So time restrictions, terrible working conditions, no materials, broken tools, a mere four hours electricity a day and Ambler’s distinctive take on body odour and racial harmony all seem mild by comparison. But I could do without the fines and the floggings with electrical flex for poor quality work. I listed our limitations. I think it’s unfair to compare ourselves with the best of the big Hollywood Studios.
You could say I feel under-appreciated. But I’ve a slow-boiling temper and I’m still the right side of sane.
I’m faking a pleasant expression when the tannoy barks into life. Decoding it’s the problem – shards of noise through a speaker held together with electrical tape and the power of prayer, delivered by an Albanian receptionist with a harelip.
I make out my name, something about the boss and hospitals. Through to the main office I go and the facts assemble themselves in all their spittle-flecked glory. And soon I’m running home to jumpstart my car and hightail it to the infirmary.
I couldn’t tell you what make of car I own. Or the original colour. The rusty parts are orange and the other bits fell off years ago. Forget the seat belt. I owe my life to repeat tetanus shots.
I don’t take it to work. There’s the shame – that’s one good reason. But there’s also the difficulty of obtaining regular fuel, combined with Ambler’s consistent attempts to break into it. Now you and I may not understand the hypnotic attraction of pine-shaped air fresheners, but our idiot clearly does. And it’s this compulsion that leads him to jam my doors with sticks, shattered pens and anything else he thinks might function as a key in order to get to them. Despite the fact I never lock it.
I don’t like my car and I won’t speak well of it. I picture it as an assemblage of jagged-edged guillotine blades perched upon a buckled chassis. My brakes are as reliable as a heroin addict. God knows if I’m allowed to drive it legally. Not only is it unsafe, but I took my test drunk and can’t remember if I passed. Not that it matters. The Great Separation crashed all the computer records. I could be a qualified space shuttle pilot for all the DVLA know.
Right, fueclass="underline" I’ve about twenty litres of old cooking oil in my garage, subjected to some chemical process by a madman I met in a bar. Apparently, it’s now biodiesel. You’ll excuse me if I have my doubts. So I’m overjoyed when my engine starts.
And now I’m driving. I’m watching our English take on Post-War, Weimar-era Berlin rot around my flimsy metal carapace.
We live in ruins. The water’s dirty and there’s no gas. Power’s intermittent in places, non-existent in others.
Don’t count on a working telephone. The gypsies rip down the cabling and sell it for scrap. And the phone companies buy it back because it’s cheaper than remanufacturing.
Few industries survive. We had few enough to start with. Nothing tangible, at least.
We’ve no food and a workforce ill-equipped to grow it. For every man who can work a plough and plant a crop, there’s three hundred who won’t get out of bed without a clean shirt and a business plan – a massive and mainly useless middleclass population who refuse to be rehabilitated. They’re starving the country.
But let’s be even-handed about this. I’m hardly feeding and clothing the nation myself. I make puppets. And for every ‘Alfonse The Alien’ who cheers someone out of a date with a hot bath and a razorblade, there’s another ten of my creations shaming someone else back into one. I’m talking of company mascots, perpetuating the culture of consumerism and the inadequacies of unrequited ownership. So whilst we live in collapsing houses, cooking stolen vegetables over the ashes of our own floorboards, all we really care about is who’s wearing what brand of jeans. Advertising, eh?
But I don’t care. I’m a good little hypocrite. I sacrificed my principles long ago. My soul concern is getting to Dromedary in time to save my mercenary hide. And I’m making good time until someone shoots out my back windscreen.
There’s nothing in my mirrors. There’s nothing of my mirrors. They no longer exist. More bangs and my car is now a convertible. You’ve not known pain until you’ve driven with broken bits of sunroof in your underwear. Rally racing with lacerated buttocks – I don’t recommend it.
Who? What? Where? Why? These are all questions I’d like answered, but I can’t check behind me for glass shards in my collar. Turn my head and I’ll slash my throat.
My foot’s down so hard the floor’s buckling. The whole vehicle’s bucking. The exhaust’s belching, the engine’s blazing and I’m wreathed in dark, choking smoke. I look like a black and white minstrel sitting on a thundercloud.
Fourth gear’s gone, fifth gear lost its teeth with the dinosaurs. What gears have I got? Low ones. Noisy ones: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooooooooooogh!
And now I know I’ve gone mad. The road’s grown fur. Am I asleep? Unfortunately not. I’m surrounded by mink. Thousands and thousands of the horrid, snappy, bitey little bastards racing alongside me. What’s the attraction? Am I made of ham? And since when have mink carried firearms? Answer is, they don’t. But whatever’s chasing them does.
I need to get out of here. And fast. I’ve one option and it’s off road. It’s a full-lock left and I’m hurtling through hedgerow into wasteland, fence wire whipping at my face. And I’m still being followed.
Sod this, I figure. And it’s foot and handbrake together, a three-sixty spin and soon I’m tangled up in more fencing and a sign marked: ‘Landmines!’
The mink and their mysterious aggressor surge past. And God rot me if it isn’t an old man on a souped-up disabled scooter; a geriatric Hells Angel; half machine, half decaying old bigot.
Well, you don’t need a helmet unless you’re scared of death. And this guy doesn’t give a fig for the safety of his paper-thin cranium. Or his appearance, it seems. Take an already ugly old geezer and expose his flappy features to the forces of motion and wind resistance and you’re halfway toward this cold, cataract-crowned nightmare vision. I remember a mouth full of teeth like pipe organ tubes.
So I’m beached on the edge of a minefield, surrounded by rampaging mustelids and gun toting grandpas with grudges. The smart money says I should get out of here before things start exploding. And that’s exactly what I do, shedding my glass-filled clothes on route.
And I’m naked in the road when the first mine blows and the pensioner goes up and bits of him come down. So now I know what colour my car is: rich, coagulating red.
A chirpy voice pipes up near my elbow:
“Oi, mister! Wanna buy a piece?”
I look down to see a filth-encrusted boy wearing a ‘Don’t be a Gifford!’ T-shirt. He doesn’t seem bothered by my blood-spattered nudity. But I am.
“Get away from me!” I bellow, followed by, “I’m not a paedo!” for the benefit of anyone else within eye or earshot. And I refuse to speak to him until I’ve retrieved my trousers.
There’s a pistol clasped in his grubby mitten. He waves it like a maraca.
“Very good price,” he assures me.
Now it’s bad practice to buy firearms from children and I’ve been burned on a deal before.
“Oh, go on, mate!” he whines, “It’s kosher! It was me sister’s. She don’t need it no more cause the yardies got her one of them stenguns out of the Worldy War Two!” And he starts to go on about how he needs the cash for ‘Atomic Jive Rodent’ trading cards, or some such crap.
“Please, mister! I need Gerbilux! He’s got laser eyes! I need him to beat Felino! Felino’s got Kevlar whiskers and a nuclear arse!”