And I meant it. Not about the Church maybe, but certainly the AA.

Yet already, indeed from the moment I set eyes on his van, I’d been wondering if this might not be my chance to get more than just my car started.

But how to be certain? I felt my agitation growing till I stilled it with the comforting thought that, though indefinite to me, the author of my Great Adventure would never let its opening page be anything but clear.

The AA man was a great talker. We exchanged names. When I heard his, I repeated it slowly and he laughed and told me not to make the jokes, he’d heard them all before. But of course I wasn’t thinking of jokes. He told me all about himself-his collection of tropical fish-the talk he’d given about them on local radio-his work for children’s charities-his plan to make money for them by doing a sponsored run in the London marathon-the marvellous holiday he’d just had in Greece-his love of the warm evenings and Mediterranean cuisine-his delight in discovering a new Greek restaurant had just opened in town on his return.

“Sometimes you think there’s someone up there looking after you special, don’t you?” he jested. “Or maybe in my case, down there!”

I laughed and said I knew exactly what he meant.

And I meant it, in both ways, the conventional idle conversational sort of way, and the deeper, life-shapingly significant sort of way. In fact I felt very strongly that I was existing on two levels. There was a surface level on which I was standing enjoying the morning sunshine as I watched his oily fingers making the expert adjustments which I hoped would get me moving again. And there was another level where I was in touch with the force behind the light, the force which burnt away all fear-a level on which time had ceased to exist, where what was happening has always happened and will always be happening, where like an author I can pause, reflect, adjust, refine, till my words say precisely what I want them to say and show no trace of my passage…