for the cars themselves, which seemed to come in two volumes and to total more than 500 pages. He told us not to be alarmed, assuring us that we didn’t need to look at these manuals immediately and that we would find the cars very simple to drive. I wasn’t entirely convinced by this, because not only couldn’t I get my car to start, but I didn’t even know where to insert the little cuboid of plastic that I’d been presented with in lieu of what would, in days gone by, have been a set of keys. Finally Trevor came over and explained to me that there was a button you had to press while holding down the brake pedal with your foot. It all seemed very complicated, and there was no satisfying throaty response from the engine when I followed his instructions. But then I put the car into drive mode, and it did indeed start to move – so unexpectedly, in fact, that it edged forward a couple of yards and ran into one of the bollards at the edge of the car park. It was only a gentle nudge – didn’t do any damage to the bumper, or anything like that – but I suppose it wasn’t too auspicious, in retrospect. Alan Guest did not look especially pleased.
Finally, on the stroke of midday, we drove off in convoy. Behind the fleet of four intrepid salesmen, Lindsay and Alan followed in Alan’s BMW. Lindsay was still filming us. When we reached the largest of the mini-roundabouts on the periphery of the trading estate, we all pulled over: this was our official starting-point. The roundabout had four exits, and we were each to peel off on to a different one. Lindsay and Alan got out of their car and stood in the centre of the roundabout. A keen March wind was blowing, and rain had started to drizzle down. Alan, well wrapped up in his coat and scarf, put his hands together to make a kind of megaphone, and shouted: ‘This is it, chaps! Good luck!’ Lindsay was still capturing everything on camera.
Tony Harris-Jones went first, taking the eastern exit. Then it was Trevor: he performed a 360-degree turn on the roundabout, doubling back the way he had come and heading south. David Webster took the western exit. And then it was my turn. All I had to do was head straight on, taking the second exit, which led north. I had my window open to say goodbye to Alan and Lindsay and as I passed beside them, Alan gave me a formal wave but Lindsay, I noticed, looked up from her filming (she had not done this for any of the others) and blew me a discreet kiss with her left hand as I drove by.
When I saw her gesture, my heart lifted, and I experienced a new, curious sensation: a glow of happiness spreading through my body, starting at my feet and rising all the way up until even my scalp was tingling.
And then, as soon as she was out of sight, I felt suddenly, terribly alone.
12
This message had been displaying on my screen for about fifteen minutes. I was on the M4, eastbound, heading back towards London but about to turn off north on to the A404(M) towards Maidenhead. Traffic was light, and I was currently doing about seventy-six miles an hour on the inside lane. I was beginning to get used to the car, now, but the number of buttons located on either side of the screen was intimidating. I was going to have to pull over somewhere and have a proper look at them. In the meantime, surely it would be safe to touch the ‘I Agree’ icon? I couldn’t just stare at this message for the whole journey. It was like those boxes you have to tick when buying something online, agreeing to the terms and conditions which nobody bothers to read. You have no choice but to agree. Or at least, you’re given the illusion of choice, but that’s all. Maybe that’s how things usually are.
When I pressed the button, anyway, a map appeared. It showed the motorway I was driving on, and it showed me – or at least my car – as a little red arrow heading determinedly forward in an eastbound direction. How many satellites were trained on me at that moment, I wondered, in order to calculate this ever-changing position? I’d read somewhere that it was always about five: five pairs of eyes keeping me under constant surveillance, from their vantage point high up in the sky. Was this a reassuring thought, or a frightening one? As usual, I couldn’t quite decide. There are so many new facts of life that we just don’t know what to think about. All I knew for certain was that it had been different, very different, back in Donald Crowhurst’s day, when he had drifted unobserved for months in the mid-Atlantic, and had believed that he could fool the world, with the help of some bogus calculations pencilled into a logbook, into thinking that he had spent that time battling with storms in the Southern Ocean. Not much chance of pulling off a deception like that nowadays.
The motorway traffic was getting heavy, and it was a relief when I saw the exit for Junction 8/9 (Maidenhead and High Wycombe) signed up ahead. As I turned off and drove up the slip road, I soon found myself braking too sharply. The brakes on this car seemed ultra-sensitive: you only had to give them the lightest of touches. There were two lanes of traffic backed up towards the roundabout, with about ten cars in each. I came to a halt, and took advantage of this temporary stillness to press one of the other buttons alongside the screen.
The button I chose was labelled ‘INFO’. When I pressed it, three green columns appeared on the screen. It took me a few moments to work out what they signified. Apparently, each one represented five minutes’ driving time, and told you what your petrol consumption had been during this period. During my first five minutes I had been averaging 34 miles to the gallon; in the second, 49, and in the third, 51. Not bad, but it wasn’t going to win me any prizes. I had been hoping for an average of 65 or more. Was I doing something wrong?
After negotiating the roundabout and joining the High Wycombe road, I slowed right down to 45 miles an hour, and immediately my fuel efficiency began to rise. I seemed to be averaging between 75 to 80 miles to the gallon now, so I drove at this speed for a mile or so, until the driver stuck in the lane behind me started flashing his lights angrily. I speeded up, feeling obscurely guilty even though I had been engaged (looking at it from one point of view) in an environmentally friendly act. It would be difficult to drive at that speed all the way to Aberdeen, I realized, even though I was bound to win Lindsay’s ?500 prize if I did.
Ten miles later, the A404 joined the M40 and I took the first exit at the roundabout, swinging on to the motorway and heading north-west. On either side of me England – or what little you could see of it from the perspective of the motorway – lay stretched out, reposeful and inviting, dressed modestly in muted greens and greys. I could feel my spirits beginning to rise. I was in the mood for adventure after all.
My plan was this: today, I would drive to Birmingham, at a careful, unhurried pace, consuming as little petrol as possible. I would arrive mid-afternoon, check into a hotel, and then pay a visit on Mr and Mrs Byrne, the parents of my old schoolfriend Chris Byrne and his sister Alison. They still lived in Edgbaston, in a house backing on to the reservoir, and I had already spoken to Mr Byrne over the weekend: I’d phoned him to ask if he still possessed (as my father believed he did) a spare set of keys to the flat in Lichfield. To which Mr Byrne had answered, Yes, we’ve definitely got them here somewhere. (Although he didn’t seem to know where, exactly.) So I intended to pick up the keys, and visit the flat itself the next morning. All of this would mean a very slow start to my journey; but it still gave me plenty of time to reach Shetland, and in any case, there was no point in driving all the way to Kendal tonight, because Lucy would not be able to see me. I’d already been in touch with Caroline about that, and she’d told me that Lucy was going round to a friend’s house that night, for a birthday tea and sleepover. So, I would have to take her out to dinner on Tuesday evening. That was fine. I could still get to Aberdeen on Wednesday afternoon in plenty of time to make the five o’clock ferry. In the meantime, visiting Mr and Mrs Byrne might be a pleasantly nostalgic way to spend a couple of hours.
I settled down to a steady 55 miles per hour. Every other vehicle on the motorway was going faster than this, even the heaviest lorries. My petrol consumption was back down to 70 miles per gallon, and I began to think of all the petrol that people would save if they drove at this speed all the time. Why was everybody in such a hurry? What difference did it make if you arrived at your destination half an hour later than you could have done? Perhaps it was motorways themselves that were the problem. Motorways allowed you to drive faster, yes, but more than that,
