Cliff never has any shortage of helpers on these occasions, and the most enthusiastic helper here by far is Davey.
“Looks like I’m finally going to do it,” says Davey.
“What’s that?” Planetary Cliff asks.
“Get to dance in a field till dawn, out of my head on Ecstasy.”
“Well,” says Cliff, “whatever gets you through the night.”
“Think it’ll be easy to get some E?”
“I dare say.”
“You know, I was talking to a girl a few minutes ago and she said the Earth Goddess is talking to us in our dreams. What do you think about that?”
“I think she might be a very good source of drugs,” says Planetary Cliff.
♦
In Barry’s caravan site a siege mentality has started to take hold. Most of the inmates have declared that they’re not setting foot outside the site until this whole sordid business is over. Thus they will avoid all contact with, and risk of pollution from, the invading hordes. A sort of road block has been set up at the entrance to the site and teams of men are working as sentries to vet anyone who attempts to enter. Another small team of vigilantes patrols the perimeter. This does not make for a pleasant or relaxing atmosphere.
Even Barry has thought of going away for the whole of this festive weekend. Fond though he is of Volkswagens he doesn’t want to spend the whole weekend watching them come and go, seeing and hearing them being put through their paces, listening to the sound of their air-cooled engines, their sports exhausts, their in-car stereos. And he certainly doesn’t want to have to put up with an all night New Age rave on the other side.
So he thinks of going to Southend for the weekend to renew contact with Fat Les and to get him involved in repairing Enlightenment. He rings Fat Volkz Inc but fails to speak to Fat Les. Instead, an extremely young boy answers the phone and says he can’t be of any help because he’s just there holding the fort and everybody else has gone to the Bug Mecca being held near Filey. Fat Volkz is having a trade stand there and if he’s absolutely desperate to speak to Fat Les he could always go there. Once again Barry is amazed by the extent to which the world seems to bring him what he wants when he wants it. This has saved him the problem of driving to Southend. However, there is still the problem of Charles Lederer.
The old man has settled into his new environment rather well. Barry has not succeeded in organising a tent for him. More precisely, he found a tent without any trouble, but Charles Lederer is refusing to sleep in it. By the time Barry had returned from the angry meeting with Sam Probert, Lederer had installed himself in Barry’s caravan and he now shows no sign of budging. The old guy is still obviously in a state of shock and distress, and Barry doesn’t want to be hard on him, so for the time being Barry has returned to sleeping, and indeed living, in Enlightenment.
Charles Lederer spends a lot of time asleep and Barry has no objection to that. He thinks, in fact, it might be very much for the best if the old man could remain unconscious for the whole weekend. If Charles Lederer wanders out of the caravan site and finds himself standing in a field with a couple of thousand Volkswagens, then Barry fears the worst.
♦
Fat Les arrives at Bug Mecca early on Friday. The Fat Volkz trade stand is extremely impressive. It consists of a small marquee in which there are display boards showing before and after photographs of some of the best Beetles he’s restored or customised. A bank of video screens shows these same cars in action, though neither photographs nor videos show Enlightenment nor any of the eight neo-Nazi Beetles. In the centre of the marquee is a wretched looking, rusty, dented pale blue Beetle that a couple of the lads will be knocking back into shape and giving a tricksy paintjob over the course of the weekend.
Les has some very flashy lines of Volkswagen accessories for sale; louvred wings and running boards, pink and black leather replacement door panels, a gear lever encrusted with diamantes and turquoise. But what he prefers to offer is a total service. He says he wants his customers to put themselves entirely in his hands, to free their minds and to dream up their wildest Volkswagen fantasies, and then he will make those fantasies a reality.
At least that’s what he says to his more gullible customers. Now, as he stands in this flat, dreary field surrounded by Volkswagens, their owners and their drivers, he once again feels overwhelmed, bored, satiated, nauseated by their insistent presence. He wouldn’t mind seeing the whole bloody lot of them blown up.
♦
Sure enough, Phelan’s skinheads also arrive that Friday evening; forty of them, five per car as demanded by Phelan. Of course, they had no idea that there would be a Bug Mecca in the field adjacent to the Gathering of the Tribes, and they are more than surprised to find themselves the subject of considerable curiosity and attention from Beetle fans. They are directed into Bug Mecca even though that’s not where they want to go, and once inside, a small crowd gathers around the cars. There’s a general admiration for the work that’s gone into their Beetles, though several people make disparaging remarks about the presence of swastikas and SS flashes on the paintwork. At first the skinheads find all this hard to take, but Butcher points out to his cohorts that a Volkswagen meeting is just about the perfect place from which to launch their attacks on the New Agers. It provides them with a reason to be there and a lot of cover. If their victims report that they were beaten up by somebody in a Volkswagen, that isn’t going to tell anybody very much, is it?
♦
Friday night passes off more or less peaceably. There is some scattered rowdiness and partying in both fields. There is no doubt a little drug and drink abuse, and certainly there is music and dancing. But the partying remains non-violent, the intake of drink and drugs remains moderate, and Planetary Cliff’s sound system, vast though it is, stays quiet enough to avoid complaints from police or locals, and it is turned off before midnight. Not long after that, both fields become calm, quiet and dormant. Camp fires burn here and there, and the occasional Beetle cruises the local roads, but there is nothing going on here that need frighten or threaten the local community. But then again, this is only Friday night.
It is Saturday morning before reports begin to circulate that several New Age travellers have been beaten up and robbed in the night. These attacks are declared to have been cowardly and unprovoked, carried out anonymously, viciously and under cover of darkness. Unseen fists, boots and baseball bats have emerged from the darkness, and none of the victims is able to describe the attackers; certainly none could specify that he was beaten up by Volkswagen-driving neo-Nazi skinheads.
♦
Saturday morning. Dawn breaks. Pale sunlight moves over the fields and the caravan site, over Volkswagens and caravans and tatty old buses, over holidaymakers and New Age travellers and Beetle drivers alike. Slowly things come to life. At the edge of Bug Mecca a group of skinheads is seen performing exercises, martial arts moves and occasional Nazi salutes. It is quite clear to those camping nearby that these boys are up to no good, but so far their misdeeds have been entirely clandestine and they have created no cause for concern. Furthermore, the campers reason, any group of lads that drives such a tasty set of Volkswagens can’t be all bad.
This is to be the big day of the Bug Mecca. There will be an engine changing competition, a concours d’elegance, and a Miss V-Bug competition, although so far there are only two entrants for that. There will be continuous showings of the Herbie movies in a darkened marquee for the children. There will be an autojumble and swapmeet, and a display of Beetle dragsters, although they won’t be allowed to drive anywhere, and there is the promise of an ‘engine destruct’ — an event where an old Beetle engine is over-revved until it destroys itself.