9) The Vintage Car Rally
August 4, 2006
Cars. Men love them.
Living in London I hold the view that cars are evil and wicked. They pollute our nice air and knock people off their bikes. When friends visit with their cars, they always arrive late and moaning. I feign interest and watch their blood pressure rise as they become incandescent about parking solutions, burst water mains and congestion charges. Under no circumstances get them started on clamping. I tut a lot and do my best listening acting because at some point I’ll need their help moving heavy things.
However I have for many years known that my future husband will drive a Vintage Jag. I express this premonition one day to Male Friend.
“Let’s do a vintage car rally!” he says.
“We need a car!” I respond cleverly. Then I quickly cough the word, “Knobster!”
“I’ve got an old MGB! He tells me haughtily. Then he quietly belches me the word “Numbnuts!”
I imagine Albert Einstein and Marie Curie probably conversed in this manner.
Male friend books us on an MG car rally. I console myself with the fact that I will find a nice swarthy man who loves his MG then I will persuade him to sell it and put the money towards a racing green Vintage Jag.
I am dangerously excited. I buy a very cheap red and white polka dot dress and perilously tottery “fuck me shoes”. The look is Thelma and Louise before the murder.
I practise saying
“What lovely spoilers!” as though I care
And “ your big end is divine” without smirking.
I arrange to stay the night with Male Friend so we can leave at 8.15am to get to the starting place on time. I promise him I’ll leave my Hen Night in the West End early. I assure him that I will be at his flat in Richmond by 12.30am.
I call him at 1am.
“We’ve lost Double D The Bride To Be! You go to bed! I’ll stay at mine and get a cab to you in the morning.”
I go to bed, having booked a taxi to take me to Richmond at 7.30am.
I awake at 9.50am. I have twelve missed calls on my mobile phone, 9 from Male Friend and three from Addison Lee.
“Fuck, Fuck…..FUCK… Ooops sorry.’
I mutter hoarsely getting out of bed and tripping over Homeless Friend’s head.
I dress quickly and head for the door.
Homeless Friend opens one eye.
“You look nice. Colleen wore that dress at the World Cup, it’s from Asda isn’t it”
Punctured, I leave the flat. I look like Colleen-bloody-whatever-her-surname-is and because of her vast publicity industrial estate everyone will know I bought my outfit from the George range of a local supemarket.
I do my make up on the wholeheartedly delayed, hot train to Richmond. Owing to my appreciation of Merlin the Man with the Marvellous Tongue the night before, I look as though I spent the night pleasuring a brillo pad. I need a ridiculous amount of lipstick for it to make an impact.
Male Friend picks me up outside the station. He hurls a Sainsbury’s bag on to my lap and reaches 60mph before we have even left the car park.
Now…Male Friend is a Nice Boy. My mum loves him. My Beautiful Sister frequently has to say, “he’s too young for you mum!” He has a folk band, acts in plays, takes beautiful pictures and teaches children maths. He lives in Richmond, for Gods sake. He’s nice.
With my head stapled back to the neck restraint I see another side to him. He has said “cunt” five times before we leave Richmond. I look in the Sainsbury’s bag. It’s bulging with cheap confectionary.
“Quick! Give me another Ripple before they melt!” he pants.
Dutifully I do so.
“LEARN TO FUCKING DRIVE YOU ARSEWIPE!” he screeches to the car in front! It quickly becomes apparent that Male Friend is the only person in the South who can actually drive and everyone else is a “knobbing wanking imbecile” who should “ACCELERATE NOW!!”
“We’re going very fast” I whimper.
“Just feels that way because we’re close to the ground. Monster Munch now!” he screams.
“Right Luce, call this number. Speak to Nigel! Ask him where we join the rest of them”
I call Nigel. He sounds dreamy. His voice is as deep and rich as Green and Blacks with ginger pieces in it.
“So I hear you over slept!” he chuckles
“ Has my completely annoying gay brother divulged my evening to you already Nigel?” I say in my poshest Vintage car voice. (Male Friend shoots me a malevolent look) “I had a nightmare,” I continue, “ A fox broke into the pen where I keep my chickens, terrible, two dead and three injured.”
“Ah you keep chickens? So do I? What sort have you got?
“Sorry Nigel, I’ve got something in my eye. I’ll call you back in a moment”
“PISSFLAPS” screeches Male Friend as he anticipates someone in Cumbria crossing a road and possibly having to slow down.
“Do you know any types of chickens? Nigel sounds like Barry White and I told him I keep chickens.”
“Say ‘bantams’. And by the way, I don’t mind being your brother today but do I have to be gay?”
I have five conversations with Nigel regarding where to meet the 130 other MG’s who started their drive four hours before us. I am slightly worried for Nigel’s heart when I accidentally map read us North instead of South at a roundabout off the M25 and we end up four miles from Richmond rather than somewhere rural in Kent. He assures me his heart is fine, he windsurfs in the summer and skis in the winter, so is quite fit enough. I whinny with delight at this. He eventually decides that we should just head to the finish, thus missing out the Rally itself.
We arrive at the finish as legends! “You’re number 134” “Your poor chickens” “Bloody foxes” the friendly middle class rally organizers coo.
We park the car with a lot of other MGs. I peel my sweaty self off the seat and attempt to unstick my Asda dress which has vacuum packed itself to my body. Male friend walks around the field taking photos of bumper badges and I try look like a 1950’s siren who isn’t hung-over and whose heels don’t keep sinking into the ground. There is utterly no male talent. Every single car is owned by a healthy looking middle-aged couple who brought their own picnic chairs and entertained Brenda and Brian last night for dinner.
I am looking at MG association caps. Male Friend is being annoyingly charming to the lady selling them. A big man hand touches my shoulder and a voice lower than a combine harvester says,
“So you must be the sleepy chicken lady”
My tummy actually does one of those excited little back flips. I spin around, giggling, to meet Nigel face to face for the first time.
I am immediately confronted with Nigel’s most prominent feature. His nostril hair. It is positively pubic. It is so repugnant it is fascinating. I wonder whether he makes money exhibiting it in Home County Village Fete’s in the summer months.
“I think I should treat you to a ginger beer after the day you’ve had,” he chortles.
When he speaks he widens his nostrils and I am able to see bits of bogey.
“Ah you’re so kind! Didn’t I tell you he sounded nice darling?” I say seizing Male Friend’s arm to the consternation of the MG Association Cap Selling Person, “We should really head back though, Olivia’s got that awful cough, and you know you promised Harry a drive in your Sunday car!” I smile brilliantly.
“Er, er, er, yeah!” stammers Male Friend.
I don’t know how he can call himself an actor.
We drive back. As Male Friend is surpassing himself with expletives Merlin the Man with the Marvellous Tongue calls. He doesn’t sound nearly so sexy on the phone. I see this as a positive sign. He asks me out to dinner. I think about.
1) The fact that he’s so newly single and must still have huge feelings for his ex-girl friend.
2) The fact that he's been seeing someone else.
3) The fact that he’s not The One
I say no to dinner, nice, as I know it would be.
I feel a little sad.
Approaching 30 is like finding yourself in a Left Luggage Hall in a foreign land. We are all travelling around with matching suitcases full of unrequited loves and dreams that will never come true.
Yet we are all desperately trying to do what The Darkness do and ‘believe in a thing called love.’
“We’re just so vulnerable” I muse with a big sigh and look to my Male Friend for some manly wisdom.
“CUNTY BOLLOCKS!!” he screeches as the traffic lights turn red and he has to use his brakes.
“Is there a Curly Wurly in the sweetie bag?” he asks me with a grin.
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Book publication day post.