Howard drives his partner Joseph to hospital to undergo a high-risk operation and the intimacy of the car, alongside a long forgotten mix tape, sees the masculinity of their forty year relationship start to yield.

Joseph and Howard.  Two men who have spent a very private life together behind closed doors in a British, moorland farming community.  Life partners.  And life means life: secret lovers as twenty-somethings, covert house sharers in their thirties, tentative adopters of a civil partnership in their forties, and then a dawn of confidence in their fifties as they marry.  But now, a few years further on, Joseph finds his health in jeopardy and their future together is uncertain.

We join them as Howard drives Joseph to hospital for major surgery.  The car is an intimate space where the outside world can just about see them but they can remain unheard.  As they pull away from the farmhouse, tensions are high and they argue.  It’s fuelled by anxiety and fear but expresses itself as unkindness and dysfunctional masculinity.

Joseph discovers an old mix tape in the glove compartment and thrusts it into the car stereo to break the tension.  The song that plays jolts them out of their bickering and becomes a shared moment of honesty.

As they pull into the hospital, tensions are de-escalated and there’s a rare public display of affection.  The short journey in the car, and the mix tape, has reaffirmed their relationship.