Punto

The Punto is Bunny’s car and the central material setting of several turning points in the coastal journey with Bunny Junior. It serves first as a place where the boy waits and hopes to be found, then as Bunny’s means of resuming the trip, and finally as the vehicle caught in the crash that ends their journey. Its changing usefulness makes the car more than background: each turn of the ignition alters what father and son can do next.

Refuge on Meeching Road

On Meeching Road in Newhaven, Bunny Junior sits in the Punto and believes that remaining there will allow his mother to find him. While he waits, he thinks about quasars, bringing his knees up to his chest; the car encloses this moment of childhood grief and expectation. His mother’s imagined presence is registered through the smell of her hand cream and the remembered touch of a hand on his brow. The Punto is therefore a shelter, but not a solution: it holds the boy in place while his hope of reunion remains directed beyond the car.

The Journey Resumes

When Bunny returns to the road, he twists the key and pulls into traffic. Car horns sound as he accelerates away, and his satisfaction at being back on the road contrasts with the stillness of Bunny Junior’s earlier wait. The car gives Bunny mobility and lets the journey continue, turning the ignition into a decisive change in the scene rather than a routine detail.

Failure and Escape

Later, Bunny reaches the Punto after leaping over an old cast-iron clawfoot bathtub and scrambling across a footpath. He gets inside, locks the doors, and turns the key, but the engine does not start. The failure briefly makes the car an obstacle at the very moment he is trying to get away. The contrast with its earlier easy departure exposes how little control the car offers its occupants: Bunny can act quickly, but he cannot make the vehicle respond.

The Final Collision

The Punto starts again when Bunny gets back in with Bunny Junior. He guns the engine and drives into a rainy street as a maroon DUDMAN concrete mixer truck moves into the oncoming traffic. The truck sounds its horn and strikes the Punto head-on. The collision brings the car’s role as transport to an abrupt end, with Bunny thrown from it and Bunny Junior screaming. Across these scenes, the Punto’s alternating movement and failure give physical form to the journey’s precariousness: it can carry the pair onward, but it cannot secure their safety.