Chapter 1 - Big Wheels Turning

CHAPTER ONE

BIG WHEELS TURNING

"You can have any colour you like, as long as it’s Rose Taupe."

#

http://www.BigendBearing.com/forum/index.php

Apocalypse Org: Here’s the thing – we’ve got a challenge. Are you one of those wuzzes who mothballs their car every winter? Or are you the kind of true classic car owner who isn’t afraid of using their wheels 24/7, 12/1 (that’s twelve months of the year for those of you who only have taxed transport for six summer months).

If you hide your jalopy away in a garage or under a tarpaulin when it gets chilly, then log off and put your feet up by the fire with a copy of Practically Sports Cars, because you aint gonna want to read this.

So, you’re not all mouth? You really want to have a go at this? At something that actually means something? You want to achieve the ultimate test of endurance, strength and reliability?

You’ve got the metal to hack The Four Corners of the Apocalypse?

Then get in,

Sit down,

Shut up,

and hold on.

#

Bertram Wearing must have died.

This is his second life - or at least the story thereof.

Most people call him Bert, but I call him Bertie, partly ‘cause it sounds cute and partly ‘cause it pisses him off. But this story isn’t about me. Nothing happened to me. Nothing that made a difference to anybody, and nothing that brought anyone back from the dead.

I was simply a passenger.

Bertie’s story is about his midlife crisis rebounding as he hit the big five-oh. Of course he flatly denied this, as he does.

So I injected some irony, commenting that of course what he tried to do wasn’t anything like buying a Harley or having an affair with an 18-year-old student.

It was his attempt at reincarnation.

You only live twice, Mr Wearing.

So he decides to enter The Four Corners Of The Apocalypse in his Humley Major. That’s a like entering the London Marathon in a pair of flip-flops.

You see Bertie has this thing about reliability, which is rich coming from the owner of a 1969 Humley Major mark C - that’s the one with four doors, big seventeen-inch wheels, and the weird two point six litre, six cylinder, side-valve engine. Unbelievable isn’t it? Side valve? On a six cylinder engine? Who the hell dreamt that one up? And don’t get me started on his so called period modifications. All I can say is Google "Shorrock Supercharger".

But that was his point, his challenge, his dare: to shove something as unhinged as a Humley Major through The Four Corners and come out in as few pieces as could bring you home. He wanted to drive against all those who said it couldn’t be done, who said that the Humley Major wasn’t screwed together well enough and anybody who thought it was certainly wasn’t screwed together well enough themselves.

Could you imagine him tentatively convincing his family? "Yes, dear, just a few days away in the old jalopy. I know I’ll miss Alice’s ballet exam, but she doesn’t actually need her father there, does she? It’s not as if I’m any good with that sort of thing. And Matthew doesn’t mind if I miss one of his matches. What I’m trying to say is you’ll be just fine with that scout from Leeds United, won’t you, Mat?"

His wife, Wotama, is very understanding, although it’s difficult to understand her sometimes (thick accent, comes from South Africa). Even when she found out who I was, it never freaked her out or anything. She’s cool.

I can’t think what he told his boss. Bertie’s a cake decorator of great skill, who’s in great demand. It’s just a shame he works in a shithole of a place with an arsehole for a boss. I told him - go freelance. But he said that would involve VAT registration and discussions with solicitors and accountants. Bertie has an allergy to solicitors and accountants.

Whatever.

Bertie must have precision in everything. His attention to detail is meticulous, whether it’s the precise shade of icing, the diameter of those little silver edible ball bearings or the thickness of marzipan. All planned, calculated, measured with a laser beam.

Imagine what his garage looks like. Well you’ll have to ‘cause I can’t be arsed to describe it. But I will say I wish I had a tenth of his tools and the carpet his Humley stands on - Axminster or Wilton or something. If you could see my bedroom carpet (well, you’d get the crap kicked out of you ‘cause you’ve no right to be in my room) you’d see that there was a definite class division between Bertie’s household and mine.

Anyway, the story of Bertram Wearing, of his final frontier before he grew old, begins in the same place I met him; the Internet.

#

Address http://www.bigendbearing.com/forum/index.php

Forum: Old Car Drivers Never Die – They Just Smell That Way

Topic Chosen: Bored and lonely this winter?

Apocalypse Org: Hasn’t anyone signed up for The Four Corners yet? There are still places left. Surely you’re not all so soft that you daren’t sign up to the ultimate trial in endurance and reliability? Check out the links from the homepage and sign up, if you dare.

Red Line: Tried that run last year. Diff went going over Bodmin Moor. Couldn’t get a signal on my mobile. Was stranded in the dark and pouring rain overnight. Not much fun in an MG Midget I can tell you!

Piston H: Can I take my Mitsuburi Evetza?

Apocalypse Org: Only if it’s ten years or older, Piston.

Eric A: How many cars are going this year, Apocalypse?

Apocalypse Org: See www.bigendbearing/events/4corners for the full list, Eric.

Eric A: Sounds like fun!

Bert W: Indeed it is. Supreme Master of the course is DB007. Are you out there, Mr Brown? And will you be gunning for a third victory in a row?

Red Line: Sounds suicidal if you ask me!

DB007: Yes, Bert. I’ve entered again this year. Perhaps I’ll look forward to meeting you in the flesh this time?

Bob Falfa: Well I’m up for it. Fifty-five Chevy ready to rock ‘n’ roll. Got me entry e-mailed and set to take the crown off of DB007. Which is more than Bert W will be doing. You’ll be sat at home fixing your Major again, wont you Bert? Or polishing your trunnions. Or putting mineral water in your radiator or some crap.

Bert W: As a matter of fact, the lack of reliability of the Humley Major is a fallacy. There are a few small niggles, which have now been successfully identified, and after-market modifications sourced to ensure smooth operation and enhanced performance. The Humley Major is more than capable of participating in The Four Corners of the Apocalypse. I WILL be entering this year!

Bob Falfa: You concours nuts are all the same. Put ya money where your mouth is.

Eric A: Bob, is that the Bel Air Chevy?

Bob Falfa: Sure is, Eric. Only with the ‘57 engine, 283 cubes, injection, solid lifters.

Bert W: I am not a concours nut!

Bob Falfa: Nah – you’re just f**CENSORED**g nuts. ROFL

#

Welcome to Herbewey cum Quickly. It’s not just its name that’s a double entendre, it’s as if two worlds collide creating a Yorkshire village of new and old, rich and the poor. Parallel lives revolve around each other: a big wheel around a forgotten bearing, a brief encounter on the road.

Herbewey cum Quickly is the kind of place where you apologise for your dirty car water. Not because dirty car water matters as such, but because it’s only polite to point out that the suds have slopped over you neighbours geraniums, that it’s your fault and you’ll be more careful next time. Most sorry.

Dirty car water is important; it’s a sign of status, of commitment, that things are right with the world. And that it’s a Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoons are important in Herbewey cum Quickly because that’s when you wash your car, or cars.

If you live Herbewey side (I’ll come to Quickly in a minute), it’s especially important. That’s when washing your cars becomes a sign of status, commitment and showing of things being universally correct. In Herbewey, high priests anoint the sacred bodywork with sweet concoctions of cleanser, decorator and rejuvenator. Engrained filth is ripped, emulsified and dissolved. The muck of life is spirited away through a cascading fall - the Holy water of love. Blessed potions of cutter and polish provide barriers to shield pious paintwork, offering up protection from the ravages of evil bird shit.

And we won’t get started on tyre-wall black!

Herbewey is the posh side of the village. Upper middle income tax class, egos bigger than the houses built to contain them. Smith keeps up with Jones ‘cause that’s the main reason for living.

In Quickly (don’t ask my why its called Quickly, because that’s just what it isn’t and I should know as I’ve lived here all my life) you wash your car on a Sunday afternoon because it’ll rust and fall to pieces if you don’t. Washing your car in Quickly isn’t just a way of giving your neighbours a shine-migraine. You see, Quickly is the poorer, older cousin to Herbewey. Quickly was here first, before the property developers in the eighties, the Gastro Pub, the London hair salon, and well before Herbewey Classic Cars Ltd. If you throw in the three hundred homes, all those extra drives, gardens, garages and the bypass, you get Herbewey cum Quickly. Old meets new; a symbiosis of five hundred years of Northern country life, with six months (that’s how long it took to build the three hundred houses) of semi-suburban Milostro Homes Ltd.

It must be the only village in the North with a dissociative identity. On the one hand you have the kind of villager who’s life involves a battle to stay alive, to make ends meat, to pay the mortgage. And on the other hand you have those who are pretending to be something they’re not, living a lie, a false economy. It’s quite profound, ‘cause if I’m honest with myself (and I’m as honest as the day is long – with myself I’m an artic winter) I fit in to at least one of those camps (and that’s no lie) but I’ll let you figure out which one for yourself.

My dad says that the locals have lived in Quickly for so long they’ve become resistant to new things. I asked him if the length of residence had an inversely proportional relationship to the ability to adapt to change, and if it were plotted on a log scale would the variables change exponentially. But he just looked at me and told me that my Maths A-level was making me talk strange. I reminded him that there was nothing strange about Maths, but too much Physics, Biology and Design Technology could make you act a little weird if you didn’t stay in touch with reality.

You must have guessed I’m a Geek; a nerd, a square. I love books, science, technology, Sci Fi - not the Star Wars crap, but Hitch Hikers is cool, The Dwarf makes me roll on the floor, and Jonny Naylor Cosmic Sailor is the only RomSciCom that really makes me laugh, cry and want to shake somebody by the scruff of the neck all at the same time. Science Fiction should belong solely to the British in order to retain the ability to laugh at itself.

I confess to being moderately curious about building my own computer, but computers, like the Internet, and other nerdy type stuff are simple tools - a means to an end.

For it’s the end result that counts, just as much as how you end up there.

I’m permanently and wirelessly linked up to broadband, and if I have less than three books on the go at the same time, I’m straight down the charity shop to buy more. My glasses are broken most of the time because I sit on them whilst looking for my left contact lens, which is a different prescription to my right because of my stigmatism. Admittedly my dress sense wouldn’t get me a part in an ‘007’ movie, but I’m not always a scruff and I certainly don’t smell.

You might think my end-of first year sixth form report would say something like I "have an above average intellectual capacity" and "atypical or poorly developed social skills, with an emotional and social development lagging behind those of my peers". Well you could be right – but then again I couldn’t give a shit. Asperger syndrome has been mentioned, but I just say that I don’t like Asparagus (which isn’t true - I love it, but then you either get Asparagus or you don’t). I saw a report on the Head’s desk about me once, wondering if I had Dyslexia. I just scribbled in green biro, "I don’t have Dyslexia, KO?" Apparently I’m a "traumatised intellectual, taking the grieving process to its extremes by developing an unhealthy obsessional behaviour to compensate for my loss". But if you knew me, if you truly knew me (and there’s only one person in the universe who truly knows me) then you’d know that this was a big pile of pooh; it’s just a co—incidence that my unhealthy, obsessional behaviour started at the same time Dave died.

But I don’t want to talk about Dave. Besides, Dr Wanklyn says I need to "let go and move on", and that talking about it is all part of the healing process. I say I could talk for England on any subject he’d like. But then he says all I’m doing is changing the subject and not tackling the issue head on. Apparently, tackling the issue head on would help me to "let go and move on". It’s ironic, (just like being run down by a blue-lighted police car that’s rushing to the scene of an accident) because when I did "move on," I got accused of "running away."

The Doc also tells me I live in the past, which is another irony, as I see the future.

Did I mention the love of my life? She’s the one thing, round here at least, that I feel at peace with. When I’m with her everything I know, everything I work for and everything I long for come together. She is beautifully simple and simply beautiful. Most people think I’m kinda weird, hanging out with an old lady like that, but they don’t know the pleasure she brings me and the excitement I get from seeing her each time.

Penny, me old banger, let me turn you on and fire you up, I’d say on an evening when I got inside her and listened to those amazing noises she makes. And then dad would come in, tell me tea was ready and be cross with me for messing about in the garage like that. He didn’t like it when I spent time with Penny – said it was unnatural, that I should be out nightclubbing, scoring Es or whatever it was teenagers were supposed to do. My mum doesn’t mind it too much. "As long as telephone boxes aren’t getting vandalised," she’d say. Duhh – like why would I want to do that when I’ve got a mobile?

My big brother, Paul, thinks it’s kinda cute that I like messing about with dad’s forty—year-old Triumph Vitesse. But most of the time Paul’s away in Portsmouth or Plymouth or somewhere learning how to shoot big ships by wearing a white boiler suit, pressing buttons and saying, "Eye eye, sir." So he’s not around much anymore to stick up for me. Anyway, he’s a total shit like all older brothers.

So, you know something about me already – my illusion, my irony. Half of me looks to the future with science and technology, whilst the other half is stuck in a time warp two years ago or forty years ago. I asked my shrink if it was unethical to disturb the space-time continuum, but he just gave me an example of how easy it is to change the subject when you’re practiced so.

He would remark with a smile: "Time is an illusion."

I would paraphrase Douglas Adams in my head: Lunchtime doubley so!

Of course nobody understands this, least of all my family and especially by dad.

It’s not as if they don’t need me, in fact they’d be pretty stuck without me. You see Penny’s our only car. We don’t have any other mode of transport, unlike the posh people up in Herbewey who have one car per person (some people have one car per limb and some, I think, have one for each day of the week, which is strange ‘cause none of them are called Elvis Presley). Dad catches the bus to work usually, ‘cause it’s cheaper and goes right past the paper mill. But on Tuesday evenings he drives mum to yoga class and on Thursdays he taxis me to my out-patients appointment at the m...m...m...mad house.

At weekends we used to drive to the nursing home to visit gran.

I can’t say that I enjoyed visiting gran at Home Paddock during the last year when she was ill. It wasn’t as if the Home smelt of wee all the time, but occasionaly it was difficult to tell if it was the engrained odour of long life that saturated the air, or if they’d been muck spreading in the fields. But latterly gran hadn’t been able to remember who I was (she hardly remembered who mum was half the time) and you could never hold a decent conversation with her. I went to see her on my bike once - maybe I hoped she’d understand about my obsession with old cars. But she just sat there watching ‘Countdown’. And then the nurse gave me some warm milk in one of those feeder cups with a spout. Warm and dry like at primary school it was, but then I realised it wasn’t for me. The nurse wanted me to help grandma drink it. So I poured it into her mouth, and she drank, and I wiped her hairy chin with a tissue.

But gran never gave any wise words of advice. Which was such a shame. I thought she’d be able to tell me where I was going wrong, why I was such a freak, and why did the clutch smell when you set off after a hill start.

It wasn’t always like that. Before her stokes or falls or whatever it was she’s had (and she’s had a lot of them) she was just like my mum, only with more time for me. I used to look forward to seeing her as sometimes I felt she was the only one who had proper time for me.

Not like my dad, who never enjoyed playing with me like he enjoyed playing with Paul. Nor my mum who was always too busy in the house or doing overtime and nights at the hospital. Paul was too busy being ‘the older brother’, which meant annoying me most of the time by taking stuff out of my room - or leaving stuff in my room like his pet rat, a banger left over from bonfire night (most amusing when it’s set off under my bed) or an electronic recorder so he could record me talking to myself (I talk to myself a lot, apparently - my teachers think it’s a bit weird, but as I say, it’s the only way I can get intelligent answers).

So you see, before she was ill, gran was the only one who always had time for me. She was the one who picked me up from school, who let me stay up late watching reruns of "MASH," who let me drink coffee, who told me about the birds and the bees. She’d listen to my problems about growing up, the stresses of homework, and eventually helped me to choose between A-levels or getting a job in the paper mill. She even had time for me when granddad was ill with Parkinson’s that made him shake all over like he’d been using a pneumatic drill during an earthquake. He used to drool a lot too (which was so gross) and he had this thing about not being able to step over lines on the floor (which was so funny).

Anyway, we got this call from the Home Paddock late one night just before Christmas last. Top Gear had just finished (Jeremy, Hamster and Captain Slow had been driving supercars over the Stelvio Pass), and dad was busy putting up some paper trimmings that had fallen off the light fittings again, when mum picked up the phone. She went all quiet and just kept saying, "Mmmm Hmmmm. Mmmm Hmmmm. Yes. Mmmm Hmmm. Right. Well thank you for phoning. Yes, we’ll be right over." She hung up. "It’s mum. She’s had another stroke. They’re taking her to hospital. They don’t think she’ll make it this time."

And then Penny wouldn’t start.

Dad kept turning the engine over and over, but it wouldn’t fire. He pulled out the choke and shouted, "Start you bastard!" a few times. I sat in the back telling him that he was flooding it, and that if he just turned off the ignition for a minute to allow the coil to recover, and then plant his foot on the accelerator to drain the combustion chambers - but mum just gave me one of those glances that belongs between the lead plates of the battery. I lit a cigarette and puffed away quietly to myself.

"Why won’t it start?" My poor dad knows nothing about cars. It was freezing in the garage but I could see little beads of sweat on the back of his neck, and his voice was getting higher and higher. "And why the bloody hell are you smoking? You know how your asthma’s been!"

Nothing I would say would calm him. So I jumped out, stubbed out and walked round to the front, lifting the bonnet. I signalled for him kill the electrics by slicing my throat with my hand. "We don’t have time to piss about!" he yelled. Then mum hit him, so he joined me in the engine bay.

By now I knew what was wrong – I always know what was wrong – and I whipped off the dizzy cap, holding up the rotor arm. It had cracked in to two pieces. One piece fell out of my hand and bounced down through the ancillaries into the old oil slick covering the concrete floor.

"Plastic cracked in the sudden freeze," I said to myself (‘cause nobody else was bothered).

Mum’s knowledge of all things mechanical is marginally superior to dad’s, and she can sense when something appears to be a lost cause. "I’ll phone a taxi, shall I dear?"

"At this time of night? In Quickly?"

I was routing around in a box of bits under the bench in the corner. At the bottom of the box was a spare distributor. I flipped off the cap and pulled out the rotor arm.

Mum and dad were on the drive shouting at each other about how long a taxi might, or might not, take, so they didn’t see me slip the rotor arm into the dizzy, clip on the cap and slide behind the wheel. I floored the accelerator to drain any excess petrol, then turned the key. The engine fired, I revved it a few times, then got in the back, put on my lap belt and stuck some Oasis on my iPod. Unlike Gran, Penny wasn’t terminal.

We stole the last parking space at Killingbeck Hospital, and skidded our way across the black ice to the ward. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen somebody die (I was positively an old hand at death now) and somehow I knew I was going to see another demise that night.

Merry Christmas everybody.

The ward Sister told us that gran was just about to die. We all went to gran’s side-room, but mum and dad wouldn’t let me in, saying it would be too disturbing for me and that I wasn’t ready for it yet.

I’m afraid I made a bit of a scene: "What the fuck do you mean? You can’t stop me going in there. She’s my gran and I love her!"

"Look!" my dad erupted. But mum quickly over ruled him.

"Listen, dear," she said to me, saying "dear" like she does when she’s about to patronise me like my psychiatrist does. "Your father and I just don’t think it would be a good idea."

"Why the fuck not!"

"Well, you know, we both know how hard it’s been for you since little Davie…"

"Dave hasn’t got anything to do with this! You keep him out of it!"

I must have gone turbo-red in the face. I knew I wasn’t making sense, or putting together a coherent argument. And then a nurse came over, took me by the arm and led me away to have a cup of condescending tea, asking me if I wouldn’t swear any more as it would give the old people diarrhoea.

So I sat there drinking warm milky brownstuff from a small plastic mug, smoking a poxy low tar I’d got from somewhere, shaking with rage, fear and sadness. It all brought on my tightness and cough (it always did) and I clutched at my chest, throwing the ciggy away, groping my pockets for my inhaler.

I ran away, of course. I was always running away, just setting off down the road, sometimes with no coat, sometimes with no money, sometimes just with the dog. But this time I ran down the frosted drive of the old hospital, away from its sanitised walls, moaning old people, stainless steel trolleys and paper pulp bedpans. I ran ‘till I was forced off the drive by a blue lighted ambulance coming the other way which blasted its horns at me, sending me off to the left onto the wet grass and brittle bushes. I ran blindly for fifteen minutes, ending up at the back of the hospital after an elliptical journey of madness. I came in through the deserted kitchens, ‘Staff Only’ corridors with exposed electrical conduits, half completed false ceilings, hums and hisses from every crack.

I snuck on to the ward, hiding in the noise of the sluice and the silence of the linen cupboard, dodging round the medicine trolley chained to the wall, and in to my gran’s room; deathly quiet. And empty - except for my gran.

They’d taken off her nightie and dressed her in a thin white gown of paper—fabric, plastic identification bands cuffing both wrists. They hadn’t covered her over with a sheet or anything, and her half—open eyelids stared at the ceiling. But somehow there was nothing there. Lifeless eyes, like I’d seen before, only this time they had sunk into sockets. Hollow cheeks sucked in. Slack jaw and limbs.

"You’ve lost weight," I said, holding her frozen hand. "Gran? Gran?"

If I didn’t talk to her she wouldn’t talk back. And just when I needed her most, she couldn’t talk back. But that’s the problem with the dead – you can’t tell them how you feel, that you’re sorry, that you’ll do better next time, and that you love them and miss them and wish they would come back.

The wheel of life was turning. On and on it goes.

The nurses found me an hour later, gave me more English tea, sympathy and empathy, before putting me in a taxi and sending me home.

When I got back I was sent to my room – sent to my room! Like I’m some naughty nursery rug rat. I was glad anyway, ‘cause there was lots of shouting downstairs that night. They seemed to be blaming each other, which is stupid ‘cause neither of them are God. Not that God exists, but if he did then he’s the only bloke who has power over life and death, which makes him both truly, beautifully wondrous, and the biggest fucking bastard in the universe at the same time.

God is good.

God is bad.

God is easy to blame.

Don’t you just love Christmas?

I counted four slammed doors, three sharp insults, two "You know what your trouble is?" and a nut roast burning in the oven.

The next day they laid in to me for not doing enough revision for my mocks. I retaliated - said that I’d done all the revision I needed to, that they should invest in some Christmas cheer, and stormed out of the house into the garage. I sat in the passenger seat checking the cracks in the veneer dashboard. Left out in the sun far too long the surface was cracked and crazed; an old woman’s skin deprived of moisturiser in hot, dry, stale air. Wood I could fix - the dash would need removing, all the dials and switches unfastening. Then a rub down, borrow a sander from somewhere and re-varnish. Wish I could have fixed gran so easily.

That’s when dad came bursting in, flinging the door open and telling me to get back inside, back to my room to continue my revision, and that he didn’t want me messing about in the garage. And then he added that I’d better bloody well do as I was bloody told for once. And then again (as if all that crap wasn’t enough) I was grounded and forbidden to go to Quickly Qars.

Fine, I thought. First time Penny brakes down you can fix her your sodding self.

And grounded? Jesus, who does he think I am?

I don’t go for all that Karma shit, but sometimes I feel like I can see what’s going to happen, with cars at least. I just know when one’s about to throw a belt, shed a trunnion or blow a hose. And that’s why I escape to Quickly Qars; to watch them come in and play "guess the diagnosis" with Ben the mad mechanic.

But this time I went to my room to placate the situation. I knew why dad was cross, why he was shouting, why he couldn’t actually say what he really felt. I could see it in his eyes, you see. Every time he looked at me, or my name was mentioned in conversation.

That look.

So I just kept the peace and let him shout. Let it blow over for a while. Then I’d do what the chuff I liked.

I sat at my tiered wooden desk, and stared out over our postage stamp front garden. My eye followed the narrow potholed road through the village green, around the duck infested pond, up to the pub. It was a sharp and sunny December morn’ without a cloud in sight (apart from the one hanging over my parents). Anderby Creek’s signal red Austin Healy had its roof down - lurvley old motor, but the synchromesh on third was about to fail. It was parked outside the Pelican and Biscuit beside a group of blokes sat on wooden benches drinking pints. The wind was in the right direction and through my open window I could hear them laughing. I had my PC switched on and my Biology folder open, but I wasn’t really working. It was too early to start revising anyway. Besides, I kept thinking about gran, and death.

My laptop’s fan whirred into life (a welcome distraction) so I clicked on Explorer and on the History section (nobody dies on the Internet). The BigendBearing forum popped up and I started flicking through some of the posts.

#

Address http://www.bigendbearing.com/forum/index.php

Forum: Old Car Drivers Never Die – They Just Smell That Way

Topic Selected: Four Corners of the Apocalypse

Apocalypse Org: There’s still time to get your entries in. I know not all of you are cowards, so come on! E-mail me your entry forms now!!

MauriceMinor: Mine’s on its way already!

Bob Falfa: So’s mine. Watch for it coming and put it to the top of the pile!

Bert W: Sorry, Apocalypse. I have sent you my entry form, but Mrs Wearing has just informed me that she’s not going to be my co-driver. I know that under your safety recommendations, each car should have a co-driver, so unless anybody out there would like to be my co-pilot, I’ll have to pull out.

Bob Falfa: Warning! Screwball alert. Any dick heads wishing to give their life away, register as Bert’s co-pilot. In a Humley Major you are guaranteed a breakdown at least once every ten miles, have overnight stops in desolate hellholes, and death either by exposure, failing brakes, or suicide when everybody laughs at you for trying to run The Apocalypse in such a mental car.

Apocalypse Org: Really sorry to hear that, Bert W. I’ve got your application form and I’ll keep it open until the last minute. I know this meant a lot to you as you’ve done so much work on your car and sacrificed work and family commitments. But you’ve got until Christmas Eve at 12.00 noon to find a co--driver.

Bert W: Thanks, Apocalypse. I’ll keep looking. Contrary to what others on this forum may think, my Humley is an exceptionally reliable and well-maintained vehicle. I have fully documented receipts, bills, MOT certificates proving exceptional workmanship delivered to an exceptionally high standard.

Bob Falfa: And detailed photos of the scratches where it’s been on the back of a low loader. Har har har.

Ricky P: Hi Bert – Ricky Pressmith here. We at Practically Sports Cars magazine think it’s a great stunt you’re trying to pull. Even though PSC has dubbed the Humley Major as the most unreliable car in British post-war motoring history, we’ve absolutely nothing against heroes who try and prove us wrong! Keep us posted!

Bert W: Thanks very much Ricky. It’s just super to have encouragement like that. I have been a subscriber to PSC since issue one. Do any of your colleagues think they might like to co-pilot me? It might make for a great scoop!

Ricky P: Sorry, Bert. I’ve asked around the PSC office but it looks like everybody’s busy on other projects. Or maybe they daren’t risk it, I don’t know. But sorry we can’t help!

He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future. So what’s controlled by he (or she) who controls the future? I told Dr Wanklyn that I like a good paradox.

He said: "A paradox?"

I said: "You do know what a paradox is, don’t you?"

He said: "What do you think a paradox is?"

I said: "A duck with a parachute." But he didn’t get it.

Anyway, sat at my little wooden desk, that’s when I read the thread on the Bigend Bearing forum. I looked at the clock. There wasn’t much time left. I could do it. I could do it to forget death. I could do it for the adventure. I could do it ‘cause I’ve never done anything like this before and what a scream it would be. I could do it for the challenge, the risk, the sense of support, teamwork and achievement. I could do it ‘cause I might get my picture in Practically Sports Cars.

I could do it to wrestle-back what little control I had over my life, my destiny, my future.

But mainly I could do it to really piss-off my dad; to get away from him and the stench of death I felt every time I heard him shout like thunder, bang a door, blame the weather, storm out the house. I couldn’t escape through time, no matter how much Wells or Orwell I read. But I could escape through space; place some between me and my death-reminder; my Grim Reaper.

So I logged in and started typing:

Eric A: Hi Bert. Put me down as your co-driver. I’d love to be involved. Never been in a Humley Major before!

Bert W: That’s splendid, Eric. I really appreciate it. But I’ve just looked on your profile. You’ve not been a member of the Forum for very long have you?

Eric A: That doesn’t matter. I’m brilliant at mechanics, so if anything goes wrong (not that it would) but if it does then I’ll be able to fix it for you.

Bert W: I don’t know. Are you any good at map reading?

Eric A: Bedtime reading, mate.

Bert W: Well, ok. You’re on. Apocalypse - count us in!