76: Fossil fuel Jack

‘Electric classics! Better fuel economy, electric conversions.’ Charlie was reading aloud the signs that now featured on Jack’s revamped forecourt.

‘It’s a front.’ I replied.

‘It’s an outrageous affront, you mean.’

‘I say that’s rather good. He’s just keeping up with the times, being seen to be Green. Much like Buffy Trumpton, with his hosting of this year’s climate conference, keeping one foot ahead of the opposition.’

‘How come? There aren’t going to be any electric classics, it’s a contradiction in terms.’

‘Absolutely. But it hasn’t stopped them trying, though I doubt he’ll sell any. Right now, they’re the most environmentally dirty and uneconomic cars there are. Even an electric hatchback has to be on the road for ten years before it has less of a footprint than its petrol equivalent. That’s the manufacturing process for you, let alone disposal.’

‘Why are we here?’

‘Ah, for a general chin-wag with Jack about our future motoring requirements.’

‘Thinking of buying a new car?’

‘When to buy, our last new petrol car!’

‘I’m rather attached to the one we’ve got.’

‘Well so am I, it’s just a question of whether we need what we’ve got, plus? Whether one could attach what we might need to what we’ve got, or need to start again.’

‘What more could we need?’

I avoided having to answer that question as Jack could be seen coming out from the showroom; ‘You two don’t look convinced by our new exterior.’

‘It’s not us you need to convince.’ I replied.

‘This coffee is, truly diabolical Jack.’ Opined Charlie.

‘Oh, thank you very much, it’s what I provide free to my crew, we sell it for one pound twenty, per hundred grams, at the filling station.’

‘Gut rot. Surely, as favoured customers we deserve better!’

‘No, no, darling. You’re the privileged ones. You get everything at cost. It’s only the punters I’m going to stiff, who get the posh stuff. Talking of which, you have a friendly firm of architects, don’t you Tony?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’ve been wondering about how to stay ahead of things at the filling station. Been a load of chat about rapid charging recently. As you know I own the field next door. Been thinking about a sort of modest cafe - eat whilst you recharge, that sort of thing.’

‘Yes, there must be a punning name in there somewhere, something about recharging your batteries. Anyhow, if I may be allowed to call this meeting to order, when is it a good time to buy our last new car, so to speak?’

‘Now, as it happens.’

‘Really?’

‘The future is very uncertain. For example, right now, the factory has about twenty, right-hand drive versions of what you took to France. And that’s it. No more until fresh supplies of chips get to the contractor who produces the computers. And there are other bottlenecks to come. The price will rise, it might even pay you, to get me to garage it for you in the interim.’

‘The interim?’

‘Until you get a second, or double garage for yourself.’

‘Two cars?’

‘Well, registered as one each, but yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they would both be appreciating assets. You should also pay me to acquire petrol engine spares to put in the store, for the same reason.’

‘I see, I think.’

‘It’s not like the situation with your junior officer. As I was trying to explain to him the other day, if he is serious about the old Triumph, he’d have to do all the legwork himself. Given the age of the vehicle. You know, join the member’s club, spend his Sundays going around meets and things, acquiring spares wherever he can find them. Not a service I can afford to provide.’

‘Have you met his new lady companion?’

‘Yes, she seemed very enthusiastic on his behalf! I understand you all went on a jolly.’

‘Ah! Now, yes, I knew there was something else.’

‘Yes?’

‘Are there such things as vintage minibuses?’

‘Sure, quite a few as a matter of fact, the question is though, who would want to collect any of them?’

‘Alright. What I meant was, are there any classic designs?’

‘Well, not to look at. Reliability wise, I guess so. There were the bay line minibuses from the late eighties onwards, Ford Transits or Dafs but with a proper bus body, made by a Birmingham company if I recall. High ceiling, automatic doors. Remember them?’

‘Oh, yes. Of course.’

‘Not much to look at, but without the advertising, could be made to look classier with two tone pastel colours, clever lining. Proper burgundy rather than red, and cream rather than white.’

‘You’re ahead of me on this, aren’t you?’ I smiled.

‘Well, with your club so far out of the way, and your lot do like to get pissed a little. I’d say a, three-times daily, courtesy bus service, to and from town, would go down a treat. Look very Green.’

‘What would you think Charlie?’ I asked.

‘You’d do us chauffeurs out of a job!’

‘Do a bit of research if you would Jack, whilst we decide about cars.’

Before she drove away, I found Charlie an online view of one of the said minibuses; ‘Oh, right. I remember them, they lasted for years.’

‘We could keep it at the stable block, bus stops at the bungalows and main carpark...’

But her mind was elsewhere; ‘Would getting a second garage, really be realistic?’

‘I don’t know, do you get the sense that any of the other garages are being under used?’

‘Not sure, Bernard might know.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Would you do that, give me one of the cars?’

‘Ah, small technical problem.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Well, what Jack is suggesting would involve an outlay of over fifty thousand, for our own personal, fossil fuel, use. We’ve just changed the family trust into an overwhelmingly Green, charitable trust. Have we not?’

‘Oh, no!’

‘I’m afraid so. The trust owns this vehicle, that’s another fifty grand. It could only work if the trust owned both, and both for business purposes. But how one gets that past the trustees?’

‘But there is a way, though. I know there is, by the way you are talking. A way of getting a load of dosh for one of your projects. Despite my good intentions, I know you wouldn’t have sacrificed everything just to please me.’

I left a long silence; ‘It would involve a vote, to invoke certain obscure clauses, requiring myself, Bernard and Brinkley to vote the same way. And then another vote on the purchase itself. And of course, the two of them, would undoubtedly have their price.’

‘Cash!’

‘No, no. Conditions, insisting certain things were done their way. It will all require a lot of thinking through.’

‘What are our Christmas arrangements going to be?’

‘Well, working backwards, we need to be back home from Checkley Manor on Boxing Day in time to let Kenneth in, and for you and he, to lay on the Book Club tea. You’ll need to decide what culinary delights you’re prepared to tolerate, ahead of time, as it were.’

‘Oh, lord.’

‘Before that, I think it might be a courtesy to Julia, to turn up at a reasonable time, in a reasonable state, on Christmas Eve.’

‘Well, that’s alright, I won’t booze much at the club Christmas lunch.’

‘There might just be one little local difficulty though.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘The dining committee has decided in its wisdom to hold a blind tasting before the lunch.’

‘Of what?’

‘The best of the Park cellar, plus the stuff we’ve been buying-in this year.’

‘But why a blind tasting?’

‘Well, we couldn’t agree about what to stock for the next twelve months! Luckily, I’ll be the one devising the rules.’