When Paul is driving back to his mother’s house after a visit to Paris during which his girlfriend has broken up with him, his car is shunted by Neville, who lives near by and offers to help arrange for the damage to be repaired. What makes this a really creepy story is that Paul doesn’t seem to mind too much when obstacles to his departure start cropping up, making it seem inevitable that he’ll give in to Neville’s gentle insistence that he should stay. I saw this described somewhere as a moving story about two lonely people; but I suspect I may not be alone in finding the abdication of agency at the centre of the story highly disturbing. And never has a tin of shortbread had such sinister resonance.
First published by Nightjar, 2024. Collected in Best British Short Stories 2025, ed. Nicholas Royle, Salt, 2025
