Red Means Stop

It was turning late as I walked down the access ramp to the subterranean car park, nestled under the bowels of the Cutty Sark’s reconstruction. The warm rain made the air exude a steamy mist that shivered in the hue of the white electric lighting. The peroxide eighties shock blonde in the greyed-out leopard print coat walked alongside me and chattered amicably enough, the background hammer of water on concrete masking her Eastern European accent. I have no memory of the words we spoke, for by this point I had been drinking heavily for eight hours.

A pair of hazard lights blinked out the murk.

I looked at the car and then looked at her. She nodded and opened the left hand driver’s door of the cider-piss coloured Tigra. With a mental shrug I followed, curling my oversized frame into the tiny passenger seat. Unable to sit upright I squished my neck down until it was vaguely comfortable and quickly gave up in my attempts to find a seatbelt.

‘Can I have your postcode?’ she asked.

I gave it to her and she twiddled knobs and buttons on the magic box.

‘You won’t be able to go the way it tells you,’ I said.

‘We’ll see,’ she replied and fired the engine. A nervous cough came from under the bonnet, a protracted rattle that rumbled through the metal and into my bones.

‘You want to get the oil topped up,’ I said, shifting awkwardly in the seat – already my feet were turning numb.

‘What?’ she said, not sharply, but certainly brusquely.

‘That rattle? Top the oil up.’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

With a squelch of rubber we thlumped across the car park, bounced up the ramp and roared into the Greenwich evening, the car’s headlights were set for full beam and span through the dark. She reached across and, with a starkly painted finger, pressed the stereo into life. The volume preset for maximum flushed Marilyn Monroe into our lives, singing sugary sweet vocals over a delicate, whispery melody: ‘Send that raaaiinnbow to me.’

‘Veer left,’ said the box, as though it was reading erotic literature.

‘Roadworks,’ I said. ‘You need to go right, then left.’

We turned right.

‘Veer right.’

‘She says right.’ She glanced at me.

‘It thinks we’ve missed the turn. It’s taking you around the one-way loop again.’

‘What?’ she yelled as Marilyn hit the chorus.

‘Diiiaaaaamonds are…’

‘Go left.’

Despite the protracted boozing, despite the fact that a significant proportion of my blood had been replaced by ale, I didn’t feel drunk. Clearly I was, but it was one those uber-alert drunken states, where everything appears crystal, rather than fuzzy. It was the sort of drunk where you feel as though you could keep going for eons and never have had enough. I already knew that I was unlikely to be hung-over Sunday, but that Monday afternoon would be a struggle.

As the rain came down harder we seemed to glide faster. Marilyn gurgled louder and steam foisted itself onto the insides of the glass. She swashed ineffectively with the rim of her coat and I wondered if that had been a red glow we’d just whipped past.

I was more certain about the one rapidly approaching: ‘Red light.’

‘What?’

The car slushed to a halt in a wave of standing water.

‘Turn left,’ said the box huskily.

‘Ah just wanna be loved by you,’ sang Marilyn saucily.

And away we jerked.

‘Red light,’ I had to say again.

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘At the lights go straight on.’

‘You need to turn right,’ I corrected it. ‘The road’s closed.’

‘She says straight on.’

‘I know better than the machine. The road’s closed.’

‘Okay, okay.’ She crossed her arms, hard. ‘Right, then.’

I wound the window down to try and combat the fast encroaching steam. Rain splashed across my cheek. Outside, Deptford bustled with life heading for bed.

‘Turn left.’

‘Road’s closed again. Go straight on.’

‘Every dog-dicking road is closed,’ she said as though it was my fault.

‘Redlightpedestrian!’ I replied.

‘What?’

When I opened one eye we’d stopped and the young man was swaying his way onwards oblivious to anyone not playing by the rules.

She looked to the left distractedly as Marilyn changed gear.

‘Green light.’ I said eventually, and then, after a while: ‘Go straight on.’

‘Veer left.’

‘She says-‘

‘I know. She’s wrong, I’m right.’

‘Okay, okay.’

We sharply switched lanes and somewhere behind a horn yelped. She dropped down a gear and with a frustrated cough the Tigra shot forwards through the orange. We hit the first speed bump with such crunching force that my forehead connected with the dashboard. By the time of the second one I’d rebounded into the headrest. She laughed graciously.

After a moment I said: ‘Here’s fine’ and we stopped instantaneously, the moped following swerved out into the middle of the road. With difficulty I prised myself out the miniscule space, inadvertently wrapping myself up in the seatbelt which had finally turned up. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

‘No worries,’ she said and I stood in the drizzle for a moment watching the bruised pear-coloured car lurch off into the night.