I saw a 1985 Mercedes SE 380 advertised in the classified ads of the local paper and called the number. I was more curious than anything. A ton and a half of no-expense-spared German engineering, powered by an aircraft engine, and all for the price of a top-spec iPad. You don’t see many 380s on the road these days and what’s more the advert said there was no rust. It was at least worth a phone call.
The number given was a misprint, however. An amused woman in Huddersfield said I was the third person that morning to have rung up about a Mercedes. I rang the advertising department of the paper and the woman there said I was the fifth person to have rung about that particular ad and she had the correct number right there on a piece of paper in front of her. I rang that number but the advertiser was out, so I left a message. And then I forgot all about it.
Three days later I was down at the park, pushing my grandson on the swings, when the advertiser called me back. ‘Mr Clarke?’ he said. ‘You rang me up about the Mercedes?’ The voice was quavering and high-pitched; the accent a survival of the broad agricultural dialect-laden south Devon accent — also increasingly rare. Back in my trench-digging days I was often comfortably surrounded by them and I warmed to it immediately.
In the background I could hear a lot of dogs barking. ‘Sounds like you’ve got several dogs there,’ I said. ‘’Tis the ’ounds speakin’,’ he said. ‘I’m out with the ’unt, cub ’untin’.’ ‘Any luck?’ I said. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘We’re ’oldin’ up a covert and we’ve put some puppies in, just to try them out, like.’ ‘Are you on a horse?’ I said, trying to complete the picture. ‘No, no, no, no,’ he said. ‘Followin’. I can get a phone signal standing here, so I thought I’d make the most of it.’
So were they hunting as before, in spite of the ban on hunting with dogs? ‘Oh, yes, my dear,’ he said, chortling at length at the ridiculousness of it all. ‘We’ll be ’untin’ till kingdom come, don’t you worry about that, my buck,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be ’untin’ till this knee gives out.’
Only the day before, France’s Constitutional Council had thrown out an application by animal rights’ campaigners to ban bullfighting in the south of the country. Ruling on cultural issues was not the business of the French legal system, they’d said bluntly, further highlighting the idiocy of our Hunting Act. Had he heard about it, I wondered? ‘I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no bullfighting,’ he said, warily now. ‘Abroad they do what they like. Makes no odds to me, my dear.’
‘So what can I tell you about the car?’ he said, conscious now that he might be talking to a class of person about which he also had little or no knowledge, and steering our conversation towards more familiar ground. ‘Is it in use?’ I said. ‘I start her up once a month,’ he said. ‘She was a wedding car. I used to have a wedding car hire business — so she’s been well looked after — but I’ve been retired now for two years and I can’t afford the petrol, not living on a pension. My pension wouldn’t even half-fill the tank. And now my wife’s gone I’m rattling around in a three-bedroom bungalow, lonely as hell. Three big bedrooms, too. What’s the point of me living in a place like that? I’m thinking of getting a few young parties to move in and starting up a brothel, just to put the place to some use. What do you think of that idea?’
‘Best I’ve heard in ages,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell all my friends. So can I come and have a look at the car?’ ‘How much do you weigh?’ he said. (The clamour of the dogs in the background now contained a shriller, more joyful note. ‘Higher! Higher!’ shouted my grandson ecstatically.) ‘Twelve stone ten,’ I said. ‘Why?’ ‘I’m thirteen stone six,’ he said. ‘The car takes up so much room in my garage, there’s none left over to get the doors open. A man of my size can just about squeeze in. Anyone bigger and they’d have a problem.’
What this had to do with anything was beyond me. ‘I’ll be bringing my boy,’ I said. ‘He knows his Mercs and he’s still thin. Would this evening be a good time to come? Hallo? Hallo?’ But he’d gone. Either the phone signal had weakened or something too exciting for words had occurred in or around the covert. ‘Higher! Higher!’ yelled my grandson.
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