And so, as all good things proverbially must, and also all bad things, as it
happens, our Quest came to an end.
That is, of course, if you exclude the trip through the Queensway tunnel and
then the train journey back from Liverpool, which added another five hours to my
Bank Holiday. And in Brian’s case, he headed off into the wilds of the
Liverpool suburbs to return Lydia to her house. I had expected that, once
into the train journey back, Danny would return to his old self, and would start
eyeing up all apparently-available females. But he actually seemed quite
subdued, choosing instead to discuss my future requirements in profit reporting
for variable-weight chicken portions. Which wasn’t like Danny, who as a rule
forgot what he did for a living the moment the bell went. Brian had kept the
chess set, so we couldn’t even have a last few games. After I’d left
the train, Danny, on his way back into London, had the chance to watch the A41
in reverse all the way down the line from Tring to Harrow. He told me that he
was going to shut his eyes for that part of the journey.On returning to work on
the Tuesday morning, I phoned Brian to check that he’d got home OK. But he
wasn’t in the office. So I phoned his mobile but it was switched off. I spoke
to Danny during the day, but he hadn’t heard from him. So we started to get a
bit worried.Wednesday passed. Still no Brian. I took the lift to the fifth floor
and took the risk of entering the QA department. I walked into the lab of one of
his testers, a wild-looking bloke called Eric. Eric only had one hand as a
result of a boiling tube explosion. He was totally bald because of a problem
with selenium. This had also left him permanently smelling of garlic. He told me
that Brian had called in to say he was having some trouble getting back. I
wondered why Eric had a different lab to all the other testers.
Thursday, he turned up. I waited for him to come down for our regular 10.30
coffee. It seems that Brian, having driven Lydia home, stayed overnight. When he
woke up in the morning, with admirable fidelity to the Liverpool stereotype, his
car had been stolen. Unable to believe that anyone could seriously steal a
Metro, he spent Tuesday combing the back streets of Liverpool trying to find it.
He had reported it to the police. When he phoned them up and told them what had
happened, all he could hear was laughter for five minutes. Apparently they
suggested it had been stolen for the petrol in the tank, which the police
thought might be more valuable than the car. He eventually gave up, and came
home by train.
Still, in the circumstances, he seemed to be taking it very well.
“On the bright side,” I pointed out, “you’ve probably got the bits in
your spare room to build a new one.” “Yes, but it wouldn’t be the
same,” he replied.“Well how many bits of the car did you say were original?”
I asked him.“Yes, good point,” he conceded. Danny meanwhile had other
problems. On Wednesday, while doing the washing, Mary, had noticed that he wasn’t
in possession of the trousers with which he’d set off. Having experience of
his behaviour in the past, she interrogated him. He tried to convince her that
he had sat on some tar on a wall in Chester.“She said, it was more likely I’d
sat on some tart than some tar,” he rued to me on Friday evening, in the Olde
Cheshire Cheese. Mary was now cracking down on his out-of-hours activities
– allegedly squash-playing, 5-a-side football and amateur dramatics, which he
had apparently been using to mask some of his other out-of-hours activities. He
was on a tight time limit to be out of the Cheshire Cheese by six, which was
within the bounds of the working day and therefore acceptable. I would have
sympathised, except that he clearly deserved it. And at least I wouldn’t have
to continue to pretend to be a squash-player whenever I met Mary in
future. Meanwhile, Sarah had totally enjoyed her weekend at the health
farm, and was asking when I planned to go for another stupid journey across the
country so she could do it again. If she was asking when I next planned to cross
England in a cramped car with no air conditioning during a heatwave with a
serial adulterer whose plan was to rewrite the public perception of computer
programmers while simultaneously endangering the health of his friends, the
answer was “never”. And at the end of all this, what had we learned?
Well, I have to admit, I hadn’t found myself, as you’re always supposed to
do on pilgrimages. Accepted, other people go on pilgrimages to Santiago de
Compostella, or Mecca or Lord’s, not to Wallasey, or even Birkenhead. But the
principle was the same. I guess, when all was said and done, we really went on
the journey to see where the road went, and we certainly succeeded in that. I
didn’t go looking for myself, so maybe it was no surprise when I wasn’t
there to be found.Danny was telling me that he had returned as a sadder and
wiser Danny. Even over and above the changes to his social life that Mary had
imposed upon him, he seemed to be focussing his sights onto his children and
home life.
“What I’ve found,” he told me, “is I’ve reached the point where you
lose your dignity if you’re looking at women all the time. I mean, I’m
thirty-five now. I’ve got to remember that I’ve got responsibilities. I
should be going out less, anyway, so I can see more of the kids.”You know, I
would have totally believed him if, as he told me all this, he hadn’t been
watching a twenty-year-old blonde crossing the room to the bar. And as for
Brian, well I suppose you could say it had changed his life. By Christmas, Lydia
had moved down to London. I mean, something nobody could have predicted. I’d
say that maybe, given her career of going around with blokes with strange
interests, Brian’s obsession with the Metro would have been the attraction.
But the strange thing is, he never did get round to building another one. Last I
heard, he was clearing out the spare room, “in case we need it for a nursery”.
He was flogging all the Metro parts on the Internet. I suppose Brian could only
actually manage one real love at a time. But by the end of all this, I
think I’d discovered some real truths – maybe universal truths – that
could make everyone’s life easier if they were obeyed. And I’ll summarise
them for you now. After all, you’ve gone to the trouble and expense of buying
this book. Or at least you’ve gone down to the library and borrowed it. Or
maybe you’ve just stolen it, in which case you need all the spiritual
improvement you can get. I’ve expressed them as a set of simple pieces of
advice. One day, I’ll set up a hermit’s cell in the outskirts of Watford,
dedicating a little church to the god of the A41, and give advice to
fellow-members of the Church of the A41, as they journey from Baker Street to
pay their homage at a roundabout in Birkenhead. And I’d give six simple pieces
of advice. Number 1 – Never sleep in a small hatchback. You’ll only get
a bad back. Also, in hot weather, you may stick to the seats, so bring a rug.
And if you’ve been drinking beer, open the windows at night. Number 2 –
If you must sleep in a Metro, and there are four people in the car, sleep in the
front, where there’s more room.Number 3 – Never upset a man called “Big
Dave”, or anyone who has a name starting with “Big”.Number 4 - Never
return home without an adequate explanation as to where your trousers are.
Number 5 – Under no circumstances, ever upset the Northwestern chapter of the
Metro Owners’ Club.Number 6 – Ruy Lopez is a useless opening when you’re
playing chess against a biochemist. Don’t know why, it just is. Maybe there’s
something in a biochemist’s mind that likes bishops to be on the fifth
rank. I guess it’s a simple system. It won’t guarantee you happiness,
but it will help you stay clear of six things that might cloud your otherwise
untroubled blue sky. Oh yeah. Number 7. I learnt this one from Tolkien.
Number 7 – The Road goes ever on an on.That’s seven. The perfect number. You
can take that as a metaphor for life, or a metaphor for the A41. We are just the
transients – the sojourners who travel through the road of this world,
stopping to chase the edible dormice on the way. We get drunk, fall in love,
fall in the canal. But we all know that the journey will end – that one day,
we will all reach our Birkenhead, even when we think it’s just our Wallasey.
May your Birkenhead be as your Baker Street, and your Akeman Street a straight
one.
To
the blurb