Geoff Nicholson - Still life with Volkswagens

“Well actually,” he says, “Volkswagen rather used to work for me.”

Here is Peter Weir in the Australian Outback filming The Cars That Ate Paris , using a Volkswagen Beetle as the ‘monster’. Spikes jut out from every panel of the car and are supposed to look scary and lethal. In fact they look like they’re made from thinnish cardboard.

Here is Woody Alien with Sleeper , where a Volkswagen Beetle that hasn’t been used for centuries still starts first time. And serious students of Alien will note that when Susan Anspach leaves him in Play it Again, Sam she too drives away in a Beetle.

Here is Philip K. Dick in July 1964, driving a Volkswagen Bug; Philip K. Dick, a man with a taste for Tri-Chevvies and Jags. Here he is, paranoid and speeding, seeing angels and devils, crazy as a hoot-owl in the opinion of his girlfriend, fearing he is being persecuted by the CIA and the FBI as well as by some nameless neo-Nazi organisation. He powers the Bug into a corner, completely misjudges its capacity for understeer, and he flips the car over. He has to wear a body cast and has his arm in a sling for the next two months. Even the Volkswagens are against him.

Here is Liberace making a grand entrance in his new Las Vegas show. He is driven on stage in a mirrored Rolls-Royce, gets out, displays himself to the audience, lets them thrill to the sight of his latest outfit which consists of a cape of pink feathers. The Rolls-Royce departs. He removes the cape to reveal the drag underneath and just for a moment he looks as though he has nowhere to put the cape; at which point a mirrored, open-topped 1971 Volkswagen Beetle with a Rolls-Royce grille, double headlights and uniformed chauffeur drives onto the stage. Liberace tosses the feathered cape into the back of the Volkswagen and the chauffeur drives it away again.

Here, on some New England campus in the early 1960 s, are a whole bunch of young students engaged in the sport of ‘jamming’, in which they attempt to cram as many people as possible into a Beetle. Bodies press together, hands, faces and erogenous zones are brought into unlikely and intimate contact. It just wouldn’t be the same in a Cadillac.

Here are the Beastie Boys, white rap group and general funsters wearing VW logo badges on chains round their necks like pieces of jewellery. And not long after a few media appearances, it’s impossible to leave any Volkswagen on any street in England without fearing that the badge will have been ripped off by the time you get back.

Here are the guys at Doyle Dane Bernbach, the advertising agency that’s landed the account for Volkswagen in America. Thing is, some of these guys are Jewish, and naturally they have a few qualms. Hey, they say, Adolf Hitler was responsible for the Volkswagen. Adolf Hitler killed six million Jews. I’m a Jew. So is it ethical for me to help sell the Volkswagen? Big decision.

With the integrity for which advertising agencies are famous, they decide it is ethical and they go on to create one of the most respected and successful and talked about advertising campaigns there’s ever been. The campaign doesn’t mention the war, doesn’t mention Adolf Hitler, scarcely even mentions the fact that the car is German; but they sure feel better for having had the qualms.

And here are the factories in Nigeria and South Africa, in New Zealand and Belgium and Singapore, in Australia and Portugal and Yugoslavia and Brazil; all closed now. Only Mexico still makes them. Mexico, a country where the Beetle is known as the Navel, because everybody’s got one. Not quite true in the case of the car; demand far exceeds supply.

And where are they going, all these fellow travellers? What’s the destination? Why, they’re heading for the vanishing point, following the yellow brick road towards the darkness at the edge of town. Are you there Dean Moriarty?

And here am I, writing this novel in a room full of Volkswagen books and Volkswagen clippings and Volkswagen models and Volkswagen memorabilia. I could pretend it’s all just research material, but who would believe me? Here I am skimming through biographies and running through indexes, looking desperately for material. Did the Yorkshire Ripper drive a Beetle? Did Jeffrey Dahmer? And if they did then that’s great, that’s another chapter I can write. Or is there something from my own life, some anecdote or coincidence that I might have forgotten about? Did Glint Eastwood drive a Beetle? Did Billy Connolly? Did Eddie Van Halen? Did John Paul Getty II? Well yes, as a matter of fact they all did, but what exactly can I do with that?

And sometimes I ask myself ‘Why a Beetle?’ and sometimes all the stuff that the Ferrous Kid says to Barry back in the first chapter about blankness and ubiquity seems like reason enough, and other times it doesn’t. Sometimes I think I might have chosen some other familiar, cultish, man-made object. Why not the Luger or the Zippo Lighter or the Fender Strat? But that’s another story, another obsession, another novel.

♦

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” says Barry Osgathorpe. “I can’t believe I’m sitting in a 747 about to fly to Los Angeles with a woman I hardly know.”

“You know me,” says Renata Caswell. “And you’ll get to know me even better now that I’m your ghost writer.”

“I don’t know that I need a ghost writer.”

“Yes you do, Barry. You have a story to tell. I want to hear it and I want to write it down for you.”

Barry has never flown before. It is all very strange and yet surprisingly mundane. The interior of the plane is so cheap and plastic, the muzak so dreadful. His fellow passengers look so ordinary and they’re taking this all so easily in their stride. None of them seems to be experiencing the same blend of excitement and uneasiness that he is.

“But why do I have to tell it you in America?” he asks.

“Because Barry, dear heart, having just been central in a national scandal involving an ex-Member of Parliament, a television weathergirl, neo-Nazis, New Age culture and exploding Volkswagens, it makes a lot of sense to get away for a while. A lot of very unsavoury hack journalists will be after you if you stay home. I’m here to protect you. Besides, you signed an exclusive contract with my newspaper, didn’t you?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It was a good idea. It still is.”

“But you’ve got the story already. Why do you need me?”

“You’re the story. You’re the human angle.”

“Am I really?”

The prospect doesn’t make him happy. He feels a ripple of tension building up inside him, and he’s not sure whether it’s fear of flying or fear of being a human angle.

“Besides,” says Renata, “you’ll like America.”

And yes, he thinks he believes her. He thinks he probably will enjoy the friendly people, the open roads, the big skies, the food. At least he thinks he will. At least he hopes he will. He is no longer sure what does and doesn’t give him pleasure. Somewhere back there, like Davey, he fears he may have lost the plot.

“So let me get this straight,” he says, “were you only ever involved with Phelan so that you could get a story?”

“Of course.”

“But you slept with him and everything.”

“I didn’t sleep exactly. I did what I had to do to get a story.”

“That’s dedication, or something,” says Barry. “So does that mean you’re not a neo-Nazi?”

“Come on Barry. Surely you can see that I’ve got old — fashioned liberal written all over me.”

He looks at her. He isn’t at all sure what’s written on her. She feels the need to assert her credentials again.

“You know me,” she insists.

“I know sod all.”