The battery by my bed will soon be fully re-charged; full of energy once more for starting my car - which used to sit at the bottom of my garden.
It had been, I recall, a good car; quite powerful and roomy, with smart silver rustfree bodywork and it had carried us, in a more or less uncomplaining fashion, over many miles of Coll roads. If I look out of the window now, I can clearly see the exact spot where it used to be, alongside two other cars older wrecks, that had long since ceased to function. They too have gone.
It had, of course, been an ill-considered remark on my part. 'Do you suppose...', I had said to Allan, 'Would you be able to take those two old cars off to the dump? When you can, that is? Sometime?'
That had been a few months ago and so it had come as something of a surprise, on returning home from the village one day, to find him there amidst a maelstrom of mechanised destruction. There he was - fresh from watching 'Robo-Cop' - busy converting what had once been cars into sugar cubes. I watched in stunned suspension as the awesome steel fist of his J.C.B. was relentlessly slammed downwards - again and again -splintering, tearing and crushing the shrieking metal - of the wrong car.
As I drew closer, I could see him crouched in the cab of his juggernaut, his eyes glazed, teeth clenched and the merest trace of foam at the corners of his mouth. His hands moved in a blur of fanatical dexterity over the controls, spurring on his monster to ever greater feats of annihilation and, with each lethal blow of that awful claw, I could just make out the sounds of high pitched laughter.
I displayed, it seems to me, great presence of mind; by waving at him, I caused him to pause long enough for me to check that the dog was no longer using the car as its kennel. I then hammered on the J.C.B. window in such a way as to reflect my thoughts on his zealous handiwork and was pleased to see that, as the gleam of possession faded from his eyes, he appeared nonplussed and, with profuse apologies, reversed his juddering beast away from what little remained of my car - and over one of my ducks.
And all the while I was half expecting to spot a hidden camera and to be confronted with that familiar, half-rueful prankster, so beloved of T.V. audiences. 'It's alright', he would laughingly reassure me, 'it's all makebelieve; life's not really like that.' But there was no sign of him.
That was several weeks ago; I don't think he'll come now. I reach out and turn off the battery charger.
