‘So – are you ready for this?’ she asked me.
‘Ready for what?’ I asked.
‘Ready to take the IP 009 to places it’s never been before.’
I nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t let you down.’
‘Good.’
Something in the way she said this prompted me to remark:
‘Funny atmosphere in there this morning. Everybody seemed a little bit on edge.’
‘Oh, you noticed that, did you?’
‘Is everything OK?’
We had already been talking in undertones, but now Lindsay brought her face even closer to mine.
‘Keep it to yourself, but Alan had a meeting with the bank today. It didn’t go well.’ She stopped walking so that the others could get further ahead (we were on the staircase between the first and second floors), and added: ‘They’re refusing to offer him any more credit. And he’s furious about it, because he only switched the account to these guys a few weeks ago.’
‘Which guys?’ I asked – and when Lindsay told me the name of the bank, I recognized it at once. It was the same one that Poppy’s obnoxious friend Richard used to work for. ‘But … the firm is all right, yes? I mean, everything’s solid, and secure?’
‘I don’t think there are any long-term problems,’ said Lindsay. ‘I think it’s more of a short-term cashflow thing.’ She added: ‘That’s why Alan’s mad at me, as well.’
‘At you? Why would he be mad at you?’
‘I sprung this idea of the prize for petrol consumption on him this morning. He said we couldn’t afford it.’
‘It’s only five hundred quid, though.’
‘Exactly. That’s what I thought. Anyway, we can’t even stretch to that, at the moment, apparently. So he’s making a big deal of putting up the money himself.’
‘His own money?’
‘Yep.’
We started to walk on again.
‘All this,’ I said, ‘puts a bit of pressure on you, I suppose.’
‘You could say that. I think he’s started to feel that this whole stunt is a bad idea. So if it goes wrong …’
‘… You’ll get the blame?’
She nodded, and I said: ‘Don’t worry. It won’t go wrong. It’s a brilliant idea, anyway.’
Lindsay gave me a brief smile of gratitude. We had reached the ground floor, and she held the heavy door open for me as we left the draughty staircase behind, and stepped out into the grey, feeble sunlight. Everyone else was already halfway across the car park, on their way to the row of waiting black Priuses. Once we were outside, Lindsay stopped to light a cigarette.
‘You know, this is the first month,’ she said, ‘that we’ve not been able to pay our mortgage. Martin hasn’t worked so far this year.’
Trevor had told me that Lindsay’s husband worked in the building trade. That was all I knew about him, and I didn’t enquire further.
‘Tough times, Max,’ she said. ‘Nasty times. Somebody’s screwed up, haven’t they? Somebody near the top. But no one’s going to admit it.’ She glanced across at the little crowd gathered around the four black cars. ‘Come on, anyway. The paparazzi are waiting to meet you. You don’t want to miss out on your fifteen minutes of fame.’
It turned out to be rather less than that. The photographer took a picture of the four of us standing in front of one of the cars, and the journalist asked us some vague questions about what sort of toothbrushes were most useful to people who lived in remote parts of the country: he didn’t seem to have quite grasped the point of the exercise. Their work was done in just a couple of minutes, but instead of leaving they hung around to watch our departures, all the time maintaining a slightly amused and disdainful air which I think the rest of us found off-putting, to say the least.
It was all very confused and hectic. Alan Guest presented us with the video cameras on which we were to record our diaries. (Lindsay had one as well, and was wandering around from car to car, already shooting footage at random.) The instruction manuals, he told us, were in our glove compartments – along with the instruction manuals for the cars themselves, which seemed to come in two volumes and to total more than 500 pages. He told us not to be alarmed, assuring us that we didn’t need to look at these manuals immediately and that we would find the cars very simple to drive. I wasn’t entirely convinced by this, because not only couldn’t I get my car to start, but I didn’t even know where to insert the little cuboid of plastic that I’d been presented with in lieu of what would, in days gone by, have been a set of keys. Finally Trevor came over and explained to me that there was a button you had to press while holding down the brake pedal with your foot. It all seemed very complicated, and there was no satisfying throaty response from the engine when I followed his instructions. But then I put the car into drive mode, and it did indeed start to move – so unexpectedly, in fact, that it edged forward a couple of yards and ran into one of the bollards at the edge of the car park. It was only a gentle nudge – didn’t do any damage to the bumper, or anything like that – but I suppose it wasn’t too auspicious, in retrospect. Alan Guest did not look especially pleased.
Finally, on the stroke of midday, we drove off in convoy. Behind the fleet of four intrepid salesmen, Lindsay and Alan followed in Alan’s BMW. Lindsay was still filming us. When we reached the largest of the mini-roundabouts on the periphery of the trading estate, we all pulled over: this was our official starting-point. The roundabout had four exits, and we were each to peel off on to a different one. Lindsay and Alan got out of their car and stood in the centre of the roundabout. A keen March wind was blowing, and rain had started to drizzle down. Alan, well wrapped up in his coat and scarf, put his hands together to make a kind of megaphone, and shouted: ‘This is it, chaps! Good luck!’ Lindsay was still capturing everything on camera.
Tony Harris-Jones went first, taking the eastern exit. Then it was Trevor: he performed a 360-degree turn on the roundabout, doubling back the way he had come and heading south. David Webster took the western exit. And then it was my turn. All I had to do was head straight on, taking the second exit, which led north. I had my window open to say goodbye to Alan and Lindsay and as I passed beside them, Alan gave me a formal wave but Lindsay, I noticed, looked up from her filming (she had not done this for any of the others) and blew me a discreet kiss with her left hand as I drove by.
When I saw her gesture, my heart lifted, and I experienced a new, curious sensation: a glow of happiness spreading through my body, starting at my feet and rising all the way up until even my scalp was tingling.
And then, as soon as she was out of sight, I felt suddenly, terribly alone.
Reading–Kendal
12
This message had been displaying on my screen for about fifteen minutes. I was on the M4, eastbound, heading back towards London but about to turn off north on to the A404(M) towards Maidenhead. Traffic was light, and I was currently doing about seventy-six miles an hour on the inside lane. I was beginning to get used to the car, now, but the number of buttons located on either side of the screen was intimidating. I was going to have to pull over somewhere and have a proper look at them. In the meantime, surely it would be safe to touch the ‘I Agree’ icon? I couldn’t just stare at this message for the whole journey. It was like those boxes you have to tick when buying something online, agreeing to the terms and conditions which nobody bothers to read. You have no choice but to agree. Or at least, you’re given the illusion of choice, but that’s all. Maybe that’s how things usually are.