What a laugh

We didn’t get to Sheffield till after dark. But when the Renault Mégane drew up as we waited beside the station taxi rank, the boredom and discomfort of the interminable train journey was instantly forgotten. Our dog-eared second-hand car-price guide stated that a 1998 Renault Mégane 1.6 Sport was worth anything between £800 and £1,500. My boy had won this one on the eBay internet auction site for just £500. All being well, he’d got himself a bargain. We took the car in greedily with our eyes, scanning it for such obvious defects as might be visible under the tangerine street lighting. It seemed to be all there. No obvious dents or scratches. We climbed in the back.

The seller had brought his girlfriend along. She did all the talking, while he drove the car very fast and very competently through the rush-hour traffic, laughing pleasantly at everything that was said.  He had an easy, pleasant, lingering laugh and he laughed at the slightest thing.  Their house wasn’t far, she said, ten minutes at the most, but difficult to get to unless you took a taxi, which was expensive. The seller, who had very small ears, laughed at this. He laughed when I thanked him and his girlfriend for taking the trouble to pick us up from the station. When I said we hoped the car was a good one because my boy had just passed his driving test and this was to be his first car, he found that funny, too. And when his girlfriend pointed out an enormous warehouse-type store, and said they went there often, and had I heard of it, and I said I hadn’t, he found my ignorance quite hilarious. My boy was too busy listening carefully to the engine and the wheel bearings to take any interest in the general conversation or the light-hearted character of the seller.