Saturday means I can do "whatever I want," within the confines of my geography, finances, and life circumstances. A driving errand in Fall is the perfect setting for fiction heard through my car speakers. This one  - a short story by Canadian author Mavis Gallant read by fellow Canadian Margaret Atwood -  was set in my hometown, and even more appropriately in the suburbs I was born in. Leaves fell to the ground leisurely against a blue sky and a wind ruffled the colourful leaves on the branches still hanging on. I was far from home in some ways, but the parts of home I carry with me are nearly always close at hand. Some of them, my polite, aloof civility, for instance, might only be apparent to fellow travellers - that breed of English-speaking Montrealers possessed of a sort of subdued urbanity one encounters in the stories of Gallant, or Alice Munro. Gallant in particular expresses a sort of ineffable quality of permanent exile I can relate to, finding her home country and her adopted countries both wanting in a certain way and identifying with other outsiders and exiles, inevitably romanticising them. By not fully committing to any option you don't exclude the others, but that approach has its costs, too. The drive, while it lasted, was a perfect fit. But inevitably the sun went down, the air turned colder and I was ready for something else.