Charlie and Me. The Saga Continues

Charlie and Me. Chapter 25

Charlie and Me. Chapter 25

I’ve actually cropped quite a lot out of the narrative here, not because I thought it was bad, but because I thought, on reflection, it wasn’t adding a lot apart from verbiage. I may resurrect some of it as Outtakes. You all seem to like them.

This is for Jasmine Kyle, just because she's Jasmine Kyle.

*****

Mrs Authaus at last got to drive the Bel Air in anger. I’d recovered my composure and was in the start-up lane with Sylvester, Treeza, Constance, Haydn, Arry’n’Barry, Madeline, and Terry the tyrefitter as our mystery guests. Our crew chief, another Terry as it happens, was trying to fire the car up with Charlie at the wheel. That’s an odd thing with full-on drag racing cars. You the driver do not have an ignition key to turn. You have a big row of switches, but after that it’s all up to outsiders. It’s beyond your control. I knew Charlie found this part hard to deal with.

You do have a bloody great red panic button to shut everything down in case it all goes wrong. That can happen when you’re playing very dangerous games with huge engines whacking out several thousand horsepower and untold amounts of torque. There’s another shutoff on the outside of the car just in case things have gone so badly you the driver are injured and can’t do the job.

The engine was a bit reluctant to start, since it’s right out there where the air is thin in terms of internal combustion engineering. It’s on the very limit, a hairsbreadth from self destruction. Formula One engines have to last several lengthy practice sessions and two lengthy races. Charlie’s engine has a very short lifespan before a rebuild because it works very hard for its living. It makes a mayfly look long-lived. This worries me but Charlie was champing at the bit and yelling frustrated obscenities. She was very angry and very loud for someone wearing a full-face crash helmet over a fireproof mask.

’Fucking get this fucker fucking fired up, you bastard fuckwits!. It fucking started before we set off, then again yesterday after you fucking bollockbrains fitted a new fucking magneto that can power the entire fucking village where we fucking live, so it should fucking start now!’ Her voice was clearly audible even over the noise of Mick’s car, which to add insult to injury started at the first time of asking. That wound her up a bit.

‘Fuck me, if that fucking tosspot next door can get his fucking motorcar fucking started first fucking tug, why the fuck can’t we? He thinks he’s going to get the fucking drop on me. Fuck. This is fucking embarrassing. Do you want me to get out to fucking give this thing a fucking push?’

Constance looked slightly disapproving, and it wasn’t about the split infinitive. I glanced at her, she caught my eye, then she smiled slightly. I gathered she appreciated that Charlie was simply madder than a wet hen, whereas I was truly scared, a bag of nerves. You can’t hide much from her; she is a tiny intuitive miracle on legs, that woman.

Terry the crew chief looked resigned to the abuse. He’s got used to it. He turned the engine over again. There was a lot of popping and banging and hissing, but not much else. ‘Fuck me, Terry, you hairy-arsed wanker, we haven’t spent a whole fucking lorryload of our fucking cash and come all this fucking way for this fucker not to fucking start so I can’t fucking race. Just in case you’re not keeping up on events, that’s what I’m fucking sitting here waiting to do, you fucking lamebrain! I’m here to fucking race! Fucking get a fucking shift on, will you? We don’t have all fucking day here. Fucking precious fucking time to get this heap warmed up is being fucking wasted here while you dick about. I believe you are aware that a cold engine costs me upwards of 100 horsepower, are you not? If not you are even more of a fucking useless fucking moron than I thought. Get this fucker fucking started, or you are fucking going to be fucking looking for fucking new employment.’