I am panicking, trying to remember whether you let the car sink to the bottom and then open a door, or open a window first, or do neither, when the sinking stops. I raise my head, still mumbling with terror, and find that I am tyre-top deep in what seems to be a duck pond. The six white ducks hurriedly climbing out the other side would agree with me, anyway.
Both the other cars have disappeared and I am alone with the darkness and what passes for silence in these parts, i.e. the sound of a fifty mile an hour gale tearing through the treeless wastes. I manage to get one of the doors open and scramble to the bank to find that I have crashed straight through a wooden fence. This feat does little to cheer me when I consider what damage has probably been done to the car. Now that I have proved to myself that I am definitely alive, fear is being replaced by a homicidal desire to get my hands on the blond bomber in the Viva and bash his face in. My job with the E.C.D.S. is probably up the spout and only revenge is left.
Filled with this warming thought I hook my thumb viciously at a few passing cars but either they can’t see me, or they don’t want to know and I’m forced to squelch back to the nearest garage where I manage to chivvy up a breakdown van. I also take the opportunity to phone the police and report my version of the attempt on my life but when we get back to the scene of what they laughingly call the accident, I am surprised to find a Mini parked there and a man with a flashlight camera hovering expectantly.
“Excuse me, but were you driving this vehicle?” he asks clicking away before I can say anything.
“Yes I was. Who are you?”
He is a nervy little sod hopping around like a jack rabbit and his eyes never stop moving.
“Gruntscomb. East Coast Echo. You’re an instructor, are you? I don’t think I’ve seen you before?”
“I’ve only just arrived. Look, I was driven off the road you know. Some bastard from the Major School of Motoring. At least, he was in one of their cars.”
“Really? Very lucky to be alive, aren’t you? Have you been instructing long?”
“I’ve just started. I’m under licence.”
“Oh.” Gruntscomb scribbles something in a little black note book. “Got your L-plates up have you?”
“You could put it like that.”
“Look, would you mind getting back in the car again. It would make a great photograph.”
“No.”
“Oh, good. Hop in then and—”
“I mean yes, I would mind. It’s embarrassing enough as it is.”
I wish I had not said that because Gruntscomb writes something else in his little black book.
“O.K. Just as you like. Well, thanks. See you around.”
He snaps his notebook shut and is gone.
It takes about ten minutes to winch out the Morris and in all of that time I’m waiting for the police to show up and even wondering if I shouldn’t have left the car where it was until they got there. But the boys in blue don’t put in an appearance, and I am back inside the Morris trying to make the engine turn over. It must be wetter than a mother of the bride’s handkerchief because it splutters a bit and then refuses to make a sound.
“It’ll be dried out by the morning,” says the breakdown man, cheerfully. “You don’t want to drive it now, anyway, because you don’t know what else might be wrong with it. It needs a thorough overhaul.”
So I’m forced to sit beside him and listen to his harrowing tales of limbs strewn across the road and cars full of courting couples plunging over cliffs whilst the Morris bobs along behind like a fat minnow on the end of a fishing line. My mind is working overtime on what Cronk is going to say and I can see his face swelling up and exploding like a big red balloon.
I hope to God there isn’t too much damage.
I tell the breakdown man that there will be a few bob in it for him if he can get the garage working on the car first thing in the morning and push off back to my lodging with my tail between my legs like a barrel bung.
It is half past nine when I get there and Mrs. Bendon is showing signs of both alarm and irritation.
“There you are!” she exclaims. “I was getting quite worried about you. Been having a few drinks, have you? I suppose you realise your supper is quite ruined. Lovely piece of fresh mackerel, too. I’d be grateful if you could let me know if you’re going to be in late for meals. I did say half past seven and it’s not easy keeping food hot without it drying up. I hope you understand. I don’t want to start laying down rules, but—”
“I had an accident,” I say. “Someone forced me off the road.”
“You were driving?”
“Yes. I wasn’t instructing. I was going to have a look at Shermer.”
“Well, that was something. Is the car all right?”
“I don’t know. It went straight through a fence and into a pond. It doesn’t look too bad.”
“Gracious me. You’re lucky to have escaped alive. You are all right, are you?”
After that, she can’t do enough and I gobble down her mackerel while her eyes roam over me as if expecting parts of me to start dropping off. It’s like being watched by a cat when you are opening a tin of salmon.
“That was very nice,” I say, wiping my mouth on the patterned paper serviette she has thoughtfully provided.
“Thank you, dear. I’m afraid there’s not much to follow, but I’ve got some nice crisp Coxes.”
“An apple would be very nice.”
“Would you like some coffee afterwards?”
“No, thanks, don’t bother.”
“It’s no bother.”
‘No, thanks. It might keep me awake.”
“That’s right. You don’t want to lose your beauty sleep. Though you’ve got nothing to worry about. Not like me. I need every second.”
I am obviously expected to say something and I don’t disappoint her.
“Come off it! You’re a very handsome woman. I bet you’ve got every bloke in town chasing you.”
“A few as shouldn’t, but not everyone by a long chalk. You sure about that coffee?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“There’s one of those ‘Plays for Today’ on the telly if you’d like to look at that.”
The truth is that I am thinking about that heap of twisted metal sitting in the garage and I am finding it difficult to concentrate on anything else. Even the sight of Mrs. B.’s rich, ripe, round arse rearing up at me as she rummages at the bottom of the linen basket is hardly enough to divert my thoughts from the wrath to come tomorrow.
“I think I’ll turn in,” I say. “I am feeling a bit shaky. Is it all right if I take a bath?”
“Of course, dear. The blue towel is yours.” She stands up and smooths down the front of her sweater so that her breasts lunge out towards me like they are on springs.