was decked out in a tan suit with ludicrous lapels that were très vogue in the Seventies. His colour blindness always guaranteed something special and today was no disappointment: a psychedelic paisley tie and a bright yellow shirt, dripping with Old Spice.
He came from a working-class background and was raised the hard way. When he earned a slot at the local grammar school, his mother had to dig deep to afford the uniform. Nan didn’t take any crap. When it came to parting with her hard-earned, she bought the uniforms she liked most rather than the one for the institution my dad was actually attending. Sporting the cap from one school and a blazer and tie from two others, his first days at college were inevitably bloody, but he never lost his unique sartorial style.
My mother had swept her hair back in a chignon and boasted pearl earrings, elegant gold necklace and frilly blouse. Fabulous, darling. I sat in the back with my hair like a pudding basin, looking sharp in blue cords and matching jumper. Butter wouldn’t melt.
Seeing us all in our Sunday finery triggered something in my old man. He shot me a knowing smile in the rear-view mirror.
‘Hold on, Ben.’
I knew what that meant.
The lane to the house I grew up in was just over a quarter of a mile long and met the main road at a T-junction. The perfect drag-strip.
Dad dropped the clutch and tore away, laying a couple of thick black lines of bubbling rubber across our driveway. Once the G-forces had subsided, I leant forward to get a ringside view. The revving engine and the squealing tyres all but drowned out my mother’s objections. She swatted him with her handbag, but there was no stopping him.
The hedgerows zoomed past. I cheered every gear change until the T-junction sprang into view. Everything went quiet.
I didn’t need to be a driving expert for my four-year-old brain to register there was no way the car would stop in time for the corner using conventional means. Mum figured that too. She gave up with the handbag and emitted a high pitched ‘Fuuuuuuuuuuck …’
It took a lot to rattle Mum. When she was four years old she lived in Sutton, which lay along the German bombing run during the Second World War. Three of the houses she lived in were completely destroyed. By pure luck, her family had been out on each occasion. One summer’s day she was playing in the garden when her mother screamed for her to come inside. Before she could move an inch, bullets from a low-flying aircraft strafed the garden walls and plant pots exploded either side of her. Mum went on to work in hot spots across the Middle East and around the globe as a Royal Navy nurse. She always held her nerve, but Dad’s driving freaked her out every time.
Dad kept his foot on the gas until the very last moment. The ditch on the far side of the junction was only metres away. We were thrown forward as Dad yanked hard on the handbrake and spun the Rover sideways, skidding across the tarmac.
The car drifted to the edge of the verge bordering the ditch and my stomach flipped with the exciting prospect of crashing into it.
By careful judgement, or a stroke of luck, we just caressed the verge and straightened up. Disaster was averted. Mum recovered her necklace from between her shoulder-blades and we drove away giggling.
I’d never heard my mother swear before, so I treated this new word ‘fuuuuuuuuuck’ with great reverence. After a twenty-five-minute journey we arrived at our destination. Mum adjusted my shirt and tie as we approached the front door. We were greeted by the boss, his wife and finally his daughter.
‘Ben, this is Stephanie.’
‘Fuuuuuuuuuuck Stephanie,’ I replied.
You could have heard a mouse fart. After a little smooth talking, my parents dug themselves out of it and I was allowed in for chipolatas and cake.
Dad kept his job with the company in spite of his feral offspring and we were invited back for a grander function a year later. The company was changing its vehicle fleet and new cars were dished out. I knew how disappointed he was not to be in line for a new Jaguar XJS, like the one the boss had ordered for himself.
We piled into the Rover to the accompaniment of Dad’s favourite driving soundtrack, the jangling guitar riffs from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
I was thoroughly briefed to avoid the swearing issue, but Dad was kicking off again about the Jaguar situation. Mum told him to put a sock in it.
I didn’t talk much as a kid and they probably thought I wasn’t listening. I felt detached from the absurdity of the everyday. I stared blankly at the blurred stream of green and yellow outside the window and dreamt of flying this low in a fighter jet. Secretly, I was in training.
We duly arrived at the party and made it past the introductions without a single thirteen-letter word. The do was well under way, with scores of business types mingling, networking and slurping their way up the corporate food chain. My old man was holding forth as ever, entertaining a group of young managers with a mixture of jokes and forthright discussions, interspersed by plenty of vigorous gestures and raucous laughter. Dad’s laugh was infectious. His eyes creased and his broad mouth spread into the enchanting grin that epitomised his joie de vivre.
I was loitering around the food table like a time bomb waiting to explode. I was already programmed with the view that the world was populated by good guys and bad guys, and in this room full of small talk and grown-ups I decided to break free of my shyness and act on a judgement call.
The boss was breezing past when I caught his eye. He felt he had to stop and feign some interest.
‘How is school then … uh … Ben?’ he asked.
‘Why can’t my daddy have a Jaguar?’ I replied.
He made some more talking noises that failed to make an impression on me, so I kicked him squarely in the testicles.
A small boy was ideally placed for such an attack. What I lacked in firepower was more than made up for by the accuracy gained from being at eye level with the target.
Judging by the way the boss’s legs buckled as he doubled over, I’d properly rung the bell on his High Striker. The second pain-wave swept across him, tears welled in his eyes and he dropped to his knees, straining to get his breath back. Something about the bell-bottoms draped from his parted legs on the Oriental rug made him look entirely ridiculous. The whole party erupted with laughter. The boss was as popular in the office as David Brent.
The importance of being truthful and standing up for myself had been instilled in me by my parents; I just added my own interpretation. Dad deserved that car and the boss was a troll under the bridge for suggesting otherwise. ‘Truth Tourette’s’ has stuck with me ever since. I can’t say that it’s made life easy, but I’ve enjoyed busting a few balls.
Dad didn’t get the Jaguar that time but he made up for it in later life. He changed cars as often as he emptied the ashtray. He must have owned about forty of the things. As soon as he could afford one, he bought it.
In spite of the love of cars that pervaded our family, my sole ambition was to be a fighter pilot. I wanted supersonic speed and the superhuman reflexes to go with it. I read endless accounts of Jump Jets winning in combat simulations against scores of faster but less nimble American F-14 Tomcats. My bedroom was littered with posters of fighter planes and books detailing every conceivable weapons system and their theatre of operation. I memorised payloads, thrust-to-weight ratios and the minutiae of flight. One hundred per cent nerd alert.
