Nothing about him mattered very much, he reflected bitterly. Not even this pain in his stomach. That would be something trivial too. It was probably indigestion. Still, it seemed to be doing its best to qualify as something bigger. He winced, slightly huddled over the steering.
The car was still giving its bronchial whir from somewhere. Some vehicle. It wasn’t a car. It was a mechanical epidemic. One damn thing after another. First, the clutch wore out. Then the starter-pin broke. At least, that’s what they said it was. But they could tell you anything. They were like doctors, speaking to you mysteriously through a veil of technical terms. They lost you in a maze of sprockets and gaskets and cylinder-heads. And what could you do? You were in the hands of the specialists.
Right now, he wouldn’t mind being in their hands. The ‘Half-way Garage’ was a mile or so ahead. He decided to pull in there. He wanted petrol anyway. He could get them to look at the car and give his stomach a service. He put his foot down, heading for the garage like a pioneer making for an outpost.
Around him, a luminous stillness held the moor itself. Every tuft, every hillock took on sharper lines. But on the road the traffic was getting heavier as tea-time approached, with cars that traversed the moor like noisy profanations.
On top of the hill ahead of him, he saw the garage stand up squat and ugly against the sky, a piece of architectural litter in the countryside. He swung off the road and pulled up at the petrol-pump. As he turned off the ignition, he realised that the pain in his stomach had subsided. Perhaps it had come out in sympathy with the car, he thought. It was probably indigestion right enough, or cramp. Whatever it was, he was getting it too often.
He stepped out of the car. At his feet engine-oil made small mother-of-pearl pools. A rag blew across the yard in front of the garage. Far in the distance he could see cars crawl across the moor like maggots. Nobody came out. He heard laughter somewhere. Opening the car door, he leaned briefly on the horn.
A mechanic who looked about nineteen or so emerged from the garage, wiping his hands on a rag.
‘Well, sir,’ he said. ‘What can we do ye for?’
‘Four of the middle one,’ Cameron said. ‘And would you check the oil and the water, please?’
The mechanic held the nozzle in the tank, whistling and watching the revolving needle.
‘No’ a bad day, then. For the time o’ the year. A bit blowy, mind ye. Ah’e seen ye in here before, have Ah no’?’
‘I come in now and again.’
‘Ah thought that.’
There must be something memorable about me, Cameron thought.
‘It’s the car Ah recognise actually. Funny number-plate. Funny how ye remember a thing like that.’
The petrol-pump clicked to silence.
‘Release the bonnet then, will ye, sir?’
Cameron did so.
‘There’s something wrong with the engine, I think,’ Cameron said, watching.
‘How’s that then?’
‘A noise, I mean.’
‘Your water an’ oil’s all right. Switch ’er on.’
The mechanic listened for a moment. He made a couple of mystic passes at something under the bonnet.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Ah don’t know. Canny be anything serious.’
‘Listen!’ Cameron said.
The mechanic listened some more. He rubbed his hand across his cheek, leaving an oil-streak that, taken along with his acne and his gangling figure, made him look like a grubby schoolboy. He’s too young to know what’s wrong, Cameron thought, and felt briefly envious of him. It must be nice to be like that, to be nobody in particular yet, with all your mistakes to make. That was what trapped you, made you what you were, narrowed the permutations of your potential – your mistakes. Cameron felt his own mistakes like jailers beside him.
‘There’s something right enough,’ the mechanic said. ‘But it’d take too long tae find it just now. It’ll see ye home all right. That’s for sure.’
Cameron was going to argue, but the mechanic clipped the bonnet-rod into place and bumped the bonnet shut. Accepting the finality of his action, Cameron gave him two pounds. Better not to argue with him. He needed his goodwill. Cameron switched off the engine.
‘Ah’ll get yer change.’
While he was inside for the change, Cameron took a scribbling-pad from the car and wrote on it.
‘Keep a bob for yourself,’ Cameron said, taking his change.
‘Ta.’
‘By the way, would you just sign this chit on behalf of the garage? Just a check for my firm, you know?’
‘Dae they no’ trust ye?’
The mechanic laughed. He took the slip of paper, signed it, and was handing it back when he suddenly withdrew it again from Cameron’s open hand. He looked at it more closely.
‘Ye’ve made a wee mistake here, sir,’ he said. ‘Ye’ve wrote doon eight gallons. Instead of four. Ah’ll just correct it for ye.’
He superimposed ‘4’, making the figure about quarter of an inch thick all round.
‘There we are,’ he said, handing the paper back with the biro. He stood leering knowingly, and Cameron was suddenly conscious of his antagonism. Against what? His smart clothes? His thinning hair? His accent? The mechanic stood opposite Cameron wearing his boilersuit, his acne, and his rangy youth like an enemy uniform. He was taking obvious pleasure in having found Cameron out. In spite of his expensive suit, Cameron felt shabby with fakery, scruffy with petty deceit.
‘Dae ye want yer bob back now, sir?’ the mechanic added.
‘That’s all right,’ Cameron said. ‘Sorry about the mistake.’
He came back out onto the road so fast that he nearly collided with another car. The hooting of the other car’s horn echoed the derision he felt for himself. Bloody stupid, he kept saying to himself, bloody stupid. He took the piece of paper containing the mechanic’s emendation, crumpled it, and pushed it out of the window. He wished he could get rid of his embarrassment as easily.
Why had he done it? It was pointless. He didn’t usually bother keeping a check on minor expenses like that. Morton. That’s what it was. Morton had been suspicious lately. Especially since the Simpson and Auld contract hadn’t materialised yet. Maybe that was an Area Manager’s job. But Cameron didn’t like it. It rattled him to think of Morton padding mentally behind him like a lynx in a Hector Powe suit.
Hell, Cameron’s mind said, and one wheel overran the shoulder of the road before he righted the car. He despised the picture of himself he had seen in that garage mechanic’s eyes, especially since it was probably accurate. He felt trapped by it. Everywhere he looked, it was there. In Morton’s eyes. In the eyes of the businessmen he dealt with. Even in Allison’s eyes. They all gave him back small financial worries, expense accounts, business contracts, mortgages. It seemed to him that all the things he did every day were no more than the semblance of his existence, the reality of which took the form of figures that appeared in books and ledgers he never saw, numbers that proliferated infinitely, increasing or diminishing in accordance with his hieroglyphic destiny. Sums of money swam around in his head like corpuscles, the dynamic of his existence. He wrenched the car into a lay-by and