Crash

In a sense I had already enlisted Vaughan in my confused hunt. I sat in the crowded traffic lanes of the flyover, the aluminium walls of the airline coaches shutting off the sky. As I watched the packed concrete decks of the motorway from our veranda while Catherine prepared our first evening drinks, I was convinced that the key to this immense metallized landscape lay somewhere within these constant and unchanging traffic patterns.

Luckily, my messianic obsessions soon made themselves evident to Paul Waring, my partner. He arranged with Catherine to restrict my visits to the studio offices to an hour a day. Easily tired and excited, I had an absurd row with Waring's secretary. But all this seemed trivial and unreal. Far more important was the delivery of my new car from the local distributors.

Catherine regarded with profound suspicion my choice of the same make and model as the car in which I had crashed. I had even selected the same make of wing mirror and mudguard spat. She and her secretary watched me critically from the forecourt of the airfreight offices. Karen stood behind Catherine, a cocked elbow almost touching her shoulder blade, like a young and ambitious madame keeping a protective eye on her latest discovery.

'Why did you ask us here?' Catherine said. 'I don't think either of us ever wants to look at a car again.'

'Certainly not this one, Mrs Ballard.'

'Is Vaughan following you?' I asked Catherine. 'You spoke to him at the hospital.'

'He said he was a police photographer. What does he want?'

Karen's eyes gazed at my scarred scalp. 'It's hard to believe he was ever on television.'

I outstared Karen with an effort. She watched me like a predatory animal behind the silver bars of her mouth.

'Did anyone see him at the accident?'

'I've no idea. Are you planning to have another crash for him?' Catherine sauntered around the car. She settled herself in the front passenger seat, savouring the sharp tang of salesroom vinyl.

'I'm not thinking about the crash at all.'

'You're getting involved with this man, Vaughan -you're talking about him all the time.' Catherine stared through the immaculate windshield, her thighs held open in a formalized posture.

I was thinking, in fact, about the contrast between this generous pose and the glass curtain-walling of the airport buildings, the showroom glitter of the new car. Sitting here in the exact replica of the vehicle in which I had nearly killed myself, I visualized the crushed fenders and radiator grille, the precise deformation of the hood trim, the angular displacement of the windshield pillars. The triangle of Catherine's pubis reminded me that the first sexual act within the car had yet to take place.

At the Northolt police pound I showed my pass to the guard, custodian of this museum of wrecks. I hesitated there, like a husband collecting his wife from the depot of a strange and perverse dream. Some twenty or so crashed vehicles were parked in the sunlight against the rear wall of an abandoned cinema. At the far end of the asphalt yard was a truck whose entire driving cabin had been crushed, as if the dimensions of space had abruptly contracted around the body of the driver.

Unnerved by these deformations, I moved from one car to the next. The first vehicle, a blue taxi, had been struck at the point of its near-side headlamp – on one side the bodywork was intact, on the other the front wheel had been forced back into the passenger compartment. Next to it was a white saloon which had been run over by an enormous vehicle. The marks of giant tyres ran across its crushed roof, forcing it down to the transmission hump between the seats.

I recognized my own car. The remains of towing tackle were attached to the front bumper, and the body panels were splashed with oil and dirt. I peered through the windows into the cabin, running my hand over the mud-stained glass. Without thinking, I knelt in front of the car and stared at the crushed fenders and radiator grille.

For several minutes I gazed at this wrecked car, reassembling its identity. Terrifying events rolled through my mind on its flattened wheels. What most surprised me was the extent of the damage. During the accident the hood had climbed over the engine compartment, hiding from me the real extent of the collision. Both front wheels and the engine had been driven back into the driver's section, bowing the floor. Blood still marked the bonnet, streamers of black lace running towards the windshield wiper gutters. Minute flecks were spattered across the seat and steering wheel. I thought of the dead man lying on the hood of the car. The blood rilling across the bruised cellulose was a more potent fluid than the semen cooling in his testicles.

Two policemen crossed the yard with a black Alsatian dog. They watched me hovering around my car as if they vaguely resented my touching it. When they had gone I unlatched the driver's door, and with an effort pulled it open.