where the tracks passed directly in front of you.
The winner was the first person to notch up ten circuits on the automatic lap counter. I hadn't wanted to play — I knew Davey would win — but it was so damn impressive when you first walked into the room that it would have seemed churlish to decline the challenge. I loved it, actually; I kept rocking this way and that in the high- backed chairs we were sitting in, and nearly fell off the table several times.
'Ten,' Davey said, and let his car cruise to a stop in front of me, just beyond the lap counter. I was concentrating on the hill-climb section of the course, a good forty feet away in one corner of the room. Davey leaned forward in his seat to look at the lap counter .
'Yep,' he said. 'Ten.' He looked at me. 'You've got six.'
'Will you back me up with Tumber for that album title?' I asked him.
'No.'
'Aw, go on.' I got the car to the top of the sheet — and curtain-draped pile of packing cases and tea chests, despite a couple of places where I wagged the tail a bit, and started down the far side, slowing fractionally.
'No, it's a stupid title.'
'It's a great title. It'll intrigue people.'
'It's a stupid title and people'll just go 'What?', and they'll forget it and they'll be too embarrassed to go into a record shop and ask for it.'
'Rubbish.'
'That's exactly what it is.' I took the car over a series of sinuous chicanes held up by strips of Meccano over an old iron and enamel bath full of water. I'd already lost two cars into the bath in hopelessly one-sided confrontations with Davey in the chicanes.
'We have to be adventurous. We need to keep surprising people.'
'Not with a title like that.'
'Look, just back me up with Tumber. I've already spoken to Chris; she'll go along with you. Wes doesn't care and Mickey won't argue.' Davey packed some grass into a small pipe, and watched me bring the car over a succession of humpbacks it was all too easy to go into mid-air from. The trick seemed to be to let the car take off, but land and re-slot before the next bend. I took it slowly, determined to get this car back. 'Tell you what,' Davey said. My heart sank. I knew that tone. I should have said, Never mind, there and then, but I didn't. 'Let's race for it. If you win, I'll be right there. I promise. I'll be even more enthusiastic than you for ... Mrs McNaughty or whatever the fuck it is.'
'McNulty; the name's McNulty. Don't pretend you've forgotten it. And no; you'll win the race. You've been practising; this is my first time.'
'I'll give you a start. Four laps. That what you lost by this time, and you're improving already, so it'll be fair.' As though to confirm this, I brought my car in, bringing my lap total to seven. I stopped the car on the starting grid in front of us. Davey lit the pipe, and said between sucks, 'Four laps; that's fair.'
'Make it five.'
He handed me the pipe, shaking his head. 'Drive a hard bargain,' he gasped. 'Okay.'
I sucked the smoke in, scalding my throat. I didn't like the way Balfour had agreed so readily. 'What,' I said, then coughed, 'what if you win?'
Davey shrugged, positioned his car and mine exactly on the starting grid. 'You come for a ride in the plane.'
'What, now?' We'd had a couple of bottles of wine with the meal Davey had slung together (he had a sort of cook/butler/general gofer who usually lived in the house, but he'd given the guy the week off), and we'd drunk a few Glenmorangies and smoked a few pipes too.
I'd been trying to put off going for a flight until tomorrow, after being reminded of the way Davey drove. I hoped it would be foggy tomorrow, or it would rain torrentially, or there'd be some unseasonal snow (unlikely in Kent in August, but I was clutching at straws). I certainly wasn't going up after Davey had been drinking and smoking.
'Yeah; now.' Balfour said.
I shook my head. 'No way.' I handed him back the pipe. We finished that, then he brought out a small leather case from his jacket, hanging over the back of the chair. Inside, there was a mirror, a razor blade, and a little snuff box. I regarded this lot dubiously.
Ten minutes later: ' Ah, what the hell; okay. Let's race!'
'Bastard!'
'Ten-eight. My race, I believe.'
'Bastard! You weren't even trying the first time!'
'Not really. Ha ha.'
'I'm still not going up in that plane with you. I'm too tall to die.'
'Na; I've gone off that idea myself. Let's get drunk instead.'
'Now that,' I said, crossing my arms, 'is more like it.'
It was late at night and we'd almost finished the bottle of Glenmorangie. I think it was still the first bottle but I wasn't sure. We were in a room that had been converted into a small private cinema, where Davey had been watching some stunningly tasteless Swedish porno movies and I'd been listening to the Pretenders on the headphones and building joints for something to keep my hands busy. After a while I realised I was dropping more dope into the darkness than I was managing to get into the numbers, so I stopped rolling and started smoking, blowing greyblue clouds into the path of the projector beam until Davey told me to stop and handed me a can of strong lager .
I remember drinking that, and then the room went dark; Davey dragged me, still smoking I think, and definitely giggling, from the seat. The mansion seemed very bright after the cinema; I grabbed a pith helmet from a bust in an alcove at the top of the stairs and pulled the hat down over my eyes as we marched arm in arm down the stairs. I stumbled about at the bottom, bumping into things I couldn't see and laughing, then Davey pulled me out into the fragrant air of a summer's night.
'Now what?' I said, craning my head back and trying to see out of the bottom of the pith helmet.
'Drive around the estate,' Davey said, shoving me into the back of the Roller. 'The three chimneys tour. I've only done it twice and I want to see if I can improve my time.'
'Three chi... oh hell, whatever,' I breathed, collapsing back in the seat and staring out the rear window at the darkness. 'Wake me up when we get back.'
The Roller purred, and we set off. I lay looking at the ceiling for a while, and must have been dozing at least when we stopped. I looked over the back of the front seat to see we were parked on grass in front of a large dark building, and Balfour was preparing a couple of very hefty lines of coke on a mirror balanced on the tray of the Roller's opened glove box. I pushed the helmet back, ogled the lines of white crystals and said, 'That it? We done it yet?'
'Not yet,' Davey said, snorting one line through a section of plastic straw and then handing me the straw and mirror as he sat sniffing and snorting and breathing hard, staring at the tall building in front of us. 'And don't spill it, he said.
Unnecessarily; I'd already disposed of the stuff, though I'd done the lot up one nostril and was feeling oddly imbalanced as a result. I lay back down again to wait for the effect, but Balfour dragged me out of the car and we stumbled across the grass to open a large door and then crash around a bit inside the unlit building, our only illumination coming from a torch Balfour held. I cracked my head on something and was very glad of the pith helmet.
'Careful!' Balfour said, and opened a door; I clambered up into what felt like a car interior, still too stupefied to work out what was going on. I lay back across a couple of seats and closed my eyes.
The realisation hit at exactly the same time as the coke, and at the same time as a powerful engine — much louder than the Roller's whispering motor — burst into life. I clawed and fought my way upright as we bumped across the grass; I slipped on something and fell to a thrumming floor, my helmet coming off and rolling away in the darkness. I felt for it, retrieved it, jammed it back on and headed forward to where I could dimly see Davey strapping himself in, lit by the lights from the dials and controls on the dash in front of him.
