Mad driving

I stuck my head out of the window and waved until my arms ached and my mother and little sister became specks on the platform. The early April day was gentle, the train warm, but there was no way I was going to risk another passenger pinching my black suede bikers’ jacket with its swanky red sateen lining from the overhead luggage rack. No way. No way Jose. I slumped down on the mottled blue velour seat, propping my pointy-toed boots on the edge of the bench opposite, and slid a cassette into my knock-off Walkman.

The red-lipsticked woman on the other side of the carriage crinkled her forehead and stared disapprovingly at my feet on the seat. I paid her no attention. After all, she was at least 30 and so old she was practically dead, and what did she know? I shut my eyes and settled back to listen to another play-through of Bauhaus’s Greatest Hits Volume 1 (1979-1983) that I’d taped carefully from the vinyl on my second hand stereo deck last night. Just my stupid luck that I’d been born a bit too late to have been old enough to go and see them play live at that last gig in Paris before they split.

It was 1986, I was 17 and a third, I was on the way to Scotland for two weeks, I was on my own, I had a rucksack full of tapes and books and pens and stripy tights, and everything in my world was a rockin’ and a rollin’ just mighty fine. Mighty fine and dandy, thank you, ma’m.

It was dark by the time I reached Dunfermline and I was starving. I had been to Uncle George’s house before, hundreds of years ago when I was about 12 or something, but I still had to ask the bus conductor where to get off.
“Where does that lovely accent come from, my bonnie lassie?” he smiled, in reply to my question.
Bonnie lassie? Couldn’t he see my black suede jacket, my black silk shirt, my black leggings, my backcombed hair? That’s the trouble with old people, no sense of cool. “Er, Kent?”. Derrr.

I was vaguely aware of Uncle George’s two grandsons staring at me from the other side of the table as I ate my pie and chips. They hadn’t taken their eyes off me from the moment I’d arrived and they watched me now, buttering a slice of white bread, arranging my chips inside it, folding it in half and taking a great big bite. They copied at once, grabbing slices from the bread bag, smearing them with margarine and stuffing them with tomato sauce-smothered chips. Mouths agape for the first bite, an almighty roar came from the kitchen door that stopped the little boys dead.
“What do you think you’re doing?” bellowed Uncle George, whisky tumbler in hand, “I already told you. No. Chip. Sandwiches.”.
The boys’ heads sank to the table top along with the forbidden treats as Uncle George glowered ferociously through slightly pink slightly out of focus eyes. I was puzzled. Surely everyone knew that these were called chip butties?

The next morning, Uncle George made me two boiled eggs and introduced me to his car. I couldn’t wait to learn to drive and his old green Morris Marina surely was my key to the gateway of the kingdom of highway freedom. We started off, heading for an industrial estate on the outskirts of town. After an eternity of listening to him blethering on about, oh I dunno, biting points and clutches and mirrors and blah blah blah blah blah, he pulled over and got out of the car.
“Go on then, Katy Jane, your turn”

It stalled immediately of course. And the next time. And the time after that. Accelerator, clutch, foot brake, handbrake, steering wheel, mirrors, indicators, how on earth were you supposed to do this stuff, like, all at the same time? I mean, if even really, really old people like Uncle George and Aunty Betty in Birkenhead could drive a car, it couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

By the end of our first lesson, my palms were sweaty and Uncle George and I were hardly speaking to each other. I had (finally) managed to move the car away from the kerb, force it into second gear and fly down the middle of the road. I daringly moved my eyes away from the windscreen just for a nanosecond. Fifteen miles an hour. It felt like I was flying. We changed seats again and drove back to his house in silence. I think I heard him open a bottle in the kitchen during the hissing prelude to the tape through my headphones.

We established a routine over the next two weeks. Two boiled eggs, two cups of tea, two hours driving and a stop at the local Co-op on the way home to buy some pies and a bottle and a newspaper. He sometimes went out in the afternoons and left me in the house on my own. I turned his stereo up loud and sang along to The Cure or David Bowie or Depeche Mode and phoned my friends at home from his white telephone in the hallway. In the evenings, we sat and watched the telly, me reading or doodling in my jotter, him drinking whisky until he fell asleep with the half-full glass in his hand and the newspaper open in his lap. A couple of times, he went upstairs to the bathroom and came back down playing a full sized accordion.

By the time the fortnight had passed and it was time to say goodbye, I think we’d reached a mutual understanding of non-comprehension but a level of liking all the same. He let me drive all the way to the station up and down Dunfermline’s hills without wincing once. I gave him some toffees that I’d bought on my day out in Edinburgh. The box had a picture of the castle and a piper in a kilt on it. I’d bought some more headphones in Edinburgh too, the very cool brand new ones that fitted right into your ears. I wedged them in as the train pulled out and settled back to enjoy a melodic journey back down south.


My mother sent Uncle George some money for the phone bill a few weeks after I got home. I did pass my driving test, with thanks to a knitting needle and a couple of bricks, the following year. But perhaps that’s a story for another day.