Mark Two

I saw her this morning on the way to work.

The traffic had backed up and I was in danger of being late, so I peeled off the main route and tried a back route, safe in the knowledge that whatever I did, I was going to add to my journey time. I was always going to be late to work that morning. 

Some things seem preordained, especially the crap that comes at you in life.

Late and pissed off, I saw her all the same.

Despite the stressed fog in my mind, and the building anxiety of my tardiness, she stood out at the side of the road and the early Spring sunlight danced along her flank creating a magic seldom witnessed by mere mortals.

In my mind, I would stop. That is exactly what I would do. I would have the balls to seize the moment and be in the moment. I entertained the fantasy that I was far more confident than my actual self and I was the sort to seize the day. A go-getter who women admired, and men wanted to bed. That’s how awesome my imaginary alter ego was. He would turn straight men, manly men who had never considered the possibility of bedroom related intimacy with another man, until I swanned into the room. Everything would change in the instant their eyes fell upon me and they would want to get as close to me as was possible.

My dear Mum used to say that if you’re going to use your imagination, then go the whole hog, why water down your fantasies? There really is nothing stopping you.

Well, whoever designed this glowing, crimson beast allowed their imagination to run riot. Even all these years later, this motor oozed luxury. Nothing ostentation though. The luxury was tempered with class, and yet this was a classless car when it came to the class system itself. This was an object that transcended such mundane structures and spoke of something so much more noble. 

I drove past that car in a state of chaos and in the instant I saw her, she captured something within me. Something I hadn’t even known existed until that fateful day when a lorry jack-knifed and brought my commute to a standstill.

The accident on the A43 caught a few of my colleagues up in the logjam and they were much later to work than I was. Somehow, I lost only a few minutes and caught a ball of luck as I parked up and entered the office. No one saw me come in and no one had noted my empty seat. For all intents and purposes, I was right on time, so my horror of a boss and his twisted little minions couldn’t conspicuously fondle their watches and pull lewd faces to indicate their sexualised chagrin at my slack approach to work, as evidenced by their perception of my tardiness.

This lucky escape from these mild irritants lifted my day and accelerated me through it. 

Now, I didn’t think of that car all the way through my working day, but something jogged my memory as I climbed into my own car to head back home. It may have been consideration of the route home and whether I should avoid the A43 in case there was still a problem on it, but I think it was a hell of a lot more than that.

I didn’t have to put much more thought to it. Once I remembered that car, I knew I would head back the same way as I had come, so that I could take another look at such a glorious four wheeled sculpture. 

As I drove the twenty minute drive to the small car dealers, I found that I was looking forward to stopping and taking a proper, lingering look at that motor. It deserved closer inspection. It almost demanded it.

On the second half of the drive, I began to worry that the car may not be there. A car like that would not hang around for long. Even the prospect of it being taken indoors for the night saddened me. I wanted to stop and look it over tonight. Being denied that opportunity just would not sit well with me.

Then there was the price. I had moved on to the price of this car in the last mile of the drive, and as I did, my heart sank. The financial side of things brought a dour reality to the proceedings. If I was honest with myself, I would not be able to afford to buy a car such as this. Even if I could stretch to the purchase price, I doubted I could justify it. 

I almost did not stop, as grey thoughts of my not affording the car assailed me, and dragged my mood down. I was beginning to feel sad about the state of my life and how far it had fallen short of what it should have been, right up until I set eyes upon that car again.

The last of the day’s light was bleeding from the sky, but this beauty was almost directly under a street light and that light danced over the paintwork making it come alive. It shimmered and danced and so did my heart as it came into view.

I parked across the street and very nearly got run over as I only had eyes for that car. The dealership itself looked closed, which made my pilgrimage all the better. I could peruse the car and consider it from all manner of angles without someone popping up from nowhere and hassling me about the level of my interest and pushing me into talking about the one thing I really didn’t want to consider right now, the cost for me to purchase such an incredible piece of automotive history. A living piece of history that sang with life’s past and still had about it a vitality and charisma that few other cars could touch.

The curves of the car induced me to touch them, but I was cautious in this, not wanting to tarnish the paintwork with my grubby little fingers. I lightly drew my fingertip along a wing as I walked to the driver’s window. My touch as considerate and meaningful as a lover’s. I paused before looking through the window, taking in the chrome finishings and the wire wheels. This car just had to have wire wheels. Nothing else would do. Alternative wheels would be like the Queen wearing trainers.

From this vantage point I looked along the bonnet and imagined how it would look from the driver’s seat. The silver cat standing proud at the vanguard of the car. Then I was peering in through the window at the wooden steering wheel and the leather seats. I could see myself inside this car, in the driving seat, moreover, I could feel myself there.

“She’s a beaut, isn’t she?”

So engrossed was I in this car that I should have jumped at this unexpected intrusion, but I did not. I reluctantly straightened and could not help grinning at the diminutive man standing towards the back of the car.

“She’s amazing!” I told him.

This, I knew was a mistake. I had displayed my unadulterated eagerness, and I was giving this bloke carte blanche to rip me off. At the very least, my ability to haggle was limited, if not non-existent.

“She is that,” he said, returning my eager grin.

My eyes returned to the car, how could they not? She was beautiful and there was, at least in theory, the possibility of her being mine, all mine. That possibility excited me and opened up whole new worlds. I could be so much more with this car. Not just a car like this, but this very car. No other car would do.

For the first time in my life, I had experienced love at first sight. This car had captivated me in a way that I did not know existed, and in a way that I did not know I was capable of.

I was rudely interrupted from my observations of my new muse by a rattling and a jangling. It was all I could do to tear my eyes away from her and pause my dreaming. I also had to swallow back a surge of anger at the unwarranted interruption. 

I am sure I did not hide my annoyance, but the man stood there and the smile on his face never wavered. It took me another moment to attend to the source of the jangling.

This man was holding aloft a set of keys and as soon as I set eyes upon them, I knew them for what they were.

“Want to take a look inside?” he asked me.

He didn’t have to ask twice.

In my haste, I snatched those keys that dangled tantalisingly from his fingers and to my surprise, slotted them into the lock with no fumblings whatsoever. Despite the urgency I felt, I opened the door to this old madam respectfully and slipped into the leather seat as though I were joining her at the Ritz for afternoon tea. 

Naturally, my hand went to the ignition and I slipped the key forth, into its rightful place.

Never have I sat in such a wonderful place. The seat fit me like the proverbial glove, only it wasn’t at all restrictive. This was a place where I belonged. It all felt so right as my hands went to the cool surface of the steering wheel and for a moment there I was five years old again and sitting in my granddad’s car. The car that he kept in the garage, surrounded by motor parts, and I swore I caught the hint of motor oil mingled with petrol.

“It suits you,” said the man.

I turned to him and asked him for confirmation of what he had said, I really wanted it to be the truth, “you really think so?”

He nodded solemnly, “you must have heard that thing about dog owners looking like their mutts?”

I returned his nod.

“Well, the same thing applies with motors sometimes. You see someone climb into a car and it’s as though it was meant to be. They belong to that car in a way they wouldn’t belong to any other car.”

I nodded and smiled. I wanted this car more than any car I had ever seen. I wanted it in a way I’d never wanted a car before, and I knew that were this car to enter my life, it would never leave it.

“I…” I trailed off, I didn’t know what to say, but I wanted to say something. I think I was simply going to say I want it, like a petulant toddler, so overwhelmed was I that any further words were eluding me and I didn’t quite rightly know how to proceed. I just didn’t want to get out of this car. 

The man had been leaning on the edge of the roof and peering in, now he crouched down and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, “listen,” he said, as though I would do anything else, I was all ears, “I wouldn’t usually do this… but you and this car? It’s meant. I can see that as plain as the nose on my face. So how about this…?”

He scratched his chin and became thoughtful and I worried that whatever he was going to suggest he was having second thoughts about.

“Yes?” I said eagerly, wanting him to make the offer he’d been considering.

He nodded, as though he had won his internal argument, “you seem like an honest lad,” he stated, “and she wants you this car does, so I can’t argue with that. You give me your car keys and you can take her out for the night.”

“Really?” I said in a fog of disbelief, “you’d do that?”

The man nodded and grinned, “I have to.”

“Well, if you put it like that…” I was reaching into my trouser pocket for the keys to my car. It took several attempts to find them in my haste. My fingers finding every item in my pocket barring my keys.

Eventually, my fingers found the keys and I tore the lining of my trouser pocket as my house key snagged on the seam. I didn’t care though. Not one bit. I handed the keys over and the man pocketed them in a fluid motion, and no sooner than he had was he standing up. His expression was dreamy and almost sad as he looked at me, a beatific smile playing across his lips, “done,” he said, and with that, he closed the door.

He raised a hand in what might have been a farewell, but it looked for all the world like he was on the starting line of a circuit. I fired up the engine without taking my eyes from his hand. It came to life with no hesitation, an initial growl and then a purr that thrummed through the car itself and was transmitted into the driver’s seat and up through me, filling me. 

I dropped the clutch and slipped into first, my eyes still on the raised hand. I felt this affinity with the car, I knew where first was and I would know exactly where the biting point was as I raised the clutch. The sound of that engine was incredible. Music that struck a chord in me like no other. 

His hand dropped, I raised the clutch and I was away, off the forecourt and out onto the open road. I knew the route I was going to drive. Fast, sweeping country roads that would show what this car could do.

I went through the gears, allowing the revs to climb through each and every gear. I wasn’t gentle, but I was not reckless either. There was a sweet spot and there was where we dwelt as we built up speed and the purring of the engine dropped deeper and deeper. The car devoured the ribbon of tarmac before it and the hedgerow at the side of the road was a dramatic blur. 

At first I didn’t bother with the speedo. My eyes were on the open road and taking in the sweep of the bonnet that housed that magnificent engine. This car was alive, and I was more alive than I had ever felt. 

It was when I glanced at the speedo that I felt the first thrill of fear. We were going impossibly fast. Way beyond anything this car should be capable of. I wanted the speedo to be wrong, it was old after all and faults were common in classics, but as soon as I saw the needle climbing past a hundred miles an hour, I knew. The sensation of speed confirmed the position of that needle.

With some reluctance, I took my foot from the accelerator, but the pedal did not rise with my foot, it stayed firmly to the floor.

“No!” I gasped.

I pressed my foot down on the clutch, but there was no resistance and I didn’t feel that sensation of release as the engine lets go of the wheels and the car is coasting. Instead the engine held its grip and our speed kept climbing.

I lifted my foot and considered the brake. That might go disastrously wrong. I glanced at the ignition and in my panic I even looked at the door.

As I did, the lock dropped with what should have been a reassuringly firm thud. I might have screamed then, but my seatbelt tightened across my chest and pulled me back into my seat, surprising me and driving the breath out of me. The seat then rolled back, impossibly far back, as though there was no rear seat. I was now too far away from the controls of the car…

I was now a passenger.

I could only watch as the car took me on a night time roller coaster ride.

That was when I screamed and I screamed all the way to the end. All the way along the road, across the ditch and into the huge oak tree.

*

The idling engine tick-ticked as it cooled in the night air.

From the rear, the car was still recognisable as a Mark Two Jaguar. A revered icon from a classic era of motoring. From all other angles, the car was a mangled wreck. So too was the body of the driver, the driver who had been going far too fast for these roads. 

There was a drip-drip of blood as the dying body of the driver cooled in the night air.

This was not the first wreck in this spot. In fact, on this very night a decade ago there was a similar tableau, and every decade prior to that, all the way back to the day that this very car had been brought brand new, by a young man who had fallen in love with this Mark Two Jag from the very start.

The dying man’s blood dripped onto the bonnet and soaked into the paintwork itself. With each drip, the car seemed to straighten itself out, as though the blood was nourishing it. Before the night was out, the car would be as good as new and of the driver, there would be no sign.

By morning, the Jag would be tucked back away in the workshop where it slept for the next ten years, before taking its place on the forecourt to entice its next victim on the ride of their lives. The final ride of their lives. The Jag had a taste for blood. Thankfully, it wasn’t a thirsty motor.

In the morning, there would be another car sitting in the spot where the Jag had sat. 

Deal done.

The unclaimed car would more than pay for the Jag’s spot in the workshop.