Geoff Nicholson - Street Sleeper

Les had made some tea. It was vile. There was nothing to eat. They began to devise a plan.

Les would borrow a trailer from his mate down the road.

They would reclaim Enlightenment, put it on the trailer, leave car and trailer with a mate of Fat Les’s in Dartford.

They would wait until night.

Davey would black his face with boot polish. (Ishmael thought this was a bit excessive, but Davey insisted.)

They would return to ‘Sorrento’, Les would park a little way away, Davey and Ishmael would attempt to enter the house, preferably by the kitchen door, for which they had a key. Davey would then stand guard downstairs while Ishmael went to Marilyn’s room, unlocking the door with another key from the bunch. Ishmael would enter her room, there would be a short, tearful reunion, but that would have to wait until later. They would steal out, locking doors behind them so that Marilyn’s absence would not be noticed until the next day. They would return to Dartford, pick up trailer and Enlightenment and drive on to Fat Les’s railway arch.

Fat Les would patch up Enlightenment.

Ishmael and Marilyn would start a new life together. Steps 1 to 4 presented no problem.

Colonel Radclyffe has not exaggerated the deprivations and difficulties that prevail at Wolfsburg. There are all kinds of shortage, various kinds of madness. And there is also the problem of ideological purity. The whole factory workforce is having to undergo the unlovely process of ‘denazification’. Hirst has already lost a couple of his best mechanics because they retained threads of loyalty to Hitler. Among the enforced labour there are still attempts at looting, lots of petty violence and fighting, and Hirst can only partly blame them. Repatriation is starting, at least for some, for others (and there are plenty like this) there is no country that wants them. And above all, the military government can’t make up its bloody mind as to whether it might not be a lot easier for all concerned simply to dismantle the whole factory and share out its assets as reparations.

♦

Step 5 swung into action. Fat Les parked his Beetle a couple of hundred yards from the gates of ‘Sorrento’. It was well hidden by hedge and an overhanging tree.

‘Couldn’t you park a bit nearer?’ Ishmael asked.

‘Why?’

‘Two hundred yards is quite a long way to run if you’re being chased by some irate father with a shotgun.’

‘You’ll be all right,’ Fat Les said, reassuringly. ‘That’s just the sort of incentive you need. You’ll be back here like a greyhound if it comes to that. But it won’t, will it?’

‘No, no, I hope…no, of course it won’t.’

Sometimes there was no arguing with Fat Les.

It was midnight. Ishmael hoped that Marilyn’s mother and father were heavy sleepers. He and Davey got out of the car and approached ‘Sorrento’. Davey was acting nonchalant. Ishmael was trying to. He wasn’t sure he had the temperament for this kind of work. His hands were visibly shaking. The gates to the house were locked. They climbed over. Davey was cat-like. Ishmael was not.

The house was in darkness. Ishmael had hoped that Marilyn’s light might still be on. It wasn’t.

They each had a small hand-torch. They hadn’t wanted anything too bright, for fear of giving themselves away. The torches cast small pools of dirty, yellow light as Ishmael and Davey negotiated the drive. One of the pools was noticeably trembling. They rounded the house and found the kitchen door.

‘Know anything about burglar alarms?’ Davey asked.

Ishmael shook his head.

‘Me neither,’ Davey said.

Ishmael held the torch while Davey tried each of the keys in turn. None fitted. Davey held the torch while Ishmael tried. For a moment Ishmael felt blissful relief. If none of the keys fitted perhaps they could go home and try another time. Then he mentally flayed himself for his lack of purpose.

‘Know what the trouble is?’ Davey whispered.

Ishmael shook his head again.

‘The door’s not locked.’

Davey turned the handle of the kitchen door. The door opened. They went in. Davey looked around and selected a seat at the breakfast bar.

‘OK, Batman,’ he said. ‘Go get her.’

Ishmael couldn’t help thinking that Davey sometimes had a very flippant attitude for a disciple.

♦

In 1943 the Humber Company, by arrangement with the Ministry of Supply, published a detailed technical report and assessment on a modified Volkswagen captured in the Libyan desert in the aftermath of Alamein — a German Light Aid Detachment Vehicle Type VW82. The report, which took eight months to compile, eschews wartime austerity in its production. It contains sixty-four glossy, foolscap pages, clothbound like some particularly rare collectors’ edition. With patriotic obsessiveness the report details the complete dismantling of the vehicle, the weight of every component is noted, every type of metal is analysed. One is fascinated to learn that the vehicle’s actual unladen weight is 14cwt 3qr, even though the vehicle’s identification plate states that the figure is 13cwt, 1qr, 26lb.

♦

A strange house at night, in darkness. Things change their shape, their nature. A grandfather clock becomes a hooded figure, a telephone table becomes a small vicious animal, a portrait on the wall becomes the face of God or the devil.

The hallway and stairs held few horrors. They were thickly carpeted. It was easy to walk quietly. He climbed the stairs which ended in a long landing that disappeared round corners at each end. Ishmael knew that Marilyn’s room must be one floor higher than this, so around one of these corners there had to be another set of stairs leading up to Marilyn.

On the landing he could see perhaps four doors and noticed, with a sudden acute sick feeling, that light was visible round one of them.

He flattened himself against one of the walls, just the way they do in films. Then he could hear a voice behind the door. It was a woman’s voice and it was singing ‘Send in the Clowns’. It sounded like Marilyn’s mother. The singing became louder and it was obvious that she was very drunk. She didn’t have a bad voice.

Then a light appeared under one of the other doors. There were the sounds of someone getting out of bed, of moving to the door and opening it. Ishmael hid round a corner of the landing — no staircase there. The second bedroom door opened and heavy, angry footsteps marched to the first bedroom. It was Marilyn’s father. Separate bedrooms, eh? He flung open his wife’s door. They had a loud, colourful exchange in which he said she was a disgrace to motherhood and womanhood, and if she wanted to sing she should go down the pub which was where she belonged in any case. She said anybody would take to drink if they had to live with him, and then she taunted him about the size of his penis. Ishmael felt she got the better of this exchange. Marilyn’s father stormed back to his own bedroom. His door slammed. His light snapped off.

The door to Marilyn’s mother’s bedroom remained open. She slouched in the doorway in a drunken but appealing fashion. Ishmael thought he had stayed out of sight while the previous scene had been played, but now it seemed he had been wrong. She had seen him. She started speaking to him. At first he thought she must be talking to herself, but it soon became obvious she was actually speaking to him.

‘That was a close thing,’ she said. ‘You found the door I left open for you, Gerry. I’m glad you got my message. I’m glad you came. I did get your name right? It is Gerry? From the television repair shop. Don’t just stand there, silly, come in, have a drink.’

Ishmael went in.

♦

What especially interests Major Ivan Hirst about the Humber report are the ‘purely personal views’ of the chaps in the Engineering Division. ‘Looking at the general picture we do not consider that the design represents any special brilliance…and it is suggested that it is not to be regarded as an example of first-class modern design to be copied by British Industry.’