Moggerhanger

by Alan Sillitoe

  In motoring I talk more often in my mind to the chap behind than to the one in front. I don’t know why, but I suppose it’s normal. It put me at an advantage with regard to the hatchback, because there might then be less chance that he would speculate, at least with much prescience, about me, and have to wait on my shifts and variants. I once played the game on the arterial lanes of England against Kenny Dukes, who was the quickest motorlad in South London. But it was harder on the Balkan Highway to move in concentric switches, and keep my intentions hidden from the hatchback. A deliberate failure on my part to overtake a car in front got me so close to the hatchback’s fender he was in danger of being pushed rearwards to Zagreb. Not much wrong with that, except he would have no headlamps.

  He thought it best to pull away for some distance, as I’d imagined he would, so with a risky overtaking into a lot less traffic I tonned up the car and he lost me. He would expect me to nightstop in Belgrade, but I turned off the main road fifty miles before, when he was no longer in my rear mirror, to a place where—Alice having done more of her homework—there was a hotel. Staying there would save me searching Belgrade for lodgings in the rush hour and half darkness.

  I found a hotel, in a town whose name I couldn’t pronounce, and was given a room on the sixth floor. My window showed a river below, and a church whose onion dome, close enough to touch, reminded me again that I was abroad.

  With five hundred kilometres on the clock since morning I felt as scruffy and tired as after a day in a factory—though I’d never worked in one—so went along the corridor for a shower. The hotel was newish but rundown, as if Vandal Tour buses stopped there now and again, because lights didn’t work on the top floor, locks in the men’s lavatories were smashed, the sinkshelf in my room hung from the wall, and plaster on the ceiling patched with rust looked ready to fall. Who was I to complain? It was a better bolt hole than Peppercorn Cottage.

  I waited half an hour in the eating hall for wiener schnitzel and chips, bread and salad, a litre of wine and a bottle of mineral water. The usual Slav band pounded tunes into our ears, but from behind a partition. A young unshaven man on crutches swayed to my table and held out a hand, pain and intimidation in his eyes. When I gave him some change he indicated thirst, so I let him knock back a glass of wine from my carafe, then hobble away in at least one part mended.

  Needing fresh air and a walk afterwards I found a street market selling tomatoes, peaches and cucumbers, and bought a bag of each for picnics. Soldiers strolled forlornly in a park behind the church as if a Woodbine or two would cheer them up. They could have earned them, I thought, by digging pits at the lay-bys to pitch all the garbage into.

  I put my shopping in the Roller and, blessing Alice for sheer genius, sorted out a plug for the upstairs sink, which headed a list of things she’d told me to bring.

  I got through to Moggerhanger on the blower, and told him where I was.

  “Will you spell that again? I only know English.”

  I took him through the two words letter by letter, and had him repeat them back.

  “I’ve found it. I’m moving the pin at this very second. Do you have anything to tell me?”

  “Yes. I’m being tailed. A little black hatchback keeps me in its sights.” I only now wondered why I had been sent in a Rolls Royce, the most conspicuous automobile on the road. Common sense would have been to drive a Ford Escort with a luggage rack and flapping plastic. Had I been set up, or what?”

  “Michael, what do I pay you for? Lose him.”

  “How do you expect me to do that in a country with only one road? Or three at the most?”

  “That’s your department. You have your orders. I leave it to you.” He put the phone down.

  Worry had never found a toe hold to help anyone wanting to climb up me. I went to bed and read Murder in the Bath by Sidney Blood, the Nether World Band in the dining room shaking every plywood partition in the place.

  Rain splashed so tunefully in the morning I thought the plumbing had done a total eclipse, but I was up at eight, though it was nine because my watch hadn’t registered the change of longitude.

  A bypass took me around Belgrade, to the outdoor market I’d been instructed to look out for, and I saw some sense at last in driving the Rolls Royce, because my contact had no trouble finding me. A tall heavy man, whose smile must have got lost in childhood, came out of a smart Mercedes Coupé and parked so close that the transfer of goods and money was finished in a few seconds. His mouth seemed full of gravel: “Give Lord Moggerhanger my fervent wishes, from Gavril.” Half a dozen younger men in shades and short haircuts went back into their cars after the transaction. Gavril gave me a wave as they went away in as much of a convoy as could be managed in the crowds of shoppers. I wandered the market stalls, bought a wedge of cheese and a loaf for something like seventy-five pence.

  Back on the highway, the hatchback came from the opposite direction so fast there was hardly time to put up two fingers. Having missed me yesterday evening he had waited farther south and, losing patience if not heart, had spent the night in Belgrade. This morning he had set off and, after a hundred miles, realised I couldn’t have got that far, so was now on his way back for a recce.

  With no more rain, and wondering who had given him my route all the way from Milan, I bowled along as if on holiday, green hills opening to far horizons, fields of maize, and sunflowers whose faces were still turned east. But I wasn’t there to take in the scenery, with so many lorries overturned or jackknifed (often both) by the roadside, wrecked bits of motor car scattered around as if a mastodon had eaten up an entire automobile factory and staggered out here to be sick. Maybe it was a policy of the Road Safety Department of Jugoslavia to arrange such a glum display as a warning for traffic to take care, though it didn’t look as if with much success. It must have been an insurance firm’s nightmare, and I didn’t want my almost-corpse filling out a claim before getting to Greece that night. So I wouldn’t go too fast, in spite of the hatchback still on the prowl.

  Prosperous Serbia dropped behind, and I said hello to the precipitous landscape of Macedonia. The hatchback, aerial gleefully waving, stayed close behind. You scratch my hatchback, and I’ll scratch yours; but I’ll drive you off the fucking road first, mate, I said aloud in basic Nottingham-speak, always used at times of crisis.

  I jacked up speed as much as I dared, but he stuck to me like shit to a blanket, no doubt blind with anger at having lost me last night. Such a rate of knots soon took me to an emptier stretch of road. Moggerhanger had ordered me to get rid of him which, I supposed, meant luring him into a lay-by and cutting his throat, but that I wouldn’t do, not intending to end my life in a Jugoslav jail, or getting shot for it. Moggerhanger could serve his own time, and I hoped one day he would, though if he did his suite of cells at the Scrubs would be a fitted carpet palace, and he’d have the governor pouring out his Ovaltine every night before bed time.

  I drove as if not realising hatchback was there, or as if I didn’t think he could have anything to do with me. At places where he might easily overtake, he didn’t. Had he tried I would have gone parallel in the hope of him getting booted off the road by an incoming lorry. Yet I was glad he stayed behind, not wanting him to be seriously injured, even by accident.

  But get rid of him I must, whether or not it meant the Roller being knocked about. Even Moggerhanger realised that everything had its price. My luck became the hatchback’s nightmare when, after a few bends, the road was straight enough for my purpose.

  Perhaps hatchback’s gaffer had ordered him to keep track of me come what may, or his job would no longer be pensionable. All I knew was this: that since it was him or me I could only do my best to make it him. Maybe by now he was stricken with liver fluke, and the poor bastard was heading for hydrotherapy in Greece.

  I stamped on my brakes and waited for the crunch, in the split second realising he was more Brand’s Hatch t
han I was, though it did him no good. From my rear mirror I saw him go. He missed my bumper by the width of a matchstick as he swung clear. Maybe he thought me a sentimental Englishman who’d spotted a pretty rabbit in mid-road rubbing a white tipped paw across its smile. Or a cockerel scratching for grit to make him virile, which he would have considered more understandable. Had he struck my bumper I would have gone back and smacked him around his already bleeding head for being such a stupid driver, as I’d once intended doing to someone on the Great North Road, till I saw it was a woman, when I merely wagged my finger and called her naughty.

  I was too intent on self-preservation to glimpse the face as he went by, but I’d have given much to know who he, or maybe they, were, whether Italian, French or Jugoslav, or even English, never wanting to injure anyone with whom I was so little acquainted. I put him down as a man of the Continent, for he certainly knew how to drive on the right. So did I, after a few trips with Frances to the Med and back.

  On overtaking he performed the classic manoeuvre of cutting in so sharply I’d have to stop to avoid smashing into him. I’d expected it. I’d have tried it myself. But as his luck would have it his car clipped the only pothole for miles, shot across the road, and came to rest with its tin nose pressed against the arse of a considerable rock. The bonnet flew up, and the last thing I saw before smoothing my way ahead was a hand waving wildly from the window.

  Hatchback must then have surmised I would do all possible speed to broach the Greek frontier that evening. He could think what he liked. My plan was to wait till tomorrow, by when he would have heard from whoever was to check me at that point (if there was any such person, but I was taking no chances) that I must have slid over unseen. The map showed two possible crossing places, while a third option led through Albania; but I didn’t want a free haircut, and in any case I had no visa.

  The hotel fifty miles before the border turned out to be the fleapit of all fleapits. Anyone driving a Rolls Royce (not now so clean on the outside as it had been) would never have put up at such a place, but for my purpose it was ideal, and I parked at the back so that it wouldn’t be visible from the road.

  As I walked in to book a room a couple of families were struggling from their cars with heavy luggage, while a young factotum of the establishment sat on the veranda with a pencil in his mouth trying to do a crossword.

  I needed a prolonged sluice of cold water to get clean, but no taps ran, though the man checking passports said they would do so later. I slept for an hour, but found no water on coming to, no toilet paper either, so I fetched some from the car. A plain supper of brochettes, chips, salad, wine and bread, was served under the trees, a menu I noted because Frances was always interested in what I ate when travelling.

  After coffee and the usual cigar there was no option but to go showerless to bed, useful in any case for an early start in the morning. The hotel being at the junction of two main routes, hundreds of lorries were grinding their way by all through the night, to the whistles and clanking of mile-long goods trains on the nearby trunk railway. Then, in case I doubted God’s intention to give me no rest, a storm with thunder and lightning was thrown into the mix.

  There was no water in the morning, either, and I dreaded to think where enough was obtained to make coffee. As for finding a phone to put me in touch with Moggerhanger, that was the least of my worries. Breakfast was skimpy, so I soon shot out of the place.

  I felt bereft on the road without the stalking presence of the hatchback, whose occasional appearances had given some excitement. Instead there were French caravans to worry about, one in front with a lifeboat on top and six bicycles strapped to the back door, and another behind with, I supposed, similar holiday and survival equipment. Much scenery was lost in winding along the valley, though the few spectacular drops to the right would have been perfect for pitching hatchback—accidentally—over the edge and bouncing him through rocks and bushes to the river.

  In places where the road narrowed, quarter-mile tunnels reduced me to slow driving. Lorries coming from the opposite direction dazzled me with their thousand-watt headlamps, and I didn’t want a scrape that would burst me into flames.

  After a short wait at police and customs I was back in civilisation. The sky seemed lighter in Greece, and it seemed ages since I had felt so carefree. In fact I appreciated the improvement so much I would have volunteered for the expedition to Troy, if it was about to leave. Glossy magazines festooned racks in the cafeteria, so many naked bosoms displayed bringing Sophie sharply to mind, since I was, after all, only human.

  Still hungry after the sparse Macedonian breakfast, I flipped open the envelope of drachma currency—thanks again, Alice!—so that I could stuff on coffee and honey cakes. As scruffy as a tramp after no water at the last place, I had a good wash in the toilets, then waited for a couple of lorry drivers to finish telling their girlfriends umpteen times how much they loved them and what they were going to do to them when they got home, before dialling Moggerhanger.

  “This is an unusual time of the day for you to come up out of the blue, Michael. Whose young lady’s arms were you in last night?”

  “It was impossible to get through. I spent three hours trying.”

  “I waited up.”

  “The phone where I stayed had been vandalised.”

  “That’s as maybe,” he sighed, “but it’s just not like you to leave no stone unturned, even if there’s a scorpion under every one. I’m surprised. I’ve never known you to let anything stand in your way. At least spell out the name of the place you stopped at.”

  I did.

  “And where might you be at this moment?”

  I told him that, as well.

  “That’s a blessing.”

  “I’m making progress.”

  “You certainly are.”

  I stood on the other foot. “Tomorrow I’ll be in Athens for sure.”

  “I like you, Michael. You always had a flair for telling me what I want to know. And the little mobile pram giving you aggravation yesterday, and attempting illicit intercourse with your backside, what happened to that?”

  I laughed, for as long as was considered suitable.

  “Such a noise presages good news. Tell me about it. Make my day.”

  “I dumped him.” I related my adventure. “He must at least have a bloody nose.”

  “Not seriously injured though, I hope?”

  “I did my best to avoid that.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. You know how much I deplore violence. As Mr Clausewitz says: ‘Violence is a sign of failure by any other means.’ Though I know I shouldn’t say this, there was a time in my life when violence kept me young. It’s nice to have a little chat with you now and again, so tell me what happened to my Rolls Royce in the encounter.”

  “Not a scratch.”

  “Now I know why I sent you. Ah, I’ve just found the place for last night’s pin. What a trail they’re starting to make. I expect you to call me this evening, without fail.”

  I distrusted his approval and praise, never knowing what lurked behind his words, though it was true enough that none of his other employees could have got this far. Toffee Bottle would have been pulled in by the police for going ten times the wrong way around Milan cathedral. Kenny Dukes might have reached Venice, but he would have sunk the car in the Grand Canal thinking it was a short cut to Jugoslavia. Cottapilly and Pindary would have tried to sell the car in Russia and got twenty years in the Gulag. Only Bill Straw would have done as good if not better than me, but he wasn’t on Moggerhanger’s payroll.

  Nothing famishes me as much as driving, so I needed another bout of cakes and coffee. Back on the road, I weighed up the chances of my long distance pick up going wrong, hoping however that all would turn out well. The next moment I doubted that it could. In spite of Moggerhanger’s smooth tone it was hard to believe he hadn’t sent me out as some kind
of decoy, a pawn in a game I was too far down in his hierarchy to fathom. Such a strange and uncomfortable sensation on my part was close to paranoia, yet I needed to be paranoid so that my easy-going nature could click into a state of self-preservation.

  Glad at any rate that I had got rid of the vicious-looking hatchback, I went down a dirt road to the beach. Salonika was behind me, and I sat under an almond tree, sliced some bread, and opened a tin of sardines. I was relaxed and happy that all had gone well. The most difficult part was over. I’d made it from sea to sea, so what could touch me now?

  The blue Aegean lapped at my feet, and I recalled how Frances had read me the Matthew Arnold poem in her lovely expressive voice. Two thousand miles, and here I was, hearing the sea that Sophocles listened to. I took off shoes and socks to let my toes murmur their appreciation, though they weren’t allowed to soak for long—not wanting to spoil them.

  I drove by Mount Olympus, and slowed at the sight of an English Peugeot Estate parked at the Vale of Tempe. I waved to a fair haired young lad chasing butterflies with a net, and he gave one back before going into the bushes. When his lovely dark-haired mother blew me a kiss (maybe it was meant for the Rolls) her husband looked daggers.

  A mile further on a black hatchback coming up on the port bow showed in my mirror. I own to a shock, and felt a lick of despair. This time it would be murder, or near enough, him or me, I was too enraged to care, but when it got closer I noticed there was no aerial, and the front was undamaged, so I couldn’t think it was the same car, when the woman driver overtook so nippily and turned off at the next fork. To celebrate my deliverance (or the hatchback’s) I stopped at a village and bought a three-kilo melon from a toothless old woman in black, who smiled as if wanting to take me home when I told her to keep the change. After eating a good half, and washing my sticky fingers at a pump, I took off my jacket, for it was getting hot, and considered unravelling my tie, but Moggerhanger had stipulated that we should always wear one when driving cars that belonged to him, and who knew when a hireling of his wouldn’t pass by and report the dereliction?