Davey occupied the rear seat as they returned to Fat Les’s arch. Davey was subdued because Fat Les wouldn’t let him play any of his tapes.
‘You can hear some real music when we get home,’ he said, meaning Wagner.
They arrived home. Les put The Flying Dutchman on his stereo, opened a few four-pint cans of beer and became a very happy man.
For a time they were all happy men, then Davey became ill. Ishmael was happier longer than Davey but then the beer just seemed to make his aches and tiredness worse. He slept on a pile of secondhand tyres. It wasn’t the worst place he’d ever slept.
♦
By the time Ivan Hirst gets to Wolfsburg he is nearly forty, but he is one of those men who has always looked nearly forty. His hair is brushed and oiled into an effect of polished blackness. He has a thick, slightly wayward moustache that perches above a mouth that for preference grips a short, straight pipe.
‘I say, Atkinson,’ Hirst says brightly. ‘Do you know why the Beetle has two tailpipes?’
Atkinson, a young lieutenant, a joiner in real life, offers, ‘Something to do with the fact that it’s air-cooled?’
Hirst smiles his boyish smile and says, ‘No, no, they’re fittings for broom handles.’
‘Sir?’
‘So that when the wretched things conk out you can stick a couple of broom handles up the tailpipes and use the blighter as a wheelbarrow.’
Hirst laughs with great satisfaction. This is one of his favourite jokes, used frequently and to great effect.
‘But surely, sir, they’re too close together.’
‘It is a joke, Atkinson.’
‘And surely, sir, with respect, that would only apply to a model with a soft top.’
‘Carry on, Atkinson.’
♦
When Ishmael woke up next morning he could see Fat Les fiddling with a brake drum from a Beetle. He could see Davey going through some martial-arts exercises. Ishmael was sorry he didn’t have some similar form of morning discipline. He wished that Marilyn was with him. He was glad that he didn’t have to go to work. He wished Enlightenment was still in one piece, but he was glad that at least he had the keys to ‘Sorrento’. It was a morning of mixed blessings.
Les had made some tea. It was vile. There was nothing to eat. They began to devise a plan.
Les would borrow a trailer from his mate down the road.
They would reclaim Enlightenment, put it on the trailer, leave car and trailer with a mate of Fat Les’s in Dartford.
They would wait until night.
Davey would black his face with boot polish. (Ishmael thought this was a bit excessive, but Davey insisted.)
They would return to ‘Sorrento’, Les would park a little way away, Davey and Ishmael would attempt to enter the house, preferably by the kitchen door, for which they had a key. Davey would then stand guard downstairs while Ishmael went to Marilyn’s room, unlocking the door with another key from the bunch. Ishmael would enter her room, there would be a short, tearful reunion, but that would have to wait until later. They would steal out, locking doors behind them so that Marilyn’s absence would not be noticed until the next day. They would return to Dartford, pick up trailer and Enlightenment and drive on to Fat Les’s railway arch.
Fat Les would patch up Enlightenment.
Ishmael and Marilyn would start a new life together. Steps 1 to 4 presented no problem.
Colonel Radclyffe has not exaggerated the deprivations and difficulties that prevail at Wolfsburg. There are all kinds of shortage, various kinds of madness. And there is also the problem of ideological purity. The whole factory workforce is having to undergo the unlovely process of ‘denazification’. Hirst has already lost a couple of his best mechanics because they retained threads of loyalty to Hitler. Among the enforced labour there are still attempts at looting, lots of petty violence and fighting, and Hirst can only partly blame them. Repatriation is starting, at least for some, for others (and there are plenty like this) there is no country that wants them. And above all, the military government can’t make up its bloody mind as to whether it might not be a lot easier for all concerned simply to dismantle the whole factory and share out its assets as reparations.
♦
Step 5 swung into action. Fat Les parked his Beetle a couple of hundred yards from the gates of ‘Sorrento’. It was well hidden by hedge and an overhanging tree.
‘Couldn’t you park a bit nearer?’ Ishmael asked.
‘Why?’
‘Two hundred yards is quite a long way to run if you’re being chased by some irate father with a shotgun.’
‘You’ll be all right,’ Fat Les said, reassuringly. ‘That’s just the sort of incentive you need. You’ll be back here like a greyhound if it comes to that. But it won’t, will it?’
‘No, no, I hope…no, of course it won’t.’
Sometimes there was no arguing with Fat Les.
It was midnight. Ishmael hoped that Marilyn’s mother and father were heavy sleepers. He and Davey got out of the car and approached ‘Sorrento’. Davey was acting nonchalant. Ishmael was trying to. He wasn’t sure he had the temperament for this kind of work. His hands were visibly shaking. The gates to the house were locked. They climbed over. Davey was cat-like. Ishmael was not.
The house was in darkness. Ishmael had hoped that Marilyn’s light might still be on. It wasn’t.
They each had a small hand-torch. They hadn’t wanted anything too bright, for fear of giving themselves away. The torches cast small pools of dirty, yellow light as Ishmael and Davey negotiated the drive. One of the pools was noticeably trembling. They rounded the house and found the kitchen door.
‘Know anything about burglar alarms?’ Davey asked.
Ishmael shook his head.
‘Me neither,’ Davey said.
Ishmael held the torch while Davey tried each of the keys in turn. None fitted. Davey held the torch while Ishmael tried. For a moment Ishmael felt blissful relief. If none of the keys fitted perhaps they could go home and try another time. Then he mentally flayed himself for his lack of purpose.
‘Know what the trouble is?’ Davey whispered.
Ishmael shook his head again.
‘The door’s not locked.’
Davey turned the handle of the kitchen door. The door opened. They went in. Davey looked around and selected a seat at the breakfast bar.
‘OK, Batman,’ he said. ‘Go get her.’
Ishmael couldn’t help thinking that Davey sometimes had a very flippant attitude for a disciple.
♦
In 1943 the Humber Company, by arrangement with the Ministry of Supply, published a detailed technical report and assessment on a modified Volkswagen captured in the Libyan desert in the aftermath of Alamein — a German Light Aid Detachment Vehicle Type VW82. The report, which took eight months to compile, eschews wartime austerity in its production. It contains sixty-four glossy, foolscap pages, clothbound like some particularly rare collectors’ edition. With patriotic obsessiveness the report details the complete dismantling of the vehicle, the weight of every component is noted, every type of metal is analysed. One is fascinated to learn that the vehicle’s actual unladen weight is 14cwt 3qr, even though the vehicle’s identification plate states that the figure is 13cwt, 1qr, 26lb.
♦
A strange house at night, in darkness. Things change their shape, their nature. A grandfather clock becomes a hooded figure, a telephone table becomes a small vicious animal, a portrait on the wall becomes the face of God or the devil.
The hallway and stairs held few horrors. They were thickly carpeted. It was easy to walk quietly. He climbed the stairs which ended in a long landing that disappeared round corners at each end. Ishmael knew that Marilyn’s room must be one floor higher than this, so around one of these corners there had to be another set of stairs leading up to Marilyn.