Rubric's Cube

Chapter 3 A fragmented Journey

Chapter 3

Rugby to Truro is somewhat over 280 miles and a long stretch at the end isn't motorway, so I settled down to at least two hours driving without stopping.

This would have been a fine strategy in ordinary times. Then I would have revelled in the freedom between commitments, played the CD on volume 10 with my favourite tracks, and thought of nothing at all about anything except, vaguely, my next destination and task. I would have been secure in my returning to home and Ellie. To her warm beauty, and our wonderful life with the fashionable modern house and our cars. The Escort for every day but still smart, fast transport, later Ellie's 'banker Porsche', a statement of success, and lastly the hard won creation of my tools, labour, ingenuity, and Ellie's money, the fabulous Ferrari.

Now all that was gone. Exploded in Ellie's resentful final scream, "You dreamer," and a gruesome crash on the A1M.

The painful reverie was broken by my return to the reality of the M5. Suddenly I was no longer driving on autopilot. Reality now was the harsh noise of the Escort with its engine unsuitably tuned for long motorway driving.

And something else.

I had just passed the junction with the M4.

Something was wrong. I could hear the gearbox. It was in direct drive, the gears locked together to provide effectively an uninterrupted shaft from engine to prop shaft which normally ran in silence. Yet now I heard a faint hissing of bearings. I touched the gear lever and could feel a tremor of vibration. I signalled, slowed and pulled left to the hard-standing. Once there I dropped to fourth and then heard the gears meshing in a whine of unlubricated hypoid teeth.

I put the gear into neutral and stopped.

A shower of rain swept up from the Bristol Channel by a westerly weather front, streaked the windows. I turned the hazard lights on. The regular clicking threaded through the sound of the driving rain

I took the reflective warning triangle and my waterproof from the car boot, and tramped in a wet headwind 25 yards behind the car to where the triangle had to be set. The roar and thrash of passing trucks buffeted my ears, and swung the water-proof over my head.

Having secured the water-proof's fastenings I looked for a motorway telephone. The orange box set on a post was intermittently visible through the rain and spray, 300 yards ahead.

I told the Motorway Control people I would deal with the car via the AA, and phoned the latter from the comfort of the car. Was I hell going to stand in the driving rain behind the crash barrier, as instructed by the control centre. Half an hour later the yellow liveried truck appeared, and parked ahead, orange warning lights flickering.

The AA driver sat at my invitation while we discussed what had happened. He asked me to drive the car in first gear towards the truck.

"OK, stop", he said after a few yards,"that box is near enough dry. You'll wreck it if you drive further. Even now it may be too late."

"I thought so."

He took my proffered AA membership card, and asked, "Where are you going Mr - er - Blackwood?"

"My brother's place near Truro, my home is near Rugby."

"Ah bloody h' - sorry Mr Blackwood - I've been on shift for seven hours already."

"Don't worry, what's your name?"

"Call me Roy."

"Roy I'm not holding you to some 'AA get you home' clause. Sort me out a garage nearby that can handle the repair or whatever and hire me a car for a few days, and take me and the car there."