CHAPTER 7

Bangers and splash

It was my lunch break at work, and I had to make a phone call to my girlfriend of the time, it was Julie or Jane, I think. And I had some not so good news.

ME: Hello?

JANE: Leo?

ME: Yeah! Sorry I got bad news, the car is running really bad, I don’t want to make the trip to the rave tonight in case we break down, you know what these raves are like, they can be in the middle of nowhere,

JANE: That’s Ok Leo, I got my brothers old banger, the Austin 1100 car, he’s away on holiday, and given me the keys if I need to use it!

ME: OK! Great, we are going then!

JANE: Happy Birthday! See you tonight!

Just remembered her name was Emma…

I can’t be bothered to go back and re-write this now…

Anyway, Emma was a Jekyll and Hyde, a sweet and sour female, very cute though, and a newly graduated just out of police cadets training school policewomen, who practices judo and throws you around. She likes to practice arm locks on me in the bedroom during sex.

She was doing desk duty this week and had the weekend off for my birthday treat of sex and a rave in the north of England.

The car we would be using for the trip was called an Austin 1100. It had smooth hydro-elastic suspension that used a fluid instead of springs, and it was a front wheel drive car.

I get home and go into my flat. Then wash my face and hands from the days work and go to the bedroom where Emma has already unknowingly to me let herself into my flat, and is now laying on my bed face down and stark naked but looking around at me with a tulip stuffed upright between her bum cheeks. She turns over, throws the tulip on the floor, she then spread eagles and then says to me…

EMMA: Happy birthday Leo, here’s your present, get it before it gets cold,

After I had my present, we ate cold pizza, showered together and left for the north of England in the Austin 1100 car with our favourite club and music tapes playing as loud as the radio cassette player would allow.

We travelled though London and up the motorway to the North of England. We had to meet other ravers at a café where we would be given directions to the rave.

Emma was a good map reader (Well, she was a policewomen) and I didn’t have to do anything but sit and enjoy the trip, as she was driving and doing the map reading.

It was starting to get dark when we left the motorway for some “B” roads to get to our destination. A lot of these small “B” roads lean to one side, this is so rainwater runs away and off the road, since these smaller roads don’t often have any kerbs or drains, they usually just have drain ditches along the sides of the road as you probably know.

As we turn a corner and go onto another “B” road, I notice something strange about the car.

ME: Emma? Is the car driving OK?

EMMA: Seems fine to me? Why?

ME: Well the road leans right, so we should be leaning right, but the car seems level?

EMMA: Feels ok,

ME: OK,

We turn another corner and start going down a new road, but this road’s camber is going the other way. I look around at Emma and she appears to be around ten inches higher than me, I feel like I am looking up to her in the car.

ME: Ok, can we stop somewhere, somethings not right with the car,

We pull up in a small layby and both get out of the car. I walk to the front of the car. I look underneath it and then I square up the car’s front grill with my eyes, and I can see the car is leaning over to one side.

ME: There is fluid leaking from this side of the suspension, I can see it on the road, there’s no suspension fluid in this side of the car now,

EMMA: Its just been serviced, what should we do?

ME: Carry on driving. But, be really careful!

As we travel down the cambered road in the leaning car, the car starts to lean still more.

ME: Ok, sorry Emma, stop again.

I get out the car and wander around its perimeter looking for the cause of the increased lean.

ME: We got a flat fucking tyre!

Emma hands me the keys to the boot, I open it and find the tyre iron and jack but no spare wheel and tyre. Fucking great!

ME: We will have to call out the AA service, there’s no spare wheel and tyre in the boot.

Now, this is pre-mobile or cell phone days, so we park the car and walk to find a phone box or house to call the AA service from.

We walk for nearly an hour and find an illuminated red phone box in a lane with no houses of buildings around for miles.

I am wondering if the phone is working or not, as almost all phone boxes in London are vandalised. I pick the phone up and listen, there is a dialling tone, and I smile at Emma,

ME: It works!

EMMA: That’s because it’s not in London!

I dig around in my pocket for some small change, but there is none.

ME: You got ten pence piece to make the call?

EMMA: Leo? Where going to a rave, it’s ten quid admission, the drinks are all probably five quid each, and I have just walked fucking miles. Why on earth would I have brought some fucking change with me to weigh me fucking well down tonight on the fucking dance floor! And fucking Ching fucking Ching fucking Ching in my pocket all fucking night?

We argued for ten minutes about how being a police women that she could use her police powers and get a free phone call, until Emma suggested we phone the telephone operator to get through to the AA, and then somehow they could send me an invoice though the post for the reverse charges to the public phone we were using.

So, I called the phone operator, who then gave me the telephone number of the Automobile Association breakdown service, and then told me it was a free call number anyway!

We didn’t say anything on the way back to the car. We just waited for the breakdown van to come out to us on my birthday night.

The wheel and tyre was collected by the AA and taken away and brought back to us with a new tyre. It cost sixty quid to get done. And I did feel done as well by the cost. But to get a tyre fixed at eleven at night in the middle of nowhere was a miracle worth paying for.

We start off again. We drive for an hour and find the now closed café in a small town with directions to the rave in the shops window.

EMMA: I think the rave is at the same place as before, let’s look at the map,

We look at the map and the bit we need is missing,

ME: Why is this page torn out,

EMMA: You tore it out last time we came up here because you didn’t want to take the whole book, REMEMBER!

ME: Was that me? Oh!

EMMA: But Your lucky! I think I know the way from here!

Off we went again into the countryside darkness. We drove in a vague direction of where Emma thought we should be going. Then, on the dark skyline we see bright flashing lights.

EMMA: That’s it, that’s the rave! Didn’t we park near a pond before?

ME: Yeah! We did,

Emma drives down some narrow roads until the road ends and we come to a sandy hill.

EMMA: Remember the sandy hill? The ponds on the other side!

ME: I don’t remember the hill being that high and steep before?

EMMA: That’s the hill, it’s the right one!

The car struggles but we get over to the other side of the hill and drive down onto the pond’s sandy perimeter. Our car is the only car here, it seems strange, but it must be the right place?

We walk across fields to the rave that seems to be miles away this time round.

ME: Seems like it’s a long way to go this time?

EMMA: Shut up and come on Leo!

We run to the admission tent, pay, and then rave away the night.

When the rave finished the following day, we walked back to the car. We walked up the steep sandy hill and stood at the top looking down at the Austin 1100 near the pond.

Except she had not parked the car near a pond, but near the sea, and the tide had come in. We could see the cars roof ok, but not the rest of it since it was under water.

My psychotic policewomen girlfriend told her brother that the car had been stolen…