Therapy

or Germany) as for emotional reasons. I’m old enough to remember World War Two, and I had an uncle who died as a POW working on the Siamese railway. I thought something bad would happen to me if I bought this car, or that at the very least I would feel guilty and miserable driving it. And yet I coveted it. It became one of my “things” — things I can’t decide, can’t forget, can’t leave alone. Things I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about.
    I bought all the motoring magazines hoping that I would find some damning criticism of the car that would enable me to decide against it. No go. Some of the road-test reports were a bit condescending — “bland”, “docile”, even “inscrutable”, were some of the epithets they used — but you could tell that nobody could find anything wrong with it. I hardly slept at all for a week, stewing it over. Can you believe it? While war raged in Yugoslavia, thousands died daily of AIDS in Africa, bombs exploded in Northern Ireland and the unemployment figures rose inexorably in Britain, I could think of nothing except whether or not to buy this car.
    I began to get on Sally’s nerves. “For God’s sake, go and have a test drive, and if you like the car, buy it,” she said. (She drives an Escort herself, changes it every three years after a two-minute telephone conversation with her dealer, and never gives another thought to the matter.) So I had a test-drive. And of course I liked the car. I loved the car. I was utterly seduced and enraptured by the car. But I told the salesman I would think about it. “What is there to think about?” Sally demanded, when I came home. “You like the car, you can afford the car, why not buy the car?” I said I would sleep on it. Which meant, of course, that I lay awake all night worrying about it. In the morning at breakfast I announced that I had reached a decision. “Oh yes?” said Sally, without raising her eyes from the newspaper. “What is it?” “I’ve decided against,” I said. “However irrational my scruples may be, I’ll never be free from them, so I’d better not buy it.” “OK,” said Sally. “What will you buy instead?” “I don’t really need to buy anything,” I said. “My present car is good for another year or two.” “Fine,” said Sally. But she sounded disappointed. I began to worry again whether I’d made the right decision.
    A couple of days later, I drove past the showroom and the car was missing. I went in and buttonholed the salesman. I practically dragged him from his seat by the lapels, like people do in movies. Someone else had bought my car! I couldn’t believe it. I felt as if my bride had been abducted on our wedding eve. I said I wanted the car. I had to have the car. The salesman said he could get me another one in two or three weeks, but when he checked on his computer there wasn’t an exactly similar model in the same colour in the country. It’s not one of those Japanese manufacturers that have set up factories in Britain — they import from Japan under the quota system. He said there was one in a container ship somewhere on the high seas, but delivery would take a couple of months. To cut a long story short, I ended up paying £1000 over the list price to gazump the chap who had just bought my car.
    I’ve never regretted it. The car is a joy to drive. I’m only sorry that Mum and Dad aren’t around any more, so I can’t give them a spin in it. I feel the need for someone to reflect back to me my pride of ownership. Sally’s no use for that — to her a car is just a functional machine. Amy has never even seen the vehicle, because I don’t drive to London. My children, on their occasional visits, regard it with a mixture of mockery and disapproval — Jane refers to it as the “Richmobile” and Adam says it’s a compensation for hair-loss. What I need is an appreciative passenger. Like Maureen Kavanagh, for instance, my first girlfriend. Neither of our families could afford to run a car in those far-off days. A ride in any kind of car was a rare treat, intensely packed with novel sensations. I remember Maureen going into kinks when my Uncle Bert took us to Brighton one bank holiday in his old pre-war Singer that smelled of petrol and leather and swayed on its springs like a pram. I imagine driving up to her house in my present streamlined supercar and glimpsing her face at the window all wonder; and then she bursts out of the front door and