Chapter 106: Breathe and Love
Bristol to London
“London?” The man said slightly shocked, in an accent I thought was Russian. “I’m living in London!”
“Can I come in?”
“Yes!”
I got up into the cab. It was a large, boxy Landrover Discovery, one of the older ones that most people don’t drive any more for petrol reasons. Vitor was grinning, his left arm resting on the leather box between the seats. He was well put together: a neat navy, velvety blazer with a slight herringbone stitch, slim black jeans and his brown leather shoes had zips. His beard was checkered with grey.
Vitor wasn’t Russian, he was Portuguese. His accent was thick and sometimes hard to understand but his natural bonhomie meant that didn’t matter. The engine roared softly as we drove. He was returning from spending the bank holiday in Bristol. He said he didn’t like Bristol and pulled a face. I asked why and he pulled another face. “Too small.”
Vitor only drove his Landrover on Sundays. He’d take it for pleasure rides around London. Usually ULEZ rendered it uneconomic but once a week, “£12.50?” he shrugged and slapped his hand to indicate it was nothing. He would rather pay that every now and then than buy a new car.
He drove the Landrover when he went back to Portugal too. He made the journey once a year and would go for 25 days each time. It was a long drive and an early start. “At Calais - 8 am… 9 am latest,” he said, “10 hours across France, six through Spain. Two in Portugal. I arrive around 1 or 2 am.” Once he picked up a hitchhiker in Spain on his way home and drove him all the way to Rouen. The hitchhiker was very surprised, Vitor said, and so was he.
A pack of Chesterfield Reds sat on the dashboard. An enormous ogling, bloodshot blue eye stared back at us from the packet. Vitor asked if I minded him smoking. I didn’t so he cracked the window, lit it then tossed the pack back on the dashboard.
We were well on our way. The M4 seemed clear to London. I was relieved. Having started in Devon that morning I was glad to have caught my final ride. The leather seats were comfortable too.
We spoke about the music playing on the radio. Vitor himself was a guitarist. At least he used to be back in Portugal. “I was in a group,” he said proudly. They had been quite big, often playing to audiences 1000-strong. He looked at me with a sparkle and mumbled something unintelligible,“…impregnated,” he finished with a grin. His son was born around that time.
His favourite musician was Eric Clapton. “His music is very clear,” he said, pinching his fingers and squinting. “I like others but not so much clear as Clapton.” He said Jimi Modrix instead of Hendrix and thought Santana was a bit noisy. It took me a while to work out who he meant by Stat Qoo, a band from Croydon, but I realised in the end he meant Status Quo. He didn’t like the Stones, he preferred the Queens. “But Clapton,” he concluded, “He is most clear.”
Vitor was very healthy and had good genes. His father lived to 103, his uncles 101 and 102 and his three aunts, 97, 98 and 99. “I don’t think I’ll live that long though,” he said and I asked why not. He scrunched his face and twisted an invisible lightbulb, “Bad air, I smoke a pack in two days… I never drink though! Just one glass of wine with food. And I drink two litres of water a day.”
He thought he’d live longer than his twin who was less healthy. “He says, ‘water is for the feet. Whiskey is for the…’” Vitor tapped his chest. “So he only drinks whiskey!” As a result, he drank too much, and for that matter, looked older.
Vitor’s father retired at 60 so lived 43 more years. If Vitor was to do anything close, he’d need a good pension. He told me he paid £3000 tax a month and would receive £1500 in his pension. His job at the hospital was good and paid well. He’d been there 12 years.
He clutched the cigarette in his steering wheel hand and leant over his phone. The car slipped quietly into the next lane over. Luckily it was clear. “Here,” he said, pulling his phone off the stand to swipe through several pictures of him at a desk in a striped shirt, his hair neatly combed, smiling. He kept swiping, past a couple of images of purple pipes to some diagrams.
He explained with great pride that this was what he did. Electrical drawings for Kings Hospital. They were very beautiful in their way. The straight lines and perfect symbols. I told him they were like pieces of art. “I do everything myself,” he said. He liked how technical it was. He’d spent four years in the Portuguese navy and worked for EDF but neither had been satisfying, not like this job.
He pulled up some more pictures of pipes and described in great detail, with gestures and close eye contact, their thickness and intricacies. The Landrover began veering off course again, making a dangerous tack towards a yellow Fiat 500. A sudden jerk pulled us back into the right lane buying enough time to show me some more pipes.
Vitor had nine points on his license. They had all been unfair. Six had come at once not long ago. He’d just reached London and was turning off the directions on his phone when a police car pulled him up. He tried to protest but they said they could either arrest him of he could take the fine. He paid begrudgingly and took the points. The other three were for speeding in a 20 zone in Bromley, rushing to hospital.
He finished his cigarette, scrunched the end between his thumb and forefinger and tossed it out the window. We settled into silence for a time, the miles rolling beneath us. The signs soon said Reading, Slough, then London.
We fell back into conversation, about his home in Brixton Hill and the Portuguese in London. He said there were 100,000 in the city alone. The number for some reason gave me a sudden vertiginous sense of the sheer size of the city. Then we talked about the wars, and Putin and Israel-Gaza. Vitor said tensions were rising. I said it made me worried.
“All you can do is breathe and love,” he said back.
A tiny mushroom cloud of smoke rose from his freshly lit cigarette. He flicked the ash out of the window. Suddenly the road rose up in front of us. The wheels clunked as we drove up onto the fly over. London lay before us and you could see the clouds moving in the green glass buildings. I felt for the second time that vertiginous awe.
We came back down and into the city’s traffic. I said I was best getting out at Earl’s Court tube, from there it would take an hour to get home. Vitor obliged and pulled over. We said goodbye and promised to meet one day for coffee. Then, separately, we disappeared into the city.