‘Pay attention to me when I’m talking,’ she raged.

Her husband flung his hands from the steering wheel in disgust. ‘Want us to have an accident?’

‘You do know her! Admit it!’

He stopped at a red light.

‘I’m so so sad,’ his new wife flicked long fingers up to her eyes to wipe away the tears that had started falling. ‘‘You swore you loved me.’

‘Of course I love, you I married you didn’t I,’ he reassured.

The lights turned green and he continued driving.

‘But you’re still seeing her. Her with the too tight skirts and too much make-up.’ She prodded him with each word, so he flinched away, and the car veered into the outside lane.

‘I met her by accident,’ he explained.

She prodded him again. ‘You met her twice. Twice is not an accident?’

‘Purely accidental both times,’ he repeated.

‘You don’t care about me. You’ve never cared about me.’ Her graceful hands flung up in despair.

‘I married you didn’t I?’

‘For what reason? For what reason?’

‘Because I love you, you insecure idiot.’

This quietened his wife down for ten seconds. She looked up, and then gestured in horror. ‘You are in the wrong lane. We turn left at the end of this street.’

‘Stop being such a back seat driver.’ He swung the car back into the inside line.

There was an indignant hooting as he crunched into the car coming up fast and unseen behind him on his left.

The police car arrived and then two tow trucks. Both cars were towed away. The driver at fault and his weeping wife faced the waiting policemen.

‘It was my fault,’ the husband admitted to the police. ‘We were arguing and I changed lanes without looking.’

‘Dangerous,’ one of the policeman warned. ‘Don’t argue and drive. And keep your eyes on the road – it’s a lot safer.’

‘Our marriage counsellor has insisted how important it is that we communicate all the time.’

‘Not when you’re driving.’

‘If I don’t answer her, she never shuts up.’ The husband flung his hands up in despair. ‘You try to settle an argument without using your hands.’

‘Just do your communicating with both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road,’ one of the policemen ordered.

‘I’ll tell her it’s not legal to talk to me when I’m driving,’

‘Wouldn’t go that far,’ one of the policemen said, feeling sorry for the still weeping woman.

‘I’ve got to watch her to listen to her, and use sign language to answer,’ the husband explained. ‘What am I supposed to do anyway?’

At this point, both policemen pretended not to hear the last question, closed their notebooks and fled. Driving during an argument was always dangerous, but probably twice as dangerous with a deaf and dumb protagonist