Джонатан Коу - Middle England

‘I suppose Huxley expressed it better than anyone,’ she said, taking the plunge.

Ian was puzzled. ‘Who?’

‘Aldous Huxley,’ Sophie explained. ‘The novelist and philosopher. He wrote Brave New World .’

He still gave no indication of recognizing the name. ‘OK. And what did he have to say?’

‘He said that the nearest thing we have to a new drug is the drug of speed. “Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.” ’

Naheed and Ian, who until now had given the impression of having heard pretty much everything during their time teaching these courses, exchanged a brief glance. Implicit in the glance was a question about which of them was going to deal with this unexpected contribution. Sophie was impressed by the quickness of understanding between them, the wordless ease with which an agreement was reached.

Ian approached her, and sat on the edge of her desk.

‘So, speed for you is like a drug, yeah?’ he said, smiling.

She nodded, and smiled back. They both seemed to know perfectly well that she wasn’t being serious.

‘And you were doing thirty-seven miles an hour?’

She nodded again. His smile was very disarming.

‘Well, you weren’t exactly mainlining heroin, were you? That would be doing … about eighty, I’d say.’

Sophie remained silent, while continuing to hold his gaze.

‘Or snorting crack cocaine. What would that be – sixty miles an hour, fifty?’ When she still didn’t answer, he went on: ‘Whereas, thirty-seven in a thirty limit? In drug-taking terms, that’s a bit like … oh, I don’t know, putting two teaspoons of coffee in your cup instead of one.’

There was a chorus of chuckles from around the room.

‘I think the point my colleague is trying to make,’ said Naheed, ‘is that it’s a nice quote, but perhaps you were just trying to impress us. More likely that you were in a bit of a hurry to catch your train, or something like that.’

Sophie was still enjoying the last few moments of amused, appraising eye contact with Ian, and only really caught the end of this comment. She did notice, however, that there was a quiet authority in Naheed’s voice as she said it, as there was in everything that she said throughout the session. Her knowledge and experience commanded respect, even though the resentment felt by some of the men at being lectured on this subject by a woman – by an Asian woman – was palpable. Sitting next to Sophie was a ruddy-faced, middle-aged man in a business suit with tousled white hair and a permanent air of barely suppressed contempt. His name was Derek, he had been clocked doing fifty-three miles an hour in a forty limit because ‘I know that bit of road like the back of my hand’, and the hostility he felt towards Naheed already seemed to extend to Sophie as well, after she had rebuffed some of his early, heavy-handed attempts at conspiratorial humour.

Halfway through the afternoon the class broke for refreshments – Ian and Naheed did not join them, but withdrew to some private space of their own – after which they were divided into two groups in order to watch videos illustrating a number of different driving scenarios and the dangers inherent in them. Sophie and Derek were in the same group, with Naheed as their leader.

‘Now, take a good look at this stretch of suburban street,’ she said, freeze-framing the screen and emphasizing details with her pointer. ‘Look at the signage, look at the possible obstructions and hazards. Tell me what the speed limit is, and tell me what speed you would consider it safe to drive at in these circumstances.’

After some discussion Sophie’s group correctly identified the speed limit as thirty miles an hour (although many of them guessed wildly, and wrongly), but when she went on to suggest that it would be prudent to drive at twenty on this occasion, Derek was adamant that thirty miles an hour was perfectly appropriate.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Naheed answered. ‘Your friend is right, in this case.’

‘That’s your opinion,’ said Derek.

‘Yes, it is, and everybody is entitled to their opinion, which is not the same as saying that everybody’s opinion is as valuable as everybody else’s. What did you say you did for a living, sir?’

‘I’m a retail manager. Sports equipment, mainly.’

‘Good. Then, when it comes to sports equipment, your opinion is more valuable than mine. But perhaps, when it comes to road safety –’

‘I’ve been driving for forty years,’ he interrupted. ‘And I’ve never had an accident. Why should I take lessons from someone like you?’

There was a beat, a flicker, while Naheed registered the impact of those last three words, but it was so fast you could hardly notice it, and she answered, with perfect composure:

‘You see that sign? Of course you do, and you know that it means there is a school in this street. Can you see the entrance to the school? No, because this van, parked on the right-hand side, will be obstructing your view until you are right alongside it. So there is a good chance a little girl might come out from behind this van without you seeing her. At twenty miles an hour you will hurt her badly. At thirty miles an hour you will probably kill her. But if you drive along this part of the street at thirty miles an hour, it’s true that you will probably shorten your journey by five seconds or so. So that’s the equation. Those are the two things you have to weigh up against each other. Five seconds of your life, versus the whole of somebody else’s. Five seconds, versus a whole lifetime.’ She paused, her eyes still gleaming, the rumour of a smile still spreading from the edges of her mouth. ‘Is it a difficult decision? I don’t think so. Perhaps you do.’

Her smile was a challenge, now, a weapon, aimed directly at Derek. He glared back at her, but said nothing.

When the class was over, Sophie found herself sharing a lift with him. He nodded in curt recognition, then looked away, and for a moment she thought they were going to ride down to street level in silence. But then he said:

‘Well, there’s four hours of my bloody life I’m never going to get back.’

Sophie weighed her response carefully: ‘Better than getting those points on your licence, though, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Derek. ‘I think that’s what I’d go for, next time, instead of having to sit there being lectured by that sanctimonious b—’

Sophie didn’t answer at first. She was simply relieved that he had tailed off without actually saying the word. It wasn’t until they stepped out into the wintry air of Colmore Row, the huddles of office workers making for the stations and the bus stops, the endless ebb and flow of traffic, the late-afternoon sky as black as midnight, that she said: ‘I’m sure the other guy would have said exactly the same things.’ Then she added his name, ‘Ian,’ without knowing why. It was unnecessary, really.

Derek’s route home, whatever it was, lay in the opposite direction to hers. But he had a parting shot for her.

‘Do you know what that was?’ he said. ‘What we saw, this afternoon?’ And before she had time to speak, he answered his own question: ‘The new fascism.’ He raised his arm in a gesture of farewell and said: ‘Welcome to Britain, 2010. Cheerio!’

‘Drive safely,’ Sophie answered, and they turned away from each other, taking their different paths.

*

Sophie had only walked a few yards before she ducked into the nearest Starbucks, deciding that a bucket of milky coffee was what she needed before facing the quiet rigours of another evening in her father’s company.

Mocha in hand, she looked around for a seat, and saw that Naheed was sitting, alone, at a table by the window. She gravitated towards her but then, not wanting to appear presumptuous, took a seat at an empty table nearby. But Naheed had seen her, and gave her a little wave and a nod of the head, which Sophie chose to interpret as an invitation.