Driving Short Distances — Joff Winterhart

Sam is 28 and needs to get a job. Keith, who claims to be a second cousin of his (dead) father, offers him a job. On Keith’s card it says he does ‘distribution and delivery’, which seems to consist of ‘a lot of driving around, getting out of the car for a few minutes and then getting back in’, Sam tells his mother. And so the days go by, Keith driving to a trading estate, ducking into a portakabin, all the while telling Sam stories about his first boss, Geoff Crozier, his mentor in distribution and delivery. As the weeks go by, Sam gets to know Keith’s friends, flirty Hazel-Claire from whom they buy two pasties every day at lunchtime, a variety of receptionists, and a few tantalising secrets from Keith’s past…

As in Days of the Bagnold Summer, Joff Winterhart is a master at depicting ordinary life in all its utterly poignant and funny mundanity.