ii. Twin Towns
Ashford in Kent is Toryland, a kind of Thatcherite ground zero. It felt like that to us anyway, as we wandered its streets looking for somewhere to eat, it was a far cry from Shiney Row. Maybe we didn’t leave on Ash Wednesday? I have a vague memory of this being a Friday night, pubs were busy, loud gangs of drunks piling out onto the streets. Memories are just copies of copies of copies of memories one friend told me recently — none of it’s real.
We were pretty tired, Ron from Internatinal Rescue had dropped us at a B&B he knew in Ashford, he had taken the Ford Fiesta to be scrapped at a garage not far away, we’d have to sort some documents out with them in the morning. The couple who ran the B&B were a friendly middle class pair, suburban Acacia Avenue pleasantries, ‘The North?’. On the sideboard in the hallway I spied a copy of an Automart or Autotrader or whatever it was. We took it upstairs and hatched a plan to get back on the road. I have no idea about cars, still don’t, Pauly did but never had the best of luck with them. The first advert we saw was a £200 white Ford Fiesta with MOT and some miles on the clock. That’s the one, it’s a sign!
I had cash but only euros and an amount of sterling. I’d got a part advance on the travel budget and fee for the residency, it was all safely stuffed into a brown envelope in my back pocket. The financial excess of my student years had left me with a bank account that had all the credit rights of a 15 year old. It wasn’t until 2016 that I could finally get a bank card that would enable me to do chip & pin in a supermarket or pay for stuff online. Pauly had his Dad’s credit card though, to be used in case of an emergency and this was an emergency situation. We agreed I would wire any money loaned back to his Dad when I got to France. We rang the number in the Automart-trader and arranged to meet the owner at 8am in the car park of a cinema complex on the edge of Ashford. If it drove we’d buy it. High fives all round. We celebrated by hitting Ashford town for pizza and beers. Ashford had an unfriendly vibe and we felt like a target amongst the casual shirts and gangs of blokes out on the piss. We finished the night in a pub near the B&B, men at the bar talked about shifting units pure Derek & Clive patter ‘well, as you know Clive, I’ve always got the ball bearing business to keep me rolling’. One guy asked where we were from, Pauly replies ‘Sunderland’ — ‘Ah! Geordie Cunts then!’ was the response.
We were late to meet the Fiesta owners and unsurprisingly we got lost. We spotted the cinema across a busy stretch of duel carriageways. Taking a direct route and dodging artic lorries we emerged from a set of bushes and stumbled into the car park of Ashford Cineworld. Watching us appear from the hedges, were the mother and daughter who owned the white Ford Fiesta we would shortly buy. I don’t actually remember how we bought it, whether I used the cash I had or Pauly had withdrew money on his Dad’s mastercard, either way the two women looked nervous. The car was all but identical to Pauly’s now defunct Fiesta, the only difference, a fine layer of green moss on the roof and bonnet. For the first and only time in my life so far I was the owner of a car.
We collected our things from the B&B, sorted out documents for the old car at the rural garage where Ron had dropped it off and hit the M20 again. Back on the Rooooad! We shouted. It was surreal being in the new car, a simulacra of our previous vehicle minus the stale odour, fag ends and crap on the floor. Everything was the same but not the same, like the previous 24hrs hadn’t happened. A weird temporal shift, twilight zone through a Kentish time slip. We were now already a day behind in our schdeule and Pauly was eager to make up the time, a tension brewed between us. Once we crossed into Calais the new plan would be a non-stop drive to Saint-Nazaire.
We got to Dover in the end but it was now already mid-afternoon. We went through all the checks, customs, passports and parked up amongst all the lorries and day trippers ready to get onto the ferry. We were tired and irritable and Pauly went for a walk to ring his wife. I was sat in the car smoking with the radio on watching Pauly on his phone pace up and down in the distance. Suddenly a guy knocks hard on window, two men in lumis are stood either side of the car and startle me. Can you wind your window down please sir? Is this your car sir? It took me a time to get my head together. It was my car but my bumbling reply obviously raised some suspicion. Can you open the bonnet please? Can you step outside of the vechicle please sir? I had no idea how to open the bonnet and had no idea what was going on. The men, custom or border officials, began inspecting the car engine as Pauly made his way back I’m sorry sir but this car has been registered as stolen.
