chapter four: Surrey

What did Jimmy Carr say? Something about not having an accent because the way he spoke is how English sounds when it's pronounced properly. Very witty, Jimmy. Now fuck off. But arguments over accent apart it is a different world down here.
Somewhere just south of Northampton the Beamers get fatter, the Volvos accelerate, the Audis seem to put on weight and the plural of Lexus starts to become more than just a grammatical concern because suddenly they’re everywhere, especially passing you on the inside lane. The outside lane backs up and the stark realization settles like dead insects on the windscreen – this is the queue for the M-fucking-25.
And everywhere around you the south east of England declares its independence from the rest of the country and retreats behind the circle of wagons that is the London Orbital. Yeah, it’s that swirling plughole that causes all the traffic to gravitate towards the centre. But you, my man, have another mission. Like some interplanetary traveller you have to hitch a ride on the gravitational pull of the metropolis and spin off in the direction of Portsmouth. You have to penetrate this protective belt. You have to boldly go where no man of your age, name, build, hairstyle or background has ever gone before. You need to make it through to the homeliest of the Home Counties, where the men are merchant bankers and the women are gels. (The ‘g’ is hard, as are their accents).
For your mission, and you have accepted this fact, is to arrive and survive in Surrey. You need to see beyond the rolling hills, the wooded slopes, the horse boxes and the private schools; you need to negotiate the ignorance, the elitism, the wealth and the undisguised snobbery. You need to accept that every one of them is going to vote Tory, read the Telegraph and laugh at poor people. For that is Surrey. Surrey, where the sleeping Princess waits to be woken from her slumber. Can you be Prince Charming and steal her with a kiss?
Surrey. The first time you realised she was from Surrey you thought it was pointless. What’s a Surrey girl going to want with you? You’re a schemie at heart, albeit a schemie with a brain. And ok, you now officially have more letters after your name than you have in it but come on, this is Surrey! You grew up in a house with an outside loo. You’ve got a regional accent. Oh sure, you’re more well-balanced these days, the chip of parochialism having fattened and extended to both shoulders. But seriously, what’s a posh bint like her going to make of the likes of you? Remember when you first heard her voice? Oh yes.
‘Is that Caroline?’, you asked her.
And her reply.
‘Oh, but you’re Scottish’.
Well, fuck me. You thought the name would have been a bit of a clue but instead she’d fixed on the address
‘Oh, that’s so nice. I much prefer that to the Yorkshire accent’.
Ah yes. Accents again. And you grew to love the way she talked. The things she said. The words she used. Her speech quirks and mannerisms, right down to the tiny trace of a lisp, so faint you had to be close enough to watch her tongue and teeth.
At first you mistook it for a certain squeamishness, a mistrust of vulgarity. Well, for example, you’d had (mostly) compliments from lovers and bedmates before but nobody, but nobody had ever referred to a shag as ‘splendid’. Until now. No one had ever described sex as ‘yummy’. But it wasn’t modesty that guided her vocabulary: it was education and upbringing. The girls’ school and the effects of living in Surrey lent it all a charm. And the charm was all the more magical when she elected to talk dirty. Oh yes.
But all this is in the future. Right now, in quieter moments of increasing boredom, in frenetic bursts of rage, between road reports on local radio, between changing CDs and ignoring rich cunts in cars the size of houses, towing caravans the size of a cul-de-sac, your mind drifts away to fantasy, such is the richness of the surroundings. Like a botanist in an as yet uncharted jungle you gawp and stare. New species of Aston Martin are spotted heading north, migrating to the country cottage while exotic Mercs cruise through the traffic like hunting sharks, that little dorsal fin above the rear window slicing the air as their drivers yak into headsets. Whitevanman sets course for Essex by whatever lane happens to be moving quicker.
Eventually you will come to know them better. Eventually you will appreciate that the esoterica continues the deeper into the Surrey countryside the traveller is prepared to venture. Away from the vulgar speed merchants on the A3 and the M-fucking-25 the more select examples of the automotive industry are cosseted. Through wrought iron gates, remotely controlled, Muslannes and Maybachs nestle on the crunching gravel. Here Corniches are caressed by liveried chauffeurs while the owners take Pimms on the lawn and their braying children prepare for Oxford at Charterhouse.
And for the true specialist the museum at Brooklands gives an insight into the history of motor racing that still lives on in the new McLaren technology centre in Woking. Surrey has the reputation of horses and golf courses but it’s the automotive industry that sustains it now, that showcases the wealth of its denizens, that transports and propels them at high speed and higher luxury through the leafy lanes. Even in the car parks of the superstores the opulence on display is something to behold. Here the alphabet of letter and the logarithm of number combine to numbing effect. GT40. DB9. E-type. RX7. Z4. SLK230. MG. TVR. The Tesco at Camberley looks like the plushest used car lot on the planet. And here too they say is the highest car ownership per household in the country. And just down the road at Sandhurst academy the recruits who arrive in Chelsea Tractors and Kensigton Tanks learn to drive the real thing across the numerous commons where the ground is churned and cartridge cases lie like litter among the ferns and gorse. Not far away the village of Chobham gives its name to the ceramic based armour plate. Ah yes, this is the Surrey you’ll come to know. The squaddies on release from Deepcut, the officer corps giving it large in the village pubs around Godalming and above all the sheer shimmering gleam of polished chrome hurtling past you at a zillion miles per hour.
That will be then, this is now. The ringtone shakes you away from the reverie. You get a txt msg and since the M1 is a stationary car park it’s easy enough to read and respond. ‘in bed waiting. eta?’. This implicit promise helps get you through the next half hour by which time the speed of traffic is now peaking at 20mph. And then the cork is out of the bottle. The turn off for the M-fucking-25, as it should surely be officially signposted, is there and the swooping turn becomes a racetrack. The traffic lights only serve to regulate the racers as they line up to be first to join the long lines of red tail lights that lead to the heart of Surrey, to the village off the A3, to the house on the street, to the stairs to the bedroom, to the girl on the bed, to the inevitable shuddering collision that will leave both of you gasping like fish out of water.
Gears slide and engage. Carburettors twitch. Throttles open. Internal combustion engines go through the routine. And the lights have changed.
Your eyes refocus and there is a jumbo jet so extremely close and incredibly loud it must surely be within touching distance. The screaming engines obliterate the stereo and the rumble vibrates the air for minutes after until Heathrow is once more in the rear view mirror and the six lane highway, still a building site since forever, opens up and the speed restrictions drop away and the pace increase until the A3 is an out-and-out invitation to dance. And with the rear wheel drive on this honey, dance is what you can do. Just watch out for the mini round-abouts. And above all watch out for the commuters who are making their way home to their Surrey piles in piles of foreign machinery. The sheer scale of some of the traffic is scary. There are Jeeps down here that dwarf Ford Transits. Some people are actually driving around in Hummers. But the MLC rises to the challenge.
The record currently stands at thirteen minutes from hitting the tarmac on the A3 to penetration and tonight the road is beckoning, no taunting, no, make that downright asking for a fight. Coming off the roundabout you lay enough rubber on the surface to condom a platoon and the race is on. The cathedral spire at Guildford looms. An MG disappears. A fucking Roller no less gives way and the Shell garage is a blur. Then it’s down the sweeping left hander past the Eashing turn off, time enough to drop a gear and flash past a truck before flicking left and the carriageway just about holds the back wheels to its surface as the slip road beckons, inviting and empty and the lights at the end of the stretch of dual carriageway are changing to green. Oh, yes, just stay that way; just hold the pose. You flatten the curves of the next two roundabouts then have to slow to legal limits as the houses begin to crowd the roadside. There’s the traffic lights again, the Mazda garage on the corner and the final stretch of road. There’s a gorgeous squeal as you round the last bend and you gun the engine while parking to alert her to adopt the position. Stepping out of the cockpit you feel ever so slightly giddy from the constant motion of the last three hours and the solid pavement moves under you feet. Grab your bag from the passenger side and skip down the path. The light is on upstairs. The front door is as it should be. The dog barks hello. The bedroom door is ajar and there she is. It’s a picture from a magazine. It’s a picture from a magazine that you’d have to reach up to the top shelf for. The candles are sparkling. Her hair catches the light and flickers at its ends. The sheen of the nylon and the effrontery of the pose catch your breath. That there’s a woman alive in the world who is so happy to do all of this just for you beggars belief. But it’s true alright. Oh yes, it’s true. She doesn’t say a word. A look is enough.
The numbers on the radio alarm clock turn to 20:06. That’s two minutes outside the record but what the ………...and by 20:15 it’s all over for another Friday night. The sheer physical relief is immense. The release is elastic. Nothing matters. Nothing. This is everything. This is the whole world. The M1 can go fuck itself. The M25 can disappear. The A3, well, the A3, it’s just a joke. You can afford to laugh now. It’s all worth it, every frustrating centimetre, every near-thing, every litre of fuel, every delay, every episode of restraint in the face of provocation from fuckers in Ferraris, from arseholes in Astras, from muppets in their MPVs…it’s all worth it. She rolls over and off you with a sigh and is now lying at your side and it’s all just so worth it. This is what it’s all about. Two people. One aim. Ten minutes. And every second is perfection. It’s brutal. It’s physical. You couldn’t call this lovemaking. But you are in love. Oh yes, this is love. And you love it.
She grins and kisses you and speaks for the first time; says, ‘Ello, darlin’ in her cod mockney and it’s all worth it. And you’ll do it again, and again, and again. And again. And you do; again and again and again and again and it just gets better and better and better.
The routine was gorgeous to behold. The sleepy sex in the morning, the coffee and fresh orange juice (the posh stuff with bits in mind, none of that ‘from concentrate’ muck round here). Then walk the dog, the shopping, the visit to the country pub for lunch, lazing in the garden during the day, the trip into town for some evening entertainment. You never missed a beat. You were systole; she was diastole. You pulsed. Together you were complete.