Читать книгу Execution Plan - Patrick Thompson - Страница 7

Who is Les Herbie?

The question seemed to answer itself. It was the headline at the top of the page of the issue of the Pensnett Chronicle I was reading over the shoulder of the man in the seat in front of me. We were on the 256k bus, Dudley to Birmingham via Christ knows where. The 256k bus has vague timetables and glum drivers.

Les Herbie was a columnist in the Dudley Star, not to be confused with the Express & Star. Les Herbie wrote a sometimes-irreverent and often-rude column. No one knew who he was. No photograph accompanied his column. He didn’t make personal appearances. He didn’t do publicity. He’d picked up a readership of young people, bright people, not the usual Dudley Star share of the demographic. The Chronicle had nothing like him, and so they ran daily articles failing to discredit him.

He was a reporter writing under an assumed name, they’d claim. He was a rich boy slumming it in Dudley. He was the man who wrote the horoscopes expanding his remit.

The man in front of me turned the page. I didn’t want to read any more of his paper; I had one of my own. I was young and bright; I had a copy of the Dudley Star. I turned to Les Herbie’s column.

They took my car away.

Let’s quantify that. Let’s pin it down flat and dissect it.

They took my car away. So now I have to flag taxis or walk. Let’s not talk about buses. Let’s not go near buses. Buses are not an option.

There are some advantages to not having a car. I have time to think, while I’m waiting for the taxi.

They say, they always say, that it’ll be there in five minutes. They’re liars. That’s the only reliable part of the business, the fact that it starts with a lie. After that it’s all fiction. Everything – the route, the fare, the language, the glumness with which they take the tip – is subject to change. Only the time the taxi turns up is not subject to change. It is change. It’s the thing itself.

While I’m waiting I write my column, which is why it’s all about taxis. But not buses. I’m not going near buses.

I do have a car. I’m not dependent on public transport. My car developed a noise, and it’s gone to the garage for a few days. Maybe three, maybe six, maybe August, they couldn’t narrow it down. It’s only what they do for a living. You wouldn’t expect them to know how long it’d take.

While I’m waiting, if I’m not writing my column, I’m thinking about costs. A journey by taxi costs me too much a mile. But I save money on not buying a car, or taxing it, or handing out cash to the constables at speed checks. I don’t have to take the taxi to the garage. I can have that second drink.

That’s not counting the gaps. Time is money. My time has gaps, now. There’s the gap between calling the taxi and the taxi turning up. There’s a space between wanting to go somewhere and setting out.

It’d be worse if I was going by bus. On the bus, you pay less in cash, but they take the remainder out of your soul. Plus you need to buy new clothes, afterwards.

The gaps add up. I write half a column, and then have to go, and then I don’t know where the column was going. You can’t write a column in the gaps.

Let’s quantify that. Let’s pin it down flat and dissect it.

I can’t write a column in the gaps. You can’t write a column at all.

So, I can’t go from A to B at time t. I have to go at t+n. My column suffers. My life becomes gappy. The taxi is late, right now, as I write this. It’s taking its time.

When it gets here, it’ll parp and toot. It’ll flash and honk. Suddenly there will be a need for hurrying.

I want my car back, so that I can hurry on my own terms and in my own time. I want my own time back. I don’t like taxis, because of the gaps. I can’t use trains, because the nearest station is ten miles away and the trains only go to Coventry and who wants to go to Coventry? How would I get to the station? It’s in a bad area. I wouldn’t want to go there on foot.

In a tank, maybe. In a Panzer. In an ambulance, more likely.

But not on foot.

And not in a bus.

I don’t do buses.

Have you seen the people on buses? Have you? They come in three types. Bus drivers, still learning how to use the gears and the brakes and the road. People too young to drive, although they should be able to hotwire a car. What’s wrong with young people these days?

The other type has subtypes. The dead, the doomed, the dispossessed. They wear bad clothes and don’t clean them. They live with their mothers.

I’d hate to see their mothers.

They look like child molesters or serial killers. They look like victims.

So, I’m waiting for the taxi, and writing this to fill in the gap.

If I’m lucky, it won’t be a long wait.

If I’m really lucky, this column will cover the fare.

It was a short column for Les. Sometimes he’d have half a page to himself, and sometimes only a paragraph. I folded the paper and looked out of the window. The view was different from the top floor. I didn’t usually travel by bus. I had an Audi. But it wasn’t well, and it had gone to the garage.

‘They’ll rip you off,’ said Dermot, meaning the mechanics. ‘They’ll have seen you coming a mile off. You can’t go on the bus. It’s full of scutters. They’ve all got nits. They’ve all got satchels and scabies. You want your car back.’