here - very quiet, mostly, and he must have been very cold without a coat.  He seemed preoccupied, I suppose.  I've been wondering if he needed to go to hospital.  I am the woman who gave him a lift"

 

"What did this Mr Richardson look like?" asked the woman, momentarily startled, but then her curiosity caused her to narrow her eyes and gaze at me with an intensity that made me faintly uncomfortable.

 

I described my passenger.  I told her of his hazel eyes, grey hair, his smart suit , the colour of his shirt and the pattern on his tie, all the time being surprised at her response.  Why did she have an increasing look of amazement on her face?

 

 "Sorry for my mistake," I said,  "I just assumed he was your husband."

 

"Did he say anything?" asked the woman, wide eyed now.

 

"As a matter of fact, he did.  He said, 'I love Ruth Richardson.'  Is that you?"

 

"Yes," she replied, her eyes brimming with huge tears.  She gave a joyful cry and hugged me.  "How can I ever thank you!  That man was my husband.  I knew he would contact me eventually.  He died in a car crash on Spaniards Road in a blizzard ten years ago."