The second clue, the last you will need or be allowed, as the lights turn at last to amber, is the quiet sure sound of a mighty engine, a silencer that shouts its intentions loud and clear, a rising yet calm note of awesome torque and acceleration. And even though you release the Capri’s clutch and your car starts to leap forward before the appearance of the green light, you are instantly trailing in the wake of the Beetle, in the wake of the Street Sleeper.
You are angry, not only that you are beaten at your own game, though God knows that’s bad enough, but more because you have been beaten by a player you didn’t even know was in the game, who, in that poxy little blue Beetle, certainly didn’t have any right to be in the game.
The evening is in tatters. The girl beside you refuses to sympathize, even suggests that you see the funny side. The night will end in a furious row, dredged up grievances, thrown drinks and broken lager glasses.
All of which is much as Fat Les had intended. He drives his car through dark streets that hold no threat, not even that much of a challenge these days, a heftily rebored engine, racing cam, forged pistons, and twin Webers have seen to that. He doesn’t feel smug exactly, but content that, this time at least, the underdog, the wimp in the white hat, the loser, has won.
He drives back to his railway arch, to his kingdom. A remote-controlled solenoid operates the doors. He drives in, switches off engine and lights. He drinks a lot of cheap whisky and watches snooker on television before sliding into his sleeping-bag and into chivalric dreams.
He dreams of conquest, of winning. Burning-off Ford Capris is part of it (actually, quite a large part), but is not the whole story. It is a symptom. Of social unrest? Of class hatred? Fat Les couldn’t put a name to it. But it is indicative of his desire to defeat the flash bugger, the boy-racer, the wine drinker, the one with the tasty motor that can move a bit, the one in Daddy’s BMW, the one in the car that Daddy bought him for his eighteenth birthday. It is the parading of a chip on the shoulder. It is also a way of saying do not take me for a sheep, not even for a wolf dressing down, do not take me for anything at all. Do not judge me. Fat men in old bangers need love too.
♦
When Ishmael first decided to drive off and find out who he truly was, he’d envisaged buying a VW camper with cooker, washbasin and portable toilet. It seemed simple and good. It also turned out to be expensive.
He answered a classfied ad in the Morning Telegraph. The camper had been sold before he got there, but the seller was a small-time dealer and he said he had another car which might suit Ishmael down to the ground.
It was, of course, the car that he came to call Enlightenment.
Ishmael was shown the car. It was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen. The front spoiler and rear whale tail were in grey primer. Most of the rest of the car was painted in candy red and that would have been nice enough but it had started to crack, and rust was showing in a few places. However, not all the car was painted that colour. One rear wing was black and dented, the other was bright orange, and the driver’s door was lilac with a peeling transfer of a Viking on it.
It had a sunroof without a hatch — and that was when Ishmael first started to feel an affinity with the car. How nice to sit in the driver’s seat, open to the wind and sky, open to new thoughts and experiences. Just open.
And he realized how there is beauty in ugliness, and he saw how the many colours of paintwork symbolized the rich, chequered patchwork of life.
Slowly but clearly the car spoke to him. And he spoke back.
He started the engine. It needed a few attempts but at last it sprang into life. There was a dense cloud of blue smoke from the exhaust. The dealer told him this was a good sign. Ishmael settled himself in the car. Man and machine started to communicate. A connection was made. A deal was done.
He had his mission. He had his vehicle. He had the few thousand pounds he’d drawn out of the joint account he’d opened with Debby. He paid the dealer in cash. The man kept chuckling to himself. Ishmael smiled back.
He drove away from the life he knew.
It was the first step on the road to coming home.
♦
‘Oh,’ said Ishmael. ‘Tearing your clothes and screaming rape seems like a strange calling, but who am I?’
The blonde with the freckled breast said, ‘You don’t seem to understand. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m doing now.’
Ishmael was silent.
‘You want me to give you money?’ he said at last.
‘You’ve got it.’
He was silent for a while longer.
‘Have you ever heard of the concept of karma?’
‘What?’
‘Doing bad things is going to give you terrible bother in your future lives.’
She suddenly lost her patience.
‘All right, stop the car or I’ll leap out and tell the police you threw me.’
Even though it meant disobeying the Highway Code Ishmael brought the car to a sudden halt on the hard shoulder.
‘Money isn’t the answer,’ he said.
‘For you at this moment money is the answer. Unless you give me some money you’re going to be in a lot of trouble — and soon.’
She stuck her head out of the car window and screamed. It was a piercing enough scream but Ishmael had heard louder ones from Debby, and in any case there was nobody to hear. The sound of one vocal cord screaming.
‘Let’s talk this thing through,’ Ishmael said.
She screamed again. Cars roared past. Ishmael pressed a button on the dashboard. It controlled the windows.
They slid shut with an electronic rasp. He pressed another button and both doors were now locked. There was still the gaping hole where the sunroof ought to have been but he couldn’t see her escaping through there.
Ishmael abhorred violence in all its many ugly forms, so it was with great reluctance that he now reached down under his seat and picked up a claw hammer. He held it about an inch and a half from the blonde’s nose.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘What are you going to do with that hammer?’
‘I’m going to use it in the service of virtue.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘So tell me what your name is.’
‘Marilyn.’
‘OK then, Marilyn, it seems to me you’re not a very good person. Oh, I don’t imagine you’re actually evil, not wicked exactly, but perhaps you haven’t had all the advantages that someone like me has enjoyed. But fortunately I’m now in a position to help you.
‘This claw hammer will serve a moral purpose. Either you behave yourself and stop demanding money with menaces from me, or you continue to do wrong in which case I hit you across the mouth with the hammer.
‘It’s sort of like the wrath of God, only more immediate.’
‘I’m an idiot,’ she said quietly to herself. ‘The moment I saw the car, obviously a nutcase.’ Then aloud. ‘All right, you win. Let me out and I won’t give you any more trouble.’
‘No, Marilyn. You and I are going to take a ride. This will be a learning experience for you.’
♦
Munich, 1922. Two children press their faces against the glass of a Benz motor showroom. Inside, vast and luxurious motorcars stand ready to be bought by the rich and ostentatious. Jacob Werlin is demonstrating the features of a sixteen-horsepower model to a Herr Weiss and his wife. Weiss is a solid, square, bespectacled citizen. He calls himself an industrialist, which is sufficiently vague to be impressive, though there is nothing vague about his very real wealth. His wife is noticeable for her accessories — a veil, a stole and a dachshund.
The children, a boy and a girl, Nina and Peter, aged six and eight, continue to stare. Werlin sees them but is not immediately concerned. Children love motorcars. Why shouldn’t they? He himself retains a boyish fascination. He owes his success as a representative for Benz to an astute combination of business skills and a youthful enthusiasm for speed, power and elegance. But what is the little girl doing? She is pulling faces, tongue out, nose squashed flat against the glass, eyes rolling in a crazed, hostile mime. And the little boy, my God, has his penis out and is peeing against the window.