I’d put back so much tea at breakfast that it was necessary to stop and wring out my bladder. I could get the petrol tank topped up at the same time. When I crunched slowly onto the petrol station forecourt, Percy Blemish was standing by the exit, waiting for another lift. I felt sure that the BMW man, goaded by one of his remarks, had dumped him there, and it was just my luck that I should be the next car along.
A Ford Cortina skidded in from the road and, by a fancy manoeuvre, the cunning bastard of a driver put himself before me at the pumps. It was a self-service establishment and in a few seconds he had the nozzle gangling into his tank. The manager came out and asked me, sir (seeing as I drove a Rolls-Royce), how much I wanted. He then motioned me backwards and wiggled another python into my tank to be sick. I was happy to let him do the work, while waiting to watch the Ford Cortina carry Percy Blemish away.
The driver was a young fair-haired chap in a polo-necked sweater who, having refuelled, went to the office to pay the clerk. I don’t suppose he noticed me smirking. He drove slowly towards the exit where Percy Blemish, giving the sign for a lift, placed himself halfway across the drive so that the car would be forced to stop. When he bent to the window to say where he wanted to go, hand already at the door, a fist shot out and knocked him flying.
It was as blatant a refusal to give a poor chap a lift as I’d ever seen, totally unnecessary in its violence, though maybe the driver was wiser than he thought (and maybe not), for if he hadn’t spoken with his fist he would have driven onto the Great North Road with Percy Blemish hanging onto his door. This did not make things look good for me. I went for a long piss to think things over, but was unable to decide on any viable course of action.
I strolled into the office to pay the reckoning. ‘That’s all right, sir,’ the manager smiled. ‘I’ll put it on Lord Moggerhanger’s account. He’s very good at settling the bills.’
Percy Blemish had already gone. I wouldn’t stop till I reached Goole, so there’d be no further trouble. A few spits of rain hit the window, but the road was still dry. I pushed in another tape, one of Tchaikovsky’s jackboot symphonies which tried to do a rush job on decorating the inside of my head. He was pasting away with three walls finished and one more to go, with only the woodwork to scratch and the door to burn off, to a ball-and-chain finale, so that I couldn’t stand it after five minutes, and flicked the button.
‘I was enjoying that.’ The disembodied voice came from behind, the second time I nearly had an accident that day. I was on the outer lane, overtaking a three-hundred-foot juggernaut which seemed to increase speed the faster I went, so that I was doing almost a ton by the time I came to a slight bend. But I got in front, left the lorry behind, and said to Percy Blemish who was grinning into my rear mirror: ‘You’d better get out, or I’ll stop at the next layby and do you in.’
‘Why did you take the music off?’
If I stopped, I’d have to overtake the lorry again. ‘Where did you say you were going?’
‘You switched that music off,’ he said. ‘I like Tchaikovsky.’
‘Why? He’s only a block and tackle artist.’ I decided to humour him until such time as I could get him outside and kick his teeth in. Then I saw the bruise caused by the young blood-pudding at the filling station, and decided it would be more humane to feel sorry for him. In any case, I had no option. ‘It’s better to talk than listen to that,’ I said, ‘and you certainly can’t do both.’
‘My wife liked it.’ He shuffled around on the seat. ‘At least she said she did, and I believed her.’
‘You have to believe your wife, otherwise life isn’t worth living.’
He sighed. ‘I suppose so. You see, I’m the sort of person who thinks that everybody I see is older than me.’
‘Interesting,’ I replied.
He kept quiet for a while. Then the back of my neck tingled, for he piped up again. ‘Do you know the best way to cause a fire?’ There was a more sinister tone to his giggle. ‘A friend of mine was in the fire service, and he told me.’ I thought it best to let the bloody pest babble on, on the assumption that while he talked he was harmless. ‘You put a couple of flashlight batteries in a shopping basket with a few packets of steel wool. Sooner or later they’ll ignite — in the house or car of somebody you don’t like.’ His giggle turned into a laugh, and he rubbed his hands. ‘If you put two tins of hair lacquer of the aerosol type in the bag as well, with a newspaper and a box of matches, with a few bits of shopping on top, an explosion will eventually ensue.’
‘That’s a lot of bollocks,’ I shouted.
He pouted. ‘It’s not.’
‘Have you ever tried it?’
After a few minutes he came back into the world with: ‘No, but I might. You never know.’
‘Just shurrup,’ I said, thinking my Nottingham accent might have more effect.
‘I won’t shut up,’ he retorted, in the poshest voice he could muster.
‘Why don’t you learn some poetry?’ I suggested. ‘Or learn to knit?’
‘Don’t want to,’ he said sulkily. ‘I was happily married, I’ll have you know, till I ran away from my wife. I’m fifty-eight years old, and I’m either running away from her or running back to her. At the moment I’m running back. We live near Goole, in a lovely little isolated house called Tinderbox Cottage. I can’t understand why our marriage went wrong. I used to live in the south-east, and worked for Elfingham borough council as an engineer, but when I got ill they offered me early retirement and I took it, and came to live in the north with my wife. She can’t stand me, and I can’t stand her. We’ve tortured each other for thirty years. Out of what we thought was undying love has come unendurable suffering. Can you understand it?’
‘Yes, and no,’ I responded with perfect sincerity.
‘I think it’s economic,’ he said.
‘Economic?’
‘You see, if the gross national product was sufficiently buoyant, the government could issue an edict saying that all those who are married are to live apart immediately. No argument. And those who can’t afford to live apart get a pension in order to do so. Anyone caught staying married seven days from the date of this law will be shot. In twelve months, however, marriages can start again. You can get married to the same partner, if you feel so inclined.’ His eyes glowed in the mirror. ‘Good idea, don’t you think? I spent years working that one out.’
‘Good for some,’ I said. ‘But doesn’t it bother you that you can’t torment your wife when you’re not with her? You must have fun as well, otherwise how can you be going back to torment her again?’
He hiccuped. ‘I love her, so why shouldn’t I?’
‘It’s all the same to me.’
‘I’m going to kill her,’ he said flatly. ‘Or maybe she’ll kill me. It wouldn’t surprise me.’
I’d never met a loony who had a sense of humour, but then, if you were loony how could anything seem funny? It was too painful. I hoped he’d go to sleep, though because I was feeling sleepy myself I wanted him to keep talking. ‘Do you spend all your time hitching lifts on the Al?’