THE RED RAGS

Our Citroen BX Diesel was getting old and ailing. It was the car we had when we arrived at the hotel. It had been really good to us for a number of years. I’d really enjoyed the road holding, the cornering I dared at speeds no-one no matter what they were driving could keep up with, and too the suspension gismo to play with, up and down for rough tracks even fields. It had been everything I’d wished for, but it needed a test certificate and somehow, I couldn’t be bothered; couldn’t face the emissions test, the tyres and everything that may be wrong. I should have but I didn’t feel bad at the idea of parting with it.

Before the Citroen we had a Fiat Panda and when we traded it in for the BX I cried my eyes out driving it to the showroom to make the change. I had to pull into a layby for a rest, I was in such an uncontrollable emotional state.

This change was different. My desires moving up a notch were extreme, I had the nerve and, having just sold our bungalow we had some cash to satisfy them. I had in mind a Rolls Royce.

“What do you want one of them for?” Blossom asked incredulous.

I can’t remember what I said. I didn’t really have an adequate answer. However, somehow, we got round to searching for one and bought the third car we looked at. A 1979 Silver Shadow 11 in Caribbean Blue. A sensation at £9500.

Used it all the time. Trips to the cash and carry, holidays, everything, the odd sack of cement and of course be-ribboned for friend’s weddings meant other people enjoyed them as well.

On my 70th birthday, still working, fit and in nearly perfect order, Blossom suggested, and I encouraged, she take driving lessons just in case there was any hitch with my licence. When she passed her test and thought she might like a little car of her own I proposed, thinking it might be quite nice, a red Bentley. “You don’t want a big powerful car like that for your first car” said her driving instructor. Funny really, because by then Blossom had decided Rolls Royce was the only way to travel. In the end, not being able to find a red Bentley, Blossom had to settle for an old blue Silver Spirit 1982.

Absurdly I almost daren’t believe we had them. His and hers Rolls Royce’s didn’t seem real.

Ridiculous, a folly, a flaunt too far. Our financial weakness and ever-present thin-ice uncertainty caused me to not wholly acknowledge mentally to myself we really had them. My mind creating a vague, almost unconscious, unsubstantial buffer, was a preparation for losing them without pain, without shock.

In spite of which one of our bar regulars, a retired businessman, told me buying the shadow was the most astute business decision he’d ever met with. This particular business man was a grand fellow, in his 50’s had been forced to retire by a heart attack. A vigorous, rumbustious terrier of a man, generous, short and broad, known affectionately ‘in the bar’ as “low legs”. We had the Shadow over 20 years or looked at another way more than 1000 weeks, and at an initial outlay of £9500 equates to less than £9.50p per week if we get nothing at all for it in the end. Cheap motoring indeed with comfort, speed and all mod cons. Whilst the Royce likes a drink, we find quite often going by Rolls Royce is cheaper than the train.

The cars are appreciated by just about everybody. People are cheered up, there is a natural uplifting gladness about things done well. They talk to us. Most people kindly ignore the duct tape sticking plasters on the body’s rust ulcers. If the sores do crop up in conversation

I say, “of course it is the very best quality rust. You won’t get better anywhere.” However, if she gets ill more seriously than a sticking plaster will fix, then our eyes water. She can really hurt us in the pocket. That applies to both of them.