Geoff Nicholson - Still life with Volkswagens

She continues broadcasting her weather reports from the television studio. They seem considerably more poignant now that she thinks her father is out there exposed to the elements. Sometimes she finds it hard to be vivacious. And then one day in the newsroom she overhears a reporter arguing with a producer.

The reporter says, “I don’t see how we can justify sitting on this one. If nothing else, if we reported it we might save a life or two, at least prevent some property damage.”

“The gag is coming from a very high source,” says the producer.

“Anti-terrorist?”

“Yep.”

“Well they’re a bunch of drama queens. Look, these cars are being blown up all over England — at least fifty to date. And we’re supposed to pretend it’s not happening?”

“We’re not pretending anything. We’re just not reporting it. We’re helping the authorities in their battle with terrorism, that’s all.”

“Oh please.”

“Look, if we report that somebody’s going around blowing up these things, then every would-be terrorist, vandal and general nutter is going to start copycatting. At the very least you’re going to spread panic. Every arsehole who owns a Volkswagen Beetle is going to think his car’s about to go bang.”

Marilyn listens and weeps. Oh God, it all fits. It must all be true. Until now she might just have believed that her father wasn’t behind it all, but now…She takes the reporter aside, makes him tell her everything he knows. She listens carefully, takes it all in. What she has to do next is perfectly clear to her.

That night she bounces onto the television screen looking slightly more manic than usual. Behind her the computer map of England has gone hallucinatory, blurring into acidic yellows and fuzzed electric blue.

She looks at the map and says, “In the south of England there have been intermittent explosions of Volkswagen Beetles. And there have been similar outbreaks in the Midlands and the North — East. Showers of broken glass and twisted metal have been affecting the South Coast, and the pattern seems to be spreading and becoming prolonged. Things are pretty unsettled and the outlook isn’t very bright.”

She stops for a moment, fights back the tears, struggles to find the right words.

“Dad,” she says, “if you’re out there, if you’re watching, please don’t blow up any more Volkswagens. What do you say?”

The floor manager was quite right. The audience for Marilyn’s nocturnal weather forecasts is not large. But one person who is still insomniac enough to be watching is Fat Les. He knows Marilyn and her father from way back and he doesn’t for a moment think her words are going to have any effect on crazy Charles Lederer, but they do have a profound effect on him. He immediately knows what he has to do. He has to go and re-establish contact with Barry Osgathorpe, maybe even with Ishmael.

♦

Barry is asleep at the wheel when Fat Les arrives. The caravan site is quiet. The weather is fine, a relief after all the rain they’ve been having. Les has chosen a special vehicle for this trip, one of the cars he has for sale at Fat Volk Inc, a burnt ochre Beetle roadster conversion, with a milk chocolate-coloured velour interior and tonneau cover, American eagle eenterlines, Monza exhaust and a louvred engine lid. It looks slick and sexy. It does not match Fat Les’s personality in any way.

Les has been driving for several hours, growing ever more tense and impatient. This is an important mission he’s on. The site has taken some finding. Once there, he does a noisy circuit around the caravans, barbecue areas and children’s playground while looking for Barry. But it’s obvious who he’s come to see, and a group of little kids point the way without even being asked. The noise of Les’s car fails to rouse Barry, so Les has a moment or two to examine Enlightenment. He kills the engine of the roadster, gets out, peers closely. It was Fat Les who rebuilt and customised Barry’s wicked-looking vehicle and it appears that his handiwork has held up pretty well, although he doesn’t understand why there’s a bad rendition of a Beetle and the initials GB painted on it.

When he’s finished having a good look at the car he reaches in through the open car window and shakes Barry awake. Barry stirs disorientatedly from a deep sleep, and when he opens his eyes and sees Fat Les’s plump, sweaty features no more than two feet away from him, his first thought is that he must still be dreaming. It is not a very pleasant dream. The face of Fat Les is one that he thought he would never see again.

“You’ve got to help me,” Les says while Barry is still rubbing his eyes.

“What?”

“The heat’s closing in,” Les continues. “They’re out to get me. They want to lock me up and throw away the key.”

Barry, only gradually becoming convinced that he is actually awake, shoves open the car door and climbs out. He walks up and down, trying to shake himself into alertness.

“Who’s out to get you?” he asks.

“The pigs,” says Les, as though that’s perfectly obvious.

Barry blinks and scratches himself. He’s not quite ready for this level of intensity and paranoia.

“Long time no see,” he says as a stalling tactic. “How’ve you been, Les?”

“Okay till now.”

“Why are they after you? Why are they going to lock you up?”

“Because of the exploding Volkswagens.”

“Oh, that old thing.”

“You know about this?” Les demands.

“No, not really,” says Barry. “People assume I ought to, but actually I don’t. And really I don’t want to.”

“That’s all right for you.”

“Yes it is.”

“But not for me. They think I’m the one doing it.”

“Are you the one doing it?”

“No!” Les insists.

“Then why do they think you are?” Barry asks.

“Because they’re pigs.”

Barry isn’t finding this a particularly fascinating conversation. He’d rather be asleep than talking with Fat Les, but he attempts to be sympathetic.

“Look at it this way Les, the fewer cars there are in the world, the more chance we have of saving the planet.”

“I just want to save my own skin,” says Les.

“Well that’s a little short-sighted of you, isn’t it?”

Les isn’t enjoying the conversation very much either. He remembers that Barry always had a penchant for the naive and gnomic utterance but this is ridiculous.

“Look,” says Les fiercely, “it’s not me doing it.”

“I never said it was,” Barry replies reassuringly.

“But I reckon I know who is.”

“Then you should tell the police.”

“No. We’ve got to find him first.”

“We?”

“You and me Barry. The old firm. We used to be a great team. We used to be able to do wonders. We can find bloody Charles Lederer and turn him in.”

“Charles Lederer?”

“Yeah. It’s Marilyn’s old man who’s doing the blowing up.”

The very name of Marilyn Lederer still holds an overwhelming allure and fascination for Barry. She’s the real thing. Debby was a perfectly serviceable everyday kind of girlfriend but as an object of fantasy and desire she couldn’t possibly compete with the distant and unattainable Marilyn. Just thinking about her now he comes over all misty-eyed, which is a source of considerable irritation to Fat Les.

Les says, “If Marilyn thinks her old man’s doing the bombing then that’s good enough for me.”

“Does she think that?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve spoken to her?”

“No, but I’ve seen her on the telly.”

“Television?”

Les explains that she is a late night weathergirl on a satellite channel. Barry thinks he might faint. The very idea that images of his dream girl are being beamed through the ether is almost too much to bear. But that’s of no interest to Fat Les.