Waiting for Godalming

Icarus sighed yet again. ‘Sesame Street,’ he said.

  ‘Sesame Street?’ said the cabbie.

  ‘Sesame Street,’ said Icarus.

  ‘Right then,’ said the cabbie.

  ‘What, you turn right here?’

  ‘No, not here. You turn left.’

  ‘But you said right.’

  ‘No, I said right then. I was just plotting my course. It’s straight ahead for a quarter of a mile, then turn left into Albert Square. Around the square, right into Coronation Street, third left into Brookside, past Peyton Place, into Tin Pan Alley. Then it’s goodbye Yellow Brick Road, past the House of the Rising Sun, into Blackberry Way, down Dead End Street, taking in a Waterloo Sunset, up Penny Lane, then we’re on the road to nowhere, a Road to Hell and a long and winding road, then we’re—’

  ‘Here,’ said Icarus. ‘Stop the taxi, please.’

  ‘But I haven’t done Route 66, Highway 61, Devil Gate Drive and Desolation Row, and you have to watch out for Cross Town Traffic there.’

  ‘On the corner here will be fine,’ said Icarus.

  ‘Turn right at Camberwick Green and you’re in Sesame Street.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s left at Camberwick Green then right up Trumpton High Street.’

  ‘Smart arse,’ said the cabbie. ‘You knew all the time. That will be five guineas please.’

  ‘Guineas?’ said Icarus.

  ‘Guineas,’ said the cabbie. ‘I’m sure a noble bachelor such as yourself is used to paying in guineas. And that includes the fare for your mate in the box. I wasn’t born yesterday, sunshine.’

  Icarus bid the cabbie farewell and humped the case into the multi-storey car park. Here he released Johnny Boy.

  The midget climbed out, coughing and spluttering.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Icarus.

  ‘That really is a very stupid question.’ Johnny Boy dusted himself down and straightened his dicky bow. ‘Hide the case behind that wheelie bin over there and let’s go and look for the car.’

  Icarus hid the case behind the wheelie bin and he and Johnny Boy went off a-looking.

  Behind them a long dark automobile pulled up beside the ticket barrier, a darkly tinted window slid down and a hand reached out to press the button.

  ‘There’s an awful lot of Ford Fiestas,’ said Icarus.

  ‘Most popular car in the world,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘Even with that design fault on the inner sill of the wheel arches.’

  They were up on the second level now.

  ‘Do you know the number plate?’ asked Icarus.

  ‘No, but it has a sticker in the back window that reads ON A MISSION.’

  ‘Very subtle,’ said Icarus.

  ‘Just keep looking, lad.’

  Icarus just kept looking.

  They can be big old jobbies, those multi-storey car parks. And it is a fact well known, to those who know it well, that a race of magic gnomes live in multi-storey car parks. And when you’re away doing your shopping in the supermarket, they get into your car and move it to another level. They are related to the wallet fairies, who steal the ticket to the multi-storey car park out of your wallet, where you’re absolutely certain that you put it, and slip it into one of your carrier bags. So that when you’ve finally found your car that the magic gnomes have moved, you have to go through every single one of your carrier bags to find your ticket. And you drop your carton of milk and put heavy things back on top of your eggs and misplace the bag of sweeties you were intending to eat on the drive home and get yourself into a right old fluster.

  ‘Why are there always burst milk cartons in multi-storey car parks?’ asked Icarus, as Johnny Boy slipped over on one and fell with a thud to the floor.

  ‘I don’t know. Ouch. Help me up.’

  They were on the sixth floor now and though they’d seen an awful lot of red Ford Fiestas, they hadn’t seen—

  ‘That’s it,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘If I hadn’t slipped over, I never would have noticed it.’

  ‘But it hasn’t got an ON A MISSION sticker in the back window.’

  ‘No, it’s fallen off. It’s here.’ Johnny Boy pointed to the inner sill of the offside rear wheel arch. ‘It’s sticking out through this rust hole, see?’

  Icarus saw. And Icarus, having first assured himself that he wasn’t being observed, took out his little roll of tools.

  Johnny Boy looked on.

  Icarus tinkered and Icarus opened the boot.

  ‘Well well well,’ said Icarus, peering in.

  ‘Help me up,’ said Johnny Boy, struggling to climb.

  ‘It’s here,’ said Icarus. ‘It’s all here. Boxes of tablets. The formula. And what’s this electronic doo-dad thing?’

  ‘Oooh,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘That’s the professor’s machine. The one that tunes into ghosts. I thought he’d destroyed it.’

  ‘Spectremeter,’ Icarus read from the little brass plate on the doo-dad’s side. ‘And this is a portable version, powered by batteries.’ He lifted it out and tinkered with the buttons.

  ‘Don’t switch it on in here, for God’s sake.’

  Icarus returned the spectremeter to the boot.

  ‘He was originally going to call it the Ghostamatic 2000,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘Spectremeter’s probably better. I didn’t know he’d called it that.’

  Icarus took his roll of tools and applied his talents to the driver’s door. Then he returned to the boot, scooped up the contents and flung them into the rear seat of the car.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Johnny Boy. ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘You’re going to steal the car?’

  ‘I’m going to relocate it.’

  ‘Can you get it started without the key?’

  ‘No, I’ll use the spare one that’s always kept under the sunshield visor thing above the windscreen. At least it always is in the movies.’

  ‘You watch too many duff movies, lad. The professor always kept his in the glovie.’

  ‘Come on then, let’s go.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘To anywhere. There’s been a big dark car with blacked out windows following us ever since we left the professor’s house. I may have pretended not to notice it, but I do watch a lot of movies. And I know how all this works.’

  ‘What big dark car?’ asked Johnny Boy.

  ‘The one over there, coming up the ramp.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Johnny Boy.

  Now, there is a knack to starting a Ford Fiesta. You have to pull out the choke as far as it will go. Give the accelerator pedal a little bit of toe. Turn on the ignition slowly. Keep your foot off the accelerator pedal and let the revs build up. When the revs sound like they are running too high, ease the choke in to about half an inch, and wait until the engine has taken up a regular beat. Then put your foot on the accelerator pedal and pump it a few times, just to sound cool, and then you’re away. Then …

  Johnny Boy fumbled in the glovie and fumbled the key to Icarus. ‘Let me explain what you have to do,’ he said.

  ‘No time.’

  ‘But you’ll flood the engine.’

  ‘No time.’

  The long black car drew to a halt, boxing the Ford Fiesta in.

  ‘Well. It hardly matters now,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘We’re trapped.’

  ‘Of course we’re not.’

  Icarus keyed the engine. And stuck his foot down hard to the floor. The engine roared and the usual glorious cloud of acrid fumes came a-bursting out of the exhaust. Icarus slammed the gearstick into reverse.

  ‘What are you doing? You’ll smash into them.’

  ‘Of course I won’t.’

  Icarus dropped the handbrake and let out the clutch. The Ford swept backwards out of the parking bay.

  The long black car did likewise out of its path. Very fast, with its tyres screaming.

  ‘They’re letting us out!’ cried Johnny Boy. ‘Why are they letting us out?’

  ‘Because this is a clapped-out Ford Fiesta, of course. And
anyone with a decent car knows far better than to get anywhere near a clapped-out Ford Fiesta. It’s a natural instinct with drivers of posh cars. They can’t help themselves.’

  Johnny Boy glanced out of his window. ‘They’re getting out of the car,’ he said. ‘They’re wrong’uns and they’ve got guns.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  Marvellous acceleration, the Ford Fiesta. Simply marvellous.

  Icarus swerved out of the parking bay and then took off at the hurry-up.

  Johnny Boy was up on his seat, clinging to the headrest. ‘They’re getting back into the car,’ he shouted. ‘They’re coming after us.’

  ‘Yes, well I thought they probably would.’

  ‘Faster,’ cried Johnny Boy. ‘Faster.’

  Now, it does have to be said, what with Hollywood knowing its own business best, and everything, that the ‘car chase in the multi-storey car park’ never seems to lose its popularity. Those ‘hilly streets with the trams in San Francisco’ are always good, of course. And the ‘racing under the big overpass jobbies in Brooklyn’ and the ‘swervy mountain roads in France’, which are usually filmed in California, and the ‘out on the freeway in the desert’ of course. Also in California. But the ‘car chase in the multi-storey car park’ (or parking structure, as our American cousins like to call it) never ceases to impress. Lazlo Woodbine actually considered adding one more location to his set of four, that of the ‘parking structure, where a dodgy drugs deal is being done with racketeers’. But he decided to scrub round it, because it was far too dangerous a location to work. What with all the car chases going on.

  And everything.

  Icarus did some more swerving and headed down the exit ramp. The long dark car came creeping slowly after him.

  ‘We’re losing them,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘They’ve slowed down, we’re OK.’

  ‘I think not,’ said Icarus. ‘It has probably occurred to them, as it has occurred to me, that I don’t have a ticket. I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this car park.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘That would be a problem.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Icarus leaned over and whispered words into Johnny Boy’s ear.

  ‘Do you think that might work?’ asked the small man.

  ‘I’d give it a go,’ said Icarus. ‘I can’t think of anything else.’

  ‘Okey-dokey then.’

  The Ford Fiesta moved across the first floor of the multi-storey car park and then rather than going down the exit ramp it went up again. Up to the second floor, all round that, then up to the third floor and all round that. The long dark automobile followed it.

  The driver wasn’t smiling.

  The Ford Fiesta went down to the second floor again and then up two floors to the fourth. The long dark automobile followed the Ford Fiesta. Losing sight, then gaining sight of it again.

  The driver had a definite frown on.

  The Ford Fiesta went down to the third floor, then up to the fifth, then down to the second again. The long dark automobile followed it.

  The driver had a snarl on now.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he shouted. He was an evil-looking man, the driver of the long dark automobile. He wore a chauffeur’s uniform and looked exactly the way that evil chauffeurs always look. Even down to that business with the chin and the unusual birthmark above the right eyebrow, which resembles the Penang peninsula. ‘What are they doing?’ he shouted again. ‘Driving up and down and round and round until they run out of petrol?’

  ‘Cut them off,’ said a man in the back. An unseen man, so description wasn’t necessary. ‘Park the car across the exit ramp on the third floor.’

  ‘But they’re in a Ford Fiesta, sir. It might scratch our bodywork if it bumps into us.’

  ‘Just do it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Ford Fiesta went up to the fifth floor again and then came down. The long dark car was blocking the third floor exit ramp. The chauffeur was sitting on the bonnet. He had a gun in his hand. The Ford Fiesta came down the fourth floor exit ramp. Which was the ramp leading from the fourth floor to the third, in case you’re finding this somewhat hard to follow.

  ‘Here they come,’ shouted the chauffeur, raising his pistol. ‘Stop or I fire, you sons of…’

  The Ford Fiesta didn’t stop.

  ‘Stop or I fire! Stop or I fire!’

  The Ford Fiesta didn’t stop.

  ‘Stop or I—’

  The driver leapt from the bonnet as the Ford Fiesta struck the long dark automobile.

  Well, struck it is not exactly the word.

  Passed right through it, is. But that’s four words.

  ‘Aaagh!’ went the chauffeur as the Ford Fiesta merged into the long dark automobile, emerged from the other side, drove on round the third floor and then went up to the fifth again.

  Down on the ground floor the Ford Fiesta had reached the ticket barrier. ‘Nice work,’ said Icarus to Johnny Boy. ‘That old portable spectremeter really gets the job done, doesn’t it? I’ll bet they’ll be chasing the ghost of this car around the car park for the rest of the day.’

  Johnny Boy grinned. ‘And switching it off on the second floor so the ghost car just goes on in a continuous loop while we slipped down to the exit. Smart idea, Icarus.’

  ‘So let’s be off on our way.’

  The bloke who worked in the little ticket office next to the barrier grinned at the grinning pair who stood before him.

  ‘Lost ticket?’ he said. ‘That will be fifty guineas, please.’

  9

  ‘Fifty guineas?’ said Icarus Smith. ‘Fifty guineas?’

  The car park attendant wore a uniform. It didn’t fit at all well. They never do.

  ‘Fifty guineas?’ said Icarus again. ‘What do you take me for?’

  ‘A noble bachelor,’ said the bloke in the ill-fitting uniform. ‘And who’s this? Your little brother is it?’

  ‘I wish it was,’ said Icarus. ‘I have a brother, but he’s barking mad.’

  ‘I’m getting madder by the moment,’ said Johnny Boy.

  ‘Come on,’ said Icarus. ‘Let’s go.’

  Icarus Smith and Johnny Boy returned to the Ford Fiesta.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Johnny Boy. ‘Drive through the barrier?’

  Icarus gathered up the papers and the boxes of tablets and the spectremeter. ‘No,’ said he. ‘I think we’ll just walk from here.’

  Down the exit ramp from the first floor came the long dark automobile.

  ‘On second thoughts,’ said Icarus, ‘I think we’ll run.’

  Johnny Boy couldn’t run very fast, because he had very short legs. Icarus managed to flag down a cab.

  ‘Brentford,’ said he. ‘And fast, please.’

  ‘Ah, you again,’ said the cabbie. ‘And with your mate out of the box, this time. Hop in then and I’ll tell you some more about the knowledge.’

  On the journey back to Brentford, which was not achieved in quite the speedy manner Icarus would have hoped for, the cabbie told Icarus some more about the knowledge. And Johnny Boy, who had a passionate interest in the geography of Greater and Inner London, and also the songs of Bruce Springsteen, asked the cabbie how you got to Thunder Road.

  ‘What an interesting man,’ said Johnny Boy, when he and Icarus had finally stepped from the taxi.

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Icarus Smith.

  ‘But I think he was wrong about turning left in Arnold Layne,’ said Johnny Boy, who also had a love for early Pink Floyd. ‘So what, exactly, are we doing here?’

  ‘This is a pub,’ said Icarus.

  ‘Yes, well, I can see it’s a pub.’

  ‘It’s called the Three Gables and I’m supposed to be meeting my best friend, Friend Bob, here tonight. I’m going to tell him everything.’

  ‘Do you think that’s wise?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Icarus. ‘In movies, people always keep things to themselves until the last minute. It heightens the tens
ion. Personally I don’t need any more heightened tension today.’

  ‘You’re gonna get it,’ said Johnny Boy, ‘when you’ve taken the drug.’

  ‘That’s why I want to be with Friend Bob when I take it.’

  Johnny Boy made a doubtful face. ‘It’s a very wise man who knows who his real friends are,’ said he. ‘Friend Bob might not be what you think he is. You’d better let me take a look at him first.’

  ‘To see if he’s a wrong’un?’ Icarus pushed open the door to the saloon bar. Johnny Boy followed him in.

  The Three Gables was a proper drinking man’s pub. No theme nights or foppish fancies here. It was your honest to goodness, down to Earth, spit and gob, drinking man’s pub. And you don’t see many of those around any more. It served proper flat ale in proper dirty glasses. Had proper full ashtrays and a proper foul-mouthed barmaid with an enormous bosom and a taste for group sex with Jehovah’s witnesses (well, they do keep knocking at your door when you’re taking a bath). There was proper unswept lino on the floor and proper unmopped vomit in the gents. There was a proper one man band called Johnny G, who performed there on a Tuesday night. And proper drunken louts who threw proper light ale bottles at him when he did.

  The atmosphere was fugged throughout with proper cigarette smoke.

  It was all right and proper and the way a pub should be.

  ‘I hate it here,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘It smells.’

  ‘What can I buy you?’ asked Icarus Smith, making his way through the proper crowd of early evening drinkers to the bar.

  ‘Hold on, don’t lose me.’

  Icarus returned to assist the small man to a quiet corner table.

  ‘Look after all this stuff,’ said Icarus, placing the boxes of tablets and the papers and the spectremeter down on the bench seat next to Johnny Boy. ‘I’ll get us in the drinks.’

  ‘A short for me,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘But make it a large short, a triple. Vodka, no ice, off you go.’

  And so off Icarus went. Presently he returned in the company of a vodka bottle and two glasses.

  ‘Blimey, I’ll bet that cost you a few bob,’ said Johnny Boy.

  ‘An understanding exists between myself and the big-bosomed barmaid,’ said Icarus.