“Jeez. Where?”
“From his pocket.”
“Cool.” He didn’t ask about the circumstances. Instead, he said with admiration, “You’re class.”
She liked that. Nobody — certainly no boy — had ever referred to her in quite those terms before.
“What’s your name?”
“Gloria.”
“Gloria — blimey. I’m Mick. Want to go for a ride, Gloria?”
“What do you mean — in this?”
“What else? You just said you got the key.”
“Can you drive?”
“I wouldn’t be here, would I? Give us the key and I’ll show you. I could start it easy, but the wheel’s locked.”
He was a joy-rider. He’d walked up King George Avenue trying the doors of all the cars to find one open and it had happened to be Mr Hibbert’s.
The keys were in her lap. Mr Hibbert’s keys. Mr Hibbert, who had laughed at the idea that she might spend the night in bed with someone. She handed them over. “Just a short ride.”
He slotted the key in and turned it to free the steering wheel. The engine started first time.
“Nice motor,” said Mick, switching on the headlights and revving the engine. He released the handbrake and they moved out of line and cruised quite quickly to the end of King George Avenue, where it met the High Street. Gloria felt an upsurge of excitement. She was joy-riding — and in Mr Hibbert’s car.
“Open your window. Get some breeze through.”
It worked electronically. She found the button and pressed. The wind was noisy. She glanced at the instruments and saw that the car was doing sixty in a built-up area.
“We can have a burn-up on the by-pass,” said Mick apologetically. “These can do a ton, easy.” He switched the radio on. A Mozart piano concerto was being played. “God ’elp us. See if you can get somefink with a beat.”
She tried the controls, found some rock music and turned it up loud.
“Ace,” said Mick.
They were flashing past parked cars at reckless speed. Gloria was scared, but enjoying it in the way you can enjoy a roller coaster ride. She wasn’t even using the seat-belt. That, to a full-blown punk like Mick, would surely have been chicken.
They succeeded in getting to the by-pass without being stopped by the police. On the triple carriageway, Mick moved out to the fast lane.
“Let’s see what this heap can do.”
Gloria’s skin prickled. To think that this could have been choir practice. The wind stung her face and stretched her hair in what felt like a comic-strip illustration of speed. Mick was steering one-handed, with his free hand resting on her thigh. She didn’t mind.
They overtook everything. When anyone had the temerity to block the fast lane, Mick used the horn and headlights together. They weren’t held up long.
Gloria looked at the speedometer and saw the needle hovering near 110. They passed the sign for a roundabout. She drew it to his attention in the most tactful way she could. “Let’s go round and come back the other way.”
“You go for this?” Mick shouted. “Does it turn you on?”
“It’s magic.”
The hand on her leg moved higher, exploring, but he had to use both hands to swing the car around the roundabout, the tyres screeching, and by that time Gloria had brought her legs up to her chest with her heels on the edge of the seat and her arms tucked around her shins. The one-handed driving was all very macho, but she felt it required Mick’s undivided attention.
They raced back along the stretch they had just travelled. Someone in the fast lane refused to give way, so Mick overtook on the inside and made an obscene gesture as they passed. Gloria did the same. She had never felt so delinquent, or so alive.
“You know what?” shouted Mick.
“What?”
“You’re neat.”
“You’re neat, too.”
“I’ll get you a present. What do you want — jewellery?”
She didn’t know what to say.
“Somefink to wear? Leathers?” said Mick.
“There’s no need,” said Gloria. “You don’t have to get me anything.”
He reduced speed. They were coming to a slip-road that would take them off the by-pass.
“Have you got a telly? Portable?”
“Look, I don’t want anything, Mick. If you want to get me a drink—”
“A drink? All right. You like fizz?”
“Fizz?”
“Champagne. You can have champagne if you want.”
She laughed. “All right.” If he wanted to be extravagant, she’d settle for a glass of champagne. Immediately she wondered if she’d made a wise choice. With some drink inside him, Mick might take even bigger risks with the car. Maybe she’d be wise to walk home.
They cruised at a mere seventy along the main road into town, ignoring several pubs. Gloria decided that Mick was driving them to his favourite haunt, some place where punks and rockers met, with wood floors and music and one-arm bandits.
In the High Street, he slowed and turned his head, as if looking for someone. He cruised quite slowly, past Woolworth’s and Boot’s and the Laundromat. Gloria didn’t know of any pub along here. There was just the County Arms Hotel, with four stars in the RAC Guide, and that, surely, wasn’t the sort of place Mick would frequent.
Like a mind-reader, he said, “We’ll get it in the Wine Mart.”
“Fine,” said Gloria.
“Put your head down, right down, like you had it before.”
“Why?”
“Why do you fink? We’re going to ram-raid the place. These fings are built like bloody tanks.”
She was horrified. “No, Mick!”
“Do what I say — if you want to keep your face.” He spun the wheel sharply right.
She had a glimpse of the shop window of the Wine Mart straight ahead. She plunged her head between her knees. She felt the wheels mount the curb and then the terrific impact as the shop front was ripped apart. An alarm bell jangled.
Mick forced open his door and stepped through shattered glass into the shop’s interior. Gloria sat up, twitching with fear and shock. The car’s bonnet was covered in glass.
Mick was back, brandishing a bottle of champagne that he’d taken off a shelf at the rear of the shop. This was a nightmare.
Gloria said in a voice shrill with panic, “You’re crazy!”
Mick shouted above the blare of the alarm, “Burst tyre. We got to run for it!” He opened the car door, grabbed Gloria’s arm and tugged her out. “Come on! Let’s get out of here.”
They abandoned Mr Hibbert’s car, still blocking the pavement with its front wheels inside the Wine Mart. Regardless of the people who must have heard and were certain to be watching from flats above the shops, Mick dashed up the High Street with Gloria following. At the first opportunity they turned left up a side-street.
Gloria leaned against a doorway to recover her breath.
Mick swung around. “You can’t stop here. We got to go on.”
If she’d had any breath left, she’d have shouted back at him, told him he must be a head-case to have done such a thing, made it clear that she would never have consented to it. That — far from impressing her — it proved that he was a pathological idiot.
A police siren frighteningly close interrupted her resentment. She forced herself to run again. They were coming into a paved area where cars couldn’t normally pass, but she was sure the police car would pursue them if they were spotted. A couple of derelicts shouted at them from a shop doorway. They’d seen the bottle that Mick was still carrying and they were asking him to share it. Mick was too fast, but one of them stepped out to try and grab Gloria. He caught hold of her wrist with a filthy hand, and his face came close to hers, unshaven, bright pink and foul of breath. She screamed, pushed at his chest and managed to wriggle free. He stood in the middle of the walkway yelling obscenities as she dashed on.