Horse Under Water

20 Enemy

My flat in Southwark was cold when I got back there at 8 a.m. after the all-night discussion with Dawlish. I paid the cab and had difficulty getting the front door open because of the heap of mail on the front mat. There were the usual things. Red-printed ones from the rates office and a very patient one from Electrolux; thirteen pounds outstanding, I could almost hear the sigh. Advertisements for Lux, a postcard from Munich wishing I was there, a receipt from L.E.B., and the cistern was overflowing methodically.

I switched on the fan heater, boiled a kettle and ground coffee. While I was waiting for the coffee to drip through I phoned the office number, gave them the code word, then told the operator, ‘If Mr MacIntosh phones, tell him to get a car and collect me at about five o’clock this afternoon. We have to go and collect my car from the airport. If he hasn’t phoned in by noon get the message to him at Brown’s Hotel.’

I poured a generous slug of Teacher’s whisky into sweet black coffee and sipped it slowly. The night without sleep was beginning to thump me gently on the cranium. It was 8.45 a.m. I went to bed just as the next-door radio tuned in to Housewives’ Choice. Upstairs the vacuum cleaner began its fiendish flagellation. I dozed.

I looked at my watch in the darkness. The doorbell was ringing. I had slept eight hours, and now Joe MacIntosh was at the door and eager to get to grips with the night-life of the Metropolis. He had one of the taxis from the car pool. They were specially tuned to do over ninety m.p.h. and MacIntosh was keen to find out how much over.

I took a tepid shower, which is my special way of entering the world of consciousness. Then I dressed in a manner suited to a Soho low-life tour — dark worsted and black woollen shirt, with a trench coat that can take home-brew alcohol splashes without flinching.

It was a pleasure to see Joe handle that souped-up cab. His huge shy hands stroked the controls and we slid through the traffic with an élan he never otherwise showed. ‘Nowhere,’ said Joe quietly as we ascended the Chiswick flyover, ‘do Englishmen show a greater spirit of compromise than in straddling a traffic lane.’ He nudged the horn, flicked the cab over to the fast lane and stabbed the speed up to seventy with an acceleration that almost fired me out of the jump seat. He moved through the crash gearbox that all these cabs had with a nerveless skill.

When we got to London airport he parked behind the cab rank and put a glove over the flag in a very convincing way. My VW was tucked deeply into the Ministry of Aviation Priority pound; would I like Joe to get it for me?

It was only 6.30 p.m., but already it was dark and I felt fingers of rain tapping me on the shoulder. I gave him the key and went up to the bookstall for five minutes’ browsing. The headlines read, ‘No Capital Gains Tax this year — Official.’ The Americans were planning a monkey ride to the moon, the new Wehrmacht wanted nuclear weapons, Lady Lewisham was complaining about dirty teacups and the Minister had said that old age pensions just couldn’t be increased. I bought Esquire and walked out into the drizzle. There were lights around the car pound and I saw that Joe had moved enough of the cars to provide a lane through which to bring mine.

A Viscount came down the GCA talkdown, its white, red and green lights peep-boing the traffic patterns. Full flap, throttle back. The dark shape passed overhead with a contrapuntal shriek. I heard the wheels hit the tarmac and the automatic control pull the blades into ‘ground-fine’ pitch. Joe was at the far end of the enclosure; he opened the door of my VW, got in and switched on the main lights. The rain tore little gashes through the long beams.

From inside the car came an intense light; each window was a clear white rectangle, and the door on Joe’s side opened very quickly. It was then that the blast sent me across the wet pavement like a tiddly-wink.

‘Walk not run,’ I thought. I jammed my spectacles on to my nose and got to my feet. A cold current of air advised me of an eight-inch rent in my trouser leg. People ran past towards the car park. The explosion had fired the inflammable parts of an adjacent car. The flames lit up the neighbourhood and a bell began to ring close at hand. I heard the attendant shouting ‘Two fellers went over there, two fellers.’ I had my keys in my hand by the time I got back to the cab rank. I selected two. With the first I unlocked the anti-thief device on the gear lever. The second I plugged into the ignition, started up and pulled out of the rank. From the car park I heard another ‘boom’ and saw a flash as a petrol tank exploded. I drove round the roundabout. ‘Other way, cabbie,’ said an airport policeman. The grazed palms of my hands were throbbing and the steering wheel was wet with blood and sweat. I switched the radio to ‘stand by’ to warm the transmitting valves.

‘What’s going on over there, mate?’ I asked him. ‘Keep moving,’ said the policeman. I was through the tunnel and away. Just to be on the safe side I turned left at the main road before using the two-way radio.

They answered promptly. ‘Go ahead Oboe Seven. Over,’ said the operator.

‘Oboe Seven to Provisional. Message. Black London Airport Ministry of Aviation car park. One student: MacIntosh. Flat. Scissors.[18] Over.’

‘Provisional to Oboe Seven. How are you proceeding? Over.’

‘Oboe Seven. A4, approaching Slough. Over.’

‘Thank you, Oboe Seven. Roger. Out. Provisional at stand by.’

When Dawlish came in on the radio telephone link he was touchingly concerned for my safety, but remembered first to ask for the name of my insurance company. He said, ‘We can’t afford to have them getting curious about how it happened before we send out the D notice.’[19]

I soon mastered the knack of double-declutching the crash gearbox.