Whirligig by Magnus Macintyre Page B

Rover,’ said Peregrine, picking a small key off a peg. He threw it at Claypole, who failed to catch it.
    â€˜She’s in the barn,’ said Peregrine, yawning and handing Claypole a small torch. ‘Coky just retuned her, so she won’t give you any trouble. I’m off to bed.’
    â€˜What if I…?’ Claypole could hardly believe he was going to be turfed out at this hour, but couldn’t summon the words to try and suggest otherwise. His eyes were heavy from tiredness and whisky.
    â€˜Don’t use the accelerator in reverse, though. And I’d avoid second gear altogether if you know what’s good for you. ’Night ’night.’
    The light in the kitchen went off, and Claypole had no choice but to head out to the barn, torch in hand.

    In the 1970s the company that made the Land Rover was still owned by Brits, and they were old-fashioned engineers to the core. They loved the Land Rover and were the guardians of its heritage. This meant that, when the oil crisis of that era really struck home and the price of petrol doubled within three years, they had two reactions. First, they said to each other, let’s make the new model drink even more petrol. Second, let’s make the windscreen wipers just slightly smaller. Thus, the Land Rover Series III – of which Peregrine’s was an example – is what the Series I and II were before it: a cheap and nippy tractor that breaks down much of the time, but is extremely easy to mend. Essentially, if you open the bonnet, squint at it, fiddle with a few things and strike it firmly with a spanner, it works again. Nothing like the modern Land Rovers – all German plastic and Japanese electronics – the old Land Rovers are stubborn iron horses that seem to run better if you drag them through seventeen types of shit first, then cover them in salt water and give them ten years rusting in a barn with hens laying eggs on the battery.
    Claypole’s journey had started well enough. He had been surprised to have found and started the Land Rover with little fuss. The odour inside the cab was challenging – manure and sheep dip – but he headed down the long drive of MacGilp House with the imminent prospect of flopping down in his room at the Loch Garvach Hotel, there to be unconscious for as long as he needed to be. And he rather liked the old Land Rover. The floor was rusted away beneath the clutch, making it drafty, but it bounced about on the road in a cheery way and made Claypole feel rather macho despite how chilly he was in his thin suit.
    The mist came first, which turned to fog as hedescended the hill away from the house. He tried using the wipers but they succeeded only in smearing the windscreen, cracked and mildewed as it already was. The headlights he also found to be interestingly arranged. When the headlights were in ‘dip’ mode he got a very good view of the road for ten feet in front of the vehicle. But if he put them on full beam he could see only the top of the trees some 700 yards ahead.
    Four minutes later, the rain came. It was smeary and feathery at first, then in spits, then great gobbets heralded a loud and constant blanket of water. Claypole even had to slow the car down to a crawl to see the road, and to prevent slurry from spouting up through the rusty clutch-hole. At a three-way crossroads, which he thought he recognised from his walk to the house, he turned left, because that was what he had done when coming the other way. A few hundred yards later, he realised that this had been quite the wrong thing to do. If he had turned left coming the other way, then on returning he should turn right. So he made a fifty-three point turn in a lay-by. He would turn right when he got back to the crossroads. Then he doubted himself, and thought he might have been wrong. Turning round again, he went back to where he thought the three-way crossroads now was, but when it did not appear he realised