Meet Mark Rogers.

He's an excellent writer (not something I ever say lightly, if at all). You may know him for his literary Sunday WIPs (works in progress), his occasional series on the depiction of the Trojan War in art, or for his much loved Superdog, created at age 11 for his comic book Orbit. Or maybe you even know him for the rare sightings of George?

Mark on his approach to writing: "At work, I write to express clearly what I already know. In fiction, I drift toward an impressionist style to find out things I don’t know yet." In non-fiction too, I suspect.

XXX Michael

In the spring of 2015 I came into Heathrow, collected a car from the North Perimeter Road (economy, manual transmission, or stick shift as we call it in Canada) and picked up Andrea for our trip to Hertfordshire and then on down to the south coast to see Dad. Andi’s place, my sister’s place, was near Clapham, which we referred to, archly, as “Cla’am,” using pretend posh voices. Our conversation zipped along, in stark contrast to the traffic: the time my brother and I ambushed her behind the Brownie hut, scaring her so much that she peed herself (I have no recollection of this, but it never escaped a retelling). The time Mum forced our brother’s head into the sink to wash his hair (Mum has no recollection of this). The conversation was happy; the journey was monumental: Andi’s last chance to see Dad.

I do enjoy the drive through London. The narrow, bus and bridgey bits at the beginning. The high perimeter of Lord’s cricket grounds, opening out into Finchley Road, the North Circular. All the row houses with their big bay windows and timbered Tudor dormers. This is memory road. Where Dad drove me to the dentist for my braces, listening to The Best of ELO on cassette tape. Past the cinema where we saw Star Wars, Battlestar Gallactica, and Indiana Jones for the first time. Parts of the route my wife and I drove between friends’ places and our first flat in the Docklands.

Definitely not going to become an accountant

Just became an accountant

The big decisions all just happened, for me. Those shifts that determine the actual course of a life: where to live, who to love, what job to do, how many kids to have. One day I was driving on the left and then—snap fingers!—I’m over on the right, the rules of the highway alien to all that I grew up with. So, instead of building a life in Hertfordshire, I married a Canadian girl and moved to Toronto for what was going to be two years, but which turned into half a lifetime. Instead of a sprawling family we had only the one boy, very late and with some difficulty. The joy of fatherhood has been astonishing. I became an accountant. I had always insisted I would never do anything so dull, dull, dull… (a teenage diet of Monty Python convinced me of that). Yet, having drifted into it, against myriad misgivings, I found the tent on the inside to be big and noisy and exciting. Lions to tame.

The tiny amount of thought that shaped the outlines of my life seems almost glib, with hindsight. But that’s the universe: birth, death, rich or poor, healthy or not: these are rolls of the dice. It’s in the small details, that’s where the life lurks, where we determine our meaning. The conversations, the friendships, the familiar routes that you end up taking over and over again.

“On the left, on the right, that’s not the part that matters. But the ways different cars do things, which bit of the driving they do for you, and which bits you have to focus on for yourself. Where everything is. The indicators, the windshield wipers. A beep for the blind spot or a flash on the side-mirror. That’s where all the attention has to go.”

“Thank you for driving.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. The North American way. (Back across the Atlantic I say, “It’s my pleasure.” The English way.)

The visit with Dad was what it needed to be. He was frail, with heart problems. She was tired. But they did get to see each other.

The next morning, I drove Andi to the Royal Marsden in Sutton. I had spent a week carting her around and chatting. It had all been very easy. Her gift was to be interested in people. But I knew that the topics of our conversations were not the real content. The actual agenda was her checking to see we would all be okay. Dutifully, we presented ourselves as fine.

Thrilled dad