wytchcroft

Charms of an old car, Austin Seven, 1937 –
probably not a good year for spitfires, I told him.
Broad man standing under the leaves – almost a canopy – cut the light into impressionist chunks, thick colours. He leaned back from the old motor for a moment, a cheroot dangling from the middle of his mouth in an old fashioned style, looking at me narrowly as I calculated his age.

Let me see – late 50s put him smack in the centre of the 20th century, born well after the car had come and gone, he would have spent his youth dreaming of a roadster, even an MG – he went through the 60s and seventies in a blur, merchant marine maybe or a bridge builder... something to keep him on the edge, out of the loop.

“You don’t look old enough?”

“Sorry what?”

Somehow, my thoughts and his words had swapped over – and it took me a moment to realise who had spoken.
“Oh,” I said, “you know how it is. You shave off a beard and... Anyway, nice car, but… yeah – 1937; good year for motors - probably not a good year for Spitfires.” I was peering down and at the mat black finish, it was dusty – there were recent dents where the fender and bonnet had been hammered into shape, roughly.

“I’ve always liked Austins,” I said, putting my hand flat on the unreflective paintwork.

The man was looking at me in an amused sort of way, and he opened the near side hatch to the engine, rummaged for a bit. “We may like them,” he said, “but they’re bloody temperamental!”
He laughed, puffing smoke as if he was old and steam-powered himself. He shut the hatch again.

“Really?”

“Yeah it never bloody works.”

“Nice seats,” I said, leaning in to inspect the leather interior – the old Sevens were for two people only.
I put my hand up to ward off the light which had shifted on a whim seemingly and was bouncing off the silver fender, having failed with the rest of the car.

“Didn’t think anyone else would have an interest in these old things,” he said, this was a man too young himself to know what he was saying.

“Oh, I like them fine,” I said again, and wanted to tell him –

it were one of these that took me and Doreen all the way from Farnborough to Maidstone of a weekend, didn’t think we could do it, and it rained. Doreen wearing that pink cardy of hers like a shawl and me with my hands gripping the wheel and the knuckles all split and Doreen had fussed over them half the journey. Kept making jokes about boxing and swafega – when the truth was nothing like as romantic, just fence posting and the fact that I never liked that green gunk, a man’s hands are his own I always used to say. But anyhow, we made it to the coast alright and watched the sea for a bit all misty and grey and we kept the engine ticking in the little car that had cost so much.

And Doreen doing her make up, all that pancake and a bit of lippy.

She turns to me and says, “D’you know, Sheila from number 19 reckons as how all them glamorous women in the pictures, the stuff they put on,” and her mouth pouting between the words and a fumble for a tissue to pat her lips with, “that Hollywood look, like her out of – anyway, it’s green! Green! That’s what Sheila reckons – says they look awful really, just the cameras change it all.”

Not just cameras though - memory does it too, makes everything misty and black and white and - so I pull my head out of the window and back into the sunny green of today and I thank the man and walk on down the narrow country lane.

I can feel him looking at me for a while and then I hear the hatch on the engine go up once more and the faint sound of tinkering from under the bonnet.