Moggerhanger Page 14

  The road was fairly free of traffic, so I mulled on Sophie, and wondered what sort of family she was from, what schooling she’d had and what job, though by her accent, manners and dress she was obviously of high quality. All I’d gathered was that her marriage was on the drift. I would have fished for more, but there hadn’t been time, with all we’d found to do. The further I got from the picture of her driving alone in the Rover, the more intense and longing were my thoughts. Never having been in thrall to the fact that ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’ made me more determined to see her on my way back from Greece.

  Traffic increased, so I sharpened my senses for safety. Other drivers drew level in the cut and thrust to look at the Roller, a rare car on the road. In driving long distance the first three days were the most dangerous, and any bad or fatal mishap was likely to take place in that period. So being still on the second day I drove as carefully as possible. By the third my intuition and body clock would have become synchronised, and thereafter I’d be in fair trim to finish the trip with neither accident nor incident.

  A little black hatchback, tall aerial waving that could be used for sending as well as receiving communications, had been in my mirror almost from Milan, but I supposed some car had to be. Now and again he dropped behind. Suddenly he overtook. Then I got by him with a gaggle of other cars. A vehicle of any shape or colour would allow my paranoia to get a toe hold, so I stopped thinking about whoever it might be.

  My speed was a sedate seventy, cars rocketting by with ease and delight at ninety or more. Even the lizziest tin lizzie could do such a speed, and when a motorist cut in too close I didn’t worry, dangerous though it seemed, knowing the driver to be laughing at the spectacle of plutocrat me in a trilby hat smoking a cigar at the wheel. I assumed every Italian was a good driver and knew what he was doing.

  Signs for Bergamo slid by, Brescia and Verona as well, and I was sorry at being unable to call at such famous places and see what they were like, but I was under Moggerhanger’s orders and couldn’t wander. Also, the more time saved on the outward trip the longer I’d be able to dawdle up the Adriatic and stay a couple of days with sublime Sophie on my way home.

  Famished after the meagre breakfast, I drove into a lay-by near Vicenza, a green hill rising towards the distant town, and a meadow over the fence pullulating with birds and insects, the day turning hot. A pick-up truck with a Fiat 500 on the back and, above that, a small speed boat on a specially constructed rack, didn’t seem too secure, so I parked some distance away should a wobble send the whole contraption onto the roof of Moggerhanger’s pet Rolls. A woman was followed out of a Gogomobile by a large Dalmatian which she addressed sharply as Caesar, and the dog immediately set about doing its business so copiously I expected it to deflate into a puppy and get back into the car with less trouble than it had taken on its exit.

  I cut into bread, cheese, pickles and salami with my genuine lambfoot clasp knife, becoming hungrier the more I ate. I threw a round of sausage to Caesar, but he sniffed and turned away as if my name was Brutus.

  Manoeuvering out, and thinking all was clear, a Lancia steaming up at a hundred and twenty—maybe my cigar had blocked him from the line of sight—missed my front bumper by an inch. Where the fuck did he come from? I could only suppose he waved good naturedly before getting ahead, but my hands trembled at the wheel for a few miles at such a stupid near miss. Deciding it might be better to go faster, at a hundred I felt like a Brand’s Hatch veteran recruited by the Foreign Office to show continental drivers that not all the British were sixty-mile-an-hour plodders, with cars full of kids, and yellow buckets, red spades, and luggage on the roof rack fastened down with flapping plastic.

  The little black hatchback, emerging from a lay-by beyond the one I’d stopped in, came right behind me again, the same aerials swaying up from the bonnet fair and square in my rear mirror. He was behind me till he overtook and turned off for Trieste. It might not have been trailing me after all, though I regretted the car hadn’t passed close enough for me to see who or what was inside.

  Off the motorway I handed the man in the booth a hundred-thousand lira note thinking it was a tenner, but he smiled at my mistake and gave the right change. If he hadn’t I might never have known, such honesty not to be forgotten, but telling me not to be so careless from then on.

  At the Jugoslav border I tanked up with petrol, had four cups of muddy coffee, and set off up the winding road between green and rounded hills. By four o’clock I’d reached Postojna and, fearful of nodding at the wheel after my short night, and sufficient distance having been clocked up for the day, I pulled into the forecourt of the Hotel Sisyphus for a nightstop which Alice Whipplegate had marked on the map. Who was I to dispute such wisdom and forethought?

  I showed my passport and was taken to a cabin between the trees, parking the car where it would be visible whenever I twitched the curtains. A notice on the wall said that after ten p.m. it was expected that silence would be maintained in all the rooms. Guests were kindly requested to cooperate. This endeared me to the place, for I had long thought that the curse of the twentieth century was noise, and the less there was the better.

  With much sleep to make up for I flopped on the bed and, to the singing of birds and an ambrosial breeze coming from eucalyptus trees, was unconscious in seconds.

  Before opening my eyes I had to search in the darkness behind them to decide where I was. A jazz band hammered so loud from the main building it nearly crumbled my eardrums. Evening was coming on while I washed, changed my jacket and tie, and went to the dining room. Soup, cutlets, chips and a bottle of wine had one half of me lively, while the other stayed as exhausted as if recovering from a mild stroke. The prefabricated ersatz of the place wouldn’t stand up to much argy-bargy if I complained too pointedly about the band. All I could do was soothe myself with regret that Sophie wasn’t with me, though it seemed so long since our encounter on the train I wasn’t sure we’d recognise each other passing on the street.

  The place was full of glum holidaymakers waiting to phone home and say how much they were enjoying life, so I queued twenty minutes at the booth and, according to instructions, called Lord Moggerhanger.

  “Michael?” he said.

  “That’s me.”

  “I’ve been waiting. Where are you?”

  I told him. “Just inside Jugoslavia.”

  “My finger’s running east from Milan, looking for it. Ah, here it is.” He laughed, neither a good nor a bad sign. I was too far away for him to bother me, anyway. “That’s top hole,” he said, as if I cared. “You’ve got a pin on my map all to yourself. Don’t you think that’s an honour?”

  “I do. Thank you very much.”

  “Keep on keeping on. Call a little earlier tomorrow.”

  I hung up—though imagined he beat me to it—and went to bed, falling asleep when the jungle-band piped down at eleven.

  After a good night under a warm ocean of unrememberable dreams, I paid two hundred dinars for my lodging, and stowed my briefcase in the car.

  I was always inspired by unknown territory, its sights and smells and mysterious expectations, and the unfamiliar horizons to lure me on. I threaded the Alpine houses of Planina, then floated along a stretch of motorway, the land lush and hilly. A young bloke in a pay booth coo-ed over the car, and asked my destination in precise English.

  “Sofia,” I said, having seen it on the Michelin map of Europe and liked the resonance.

  I agreed when he remarked it was a long way. He wanted to practice his English by saying he was a numismatist, and asking if I had a fifty-pence piece to complete his collection of queen-headed coins. I remembered a Jubilee Crown in my waistcoat pocket, and gave him that. As if unable to believe his luck he shoved a pack of local currency into the car, and when I scooped it up and handed it back he pushed it through the window again, told me to be careful on the road, and waved me on. I didn’
t want his money, but maybe it was a reward for spontaneously handing over my last Jubilee Crown, a gesture which might bring the luck I could yet need on my expedition.

  With so much traffic on the winding road it was impossible to overtake without the prospect of getting mangled, and sitting on the wrong side of the car made it difficult in any case. Scared, but in control, I trundled along, and beyond the Zagreb bypass the road was even more crowded. A bend brought a driver around on the wrong side, two more cars following as if competing in the foolhardy stakes of the Jugoslav Grand Prix. They had Sarajevo number plates, so must have been mindful of that fatal shot which started the First World War, and they were now trying for a third even at the cost of their lives. But I was no archduke, so ran my motor along the verge to let another madman in a souped-up pram get by.

  The possibility of never seeing Sophie again split each second into two, and kept me on absolute alert. It was Death Road, unremittingly perilous, with lay-bys so short that only three or four cars could park at the same time. Rubbish heaps reeking of oil and petrol made me afraid to light up. Bottles, rags, tins and plastic bags underfoot sent me gladly back on the road, happy only until I was on it. A cross with fading flowers decorated a field every few kilometres, or displayed a burnt-out saloon, all doors open and surrounded by scraps of charred luggage.

  Service stations were crowded with lorries on the Turkey and Middle East run, and clapped out Mercedes full of Turks going home from Germany, so jammed inside that nobody driving could see behind, luggage racks piled with mattresses and washing machines. I saw a dozen people get out of one car.

  Filling my waterbottle from a toilet tap, I hoped it hadn’t been through too many drivers guts. The coffee was like the boiled up Spanish root we chewed as kids—or some did—and I was even charged double for the rotten coffee.

  Miraculously, I found an empty and fairly clean lay-by fifty miles on. Beyond a few trees in a rock-strewn field, and not far from a farmhouse, was a respectable sort of lean-to shaded by a few bushes. To one side children played ‘in and out the windscreen’ of a car with its front smashed in. My camping gas was soon flaming on a pile of old bricks, and I put the kettle on, to brew a mug of the best tea.

  A man who came out of the lean-to seemed in a hurry to reach me. Instinct said get in the car and flee, but curiosity stopped me. He didn’t look like a beggar or appear threatening, yet wasn’t in the dress of a peasant either. He was a stocky man of about sixty—though he could have been forty in such a place—with plenty of grey beard fuzz around his features. His arms swung open the closer he got, highstepping between stones and furrows, a smile from one ear to the other as he came on.

  If I hadn’t found the lay-by by chance I might have thought him one of Moggerhanger’s mainland squad checking up on me. His wave was a kind of signal while stepping over the low wall, and he grabbed the hand not holding my mug. It was no surprise when he said in English: “Have they sent for me, then?”

  It was hard to talk, with juggernauts earthquaking both ways along the Ribbon of Death. “Sent for you? Who do you mean?”

  “Somebody should have,” he cried. “It’s time they did. I’ve been here seven years.”

  When he poked me in the ribs I was reminded of Jim Hawkins’ encounter with Ben Gunn in ‘Treasure Island’. “You don’t by chance have a jar of Marmite with you?”

  I took a pace back on saying that I didn’t.

  “Or a tin of Oxo?”

  He frowned at my laugh, his face turning so miserable I had to give him something to live for: “If I come back this way I’ll bring you some.”

  “But are you sure nobody sent you? I can’t believe they didn’t.”

  I poured him the last of my tea. “I’m a bona fide traveller. Nobody sends me anywhere. I’m surprised you asked.”

  He drank, gratefully. “You shouldn’t be. I thought you were from the British Embassy, or even the Foreign Office. The buggers promise now and again to send a car and get me out of here. They’re absolutely bloody heartless. Not that I’m sure I want to go. In fact I don’t think I do, not all that much, anyway. Sometimes I only think I want them to come and get me so that I can have the pleasure of telling them to piss off.” His blue eyes fixed me: “This is a rare mug of tea. I haven’t had such a good brew in a long time.”

  I rummaged around the boot and brought out an unopened packet. “Make yourself a few more when I’ve gone.”

  “Gone?” He looked distraught, even suspicious. “Are you sure you aren’t from the embassy? You wouldn’t deny me the thrill of telling you to leave me alone and get lost would you?”

  “You flatter me.” Assuming he was clearly off his head I nevertheless opened a packet of Huntley and Palmers, which he also found welcome, as who wouldn’t? I was so intrigued by the lunatic I would have given him everything except the car. “Do you live in that shack over there?”

  “Shack? You’ve got a cheek. It’s my abode. Neat and clean inside. I’ve lived there ever since it happened.” Tears fell down his face. “Things don’t get any easier to bear. But why should I expect ’em to, eh, you tell me that, go on, tell me.”

  “Best not to expect anything,” was all I thought of to say. He clearly didn’t live in such a forlorn shelter for the pleasure of eking out his existence in a foreign country, and that was a fact. I waited for him to go on.

  “It was like this, you see, my wife and two children were killed on this stretch of road seven years ago. Sometimes it seems an eternity, and at others it’s like only yesterday. And it wasn’t my fault. I wish it had been, then at least I could feel guilty.” He put half his drunk tea on a stone, and grabbed me by the collar and tie. “You believe that, don’t you?”

  I pushed him away. “I was never so sure in my life.”

  “That’s all right, then.” He picked up his tea. “I can’t bring myself to leave the place. They’re buried in the village cemetery. Usually I’m tending their graves at this time, but I’m glad I wasn’t today, otherwise I would have missed you.”

  He was evidently in need of conversation, being only human. “Do you go there every day?”

  The question brought more tears. “For an hour or two. It calms me down to be with them. There were two cars, you see, coming at a hundred miles an hour. They were side by side, so what could I do. If only we’d all gone together. But I was thrown clear, with hardly a scratch.”

  “What about the other cars?”

  “Flew away,” he laughed. “Flew away, as happy as sandboys. Just flew away.”

  “How do you manage here then, all by yourself?”

  “The local people are kind. They share as much as they can, because I don’t have any money to speak of. They give me my bread when they bake, and an egg now and again. When they kill a goat I get a bit of meat. They like me, because I speak their language now.”

  He took an offered cigarette, and lit up with pleasure from my lighter. I had to ask for it back, then told him to keep it, seeing the fuel half gone. “So you don’t really want to leave?”

  “Well, I sold up in London, didn’t I? Lived it up for a while, then the money I brought back kept me for the first few years. Between you and me,” he leaned closer, as if somebody could hear us through the terrible noise of lorries, “I’ve got an emergency amount to get to Godalming by third class train, if ever the mood takes me, but where would I go when I got there? There’s nothing for me in England anymore. And I’d miss being with my loved ones, wouldn’t I?”

  I could have cried at his plight, but didn’t. His clothes were worn, yet he’d kept himself clean. At my staring too closely he said: “I have a decent suit to go to the village church in once a month.”

  I gave him a jar of coffee, a carton of cigarettes, another packet of tea, the dinars the man had given me for the Crown Piece, and all my newspapers. “You’re a gentleman,” he said. “But are you sure you’re not
from the embassy?”

  “I’d know, if I was, wouldn’t I?”

  I hoped he believed me, and left him, a forlorn figure clutching his packets. I wondered if he was who he said he was. He could have been a criminal who had found a fairly good hideout from justice, which would explain his anxiety about a messenger from the embassy bringing his extradition papers. His story was so outlandish that, charging on towards Belgrade, I mulled on his fate and wondered whether he wouldn’t languish there till death. I could call at the embassy in Belgrade and show them where he was on the map, demand that someone get him back to England’s social security system, and if he really didn’t want to go he could at least enjoy telling them to piss off. Maybe they did know about him already, and his abusive letters sent on by passing motorists every few weeks berating the heartlessness at not assisting a stranded man were the bane of the ambassador’s life. I didn’t know what to think, but there was nothing I could do about it, so he’s probably still there.

  I massaged the rims of both eyes on seeing a little black hatchback in my mirror, certainly the same car that had trailed me from Milan as far as the Trieste turn off. He must have rejoined the motorway without my noticing, and followed me into Jugoslavia. Was he Moggerhanger’s unobtrusive (and unsolicited) escort to make sure I kept to the itinerary, to check that I didn’t hand the briefcase to the wrong person, or abscond to Scandinavia with the material taken on board? I doubted it. Though Moggerhanger’s arms had a longer reach than Kenny Dukes’, he knew I would never be so idiotic as to screw things up in that way.

  There seemed no doubt that I was being followed, so who was it? I mustn’t let the motorist know that I twigged he was following me, that’s all I knew. If he’d had me under observation while handing those packets to the unfortunate bloke in the lay-by he’d have gone hot-footed to burgle the shack and check the colour of the Nescafe. Had that been the case the poor castaway would have thought the embassy was getting at him again, and his loud histrionic piss off would have been audible all the way back to Zagreb.