The World According to Bertie

“I’ll marry you,” she said. “Yes, I’ll marry you.” But then she thought: I should check up on one thing first.

326 Bruce Samples the Porsche Experience

“Would you want a family?” she asked. “Children?”

“Hundreds,” said Matthew. “Or at least four or five.”

“But we probably wouldn’t be able to afford that many,” she said, smiling at his enthusiasm.

Matthew watched her as she spoke. Perhaps he should tell her. He did not want to tell her before she had said yes, but now he felt that he could.

96. Bruce Samples the Porsche Experience On the day that Matthew proposed – successfully – to Elspeth Harmony, Bruce went to see a motor dealer. The dealer knew Bruce’s future father-in-law and had received a call from him several days earlier on the subject of Bruce’s car; instructions were given, and the dealer in due course telephoned Bruce to arrange the appointment.

For Bruce, this was the first result of the agreement he had reached with Graeme Donald following their meeting over dinner in Julia’s flat. Bruce had been surprised by the directness with which the older man had spoken. There had been no beating about the bush, no tactful references to vague possibilities: it had all been spelled out in the most unambiguous terms. Graeme Donald would see to it that his daughter’s husband would be well looked after.

There would be an engagement, followed by a wedding, and once that was over, then the real benefits would begin to flow.

Nothing could be simpler.

The car, which went with the soon-to-be-assumed director-ship of the holding company (that would be put into effect after the wedding), would be an earnest of things to come, and, besides, with Bruce shortly assuming operational responsibility for the wine bar in George Street, transport would be necessary. So the call to the dealer was made.

The dealer, who operated from a small showroom in Bruce Samples the Porsche Experience 327

Morningside, was of course a freemason, and was a member of the same lodge as Graeme.

“Julia’s young man is not in the craft yet,” said Graeme. “But that will be arranged soon enough. I think he’s sound enough.”

As it happened, the dealer was not listening when Graeme said this, with the result that when Bruce arrived at his garage, he gave him a warm and prolonged handshake, in the course of which, using his thumb, he firmly pressed Bruce’s middle knuckle.

At the same time, the dealer kept his heels together and the toes of his shoes out, thus forming an angle of exactly ninety degrees with his feet. This is what is known as being on the square and is a sure sign of masonic status.

When Bruce felt his knuckles being pressed in this peculiar fashion, he misunderstood the signal. Of course these chaps go for me, he thought. Quite understandable, but he would have to give a signal that he played for the other team.

“My girlfriend couldn’t come with me,” said Bruce, repeating, for emphasis, “Girlfriend.”

The dealer smiled. “We’re better off without them,” he said, meaning, of course, that in his view the choosing of cars was really a male matter, best done by men.

They moved on to the cars. “I have four Porsches in stock,”

said the dealer. “All of them low mileage. Would you like to take a look?”

Bruce nodded, and was shown over to the first of the Porsches, a silver model, a low-slung, sneaky-looking car.

“Great cars,” said Bruce.

“They go from nought to sixty like that,” said the dealer, snapping his fingers. “This one here is a 911 Turbo.” He patted the top of the car. “You’ll be wondering about the difference between it and the GT3? A few facts and figures?”

“Great,” said Bruce, bending down to look in the window.

“Maximum Torque (Nm) at rpm in the Turbo is 620 Nm (with overboot to 680 Nm),” the dealer began. He paused, while Bruce absorbed this information. “Whereas, with the GT3 –

and that red car over there, that’s a GT3 – the max torque is 328 Bruce Samples the Porsche Experience 405 Nm. Also,” and here he raised a finger, “also, there’s a different compression ratio. 9.0:1 in the Turbo, and 12.0:1 in the GT3. Mind you, there’s a bottom line.”

“There always is,” said Bruce.

“Yes,” said the dealer. “The bottom line is this: the maximum speed in each case is 193 mph. Tops. That’s the max.”

Bruce looked thoughtful. “Not bad,” he said.

The dealer nodded. “Dr Porsche is working on pushing that up a bit, but for the time being, 193 mph it is.”

Bruce opened the door of the silver car and slid into the driver’s seat. He held the leather-covered steering wheel and gazed at the array of instruments. This was very good. At 193

miles per hour, it would take him how long to reach Glasgow from Edinburgh? That was about three miles a minute, which meant that one would divide forty by three, to get just over thir-teen. So he could reach Glasgow in fourteen minutes!

Bruce looked up at the dealer, who was standing by the door, looking down on him, smiling. “Could we take this for a test drive?” he asked.