Chapter 91: Ari, Danny and St George

Race to Brighton: Part II

Ari, Brighton

Excellence, simply delivered. The yellow flank of the lorry pressed me into the hedge. It clunked and hissed when the lights turned green and I emerged again thumb outstretched.

“So you’re racing your girl?” Danny said exactly 14 minutes later as I jumped into his van, “You wanna win. Ok, I’ll go as fast as we can.”

He slid the gear stick into second and we rode into the traffic. Danny seemed a cheerful man. His jacket was shiny blue and he had big square glasses. A goatee clung from his chin like grass to a cliff.

“I’m going to Burgess Hill, but I’ll take you further up,” he seemed excited to be in the race, though he didn’t let it creep into his driving. A concentrated stare was maintained on the road, two hands carefully on the wheel. We stayed in the slow lane.

Danny said he grew up in South London, “Man, it’s not the same anymore,” he said with a semi-sigh. It was more dangerous in his mind. Back in his day people were more predictable but now it was a different crowd. “It’s just a personal observation.”

A metallic light came through the clouds making the damp road ahead glare white. We talked about hitchhiking and how Danny only felt safe picking me up because he was a man. “Would you want your lady stopping to pick someone up?” He asked. I said she wasn’t into hitchhiking. That’s why she was on the train.

We went on south and conversation moved on. When I told him I’d studied history, he asked if I knew where the St George’s flag came from. I didn’t. “Sardinia,” he said with the air of someone who knew. In the Middle Ages, he continued, the kings of England needed money for war. They took a loan from the Peruzzi who were Sardinian bankers. To show who was bankrolling them, the English ships had to fly the Sardinian flag. They never paid the loan back.

“You see, the things you learn from history man. No one ever teaches you that stuff in schools.”

It might be because it isn’t true, though I only found out later. The English ships were protected by the Genoans, whose flag was St George’s. The Peruzzi were Florentine and their flag was blue with six gold pears. I suppose Danny wasn’t far off.

We reached a service station. Danny said he was the kind of guy who would have taken me all the way if he hadn’t been working. This was as far as he could go though. He took his glasses off as we shook hands.

It was 11:15 so I had 35 minutes to get to Brighton.

I waved as he went and followed his van round the corner to the slip road. A red car went past and I held up my sign, still walking. It swung to a stop in the middle of the road. The old man at the wheel said he was going the right way so I leapt in.

He was thinking aloud about the best place to drop me but a few moments later, he said “I’m sorry,” he looked a little guilty, “I’m not going the right way at all.” He explained he was going to Worthing but he didn’t like taking the A24 because he didn’t trust the traffic. I limply suggested that Google said there was none but I didn’t want to be rude.

He apologised again for his mistake and continued to calculate the best course of action as we came off the motorway. The back roads were wiggly and not directly south and Vince was a slower driver than Danny. Nevertheless, in the short time we had together, we discovered he knew my old headmaster. They taught maths together a long time ago.

We pulled over at the next junction down. Vince apologised again and hoped he hadn’t ruined my chances.

It was now 11:30. I’d wasted 15 minutes and was barely a couple of miles closer to Brighton. What was worse: there wasn’t a car in sight. The junction, furrowing through the hedges, was silent. Not only did it look like I wouldn’t win, I was a little worried I might get stuck for good.

The first car to pass was a black sporty Golf with red trims. It shot past, saw me and skidded to a halt. Two stern-looking men were in the front. The driver leaned over to open the back door.

“Are you going to Brighton?” I asked.

“Yep,” the driver replied. He had thick dark hair and thick dark sideburns. He wore a green sleeveless fleece.

“Who’s winning?” He asked when I told him what I was doing. I said I didn’t know. How long would it take to get there?

“I don’t know!” He said mockingly then slammed the accelerator. The engine growled and we shot into the fast lane.

I told them Ari was getting in at 11:50. Danny, the driver, checked his watch. “To Brighton Station?” He clarified.

I confirmed.

“Oh mate she’s toast. You’ll beat her.”

“Really?”

“Oh fuck me yeah.”

We clung to the fast lane, whipping past cars as if they were parked on the side of the road.

Danny had what sounded like a cockney accent but he said he was from Jersey. Brian in the passenger seat was from Brighton. “You don’t meet many of us,’ he told me drily, “Not many people are actually from Brighton. Practically everyone’s from London these days.” He was surprised I’d never been.

They both worked in commercial heating, “Very boring,” Danny said flatly. It took them all over the country. They didn’t think there was anyone who’d been to as many places in the UK as they had. They set to listing places, “…yeah Preston, Blackpool…Liverpool, that’s a pisshole. Had a couple vans broken in there. Scotland…all over Scotland. Lancashire… the lot mate. You name it. We’ve been to every shithole town between here and Timbuktu.”

“So here it is,” Brian said as we came off the motorway, “Welcome to Brighton.”

We slipped through the outskirts, stop starting through traffic lights. Danny swerved the car as best he could. We turned right beneath a huge red-brown bridge. Danny said I’d have gone over it had I been on the train and Brian said the centre of Brighton had been flattened during the war. They were trying to hit the railway line because they used to make trains here.

Danny accelerated up the lane alongside the tracks. The station’s green glass roof loomed beside us and Brian pointed out the gaps in the panels and said they were to let out the steam in the old days.

“You see you wouldn’t get any of this if you were on the train,” he said and I agreed.

A minute later I was jumping out. Danny and Brian said goodbye unceremoniously as if we’d be seeing each other again very soon. A strong wind blew through the streets and harassed all who emerged beneath the station’s metal awning. Ari’s train got in on time, a feat worth celebrating in itself, but it didn’t matter. I was ready and waiting already.

Hitchhiking had won the day.