CHAPTER TWENTY: A MEETING IN A FIELD

The young student who had no knowledge about cars or driving doesn't get very far, which is probably just as well.

As Griselda stood in her ragged decrepit age in front of the quivering janitor, Lucifer the young spot-infested student was struggling with the controls of the car she had told him to take.

Nothing had gone right. To start with, there had been two cars parked where she had told him to look and both of them seemed to be the same model and colour and, to add to his confusion, both of them seemed to have the same number plate. It was very confusing, but he was determined to do his best for the tempting young Griselda who excited the wide variety of hormones that the very sight of her sent hurtling though his body, so he looked furtively around him before trying to look as if he wasn't opening the door of the car nearest him and climbing in.

Then he turned the key in the ignition, still trying to look as if he was doing anything but that, and the car burst into life, and he tried with all of him not to hear it, working on the assumption that if he, sitting in the vehicle, couldn't hear it then nobody else could. It was a mistaken premise, of course, but he must be forgiven because he was doing something that only a wild passion for a woman could possibly make a young man with his sensibilities do. And even though that woman was Griselda Entwhistle he thought she was the person she seemed to be when in his company, an enticing young creature with bright eyes and breasts to die for and an air of the erotic in every visible sinew of her enticing body. He was beginning to see those breasts in his dreams, even his day-dreams. They followed him everywhere, and when it wasn't the breasts it was the legs.

Rather too noisily for his own peace of mind he drove the car forwards and made for the road that led away from Scrumblenose University, and he'd gone for at least a mile before he realised that he had never driven a car before, never had a driving lesson and didn't know what in the name of goodness he was doing or what half of the controls in front of him actually did or meant.

Before his ignorance had struck him he'd managed quite competently. He'd found a gear that made the car move forwards without giving the impression it was powered by kangaroo juice, had smoothly glided forwards and had actually changed into a second gear without the car slewing to a stop and going backwards. Then his own ignorance had crossed his mind and everything started going wrong as a panic worse than any other overtook him. He started shaking and shivering and asking himself questions that, maybe, he shouldn't have even contemplated.

And all of that had an effect on his driving, which changed from being perfectly adequate if a little uncertain to being outrageously dangerous. He hadn't given what side of the road he should be driving on the least consideration until his own ignorance struck him, and even though unconsciously he had selected the correct side the moment he started thinking about it he decided he was wrong and steered onto the other side.

He was all right for as long as his was the only vehicle trying to occupy that side of the road, but as soon as something else came along there developed an obvious conflict. Had the opposing vehicle been a bicycle or something similarly small he may have been all right, but it wasn't. It was an oil tanker on its way to Scrumblenose University with a delivery of fuel oil, and it was huge.

It was being driven by Patrick O'Donnel and he was singing a lilting little love song in a strong Irish accent with his heart wrapped round a mental image of his loved one back home in Kiddleston. His mind wasn't on the road any more than it was on anything but that mental image of his loved one, and the little car coming the other way barely registered until it was almost on him.

Meanwhile Spotty was struggling and screaming at the same time, and at the precise moment when it seemed he was doomed to die in a smash followed by an inferno he wrenched on the steering wheel and his little car plunged off the road and into the straggling undergrowth that bordered the University woodlands.

“Prat!” screeched the tanker driver, dragging his mind from the lovely eyes of the woman he adored, and he roared on, determined to keep a more wary eye on a road that quite obviously was used by inmates from an asylum for extreme morons.

But Spotty didn't hear him. He screamed at the top of his voice and determined to steer as clear as he could from certain death by holding the steering wheel quite rigid and shutting his eyes.

Time passed, and the car slowly pulled to a screeching standstill with one wheel hovering over a ditch and the other three firmly on terra firma even though terra firma was made of mud.

He climbed out of the car and opened his eyes.

“What have I done?” me muttered to himself.

“You've been an idiot, that's what you've done, my lad,” came an unexpected voice and he spun round to see who was talking to him or whether the words were part of a dream he might have had if the accident had rendered him unconscious.

It was a policeman young but with the light of experience in his eyes. “In fact, I'd go as far as to say I've never seen anything more idiotic in the whole of my natural, and I've seen some stuff.”

“I'm sorry … sir....” muttered the student, convinced that he was about to be arrested and arraigned before the local magistrate before being incarcerated for the rest of his natural life behind hard steel bars.

“What did you think you were doing?” demanded the constable. “I ought to be arresting you, that's what I ought to be doing, but I've got other matters on my mind, and they've got to take dominance. But what were you up to? And are you suicidal?”

“I … I … I...” muttered Spotty, having no idea what to say.

“I think you'd better stay away from cars,” the constable said. “I think that's your best choice if you want to stay alive.”

“I … I … I...” The reply from the Tree Hugger was no more explicit a second time round.

“Now, now, now,” reproved the officer. “The least you can do is make sense!”

“I … I'm s-s-sorry,” stammered Spotty, his stammer returning in all its awkward glory.

“I suppose that's something! Now, young man, if I'm going to forget the worst bit of driving I've ever seen you can answer one question quite honestly. I'm looking for an old lady. Have you seen her?”

“Wh-wh-what old lady?” asked a still-shaking and shivering Spotty, whilst through his mind went the thought that there were a great number of old ladies in the world and this policeman would get further if his question was a tad moire precise.

“Name of Griselda Entwhistle,” said the Officer, his eyes examining the face of the other for any clue that might help him. He didn't need to, though, because the youth opened his eyes wider than wide and came out with a very useful question.

“You mean a gorgeous young woman with lips and eyes to die for and big er-er-er....” he asked. “But she's not o-o-old,” he added.

“Aha! So you have met her!” grinned the Officer. “Now let me guess. You've never driven a car before but under her spell you climbed into this car and drove away full tilt on a special errand! I should think that's close to the mark, eh?

“B-b-but she's young and p-p-pretty!” stammered the student. “Not old l-l-like you said!”

“That's Griselda all right! Well, I guess if you were driving helter skelter right into the path of that there oil tanker she must be pretty desperate for help. So what were you supposed to be doing?”

Spotty hung his head, wondering if his driving was that bad and vowed, there and then, never to drive any kind of vehicle again. He wasn't, he told himself, cut out for wheels and roads.

“I was to go to a place called Swanspottle and find the local bobby, called Constable Lockemup, and beg him to come and help her!” he said, ruefully. “But I can't do it! She gave me this car, but I can't drive it!”

“Well, young fellow,” said Constable Lockemup, slowly. “You've found your Constable all right! I guess you'd do anything for young Griselda, even drive a car into a full oil tanker, but then so would most young men! You'd better take me to her and we'll see what we can do to help the young dear.”

“S-s-so you're ...?

“I'm Constable Lockemup and I know dear Griselda both young and old! Now take me to her and maybe we won't waste too much time. Get in the car. I'd better drive this time!”