The Tin Snail
Page 21
I’m twenty-three now, and people say I’ve got my father’s muscular build—which I think is a polite way of saying I have his square head. Others say I have the paler looks of my mother.
My father is sitting beside me, and judging by the way he keeps stirring sugar into his espresso, he’s as nervous as I am.
The war and its aftermath have taken their toll on him, I realize. His face is more deeply lined, his mane of black hair a little thinner, with the first flecks of gray. A lot of his wild sorcerer’s passion has vanished: it’s now certain that he and my mother won’t get back together after all.
At first I refused to believe it; I kept hoping that somehow they would be reunited. But it wasn’t to be. Now I’ve come to accept that people aren’t like cars. You can’t always fix something that’s broken.
It’s eight years since we moved back to Paris. Soon after our raid on the freight train, my father and I returned to help Bertrand build trucks for the Germans. Some wondered how we could bring ourselves to collaborate like that—but little did they know what Bertrand was really up to. Not only was he able to keep employing his entire workforce; he was quietly and efficiently running a little underground sabotage movement of his own.
As Keller himself had noted, Bertrand’s lorries had something of a reputation for breaking down at the most inconvenient moments. What Keller had never figured out, however, was why.
Bertrand had secretly instructed us to put the notch on the oil dipstick a centimeter lower than it should be. A tiny adjustment that would be lost on the untrained eye, but would mean that every engine ran out of oil unexpectedly, often with catastrophic effects.
Eventually, four years later, the war came to an end. As the defeated Germans fled back across the border, they left a trail of destruction behind them. Revenge was swift, and soon anyone suspected of collaborating with the invaders was arrested and put on trial. Senior German officers and officials were also being rounded up—among them two whom my father and I knew only too well.
One, predictably, was Major Keller. The other was Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, who was to spend the next two years in a French prison. Production of his own people’s car was halted—for the moment, at least.
All of which meant that another car was now fighting to take the crown at the 1948 Paris Motor Show.
Since those first corrugated-iron prototypes we’d tested out in Benoît’s field, the Tin Snail has been through some major changes. The bodywork has been restyled, some of its sharper edges smoothed out, its engine improved.
But there’s one thing Bertrand insists will never change: the Tin Snail is a no-frills car. It’s a working animal, not a luxury Thoroughbred. For that reason, he has declared that there will be a strict waiting list. Only those who can prove they’re working artisans—the hardworking farmers and bakers for whom the car was designed—can buy one.
Now, having added several more spoonfuls of sugar to my own espresso, I join my father to watch the people as they start to stream into the Grand Palais. Already they are beginning to gather around the car—though it’s hard to tell if their confusion is because they think it’s beautiful or plain daft.
“It’s a good sign,” I suggest optimistically. “At least they’ve noticed it.”
“They’ll hate it,” my father groans. “Just like the newspapers.”
It’s true. Journalists have already taken against the car. They’re used to cars being elegant, stylish. But the Tin Snail, perched up on its plinth, is most definitely and unashamedly no such thing.
There’s no point denying it: it’s, well, basic; a backstreet kid fighting dirty.
Bertrand, amazingly, is taking all this in his stride. I know that he was expecting a backlash from the papers, but nothing like this. The press are openly laughing, jeering at the “ugly duckling,” as they’re calling it: another disaster for Hipaux, their headlines are crowing.
Down below me, his secretary, Madame Detrice, is clucking around a cluster of young assistants. Their job is to check every potential buyer to see if they qualify. If their job is too middle-class, or if they earn too much, they’re simply turned away.
The press are guffawing. With such a financial disaster on his hands, surely Bertrand is insane to think he can turn away paying customers!
I cast around and pick out Bertrand himself, busy fielding questions from the press. Suddenly a familiar hand gently touches his arm. Even after all these years, I recognize him immediately.
Engel.
“I have come to congratulate you on your success,” I overhear him say, smiling in his customary guarded manner.
“I don’t know about that. Most of this lot hate it,” Bertrand replies, throwing a rueful look at the throng of journalists.
“They don’t matter,” Engel assures him. He turns and nods toward the people forming an orderly line behind Madame Detrice. “These are the ones who are voting with their feet.”
As Bertrand turns, I follow his gaze. To my astonishment, a large queue has steadily been gathering behind our backs. With every passing second, more and more people are now joining it. Ordinary, common workers, wearing their best Sunday suits, are patiently waiting to fill in application forms.
“Papa.” I tug at my father’s arm. “Look.”
Reluctantly he glances round. For a moment his eyes don’t focus. Then he sees it.
The queue of prospective buyers is already snaking across the great hall. In a matter of minutes it will stretch outside and into the street.
Very gradually, by word of mouth, a legend is being born. Despite the best attempts of the press to derail it, the French public are taking the ugly little car to their hearts. In fact, astonishingly, some of them don’t even think it’s ugly at all!
Bertrand’s faith in my father has been utterly vindicated. The Tin Snail is nothing short of a miracle.
Suddenly a figure in the crowd catches my eye. It is the merest glimpse, but I’m certain.
Camille!
I leap to my feet and begin to push my way forward. It’s no easy task—the crowd is now twenty or more deep, pressing around the stand. With every step, I feel my chest tightening, but I don’t care. I have to see if it’s really her.
I fight my way through to the other side of the hall, only to find no sign of her. Searching the crowd desperately, I feel my world darken again. Did I just imagine her after all? Crushed, I turn to go back to my father when I notice that the driver’s door of the Tin Snail is slightly open.
My heart stops and I begin to edge forward. Slipping under the rope cordoning off the stand, I step up onto the plinth and cautiously approach the passenger window. No one seems to have noticed me: Bertrand is too busy fending off the press, while Madame Detrice and her girls are inundated with inquiries.
As I edge toward the car, I feel as if I’ve gone back ten years to that fateful day when I drove the display model clean off the stand.
I reach for the door handle and ease it open.
Camille is sitting in the driver’s seat; she turns toward me casually. “You didn’t fix the windscreen wiper, then.”
“Nope,” I concede before climbing in beside her.
For a moment we sit in silence—till Camille can clearly bear it no longer.
“You stopped writing,” she says accusingly.
“Can you blame me? I heard you got married.”
“No—I got engaged,” she corrects me.
I steal a glance at her finger. There’s no ring.
“People get unengaged, stupid,” she says scornfully.
Suddenly my heart is beating like a drum and my mouth has gone dry. My hand instinctively begins scratching the back of my neck.
“So why are you here? To buy one of these?” I ask as casually as I can.
“Don’t need one.”
“Why…?”
“Because I’m moving to Paris,” she announces matter-of-factly.
My heart is thumping so loudly, I’m convinced she can hear it. �
��Oh, yes? Anywhere nice?” I ask.
“I haven’t seen the apartment yet. I was hoping you’d help me find it.”
I stare at her, and she returns my gaze without blinking.
“Are you going to do that all day?” she asks eventually.
“Do what?”
“Stare at me.”
A thousand different hopes and thoughts crowd into my mind at once.
“Where are the keys for this thing, anyway?” she asks impatiently. “I want to see how she handles.”
“Take it from me—this isn’t the best place for a test-drive.”
“Well, in that case, you’d better take me for a spin some other day,” she says, then slowly sinks down in her seat. I follow her lead, hunkering down beside her, till we’re both out of sight of the crowds.
She turns to me, her face now only inches from mine. There’s that same old mischievous glint in the corner of her eye. “Well…?”
“Well, what?”
“Go on, then.”
“Go on what?” I ask, baffled.
She sighs, exasperated, then grabs hold of the lapels of my jacket and tugs me closer. The sudden shift in balance makes the car lurch unexpectedly to one side.
“You’re going to need to fix that flipping suspension,” she says, scowling.
And then she kisses me.
The True Story Behind The Tin Snail
On a snowy winter’s day in 1995, something very special was found hidden in a barn in the French countryside not far from Paris, something that had been kept a secret from the world for nearly fifty years. High up in the hayloft were three of the earliest prototypes for a car that had become a legend in France and around the world. It was called the Deux Chevaux—or 2CV for short.
When I saw the newspaper photograph of these cars being winched out of the barn, I was immediately fascinated by how they had come to be there. It turned out that, like the car Angelo helps create in my story, the original 2CV was designed to be a revolutionary new vehicle: a car for the ordinary French worker. When war broke out in September 1939, the head of Citroën really did order that all the prototypes be scrapped so that the German army—or rather the spies for Citroën’s rivals—couldn’t steal them. Two young engineers who had worked on the car, however, couldn’t bear to see their precious designs destroyed and promptly took matters into their own hands….
As I started to research the story, I wondered what would have happened if the Germans had discovered these prototypes…and the tale of the Tin Snail was born.
A lot of my story is a work of imagination—there is no evidence that the German army ever made it to the village where the prototypes were hidden. But several of my key characters are inspired by the real inventors of the 2CV: in particular, Flaminio Bertoni, who really was Italian and drove an old BMW motorbike; and André Lefèbvre, a dashing engineer who really drank only champagne and drove rally cars.
Special mention must also go to the head of Citroën at that time, Pierre-Jules Boulanger, a very wise and courageous man without whom the 2CV (or Tin Snail) would almost definitely never have existed. It was his idea that the car had to be cheap and sturdy enough to drive over a plowed field without spilling any beer or breaking any eggs. What’s more, he really did move the oil marks on dipsticks so that the cars he had to make for the German army always broke down!
The last 2CV was made in 1990, after which production stopped for good. But if you look hard enough, you can still see the odd lovingly cared-for model on the road. Thanks to its revolutionary suspension, however, you probably won’t see it turning over as it comes round the bend….
—Cameron McAllister
About the Author
Cameron McAllister is a TV scriptwriter and has worked on shows such as Robinson Crusoe, Spooks Code 9, Primeval, and Emmerdale. He grew up near the beaches of Cornwall, England, and now lives in Brighton with his wife, four sons, and Floss the dog.
About the Illustrator
Sam Usher’s debut picture book, Can You See Sassoon?, was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Award and shortlisted for the Read It Again! Award, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and the Red House Book Award. Sam lives in North London with an eighty-eight-year-old housemate and spends his time playing the piano, trespassing, and drawing in his favorite café.