The Road to Crosslands

Chapter 11

'Okay,' I said guardedly. 'What are you going to do?'

'I've got an idea. Ask him to give us the bill on your way out. Your French is better than ours.'

I drank the tepid liquid in my cup, asked for l'addition, and left.

***

I found a bureau-de-change and converted all our money to francs at an exorbitant exchange rate. When I got to the car they were already there.

'What happened?' I asked.

'He was as good as gold and agreed that we didn't have to pay,' Flinty told me with a smug grin. 'Spud's a genius!'

It turned out that Spud had noticed some dead flies on the windowsill next to where he was sitting. He'd dropped one in each of our teacups, pretended to suddenly notice them and then complained loudly, threatening to call the police, an ambulance and the British Embassy.

The unsuspecting café owner had apologised profusely and ushered them out before any other customers came in and heard the commotion.

***

Armed with our francs we decided to head for one of the many discount warehouses, which were all handily signposted in English.

The interior of our chosen establishment was an alcoholic's heaven. The place was piled high with every conceivable type of intoxicating refreshment. Flinty's contact had been quite correct, the prices were less than half what we'd pay at Tesco's. We each grabbed a trolley and started choosing crates of beer and cases of whisky, vodka and gin. We even picked a few boxes of wine for the girls we intended to invite to our birthday parties.

I did a quick calculation of what we had and told the others to stop. We were just about spent up, and I wanted to keep a little bit back for the journey home.

We wheeled our trolleys outside and loaded it all into the Ratmobile. The rear suspension groaned and settled as we humped more and more inside, and the back wheels seemed to disappear up into the wheel arches. The tyres were looking worryingly flat at the bottom when we'd finished.

'I think you better stop at that garage over the road and put some more air in those tyres,' Spud recommended helpfully.

***

I did as Spud had suggested then drove slowly back to the outskirts of town. The earliest off-peak ferry home we could catch was at ten p.m., so we had to hang around Calais until the evening. Luckily, it was a fine day and we were near a park, so we broke out a few bottles of beer and sat on the grass whiling away the afternoon. I went and bought some bread and cheese from a small supermarket and we had a picnic, whistling at the occasional mademoiselle who walked past.

By eight-o-clock we were bored with France so I motored gingerly back to the port, joining the queue for the ferry in plenty of time.

As I coaxed the overloaded Ratmobile onto the ferry, the back of the car crashed noisily onto the loading ramp. The rear suspension was right down on the bump stops.

***

Flinty and Spud both declined my offer to buy them a pint in the bar and we stayed out on deck for the entire crossing. The swell was almost as bad as our outward trip and they both grasped the handrail with white knuckles, staring fixedly at the horizon in an effort to keep their cheese baguettes down.

Halfway across the Channel, I was also starting to feel queasy, so we all breathed a sigh of relief when we docked at Dover and got back in the car.

'If we ever do this again we're going through the Channel Tunnel,' Spud declared. 'I hate the sea.'

'The tunnel doesn't do the cheap returns,' Flinty said. 'It's worth the hassle to save all that dosh.'

We followed the other cars off the ferry but when we came off the end of the ramp the rear of the Ratmobile dropped with a huge crash and a loud crack.

'That didn't sound too good,' Flinty observed.

I nursed the car through the customs post where an officer took one glance into the back and waved us to the side.

'Oh shit!' I said.

'Don't worry, just remember to say it's all for our own consumption,' Flinty said, unconcerned.

***

The customs officer asked us to get out of the car and then opened the rear doors and started counting cases.

'That is an awful lot of alcohol. Do you intend to sell this?'

'Of course not, officer,' Flinty told him politely, 'it's all for our own consumption.'

'I see, so you three gentlemen are going to drink all of this yourselves?'

'Not all ourselves. We all have our 18th birthdays in the next three months and this is for our birthday parties,' Flinty explained.

The officer frowned at Spud.

'Can I see your passports please?'

We produced our passports and he studied them one at a time, frowning again at Spud and shaking his head.

'Do you three know the minimum age for buying and drinking alcohol?'

I would have laughed at the look on Flinty's face if I hadn't felt such an idiot for not realising we were all under 18.

***

The customs people made us unload all our precious cargo and impounded it. They gave us a receipt and said we could come back and collect it when we were old enough. No, we couldn't get someone else to reclaim it. We had to come in person, with our passports.

We limped back to Swindon at a steady 30 mph and, after dropping off Flinty and Spud, I got home just in time for breakfast. My dad nearly fell off his chair laughing when I told him what had happened, and so did Brian at the garage. He charged me two weeks' wages to fix the suspension on the Ratmobile.