by Chris Cottom
Mum isn’t interested in cars.
‘They’re giving your Dad a new one,’ she says.
‘What sort?’
‘Brown.’
It’s a Cortina Mk II in Saluki Bronze.
‘Bigger engine,’ Dad says. ‘I’ll be taking her up as far as Kirkby Lonsdale.’
On Saturday, in my wellies, I help him with my junior chamois leather, and waggle the dipstick like a real mechanic. Mum’s in the kitchen, jabbing little sticks into cocktail onions and cubes of cheddar.
The party starts after my bedtime. I watch from the landing while Dad talks to a lady with a long cigarette holder.
‘I’m in the motor trade,’ he says.
The lady leans her head back and blows a smoke ring over his head, where it hovers like a halo.
‘Specialising in two-seaters, I imagine,’ she says.
Dad has the best job in the world, selling Dinky Cars to toyshops from Barmouth to Burton-upon-Humber. Sometimes he’ll bring me one from the factory, like a Morris Oxford in Clarendon Grey or a Singer Gazelle with a sunroof.
Hopeful for a Twiglet, I lean over the banisters, but Dad’s heading for the lounge, his hand on the lady’s back, steering her one-handed through the crowd of grown-ups.
In the morning, I can’t find Mum.
‘She’s gone to see your Gran,’ Dad says. ‘Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes?’
After making me a Banana Nesquik, even though it isn’t a special day, he clicks open his briefcase and hands me a Hillman Minx Series III saloon. I take it to Sunday School and hide it under my jumper during prayer time. I wonder what car Jesus would choose if He came again today and didn’t have to rely on donkeys. It’d have to be a convertible – like a Triumph Herald – with Peter driving so Jesus could wave from the back.
Later, I line up my cars along the windowsill while Dad bends over his Bartholomew’s Roadmaster Atlas, listing towns and toyshops on his company jotter.
On Monday, Mum huffs and puffs while she makes Dad’s ham sandwiches. She wraps them in greaseproof paper and snaps on a rubber band.
‘Give this to your Dad.’
‘What about his Penguin Biscuit?’
‘We’ve run out.’
Dad pulls on his driving gloves and goes off for another week, lodging in a boarding house in Kirkby Lonsdale or somewhere, where I suppose an aproned landlady will make him his evening Ovaltine.
On Wednesday, after Zoo Time, Dad rings from a telephone box. I hope he has enough sixpences to test me on the engine size of a Mini Cooper or the length of a Ford Corsair. Instead, he says, ‘Don’t you be giving your mother any trouble.’
Later, I’m playing with my Rover P4 Drophead Coupé in Connaught Green when Mum explains it’s the boarding houses that are causing the trouble. She starts emptying jars of cocktail onions, so her eyes go a bit funny.
‘I’ll need my own car now,’ she says.
I hold out the Rover. ‘How about a green one?’
Chris Cottom has spent the better half of his life near Macclesfield, UK. One of his stories was read to passengers on the Esk Valley Railway between Middlesborough and Whitby. He’s packed Christmas hampers in a Harrods basement, sold airtime for Radio Luxembourg, and served a twelve-year stretch as an insurance copywriter. He liked the writing job best.
