Chapter 5
After scraping the ice from the Bluebird’s windscreen I gave Julie a farewell hug. Our goodbyes were getting awkward. I watched Julie place her hand lovingly on the roof of her car. She gave me one of those looks that always made me feel guilty for things I’d yet to be convicted of.
‘It’ll be fine, I promise. You’ll have it back in no time.’
After loading my plumbing tools and a bag of clothes in the boot of the car I hugged my two sons and set off. This was to be a road trip that I would never forget. And yet, there was worse to come. Far worse.
I hadn’t gone far before I discovered the Bluebird's clutch was a lot worse than the last time I drove it… a lot worse.
For a second, I considered going back and swapping the Bluebird for the Transit van. That would have been the smart thing to do. What'd I do? I carried on. Then, I argued, if I took it back and let Julie drive it around these frozen lanes, sods law the bloody thing will cease up on her, in the worst possible place, and I wouldn’t be around to come and rescue her. Of course our breakdown service had long expired. I chose to carry on.
After passing through Oxhampton I saw a sign that offered me two choices, I could ether take the B roads, which entailed a lot of gear changing and a greater risk of finishing the clutch off or I could use motorways where, hopefully, I would hardly ever change gears. The downside to the motorway argument was should I break down I had no means of paying for a tow truck.
By the time I reached the motorway junction I had already made up my mind. I took the B road. It was do or die for me, and the Bluebird.
The first leg of my journey was on the A30, heading east. At the Exeter by-pass I turned onto the A303. Luckily the traffic was flowing freely, which was reassuring because the clutch was getting worse and I was now having to ram the gear stick home. The crunching sound and the heavy clonk as the gear dropped into synch made me wince. Any minute the car was likely to get jammed in whatever gear I happened to be in at the time. At every junction I cursed any driver that got in my way. My teeth were being ground to stumps. I had eaten my entire stock of liquorice allsorts over the first five miles. I couldn’t afford to lose focus… I became fixated on the traffic… trying to anticipate the road.
Twenty miles on, and I was regretting my decision to stick to B roads. If I had taken the M5, a longer route admittedly, I could have remained in the same gear for most of the journey. Still, what’s done is done. My fortunes were now in the lap of the gods and with each passing mile my aims and my hopes became less ambitious, it was enough to reach the next town, the next junction, perhaps the end of the road where I would set a new goal.
The M3 was the biggy, but that was a hundred miles distant and ahead of me lying in ambush were any number of dick-head car drivers, tractors, traffic lights, nuns behind the wheel, road junctions and God knows what. Meeting any one of these obstacles would require me to change gear. The thought chilled my blood. If I could just reach the M3 my chances improved by about two per cent, but calculations of this magnitude asked too much of a boy who at the age of fifteen had been expelled from school.
How we made it to the M3 I will never know. I couldn’t entirely place our salvation on the dedication and skill of the car workers at Nissan Motors Sunderland. (Here I make no apologies for mixing object pronouns and personal pronouns. This flouting of English grammar is justified on the grounds the car and I had become brother in arms doing battle with the elements and the forces of fate.) (Yes I know… it all sounds a little too Hollywood). Yes, I made it to the M3. And I was so grateful for that. Whilst I am pretty sure I hadn’t had a religious conversion as such, I did however think that what got me this far had to have been some kind of divine intervention. However, the M3 was a milestone and nothing more. I still had a long way to go. This was not the time to punch the air or relax my vigilance.
Driving on the M3, the Bluebird did allow me to get into fourth gear, which meant I was able to relax a little. As long as I didn’t have to stop! The clattering noises from under the bonnet had my nerves on edge. I pushed home a CD and turned the volume knob to max. Keeping to the nearside lane and at a constant speed of sixty, I made it as far as the Surrey border and the A3, but at what cost to the slathering engine? The wisps of smoke that I thought I saw creeping out from under the bonnet ten miles back, and wanted to ignore, was now like driving through patches of fog. More worrying was the heart- stopping moments when the engine seemed to heave a death rattle sigh and then choke as if it were its last breath. The inside of the car was like a sauna, and I couldn’t open the windows. My eyes would burn from the stinging smoke.
If ever a car had earned a medal for gallantry the Bluebird would surely have merited it. Like a wounded hero the Bluebird refused to surrender. I swear that car was sweating blood.
By now I was sweating too. I could hear the engine whining, as if pleading for me to stop… to end its agony. I could hardly wrest my eyes from the warning lamps on the dashboard. The oil-warning lamp had been glowing for the past fifteen miles. Not even this valiant warrior, with a busted oil pump, could last more than a few miles.
I began cursing and coaxing the car in equal measure. Each mile seemed like a hundred and then, quite suddenly, Tolworth Towers, a building I had always loathed appeared on the horizon. I likened it to a beacon of hope. My body must have overdosed on adrenalin because all of a sudden this grotesque seventies blot on the Surrey skyline was now as beautiful a sight as any. If only I could make it to the next... the last junction, I would have less than ten miles to go. This single thought fired up my flagging spirits. I have never run the London marathon, never wanted to, but I’d seen those mad runners on the telly, head wobbling from side to side, tongue lolling, staggering on wobbly legs trying to reach the crossing line... and that was how I saw the Bluebird now doggedly trying to get me over the finish line. I didn’t dare think about the promise I made Julie, or what I would tell her.
'Come on girl.' I urged the Bluebird on.
Up ahead lay my nemeses: The Tolworth Towers, a five-way junction. If I could get across that mad circus of cars fighting to pass each other and not have to change gear there was the slimmest chance I might yet make it to my mum’s flat. I flicked on the left turn indicator and my brain made a million calculations and then re-calculated those calculations. Traffic was on all sides of me. Car, buses and lorries looking for the openings, jostled into line. I slowed enough so that I could stay in fourth gear and then make a run for it, all the while praying some dickhead in front didn’t stop. I swept my arm across my brow and caressed the dashboard of the proud panting beast now burning oil. Like a zipper, I steered the Bluebird into a steady stream of vehicles heading uphill towards the roundabout that had been gnawing at my nerves for the last few miles. This was where it was all likely to go wrong. If the car broke down now I was done for. How the hell would I get all my plumbing tools and my suitcase to my Mums when I hadn’t a bean?
Now, with the engine faltering I was on the slip road approaching the roundabout with a steady stream of unbroken traffic crossing the bridge on my right. 'Crap I need a space guys… just one car hanging back will do.' I looked about me, at the other cars. I envied those drivers who were pootling along without a care in the world.
Ideally I needed a two-car gap, or one at a pinch. Timing was critical. Every fibre of my being was focused. If I got snarled up in traffic and had to kick down on the clutch pedal I was done for. All the while I kept the Bluebird rolling I stood a chance. If I stopped, I was dead. I tickled the accelerator until the engine began to judder. I glanced down at the temperature-warning lamp that had been glowing red for the past ten miles, had it gotten redder? Now a choking smell of burning oil and melting plastic caused me to wind down the drivers window. My knuckles gripping the steering wheel had gone white.
There were now only ten cars between the roundabout and me. 'Please...please... please.' the words became a mantra. In the rear view mi
rror I could see a long line of traffic building up behind me. I eased back on the accelerator. The engine sounded like a suit of armour falling down a flight of stone stairs. The temperature inside the car felt like at any moment it was about to go up in flames. I shuddered. I had a vision of Joan De Arc.
I wound up the window. I didn’t want to listen to the dying agonies of this poor car. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. The car was finished, it'll end up in the scrap yard, and I knew it! There were tears in my eyes. I didn’t know what they meant. I could only guess the Bluebirds valiant fight had moved me. No General on any battlefield could have asked more of this trooper. It must surely have merited a V.C for cars, had such an award existed.
However, self-recrimination, could visit me later, for now, I needed to stay focused. I watched the few cars ahead of me moving up, getting away, as if on a conveyor belt.
My bottom was rocking… pushing the car up the incline and my teeth were locked in concentration. I held my finger on the indicator switch in readiness. I mumbled supplications to the drivers around me. “Please don’t stop, please, I can’t change gear, please keep going, please don’t get in my way…”
That was when I saw it... a gap in the flow of traffic on my right. 'Come on girl. You can make it.' I urged playing with the accelerator pedal, my ears now fine tuned to the noises under the bonnet, and my body understanding every vibration. There was now just one car between me and the junction.
Holding the car at a steady twenty, I grimaced when the engine began to shake. It was as if it were trying to free itself from the engine mountings. At best, I might, just might, get one more gear change out of the clapped out clutch.
I could hear the Bluebird screaming at me, telling me to change down. “Not possible.” I yelled above the roar of the engine. My eyes widened in blessed wonder when suddenly there was no other car in front. I just needed to cross those white lines and I was away. A nun tootling along in a Morris Minor, her eyes just visible above the steering wheel had opened up the gap I had been praying for. Should I ever be summoned on the matter I might have risked the wrath of St Peter and kissed her full on the lips. Timing was everything. I leaned on the accelerator and watched the needle hit thirty miles an hour. I felt the Bluebird sigh with relief. My eyes locked on to the gap in the traffic. I couldn’t believe it! I allowed my shoulders to relax and flexed my fingers that had a dead-mans grip on the steering wheel. Rattling like a binman's cart the Bluebird trembled in eager anticipation. I watched the Morris Minor with the nun peering over the steering wheel cautiously approach the junction. Here she comes, my sweet, angelic little nun.
“You little darling! “ I cooed when I saw the nun was now holding up a line of traffic. I was now free to coast across the junction, then shoot off left onto the A3 and be at my mums by teatime.
'Yaroo!' I cried as I rolled onto the roundabout.
I checked the wing mirrors, left and then right.
I was actually grinning when it all went tits –up.
Crap! I exploded when a motorcyclist, clearly tired of being stuck behind the elderly nun swung out from behind the Morris. I slammed on the brakes and watched in horror when he rolled his bike over and on his arse slid across my path. The car behind must have slammed on his anchors because he careened past me on the inside and went into a lazy spin and then slammed broadside into a lamppost. And while all this mayhem was going on around me I remained fixated on the Bluebird's engine. I mustn’t stall the car. That was when I felt the thump and heard the scream of twisted metal on the driver’s side. The Bluebird rocked violently when a Ford Focus punched my offside. All around me was chaos, cars were slamming into each other, more cars mounted the pavement, and horns blasted their annoyance. I had straightened up. The engine hadn’t stalled and I was in second gear. Thinking I can’t possibly drive the last ten miles in second gear I pushed down on the clutch and felt no resistance.... nothing! I had no choice. The car was stuck in second gear forever.
I thought it was time I got away.
Pressing the gas pedal to the floor, I urged the Bluebird on. I swung the car over to the right and then lurched forward missing the fist-waving motorcyclist by inches. I could never understand why drivers, with their life about to be forfeited, tended to lean on the horn when surely, taking evasive action, would have been a more useful occupation!
While mayhem broke out all around me I remained above it all. This was not a disaster of my making. It was not my problem. My problem was how to get the Bluebird, stuck in second gear all the way across South London to my Mums flat in Earlsfield.
To muffle the engine noise I wound up the window. Furious drivers, having leapt from their cars, were now blaming each other. I negotiated the Bluebird through the debris, bits of twisted metal, shards of glass, and lumps of plastic. Without a backward glance, I roared across the junction departing the scene it would take an army of authorities all day to sort out.
Safely across the junction I looked into my rear mirror. Some way off I could see blue flashing lights.
The Bluebird’s engine was pouring out black smoke and rattling on it’s mountings and all I could think about was me a having a nice cuppa and a biscuit when I got to my Mums flat.
I kissed the palm of my hand slapped it down on the dashboard. “Yeah baby” I yelled above the engine noise a few miles from my Mum’s flat. To all intents and purposes I was pretty much home, high and dry. Like a warm breeze a feeling of divine serenity swept over me.
I rejected the notion some kind of divine intervention must have intervened to get me through that multiple pile-up, without me getting a scratch. I put it down to my superlative driving skills… surely! I also discounted the notion that the St Christopher swinging on a chain hooked over my rear-view mirror had played a part in my salvation. To believe such a notion, I might as well give credence to the poor deluded folk who claim to have a piece of toast with the face of Jesus. Actually… I do know of one such claimant. Tommy Lawson has his piece of toast in a gilt frame on his living room wall. I have studied it, and can categorically say I saw no such image, which was good because I really can’t be doing with challenges to my blind-sighted agnostic views.
Of course, my views count for no more than any other person's. I could be wrong. It’s been known…just the once mind.
Of course it was entirely possible a Bishop, one who knows nothing of me, in the course of one of his frequent discussions with God, had mistakenly given the Big Man, my name, and contact details. Not for the first time I wondered if I was overdue for a check-up from the neck-up?
I shook my head and this helped reengage my normal brain, the one that from time to time would go on vacation.
I was willing the car through the streets of Merton and then on through the leafy lanes of Wimbledon, skirting the Common and avoiding the main roads. Somehow, we, made it as far as Earlsfield, and then, just four blocks from my Mums flat, the Bluebird developed a death rattle.
I could hear the engine gasping for breath. I eased her gently into the kerb and got upset. My Mum’s flat was only two streets away.
A tear coursed down my cheek. It was time to put this brave soul to rest. My fingers refused to move. I wasn’t sure that I had the courage to put her out of her misery? I was now weeping openly, my chest heaving painfully. The engine was trembling like an injured sparrow lying helpless on its side, its dim eyes pleading for relief. I tried once more to turn the key. Only I had the right to end its life. At the height of this agony, a breeze, as warm as a whisper, soothed my brow. This was followed closely by a faint wheezing gasp from under the bonnet and then silence. The hesitant rumbling beneath my feet had stopped
I watched the dashboard lights flicker off -on –and then off one last time. I sat there for some time, tearful and wondered if it was all over? That was when it hit me. I gasped. The Bluebird, in one final act of devotion had saved me from my own weakness. She had known that I couldn’t make my trembling hands tur
n the key. In one last selfless act she lifted the burden of guilt from my crumpled shoulders.
Some time later, having composed myself, I climbed out of the car and stretched the crick in my back. I walked around to the front of the car and with great reverence I placed one hand on the bonnet. I could still feel the warmth of its once beating heart.
I sighed and wiped a dribble of snot on my sleeve.
The Bluebird was now silent. Quiet as a grave. I watched as thin wisps of steam crept lazily from the grille and settled like tears on the headlamps. I gasped and had to fight to get air past a painful lump in my throat. (I know, cheesy–Don’t say it!)
Not a person of any particular religious persuasion I did my best to remember my Sunday School Church meetings, compulsory as I remember, and mumbled through what I could remember of the Lord’s Prayer. I started out all right, but then in places it lapsed into the graveside committal prayer and then in other parts, the marriage vows. This simple dedication to the Bluebird seemed to give me closure. And with this clarity I suddenly remembered.... ‘Crap! Julie’s going to go ape.’
It took me four trips to transfer my tools and other paraphernalia from the deceased Bluebird to my Mum’s flat. We ate in my Mums kitchen while I told her about my journey and the demise of our car.
‘Oh dear! Art, how will you manage without a car?’
‘No idea Mum,’ I said with a shrug ‘But I’ll think of something.’
Having no transport was a killer blow. I couldn’t see a plumbing company taking me on with no means of transport. I was going to have to get the Transit, and risk having it taken from me. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I now had Julie stuck on the remote moors of Devon to worry about. She now had no car.
I decided the wisest course of action would be for me to delay telling her about the Bluebird until I had found a job. That way I could sweeten the blow. Or, could I find some means of finding her another car? That would work. I could then drive that down to Devon, swap it for the Transit and use that to get back to London.
My mind went into overdrive, who did I know who might lend me a car? Buying one was out of the question. Funny how names and faces surface when you need them and I remembered the name of an old friend. I caught a bus to Wimbledon.
Feeling wretched, like a tragic figure from a Charles Dickens novel, wringing my hands, and feeling, ever so umble, I paid an unexpected visit to a musician friend. Pete Turner and I hadn’t been in touch for over a year. Pete had a second hand car business, and he was a bass player in a scratch band I put together. We only did a few gigs before we all went our different ways.
I had no idea if he was still in business.
Pete listened patiently and looked genuinely touched by the fix I was in.
‘I don’t mind what car it is Pete,’ I said. 'I just need something that is legal and reliable. Do you have one you can’t shift, any old banger?’
Surveying the thirty or so cars crammed onto his forecourt Pete scratched his chin.
‘How about the green Vauxhall Astra estate over the back there?’ He said pointing over the car roofs to the far corner of the used car lot.
I checked the car out as if I was a regular punter. ‘That’s a real nice car Pete but I haven’t got four hundred quid.’
‘I know that Art,’ said Pete, laying a hand on my shoulder. ‘You and I have been mates a long time. Take the car. It’s yours. Come over to the office, I’ll get you the keys and we’ll do the paperwork.
I was mortified with embarrassment but I couldn’t afford to turn the offer down.
After thanking him I drove away with a pretty decent estate car complete with road tax and an MOT.
With just one phone call I had the Bluebird’s insurance transferred across to the Astra. Result! Yeah! I was mobile again.
What I needed to do now was to get the Astra down to Julie. Not today. I was too knackered.
Back at my mums, I decided I would ring Julie to let her know that I had arrived safely but I wouldn’t tell her about the Bluebird. I was thinking it might be better to hand her the keys of the Astra... and then give her the bad news.
Now, if I could only find a job that would be perfect.