The Legend of the Pah - 2 (S T Vasectomy Clinic)

 

A wormhole, that was how Alistair thought of his beloved Audi Quattro because that’s how it seemed, like a hidden corridor into another universe. He didn’t get inside it very often because of the possibility that the magic was finite, that it could wear off just like all the earthly magic he’d ever experienced during his fifty one years, although he wasn’t sure if he’d had his fair share of that. Looking back, he sometimes regretted his lack of adventure but he was never sure if more adventure in his life would have led to an uncomfortable level of adversity.

 

He placed his hands on the steering wheel, gripping it, he felt a rush of endorphins. The adversity he experienced now, in middle-age, was more of a slow, steady drip. Would it have been better to have endured bouts of extreme adversity or even the most intense version of adversity, commonly known as peril, alongside bouts of heady excitement? Perhaps it was better that he’d led a life of stability. He asked himself these questions and then shook them away. ‘You’re not dead yet Alistair,’ he told himself. 

 

The key was in the ignition but recently the engine had been refusing to start; the battery had very little life in it and simply spluttered then died with a weak, ‘pah’ sound. It wasn’t worth turning it but he fondled the dangling key rings, the outline of them made him feel young again but his hands were old. The skin was rough and lined, his fingers looked somehow swollen and his thumb was still red and angry, it looked like a….

 

He tried to remember the last time he’d regularly driven the vehicle, it was in the distant past, before their first son Robert was born. After the advent of parenthood, they’d purchased another car and the Quattro was used considerably less, perhaps for rare dates when they could get a babysitter. The car was reduced to the status of a unicorn; something mythical, otherworldly, to be admired rather than utilised. He drove it up and down his little road occasionally, to keep it ticking over but it wasn’t even insured.

 

It had been third-hand when he acquired it, three uncareful owners, the third being a friend, Red Tim, an ex-colleague; a wild man with bright ginger hair who’d treated it roughly, as a ‘knock about’ vehicle. Alistair had restored it to a shine, whispered to it and waxed it, polishing in firm concentric circles, buffing with chamois leather. Red Tim was long dead now, he succumbed to a punctured bowel while travelling around Thailand, he’d only sold the car to go travelling, he’d even said he might want to buy it back on his return. 

 

Lynne had demanded it be gotten rid of several times. She had a valid point, it took up precious space in the garage and had no practical use. Each time Alistair had refused to put it on the Auto Trader, instead insisting that he’d find a friend to buy it instead but the truth was he had no real friends and now its purpose was solely spiritual.

 

It was rather like his own personal chapel, he felt safe, protected from the world. He closed his eyes and drifted back in time, to a period when his veins were filled with the concentrated chemicals of youth, the ones which made him feel as if anything were possible. Now those chemicals were heavily diluted with a clear liquid otherwise known as doubt. If only it were possible to get a shot of those chemicals, those youthful hormones which enabled him to stay up all night, to feel contorted with the fever of life. 

 

A song came into his head, Guns N Roses, Sweet Child O’Mine. The opening riff sounded in his head so clearly, it was as if the band were playing inside the hairy tunnels of his ears, Axl Rose in minute form swinging from side to side in cowboy boots, ‘Where do we go, where do we go, where do we go now…’ He even heard the contorted waves in Axl’s voice and moved his jaw around silently in time, nodding his head to the phantom tune.

 

The hard tapping on the windscreen made his heart jump out of his chest. ‘What the fuck?’

 

‘Open up the window!’

 

‘What?’

 

‘You can get one for forty seven grand.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘A house in Brittany...with turrets.’

 

‘I don’t want to move to Brittany.’

 

‘No...but I could, we’ve got that in savings. You could stay here and just come over when I need something doing or you could just live in there, in your stupid car and we could rent out the house..’

 

Alistair wound the window back up and closed his eyes, he waited for the apparition to recede back to whence it came. Even without looking, he could sense her barbed energy fading as she headed back to the kitchen. The drip of adversity that is marriage, a long relationship of any kind gathers dust, it chokes you and then all you can think about is fresh air.

 

I’ll get a new battery, he thought, I’ll get this car going again and drive out into the countryside, I’ll drive and drive. Maybe I’ll meet someone who’ll appreciate me. He glanced up into the rear view mirror and ran his hand through the silvery hairs which garnished the top of his head. It occurred to him that grey hair wasn’t really that bad on a male, indeed it was attractive, rather like the autumn colour on a tree, some beauty before all the leaves blow off. At least I’m not bald, he thought. Then he remembered his seed, was it still viable? If Lynne gets her way, I’ll be sterile. Was it such a bad thing?

 

Lynne put a small chicken pie into the oven and began chopping up vegetables, peppers, onions, courgettes, all the things she imagined herself growing in her new house in France. How the neighbours would be charming, there would surely be a little old man called Henri who would bring her home made wine and lavender, maybe a puppy. Maybe she would offer bed and breakfast to artists and it would be so good, so special that celebrities would stay there.

 

She checked herself in the mirror. France would make her look younger, that was a biological fact; all mature women in France look younger than they would in England, it’s the food and wine, the sun and the free way of living. It was a shame about her turkey neck, it was the one thing letting her down, too much lying down in Tenerife. Maybe something surgical could be done to tidy it up or an elegant cravat. Of all the animals to resemble when you grow older, why did it have to be poultry, that would have been her last choice.

 

It was hunger that drove Alistair out of his stationary vehicle. ‘Something smells nice,’ he said, treading carefully, for the kitchen was her domain and one wrong step would mean no dinner.

 

Lynne stirred the vegetables with a wooden spoon and then dished them out onto two plates, the mixed vegetables in a herby tomato sauce which leaked watery red juice all around the edges. Then she removed the small chicken pie from the oven, cut it in half and put half on each plate. ‘There you go.’

 

Alistair stared at the half pie, he lifted it with his fork and looked inside the pastry case. ‘It’s empty,’ he said.

 

‘Shouldn’t be,’ said Lynne shaking her head and tucking into the vegetables, ‘it’s from Waitrose.’

 

‘Lynne, this is a pie for one and you’ve gone and cut it in half, what’s more, it’s empty, there’s no filling!’

 

‘Well, you can put some of your veg inside it.’

 

‘It’ll go soggy,’ Alistair said feebly since he sensed he was close to crossing a line which he didn’t want to cross. The meal his wife had prepared seemed unsatisfactory and different from the balanced dishes she normally cooked which were dominated by a large pile of carbohydrates. It was not what his body was expecting but he wasn’t sure what to say without coming across as demanding, chauvinistic, unhealthy, possibly even dictatorial. ‘There’s a lot of veg here, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get through it all...and I doubt it will fill me up.’

 

Lynne exhaled loudly and sipped on her wine. ‘That sounds a bit like a contradiction to me Alistair. There’s some gnocchi in the fridge, you could boil that up if you’re still hungry, it only takes three minutes.’

 

‘I had pasta for lunch.’

 

‘Gnocchi is not pasta! It’s balls of potato, creamy mashed up balls of potato.’ She pulled open the lid of her half pie and peered suspiciously inside, there was some gravy, maybe three small chunks of chicken. ‘You know that Audi needs to go, don’t you.’

 

He nodded. ‘I thought Robert could have it, I’ll soup up the engine for him. All the youngsters want vintage cars these days, it’s cool, even Ford Capris are sexy again.’

 

Lynne winced. ‘Please don’t say that word again in front of me.’