Looking for Mrs Dextrose (20 page)

The bike spluttered, shuddered and ground to a halt. Once again we were out of fuel. One half-can remained, which would just about fill her up. Then that was it. Death in the
wilderness: a lonely business. I assumed – prayed – we would hit a petrol station soon.

Dextrose offered to attend to the tank and was as jovial as I had ever seen him. I couldn’t help being suspicious. Had he a hip flask secreted in one of those deep pockets? I certainly
hadn’t noticed him taking surreptitious slugs, nor had he touched the beers in his suitcase, now reattached to the machine.

There was but one conclusion: that he was quite simply happy to be heading back to his good friend Quench. (Or so he thought.)

Yes, I did feel guilt, but some people need to be dragged kicking and screaming (or blindly) towards the path of righteousness. It was enough for now to see him smile, even if that did resemble
more of a wonky, scabbed-over gash. We were family of sorts.

About to remount our replenished steel steed, Dextrose still commandeering the controls, I felt a hand clench tight around my wrist. It was Importos, blocking out the sun.

“More Importos to zink, more he to zink Senor Alexander to lie.”

He bloody knew. Of course he did. I just stood there, mute, trying to adopt an expression of innocence.

He went on: “Next time to stop, Importos to call zis bad people. Zey to find bruzzer. Senor Alexander to pray not to lie. Yes?” Then he grabbed me by the throat.

The next thing, his hand was swiped away and Dextrose was there between us.

“Who is this minker?” he said to me.

“It’s Importos, Dad,” I said. That guilt hit me once again. “He’s a friend.”

“Funny minking sort of friend,” he pointed out.

Importos squared up to him, resembling an altercation between Little and Large. “What is problem, fat man?”

As far as I was aware, I was the only person to witness Detritos’ final moment. Only I knew for certain that he was dead. So I was safe, surely?… Unless I allowed paranoia into the
equation, when all sorts of unlikely though quite feasible options kicked in. What if we had been watched? What if Detritos had left details of his whereabouts with someone? Or SHH! had equipped
him with some sort of tracking device? On the positive side, Importos’ bad friends would have a job tracking me down, since the dwarf’s brother knew me only as Alexander, not by my new
name.

“D’yer want us to shoot him, Pilsbury?” asked Dad.

Brilliant, I thought. Had he never seen
Dad’s Army
?

“No! God no! Haha!” I slapped the tall man’s back in a lame all-guys-together gesture. “It’s just a misunderstanding. Isn’t it, Importos?”

Importos shot me a dark look. “Who to know? Importos to make phone after stop. We to see, yes?”

The air had turned sinister.

Having been excited for quite a while, as I watched the approach of another vehicle – the first to pass us on that desolate, endless stretch of tarmac – my
tenterhooks were wantonly uprooted when we were finally passed by what turned out to be a farm truck, a rusty old contraption with three tatty chickens in the back. The driver – male, 60s,
corn-cob pipe, hat – stared directly ahead as he did so, though I waved and reached across to toot the horn. I could only assume he rode the Nameless Highway as a matter of course and vowed
never again to become excited about other traffic.

Around noon, Dextrose started to ask questions.

Why hadn’t we passed Socks ‘N’ Sandals yet (he didn’t know its name; in fact, he called it, “that hick-infested leper colony”, but I knew what he meant)?

How far away was it? And how far from that would Mlwlw be?

The ace up my sleeve was the fact that he had been out cold, so would be none the wiser. In reply I exaggerated loosely: “Took a fair few hours. Don’t worry, we’ll get
there!”

As luck would have it, moments later something black appeared up ahead in the distance and I was able to fib gratuitously: “There, bet that’s Socks ‘N’
Sandals.”

I was hoping desperately that it would be a petrol station.

Not long afterwards the sky changed colour bewilderingly suddenly. One moment it was all’s-well-with-the-world Delftware-blue, the next the clouds had converged above us,
like opposing armies meeting on a battleground. Electrical in nature, they pressed the air down onto our heads until we could sense it. The sun faded to grey and the world descended into gloom.

We actually saw the rain coming. A curtain of torrential drops appeared before us and we drove into it, as if entering a waterfall, covering our heads and laughing – even Importos. It was
an exhilarating experience.

In milliseconds, my safari suit was sodden and clinging to my skin. I raised my face to the heavens and let their contents pour over me, wash away the dust and grime and all the tribulations of
the past. Rolling up my sleeves, I used the liquid’s chill as a salve on my sunburnt skin. Water collected quickly in the bottom of the sidecar; many miles away lightning strikes lit clouds
up and the thunder rolled in.

Visibility dropped considerably, until I could see but 50 yards in any direction. Either side of the Nameless Highway the sand had darkened and become an extensively pitted paste, each tiny pit
the grave of a raindrop.

“HOW MUCH LONGER TO THAT BAR?” called out Dextrose over the downpour’s din, overcoat tails flapping behind him. His silvery curls had been battered down flat. The rain poured
through them, transferring via his sideburns to his beard, which had turned pointy; the water flowed from it with the ferocity of a much-needed piss. I wondered how many tiny critters were being
washed right out of his hair as it did so. He blinked repeatedly as the rain smacked into his eyes, and his sudden cleanliness only exacerbated how damaged his face was.

Poor bugger.

“NO IDEA!” I replied. “SOON!”

He nodded, smiled, turned to face back into the driving rain; the speedometer needle dared to flicker into 41.

However, despite Mother Nature’s cleansing efforts, my thoughts remained troubled. Those manifold lies would catch me up, sure as dogs were dogs, and then there would be hell to pay.

My emotions were decidedly mixed when I spotted the short signpost – the first in several hundred miles:

Dextrose must have seen it, too, as he scowled at me. No, that wasn’t Socks ‘N’ Sandals. And yes, they probably would have a phone that Importos could use.

I had to tell Dad the latest porky. “OH YES!” I shouted. “NOW I REMEMBER PASSING THAT ON THE WAY OUT!”

What else could I say? I would have to string him along for as long as possible, and hope that the truth dawned on him while he was in a very good mood. The prospect made me shudder.

“ANYWAY, WE NEED TO FILL UP! PRETTY HANDY, REALLY. WE WERE IN DANGER OF…” Shut up, you fool, stop talking! He was lost in thought anyway, no doubt weighing up the likeliness
of my story.

Importos had retreated into himself. Not a word in miles, no doubt pent-up and brooding.

The Lonely Bush Gas Station comprised a two-storey red-brick house with a wooden shack tacked onto the front, serving as the cashier’s office. There was one pump, Art
Deco-style in faded turquoise, with pleasing curves and a recumbent white oval perched on top. This may once have been lit from inside, but no longer, with the word GAS painted on it in a kitsch
typeface. It was covered by a corrugated-plastic awning on four rusty poles. Out front was a single, lonely bush. Elsewhere: sand, drenched.

As we reached the forecourt, the eye of the storm hit us and the time between lightning flash and thunder clap became negligible. A shadowy figure lurked in the doorway of the office, sheltering
from the storm, monitoring our arrival. It was a scene straight out of an old B-movie.

Dextrose guided us beneath the awning, parked the bike beside the pump and turned off the engine. All we heard was the insistent patter of rain on plastic. It was a relief to escape the
bombardment.

Just as I was climbing out of the sidecar a vivid flash appeared to my right, accompanied by crashing thunder that battered the eardrums. I physically jumped from the shock. Lightning had hit
the lonely bush, which was now ablaze.

“Don’t worry about that,” came a voice. “Happens every time. We’ll plant a new one tomorrow. Always do.” The figure in the doorway.

He stepped towards us, rain instantly tumbling off the brim of his ancient pink baseball cap. He was in his mid-70s, I reckoned, thin-faced, with little round spectacles and silver sideburns,
but very dark eyebrows. A black jacket covered his denim overalls and for some reason he was carrying a pitchfork. He looked doleful, perhaps understandably.

“Petrol, please!” I said. “And that can,” pointing at the spare.

“What?” he said.

“Petrol!” I said.

“What?” He was standing beside the pump now, the nozzle in his hand.

“Petrol!” I persisted.

“What?” he replied.

“Petrol!”

“What?”

“Petrol!”

“What?”

“Petrol!”

“What?”

Then I remembered the sign. “Sorry, I meant gas!”

“What?”

“Gas!”

“What?”

I could see that Dextrose was about to lamp him.

“You’ll have to speak up!” he said. “I’m half deaf!”

Half
-deaf? “GAS, PLEASE! FILL HER UP! AND THE CAN! PLEASE!”

“You don’t have to shout, young man!” He went to unscrew the petrol cap, looked at the pitchfork in his hand, seemed surprised to find it there, and threw it across what passed
for a forecourt.

“Stupid bugger,” he muttered to himself, absent-mindedly.

An old woman appeared in the office doorway. “Guests, Eustace? You should have told me!”

Eustace didn’t hear her. I had the impression she was used to this.

“Not very nice weather, is it, boys?” she called out.

At first glance I had thought she was sitting in a chair, but quickly realised it was a wheelchair. A motorised one, on four small off-white wheels, controlled with a ball-tipped joystick in her
right hand.

Her hair was white, almost translucent, tied in a bun that sat on top of her head. She wore a lace-trimmed black dress, ankle-length, but which rode up slightly as she was seated, exposing thick
brown tights. She wasn’t wearing shoes. Like her partner – husband, I assumed – she too wore little round glasses, perched on the end of her nose.

“Where phone?” demanded Importos.

What could I do?

“Well, young man, we do have a telephone. But it’s not really for the customers.”

I nearly ran over and hugged her.

However, she was not finished. “But I tell you what: you come in for some of my tea and cake, when you’ve done with your boys’ things out there, then I’ll let you use it
if you’re quick – how does that sound?”

She turned before any of us could answer, the servo-motors in her wheelchair whirring.

Importos eyed me and smiled, not in a gentlemanly manner.