Low life | 22 June 2017

‘Yours?’ I said to the woman watching the mechanic poring over the latest-shape Renault Mégane for faults. (I was waiting to have a word with the mechanic about my Clio.) ‘Yes. I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘All my life I’ve driven German cars, and then I got this one, and I just can’t get used to it.’ ‘Why did you change then?’ I said, annoyed by the snobbery. ‘I’m a spirit medium,’ she said. ‘I have lots of wealthy clients. I was working with one in her home, and it came into my head to say to her, “He says you must give everything away, including Bella.” I didn’t have a clue who or what Bella was. The client was dumbfounded. It turns out that Bella was what she called her Mégane. She gave it to me on the spot, just like that.’

I looked at her for the first time properly. Small, mid-sixties, sun-wrinkled face, hippie-chic clothing, sandals. Stupidly proud, too, of defining herself as a spirit medium, I thought. Presumably it made up for deficiencies in other areas. It’s amazing the sorts of people one meets at Johnny Derby’s workshop. It’s like a sitcom. ‘Well, if it was a supernatural gift, you’ll just have to put up with a French car, then, won’t you?’ I said.

It was a bit too early in the day for me to be impressed by elderly hippie spirit mediums whose wealthy clients gave them brand new Renault Méganes on the supposed instructions of dead relatives. So I took myself off and sat in Johnny’s new waiting room. Moving belatedly with the times, he has installed a glass-sided capsule for middle-class customers to wait in while their cars are MOTed. It has a comfortable sofa, a coffee machine (free) and a wastepaper bin.