Still life with Volkswagens

Nine. Bonfire of the Volkswagens

Mrs Lederer moves around her apartment, plumping a cushion here, making a minor adjustment to a flower arrangement there. She wants the room to look right. Somehow she knows — he’s about to arrive. She doesn’t know his name or what he will look like, but she wants to be absolutely ready for him. She hears tyres on the gravel and she looks out to see a Mercedes pulling into the drive. The car stops and a man gets out, a complete stranger, and yet there is no-mistaking him. It could only be Phelan. He looks strong and determined, eager but not hasty.

He rings the front doorbell and she waits a moment before going to answer it. She checks herself in the hallway mirror then opens the door wide and invites him in. He had imagined that he might have to use persuasion, coercion, even force on Mrs Lederer but her manner is entirely open and cooperative. It looks like there will be no problems here.

“Mrs Lederer,” he says. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

She smiles and nods but says nothing.

“You have something I want,” he adds.

“Yes,” she says. “I think I do.”

“Have you been expecting me?”

“You or someone like you.”

He nods sympathetically, a family doctor making a house call. “And you know why I’m here.”

“I can guess. Long before Carlton Bax disappeared, he gave me a package. I thought it was a slightly odd present at the time but I tried to look grateful. When Marilyn disappeared too, I made one or two deductions and suspected that someone would be coming to reclaim that present sooner or later.”

“I think you’re being very sensible about this,” he says. “Now show me the Volkswagen.”

“It’s upstairs,” she says and she leads him from the living room up to her bedroom. The bed is unmade’and the room smells of bodies.

She goes over to a carved oak chest at the foot of the bed and lifts the lid. She tries hard to be casual. She reaches inside and pulls out an old but innocuous looking cardboard box, no more than a foot long. It is scuffed, discoloured and it has some indecipherable German writing on it. She hands it to Phelan. He takes it from her as though it might explode. His hands betray a slight tremor as he places the box on the dressing table and carefully opens it. Within is a small glass case with a wooden base, and set on that base is the object of all his needs and fascination; Paul Loffler’s automaton, Hitler’s Beetle.

He removes the cardboard box, takes off the glass case and stares fixedly at the naked reality of the model. He glances up at the angled dressing table mirrors and sees three reflections of the car and himself, multiple images that project through time and history.

He touches the handle delicately, just the way Adolf Hitler must have done all those years ago. He knows it is only his imagination, and yet the brass of the handle feels hot, as though there is some potent electric current coursing through it. He begins to turn the handle and gently, slowly, the sun roof of the Volkswagen rolls back. He sees the naked figures of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, delicate, absurd, utterly obscene. He can hear the whirr of tiny gears and cams moving effortlessly inside the car. The operation is smooth and reassuring. With every turn he can feel his powers growing. Now that he has this, nothing can stop him.

He prolongs the sequence, savouring each movement of the model figures, each turn of the mechanism, until both he and the automaton of Adolf Hitler can delay no longer and the tiny shower of diamond dust sprays from Hitler’s oversized bone penis and the sun roof snaps shut.

Phelan is aware that he has an erection, but it is not because the pornography of the automaton has aroused him. It has more to do with power, with the anticipation of conquest and domination. He is also aware that his skin feels like sandpaper, that the light in the bedroom has become thickly luminous and that he may be about to sob.

He tries to collect himself. Swiftly but lovingly he returns the Volkswagen to its case and then to its box. He picks it up, holds it firmly in both of his big, beringed hands.

Suddenly Mrs Lederer slaps him across the face with all her might. It is a spiteful and shocking blow, delivered with a strength that comes from some fierce, surprising place deep inside her.

“If you’ve done anything to my daughter…” she says.

“Your daughter is just fine,” he says. “She’s with her boyfriend.”

She says nothing.

He rubs his cheek, at least partly in admiration of her power.

“You’ve done well, Mrs Lederer,” he says. “You’ve done the right thing in handing over the automaton. When this whole business is over, I could have a need of someone like you.”

She stares at him coldly, a little contemptuously, and yet there is something in her face that tells him that their needs might not be entirely at odds.

♦

On Friday afternoon they start to arrive. They come from everywhere, with their different hopes and expectations and modes of transport. The New Agers come in their buses and vans and converted ambulances, and some even on foot. The Volkswagen enthusiasts arrive in their campers and Bajas, their splits and ovals, their Karmann Ghias and Jeans and Super Beetles, some Cal look, some Resto-Cal, some customised, some completely standard. The camp followers arrive too. For the New Agers there are vegetarian food stalls, tarot readers, astrologists, vendors of crystals and aura goggles. For the Volkswagen enthusiasts there are the sellers of dress-up engine parts, customisers, engine tuners and rebuilders, dealers who specialise in Volkswagen toys and collectables.

Inevitably there is some confusion. Sam Probert has organised a few stewards to direct people as they arrive, but the stewards themselves are not organised at all, and so, especially at first, some Volkswagen fans end up in the New Age field, and vice versa. But gradually the build up of Volkswagens in one field and of New Age culture in the other ensures that a moment comes when no such mistake can be made. There is a small police presence, and they do their best to remain friendly yet formal.

Both crowds are surprisingly diverse. Among the Gathering of the Tribes there are many genuine full-time New Age travellers, but there are also plenty of old hippies, crusties, punks, a few bikers, and more than a smattering of clean and healthy looking youngsters who seem to have borrowed Mum’s hatchback and are playing at being New Age for the weekend. There are even one or two skinheads, though not of the neo-Nazi variety.

Those attending Bug Mecca are also varied in their own way. Some are family groups out for a weekend’s camping, while others are history buffs and are driving thrillingly authentic antique Volkswagens. Some are trendy young things in immaculate, restored Beetles, while others try to look like California surfers.

Moreover, a certain number of visitors are interested in both events. Some old hippies are interested in Volkswagens. Some Volkswagen enthusiasts are into things New Age. Fans of rave culture are at home in either camp. People pass back and forth between the two fields, sometimes in Volkswagens, often not, and they are able to partake of both Volkswagen and New Age worlds.

One or two locals are happy enough to welcome the visitors; mostly the owners of the local garages, supermarkets and off licences, who do a brisk trade. They tend to welcome the Volkswagen people more than the New Age travellers because, in the main, the former spend more money, but when Planetary Cliff arrives at the petrol station in his double-decker bus and fills it up with diesel, he’s made to feel very welcome indeed. Nevertheless, the people who said it was a disgrace, that there would be chaos, noise and smells, dogs and children, people revving their engines and loud music and drugs, unprotected sex and people peeing in the street, still feel they’re going to be proved absolutely right.

In fact Planetary Cliff is one of the first to arrive, naturally enough, since he’s the one providing the music for the Gathering of the Tribes. Many hours are spent unloading his bus and setting up his vast sound system in a corner of the field furthest from the caravan site. Cliff tries to be considerate.

A stage is rapidly constructed out of scaffolding and old boards, and it has a navy blue back cloth with suns, moons and holy symbols painted on it. A lighting rig will illuminate the stage at night, and there is a row of microphones so that Planetary Cliff, or anyone else, can address the crowd and share some cosmic wisdom with them.

Cliff never has any shortage of helpers on these occasions, and the most enthusiastic helper here by far is Davey.

“Looks like I’m finally going to do it,” says Davey.

“What’s that?” Planetary Cliff asks.

“Get to dance in a field till dawn, out of my head on Ecstasy.”

“Well,” says Cliff, “whatever gets you through the night.”

“Think it’ll be easy to get some E?”

“I dare say.”

“You know, I was talking to a girl a few minutes ago and she said the Earth Goddess is talking to us in our dreams. What do you think about that?”

“I think she might be a very good source of drugs,” says Planetary Cliff.

♦

In Barry’s caravan site a siege mentality has started to take hold. Most of the inmates have declared that they’re not setting foot outside the site until this whole sordid business is over. Thus they will avoid all contact with, and risk of pollution from, the invading hordes. A sort of road block has been set up at the entrance to the site and teams of men are working as sentries to vet anyone who attempts to enter. Another small team of vigilantes patrols the perimeter. This does not make for a pleasant or relaxing atmosphere.

Even Barry has thought of going away for the whole of this festive weekend. Fond though he is of Volkswagens he doesn’t want to spend the whole weekend watching them come and go, seeing and hearing them being put through their paces, listening to the sound of their air-cooled engines, their sports exhausts, their in-car stereos. And he certainly doesn’t want to have to put up with an all night New Age rave on the other side.

So he thinks of going to Southend for the weekend to renew contact with Fat Les and to get him involved in repairing Enlightenment. He rings Fat Volkz Inc but fails to speak to Fat Les. Instead, an extremely young boy answers the phone and says he can’t be of any help because he’s just there holding the fort and everybody else has gone to the Bug Mecca being held near Filey. Fat Volkz is having a trade stand there and if he’s absolutely desperate to speak to Fat Les he could always go there. Once again Barry is amazed by the extent to which the world seems to bring him what he wants when he wants it. This has saved him the problem of driving to Southend. However, there is still the problem of Charles Lederer.

The old man has settled into his new environment rather well. Barry has not succeeded in organising a tent for him. More precisely, he found a tent without any trouble, but Charles Lederer is refusing to sleep in it. By the time Barry had returned from the angry meeting with Sam Probert, Lederer had installed himself in Barry’s caravan and he now shows no sign of budging. The old guy is still obviously in a state of shock and distress, and Barry doesn’t want to be hard on him, so for the time being Barry has returned to sleeping, and indeed living, in Enlightenment.

Charles Lederer spends a lot of time asleep and Barry has no objection to that. He thinks, in fact, it might be very much for the best if the old man could remain unconscious for the whole weekend. If Charles Lederer wanders out of the caravan site and finds himself standing in a field with a couple of thousand Volkswagens, then Barry fears the worst.

♦

Fat Les arrives at Bug Mecca early on Friday. The Fat Volkz trade stand is extremely impressive. It consists of a small marquee in which there are display boards showing before and after photographs of some of the best Beetles he’s restored or customised. A bank of video screens shows these same cars in action, though neither photographs nor videos show Enlightenment nor any of the eight neo-Nazi Beetles. In the centre of the marquee is a wretched looking, rusty, dented pale blue Beetle that a couple of the lads will be knocking back into shape and giving a tricksy paintjob over the course of the weekend.

Les has some very flashy lines of Volkswagen accessories for sale; louvred wings and running boards, pink and black leather replacement door panels, a gear lever encrusted with diamantes and turquoise. But what he prefers to offer is a total service. He says he wants his customers to put themselves entirely in his hands, to free their minds and to dream up their wildest Volkswagen fantasies, and then he will make those fantasies a reality.

At least that’s what he says to his more gullible customers. Now, as he stands in this flat, dreary field surrounded by Volkswagens, their owners and their drivers, he once again feels overwhelmed, bored, satiated, nauseated by their insistent presence. He wouldn’t mind seeing the whole bloody lot of them blown up.

♦

Sure enough, Phelan’s skinheads also arrive that Friday evening; forty of them, five per car as demanded by Phelan. Of course, they had no idea that there would be a Bug Mecca in the field adjacent to the Gathering of the Tribes, and they are more than surprised to find themselves the subject of considerable curiosity and attention from Beetle fans. They are directed into Bug Mecca even though that’s not where they want to go, and once inside, a small crowd gathers around the cars. There’s a general admiration for the work that’s gone into their Beetles, though several people make disparaging remarks about the presence of swastikas and SS flashes on the paintwork. At first the skinheads find all this hard to take, but Butcher points out to his cohorts that a Volkswagen meeting is just about the perfect place from which to launch their attacks on the New Agers. It provides them with a reason to be there and a lot of cover. If their victims report that they were beaten up by somebody in a Volkswagen, that isn’t going to tell anybody very much, is it?

♦

Friday night passes off more or less peaceably. There is some scattered rowdiness and partying in both fields. There is no doubt a little drug and drink abuse, and certainly there is music and dancing. But the partying remains non-violent, the intake of drink and drugs remains moderate, and Planetary Cliff’s sound system, vast though it is, stays quiet enough to avoid complaints from police or locals, and it is turned off before midnight. Not long after that, both fields become calm, quiet and dormant. Camp fires burn here and there, and the occasional Beetle cruises the local roads, but there is nothing going on here that need frighten or threaten the local community. But then again, this is only Friday night.

It is Saturday morning before reports begin to circulate that several New Age travellers have been beaten up and robbed in the night. These attacks are declared to have been cowardly and unprovoked, carried out anonymously, viciously and under cover of darkness. Unseen fists, boots and baseball bats have emerged from the darkness, and none of the victims is able to describe the attackers; certainly none could specify that he was beaten up by Volkswagen-driving neo-Nazi skinheads.

♦

Saturday morning. Dawn breaks. Pale sunlight moves over the fields and the caravan site, over Volkswagens and caravans and tatty old buses, over holidaymakers and New Age travellers and Beetle drivers alike. Slowly things come to life. At the edge of Bug Mecca a group of skinheads is seen performing exercises, martial arts moves and occasional Nazi salutes. It is quite clear to those camping nearby that these boys are up to no good, but so far their misdeeds have been entirely clandestine and they have created no cause for concern. Furthermore, the campers reason, any group of lads that drives such a tasty set of Volkswagens can’t be all bad.

This is to be the big day of the Bug Mecca. There will be an engine changing competition, a concours d’elegance, and a Miss V-Bug competition, although so far there are only two entrants for that. There will be continuous showings of the Herbie movies in a darkened marquee for the children. There will be an autojumble and swapmeet, and a display of Beetle dragsters, although they won’t be allowed to drive anywhere, and there is the promise of an ‘engine destruct’ — an event where an old Beetle engine is over-revved until it destroys itself.

It will be a big day for the Gathering of the Tribes too. There will be any number of workshops and seminars on Tai Chi and water divining and on how to spot a spiritual vortex. There will be chanting and meditation. There will be demonstrations of tattooing, massage and reflexology. All good stuff. But it is hoped that at some point the tribes will not only gather, but actually merge, so that there will be a loss of self, to be replaced by a feeling of oneness, a blending into the group mind. To this end Planetary Cliff will be playing some extremely loud music and everyone will dance and take a lot of drugs; just as Davey dreamed. However, since these activities will take place throughout a long, sleepless night, things are a little slow to get moving in the New Age field; everyone is resting up for the rigours ahead.

Fat Les is up bright and early. A lot of potential customers will need to be chatted up in the course of the day and he has to be ready for them. He has to appear civil, friendly, welcoming, enthusiastic. None of this will be easy for him, so he takes his first big drink of the day at a little after nine-thirty.

Barry wakes early enough too; not surprising, given the level of comfort to be found sleeping on the back seat of Enlightenment. He gets up, goes across to the shower block and ablutes. There’s a perfectly good shower unit in his own caravan but he doesn’t want to risk waking Charles Lederer. He knows the old guy is hardly likely to sleep solidly for the whole of the next two days but Barry intends to spend the afternoon and evening with him in the caravan, talking about life and death and other Zen topics, and thereby ensuring that he doesn’t see the hordes of Volkswagens. With this in mind he plans an early visit to Fat Les, so that with any luck he’ll be back before Lederer even stirs. Nevertheless, just to make sure, he locks the door of his caravan before departing.

He goes on foot to the Bug Mecca, since there is already a traffic jam forming along the roads surrounding the caravan site. He comes to the entrance gate and pays the exorbitant entrance fee. He wanders between the rows of parked Volkswagens and the trade stands for a good spell before he finds Fat Les. He sees the Fat Volkz marquee and as he enters he sees Les holding court with a group of enthusiasts. He comes up behind him and says loudly, “I’ve got a Volkswagen I’d like you to take a look at.”

Fat Les turns to see who’s talking to him, and when he sees it’s Barry, he turns back in disgust.

“It’s Enlightenment,” Barry persists. “It needs some attention.”

“Yeah?” sneers Les. “Take it to your approved dealer.”

“Please,” says Barry. “Why this hostility?”

“If you don’t know…”

“Please tell me. Please express your anger. Get it off your chest.”

Les doesn’t need asking twice.

“You let me down, you bastard. I asked you for help. I asked you to help clear my name. I asked you to find Charles bloody Lederer, and you wouldn’t.”

“But I would. I did.”

“What?”

“I looked for Charles Lederer. I found him. I caught him.”

“Did you hand him over to Cheryl Bronte?”

“No, he’s locked up in my caravan.”

“Are you serious about this?” Les asks. “You’re not just winding me up?”

“I’m serious,” says Barry. “He’s at the caravan site not two hundred yards from here. Of course the old guy swears he never blew up any Volkswagens but I must say I don’t believe him.”

“I may have misjudged you,” says Fat Les. “Have a drink.”

Fat Les gets rid of his customers and Barry tells him about the various adventures he’s had while finding Charles Lederer, although he omits the stuff about Marilyn apparently being in love with someone else, and he tells him about the damage that was inflicted on Enlightenment. Fat Les is sorry to hear about the damage but he’s confident that Fat Volkz Inc can make it as good as new. In fact he’s come up with one or two new modifications that he thinks might fit very nicely into the existing structure of the car. Barry is thrilled. They’re soon talking like the friends they once were. They begin to reminisce, to discuss the old times and this takes them several hours.

It is mid-morning when Phelan arrives in the nearby village and starts chatting to the local inhabitants. Has there been any trouble yet? Have there been fights, robberies, drugs and sex? When people tell him there haven’t, he begins to wonder whether his boys have been slacking. Outside the caravan site he encounters the Ferrous Kid.

“Have you seen signs of trouble?” he asks.

“No,” says the Kid.

“Don’t worry, there’ll be trouble soon enough.”

“Will there?” asks the kid. “All the ones I’ve met have been peaceable enough.”

“Well that’s precisely the problem, isn’t it? People aren’t always what they seem?”

“You mean that you might really be a hippie in disguise?”

“I mean,” he says sternly, “that people may look like good solid Englishmen but they turn out to be cosmopolitan riff raff. Someone ought to teach them a lesson.”

“What are you?” the Kid asks.

“I’m sorry?”

“Well I thought you must be a journalist or something, but you don’t ask eno’ugh questions.”

“I’m just an interested party,” he says.

“But for all I know, given that people aren’t always what they seem, you could be cosmopolitan riff raff, couldn’t you?”

“How old are you?”

“Nine and a half.”

“Well let me assure you child, there’s nothing cosmopolitan about me,” he says proudly and makes a dignified withdrawal.

The Ferrous Kid thinks this may turn out to be one of the great weekends of his young life. He sees all these Beetles arriving, in all their myriad styles and finishes, and his heart feels big within his chest. He stands at the edge of the Bug Mecca, watching all those gorgeous Beetles, and he feels spoiled for choice. Which one will he steal first?

♦

Phelan needn’t have worried about his boys. The gang of skinheads are soon on the job of causing localised outbreaks of casual aggro. They enter the Gathering of the Tribes, split up into small groups and start creating trouble. Some of them pinch girls’ bottoms and squeeze their breasts. Some start pissing very conspicuously onto a row of tents where people are still sleeping. Others get into a fight over the price of food with the owner of a vegetarian food stall. A fortune teller’s tent gets turned over. A couple of skinheads go up to Planetary Cliff and say that if he knows what’s good for him he’ll play a lot of music by the Upsetters in the course of the day. Planetary Cliff, of course, has plenty of reasons to hate and fear skinheads, especially since they beat him up in a lay-by at the beginning of the summer, but the ones who speak to him, being new recruits, weren’t part of that attack, and besides. Cliff isn’t averse to a bit of reggae now and then, so he doesn’t argue.

The skinheads move through the crowd, knocking food and drink from people’s hands, pushing people out of the way, and if anyone protests they threaten serious violence. None of this is exactly evil, and much of it isn’t even directly confrontational. The threats so far remain just threats, and when resisted the skinheads tend to back down. They don’t want a pitched battle, not yet. But word soon gets out that they’re around and looking for trouble, and even though they’re few enough in number, they still manage to create a feeling of unease and distrust, and that is exactly as intended.

♦

And still they come. Zak arrives in the late morning in his metallic turquoise and peppermint green Beetle with the suicide doors. He’d been contemplating bringing it along to Bug Mecca with a view to selling it, but since his brush with the skinheads he feels it’s his duty to keep the car. If he got rid of it now, that would be as good as letting the neo-Nazis win. But he has a much better reason for coming. The memory of his sexual encounter with Mrs Lederer is still very vivid, and that encounter seemed to take place entirely because of the car he drives. He could handle some more encounters like that one, and if the kind of women who melt at the sight of a man in a cool Volkswagen are to be found anywhere, they are surely to be found at an event like Bug Mecca. He has high hopes for the weekend.

♦

Eventually Barry realises he ought to get back to his caravan site and to Charles Lederer. He’s been away longer than he intended. Fat Les says he’ll come over and have a look at the damage to Enlightenment when he gets a quiet moment, though that probably won’t be till the early evening. Barry says he’ll look forward to it. Fat Les also seems extremely keen to cross-question Charles Lederer about exploding Volkswagens, although Barry assures him it will be hard work to get much sense out of the old man.

Barry hurries back. In places the crowds and traffic are now so dense he has to fight his way through. He notices that the music coming from the Gathering of the Tribes is getting louder all the time, but he supposes that’s the way it is with tribal gatherings. He gets to the caravan site, nods to the two caravanners who are manning the roadblock at the gate and tries to enter.

“Here, what’s your game?” the first of them says.

“Game?” asks Barry. “I’m going to my caravan, that’s all.”

“Your caravan? You don’t look the type to be enjoying a caravan holiday.”

Barry scratches his stubble, considers his blue leather motorcycle suit and realises this is true.

“I’m not on holiday,” he says. “I live here.”

“Then why haven’t we seen you around?”

“I’ve been on the road. On a quest.”

“Oh sure.”

“I do live here. Really.”

“It’s all right son, we know what you’re up to. You’re trying to get into the site to do a bit of thieving so you can support your drug habit, aren’t you?”

“No,” Barry protests. “I live here. Be reasonable.”

They laugh at him.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” says one of them. “We’ll stand here blocking your way and if you try to get past us we’ll break both your legs. How’s that for reasonable?”

Barry can tell they mean it. He slinks away, smarting with the unfairness of it all, and wondering how and when he’ll get back in to the site. He’s more concerned than ever about Charles Lederer. He has to think what to do next but can’t think of anything better than going back to Bug Mecca. He reasons that if Charles Lederer does leave the safety of the caravan and go there, then at least there’ll be a chance of spotting him and calming him down, although the crowd is so thick by now he knows it will be all too easy to miss him.

♦

In mid-afternoon Charles Lederer does indeed wake up. The inside of the caravan looks totally alien to him, though the fact that the door is locked seems curiously familiar. Still, caravan doors don’t present much of a problem. He breaks open the lock and steps outside. In the days when Charles Lederer was a Member of Parliament, caravan sites were hardly his stomping ground, and he finds his current surroundings extremely charmless. He decides to leave. The two men on the gate look at him curiously as he walks past them, but they are too busy keeping people out to be concerned with keeping anyone in.

Once in the road Charles Lederer is thrust into a seething if good-natured tumult; people coming and going, dodging in and out of traffic, and he notices that far too many of the cars are Volkswagen Beetles. Different parts of the crowd are heading in different directions, some to the Bug Mecca, some to the Gathering of the Tribes, and although he knows it will cause him pain, he finds himself being irresistibly drawn towards the field of Volkswagens.

He gets to the gate of Bug Mecca where a steward demands an entrance fee, but Charles Lederer gives him a look so wild and demented that the steward waves him in. He moves through the field, past dune buggies and Bajas and convertibles, past T — shirt stalls and club stands. He hears the noise of flat-four engines, he senses the love of Volkswagens, and he becomes completely disorientated. It all gets too much for him. He doesn’t know where he is or how he got there, but a part of him thinks it quite likely that he has died and gone to Hell. He sees a row of chemical toilets and heads for them. He enters a cubicle and locks himself in. He remains there for the rest of the afternoon, thereby making the already inadequate toilet arrangements even worse.

♦

Phelan eventually catches up with some of his skinheads. They are standing in a crowd watching a performance of gamelan music. They are predictably unimpressed and offer up a barrage of loud, sneering comments, mostly to the effect that they’d prefer to hear something by Skrewdriver. Phelan takes Butcher aside and asks how things are going. Butcher notices that he’s carrying a briefcase.

“Things are all right,” says Butcher.

“The new recruits?”

“They’re fine.”

“The Volkswagens?”

“Yeah, they’re fine too.”

“Did you take care of Renata?”

“Yeah we took care of her.”

“One day you’ll have to tell me all about it.”

Butcher shrugs non-committally.

“So, no problems at all?” says Phelan.

“Well I don’t know,” says Butcher. “I think we could be just pissing in the wind here.”

“How’s that?”

“I mean okay, so we can cause a bit of aggro. We can even get into a full blown rumble. But there’s thousands of these New Age buggers. There’s no way we can kick the shit out of all of them.”

“Of course not,” Phelan agrees.

“So what are we doing here?”

Phelan smiles. This is precisely the question he wanted Butcher to ask.

“Physical violence is all very well,” says Phelan, “but it’s far from being the only type.”

Butcher is confused by this notion and looks to Phelan for an explanation. The explanation is forthcoming, and as it unfolds, as Phelan reveals his latest plan for mayhem, Butcher gets a really good, evil feeling. When he has finished explaining, Phelan opens his briefcase to reveal endless bags full of anonymous white pills, the pharmaceutical medium by which his plan will be realised.

Butcher smiles and the briefcase is handed over. Butcher spends the rest of the afternoon distributing the white pills. Some people accept them readily enough as free samples, as though Butcher was some Owsley de nos jours. Others will only accept them when Butcher asks for money, believing they only get what they pay for. Butcher smiles a lot, acts friendly, assures them all that it’s very good stuff. He tells them it’s acid or Ecstasy or amphetamine depending on what they appear to want to hear. Other pills are crushed and the powder gets secretly dropped into batches of fruit juice, into pulse and bean salads, and in one case into a large tank that connects to a tap from which people are drawing drinking water. It is a long, hard afternoon’s work, and Butcher prefers not to delegate, but before long he sees, with great satisfaction, that a lively trade has started in the drugs. Somebody even offers to sell him some.

A couple of the tablets eventually get to Davey via a barefoot hippie with tiger stripes painted on his face, who assures him that this is the very highest quality Ecstasy. Davey has spent most of the day in a vain search for consciousness-changing chemicals and he doesn’t need asking twice. He eagerly swallows a couple of the tablets and waits for astounding results.

As the warm, sunny afternoon fades, and as Planetary Cliff pumps up the volume of the music, many members of the various tribes begin to feel a strange, unfamiliar edginess that has very little to do with loss of ego or the formation of a group mind.

Barry spends a long and not unenjoyable day at the Bug Mecca. He becomes engrossed in the many pristine Beetles on display. He becomes fascinated by the range of products and services that are available for Beetles. He enjoys the atmosphere. He finds it friendly and good-natured. There is a feeling that nothing bad will happen here, and he is reassured by the fact that he sees no sign of Charles Lederer.

Zak does not enjoy the day nearly as much as he had hoped to. He parks his metallic turquoise and peppermint green Beetle with the suicide doors in a conspicuous place and stands leaning against it in a cool but heroic pose, and winks at women as they go past, trying to engage them in chat. It doesn’t work. The only people who want to talk to him are other young, male Volkswagen enthusiasts. Zak doesn’t want to be unfriendly but that’s not what he’s here for. He thinks things are getting completely silly when some nine-and-a-half-year-old kid tells him this is his favourite car in the whole Bug Mecca.

“If you were ten years older and of a different sex I’d offer to take you for a ride,” says Zak.

The Kid says, “That won’t be necessary.”

Zak decides to circulate, that’ll be the way to meet girls. But even that doesn’t work. A lot of the girls are only there because their boyfriends are, and after an hour or so of being snubbed by girls and glared at by boyfriends, he decides to go back to his car and go home.

In fact he can do neither. At that very moment his Beetle is being driven along the A64, away from Filey, by the Ferrous Kid. He drives responsibly and really rather well for a nine and a half year old, and he has every intention of returning it undamaged to its rightful owner when he’s finished with it. But that won’t be possible either. Zak has had enough of Volkswagens for the time being. He leaves Bug Mecca, goes to the Gathering of the Tribes, and when someone offers him some drugs he takes them willingly enough. Getting totally zonked feels like the best way of dealing with this rotten day out.

♦

At the end of the afternoon Barry returns to the marquee belonging to Fat Volkz Inc. Les is there looking overworked and a good deal the worse for drink, but he welcomes Barry like a long lost pal. Barry explains that he can’t get back into the caravan site and Les assures him that if the worst comes to the worst, he can always kip down in the marquee. Les also plies him with drink and Barry accepts readily enough. He is starting to feel quite merry, and when Les suggests that they go and check out what’s going on at the Gathering of the Tribes it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea at all.

They walk there. It’s almost dark now. At the edge of the field Fat Les spots one of the neo-Nazi Volkswagens but he chooses to ignore it. Barry, however, can’t believe his eyes. He wants to go over and investigate it but Les restrains him.

“Is somebody making replicas of Enlightenment?” he asks.

“Yeah, me.”

“How come?”

“I’ll tell you when I’m drunk enough.”

That isn’t a good enough answer for Barry but they press on into the crowd. The music is loud and the beat is rapid and all around them people are dancing. They are a strange lot. Whatever tribe they belong to it’s clearly one that doesn’t include Fat Les and Barry Osgathorpe. The dancers are wild-eyed and frenetic. They’re certainly into the rhythm but they don’t exactly look as though they’re having a good time. Les and Barry press on. They feel out of place, as though they’re moving through a madhouse, a freak show.

When fires start at the perimeter of the field they, like many others, assume this is all part of the show. At first it looks like a series of harmless camp fires, but as time passes the fires start to spread and combine, and before long there’s a continuous band of flame encircling the whole field. Barry can see this is going to make it hard to leave but at the moment he has no desire to leave at all. He isn’t enjoying himself exactly but the spectacle around him is extremely compelling. One or two women are now dancing topless and he has never been averse to seeing topless women dancing. Fat Les passes a bottle of whisky back and forth and although they are now feeling drunk and a little out of it, they are clearly feeling out of it in a very different way from the rest of the crowd.

Skinheads move through the crush, kicking and punching people as they go, but many of the victims are in so trance-like a state they hardly notice. Unseen by most of the crowd, half a dozen skinheads pull Planetary Cliff from his position on stage from where he operates the sound system. He disappears in a rapid and efficient flurry of fists and cherry red leather and the skinheads take over the music. At first there isn’t much of a change in the sound but gradually the beat gets faster and harder and it is overlayed with the sounds of machine gun fire, explosions, and clips of the voice of Adolf Hitler.

This has a gradual but increasingly dramatic effect on the dancers. If they were wild before, they now become positively possessed. A disturbance starts not far from where Barry and Les are standing. A young man is dancing with more than usual verve. He is naked and his body is covered in thick, chocolate-coloured mud. He is jerking his limbs and swirling around with a manic, not to say self-destructive, energy. His sense of rhythm is uncertain and his movements are uncoordinated, but there’s a kind of deranged grandeur to his hyperactivity. The crowd parts to let him through and suddenly he is shaking and thrashing just a few inches away from Fat Les and Barry. They make eye-contact and Barry and Les see that the dancer is Davey, a much-changed old face from a long time ago. In the circumstances nobody quite knows what to say, then Davey yells, “Are you here?”

“Well yes,” says Barry. “How are you?”

“Oh,” Davey replies, “I’ve completely lost the plot,” and then he cavorts away into the mass of people.

“You know,” says Fat Les, “this isn’t a bit like Butlins.”

They drink some more. They listen to the music and they watch the dancing. A few of the revellers are looking exhausted, but that doesn’t slow them down, and a few are crying, though whether that’s because of the agony or the ecstasy it’s hard to tell. Then Barry feels a hand on his shoulder. That’s not so strange. The flailing of limbs around him leads to all sorts of involuntary contact, but the hand tightens, becomes painful, and starts to pull him round. Barry turns to protest and sees Butcher’s big ugly face staring at him in delighted disgust.

“You know me, don’t you?” says Butcher.

“Er no, I don’t think I…”

“Yes you do. You’re the lad who’s so handy with a pot of coffee.”

Barry is about to insist that he knows nothing about any pot of coffee. However, before he can speak, Butcher grabs him by the collar and raises his other fist.

“Hey,” says Fat Les, who has, of course, had some previous dealings with Butcher, “leave him alone. This is Ishmael.”

“I don’t care what his fuckin’ name is.”

“He’s a good lad,” Les insists. “Let go of him.”

“Stay out of this you fat git. He’s got a beating coming to him, and you can have one as well if you want.”

“Who are you calling a git?”

And suddenly fists are flying. Barry tries to hit Butcher in the face but that only sets him off on a frenzied attack in which he tries, with surprising success, to kick, punch and headbutt Barry all at the same time. Barry holds him off as best he can, but this conspicuous flurry of violence brings other skinheads running to the fray. Barry is knocked to the ground where he is given a damned good kicking, and the skinheads only stop when Fat Les points out that Barry’s white and English and a Volkswagen driver, and if they really want to do some kicking there are more satisfying targets at hand. The skinheads grudgingly accept this, regroup and walk away looking for fresh prey. When he’s sure they’re gone, Barry staggers to his feet, and with Les’s help manages to get to the comparative safety of somebody’s empty teepee not far away. He falls in and sits down, speechless, nursing his wounds.

“They shouldn’t have done that,” Fat Les says.

The teepee looks like an increasingly good place to be. Outside, the music is getting more demonic and intolerably loud, and something, maybe the drugs or maybe the music or maybe a dangerous combination of the two, is having a pretty weird effect on the crowd. Some of them are throwing up, some are sobbing uncontrollably, some are crawling on their hands and knees, some have adopted a foetal position.

Then the sound of engines starts; a familiar roar, flat-four, air-cooled Volkswagen engines. The sound comes from all directions, rising and falling, fierce and threatening, and then the skinheads’ Volkswagens are in action, driving at terrifying speed into the mass of people. The crowd panics, tries to scatter and part, but there’s nowhere to go. The low black Nazi Beetles drive them back and forth like sheep being herded by mad dogs. People are terrified; the fires, the noise, the bad drugs, the strobes, the lasers, the killer Beetles coming at them from all directions. They scream and stampede. They rush back and forth in ragged waves, but they’re constantly driven back; there’s no escape, nowhere to run to. The cars demolish tents and stalls. People get hit by the speeding cars, knocked over, run down. Exhaust smoke and terror hang in the air. The skinhead drivers think it’s the best fun they’ve ever had. They’ve produced total chaos, total fear and hysteria; a suitable atmosphere and backdrop, an appropriate warm up act.

The cars suddenly cease their attacks. The drivers head for the edge of the field, where they park their vehicles and get out, leaving their Volkswagens to stand like mechanical sentries, silhouetted against the ring of flame. The music stops dead, leaving an awesome silence, and the light show finishes. The stage is in darkness for a long time until a spotlight hits the back cloth and picks out a lone, dark, powerful figure. It is Phelan. His hands are raised in a victory salute. His whole posture says Obey me, Worship me. All the crowd’s attention focuses on him, all their eyes, all their minds full of weird visions, full of strange, hard-edged colours. They are compelled to watch. Now he has something in his hands, what looks like a toy Volkswagen, and he holds it out as though giving it to the crowd. He picks up a microphone and speaks to them, his voice full of metallic reverb. He says, “This is my talisman. This is the source of all my power,” and he begins to speak about Adolf Hitler and white supremacy and ethnic cleansing. This is all going to take some time.

In the teepee Barry is starting to get his senses back. He feels pretty terrible but oddly enough, Fat Les looks to be in even worse shape. They can hear Phelan’s voice. They can tell something terrible is happening.

“What the Hell’s going on out there?” Barry asks.

But Fat Les doesn’t give him an answer, he simply repeats, “They shouldn’t have done this.”

“You’re telling me.”

“No, I mean they really shouldn’t have done it.”

“What do you mean?” Barry asks.

“I’ve done some terrible things,” says Les.

“Haven’t we all?”

“Not like me,” says Les. “I have a profound need to confess.”

“Is this really the time?”

“Yes it is. You see it was me who blew up all those Volkswagens.”

“You?”

“Yeah. I did it. I did it all.”

“Why would you do a thing like that?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I think maybe Cheryl Bronte was half right. I guess I just got sick of Volkswagens. You know, there was a time when I lived and breathed Volkswagen Beetles. They were my work and my play, my hobby and my profession. They were good years and I wouldn’t have had it any other way, but as time went by I started to change. I suppose basically I started to get a bit bored. I started to think there might be more to life than Volkswagens. But I didn’t give them up. How could I? I was Fat Les the Vee Dub King. How else was I going to make a living? So I carried on, but the magic wasn’t there any more. I didn’t resent it exactly but you know, whereas it had once been an obsession, maybe even a love affair, it turned into just a job. Then as time went by I did resent it. I started to get fed up. I started to get cynical. I got to the stage where the mere sight or sound or the mere mention of a Volkswagen Beetle made me feel sick. But still what could I do? By then I’d got the place in Southend. I had a business to run. I’d got debts and responsibilities and people working for me. I couldn’t just jack it in. But something had to give, otherwise I’d have gone completely bonkers. I had to do something to express this pent up anger and frustration. So I started blowing up Volkswagens.”

“But you kept telling me it was Charles Lederer who did it.”

“Of course I did. That’s what I wanted everyone to believe. It suited me just fine. And when his daughter started believing it too, that was even better. And if they caught him and put him inside for being a raving old nutter that would have been better still. I’d have got away with jt completely.”

“Oh God,” says Barry. “This is going to play terrible havoc with your karma.”

“I realise that. It was all so simple. I’d get Volkswagens coming in to Fat Volkz Inc from all over the country; needing a new petrol tank here, a new dashboard there, a new wiring loom somewhere else. I did the work as asked, but while I was at it, it wasn’t so difficult to hide a little explosive device somewhere in the car, with a timer to make sure it was a long way from me when it finally blew up.”

“Les, that’s just terrible.”

“I know. I know. But the thing is, I did it with those neo-Nazi Volkswagens too.”

“You did?”

“Yeah,” and he pulls a little black box out of his pocket, a thing that looks not unlike a remote control for a television set, though this one has more switches and LEDS, a few loose wires and one very big red button.

“I press that,” says Les, “and it’s bye-bye to eight wicked-looking black Volkswagens.”

Outside they can hear Phelan ranting on about the Aryan race, world domination and the triumph of the will. It’s very eloquent, very compelling and grand, and even if it might be construed as a little overdramatic and dictatorial, he undoubtedly has the crowd where he wants them. They are hanging on his every word, applauding and cheering, and here and there his name is being chanted.

Barry says, “You mean you press that button and the cars all blow up.”

“Yep. Just like that,” says Fat Les.

“I think we have to do it, don’t we?”

“I think we do.”

They leave the teepee. This is something they want to see with their own eyes. Phelan is no longer speaking, just basking in the adulation of his new followers, holding Hitler’s Volkswagen aloft. Then someone appears on the stage beside him. It is a bedraggled old man with a skinhead haircut, Charles Lederer, looking his wildest to date.

Phelan does not want to share the stage with anyone and yet he hesitates for a moment, perhaps thinking it’s a fervent supporter who’s got a little carried away with enthusiasm. Certainly he thinks the old man looks harmless and unthreatening. Charles Lederer approaches, gets very close, and his hands are extended as though he wants to congratulate Phelan. But what he actually wants to do, what he succeeds in doing, is lay his hands on Hitler’s Beetle. Phelan is caught off guard. Charles Lederer’s fingers make contact with the model, but the laying on of hands is not enough for him. He grabs the Volkswagen and dashes away across the stage, and even as Phelan lunges after him, even as he summons a few skinheads to deal with the situation, Charles Lederer winds back his throwing arm and flings the Volkswagen hard and high away from the stage, up over the heads of the crowd.

It is a mighty throw. The model rises and rises in the air. It reaches the top of its parabola of flight and seems to hang there, crystalline and perfect, showing itself to the multitude, spinning like a tiny lost planet. Phelan yells through the mike, “Catch it. But gently.” Thousands of eyes look up. Dozens of pairs of hands steady themselves ready to catch the falling Volkswagen if it comes their way.

Fat Les holds out the remote control to Barry.

“Would you do me the honour?”

“I certainly would.”

Barry presses the button, there’s a pause, and then, at the edges of the field, eight black, wicked-looking Volkswagens, each one more or less a replica of his own Enlightenment, explode in banks of searing flame.

The synchronised noise is terrifying, and this crowd has a great talent and propensity for terror. Black smoke rolls across the field. A huge, multivoiced scream goes up. It’s as though a war’s started. They stampede again, bouncing off each other as they go. The wall of fire surrounding the field no longer seems like such a great obstacle, and they run so fast through the flames that they don’t even feel the heat.

The falling Volkswagen, formerly property of Adolf Hitler and Carlton Bax, is totally forgotten. It drops unnoticed into a scrum of frenzied hippies, hits someone on the back of the neck, then falls to the muddy ground where any number of running feet crush and destroy the beautifully-made automaton.

On the scaffolding stage Phelan drops to his knees. Beside him Charles Lederer stands tall and firm, and seen a certain way it might look as though Phelan is kneeling at his feet in prayer. Charles Lederer looks out over the field. He doesn’t exactly understand what’s been going on here, nor what his part in it was, but he feels extremely, peculiarly pleased with himself, as if the simple laying on of his hands was enough to destroy all his demons.

Barry and Fat Les stand and watch. They are stunned but gratified, and they watch with renewed amazement as a white car emerges from the smoke and mayhem. It is a white BMW and it makes slow, stately progress through the running crowd, avoiding bodies and tents and the burning wrecks of Volkswagens. It looks serene and other-worldly.

As the smoke clears a little the driver is revealed to be Cheryl Bronte. Beside her sits Renata Caswell, and in the back of the car are Marilyn Lederer and Carlton Bax. They are holding onto each other for dear life. They look wretched and traumatised, and yet they look totally, hopelessly, in love. Barry has seen some strange sights today, but this is one thing he cannot bear to look at.