| Years ago I shared an apartment building with a girl | | | | car look festive and welcoming. When it rained, she |
| who had the bravest, most devil may care attitude | | | | thrust her feet into two plastic Harrods shopping bags |
| toward personal transport. I lived in the ground floor | | | | to keep her shoes dry in the driver's flooded foot well. |
| and she lived in the top floor studio apartment. She | | | | There was no second gear for some strange reason, |
| worked for the local television studios as a journalist, | | | | and no reverse. The brakes made a crunching noise |
| so need to travel to work each day by car. | | | | and none of the window winding handles were actually |
| I was unable to drive at the time, I did not pass my test | | | | attached to the doors, they were all hanging by wires, |
| until years later, so I would commute via the bus to my | | | | which one had to apply to the bare window screws |
| office in an industrial estate some miles away. | | | | prior to actually winding the windows up or down. |
| Sometimes if my friend Zora was late, she would | | | | A policeman stopped us at the traffic lights once and |
| offer me a lift on the grounds that as she was already | | | | asked whether Zora ever put air in her tyres. |
| in trouble she may as well do me the favor. | | | | 'How am I supposed to know when to put air in the |
| Her car was the most unbelievable wreck you ever | | | | tyres?' she asked testily. |
| saw. It was some kind of Ford and had originally been | | | | 'When they go square at the bottom Madam.' He |
| red, we thought, but was now an ugly shade of dull | | | | answered. |
| pink without any shine whatever, the paint having | | | | He eventually waved us on, on the understanding that |
| faded to nothing some decades before. Rust edged | | | | Zora would have the radiator fixed, which bled red |
| every window and wing mirror and the interior seating | | | | water into the road whenever she was stationery for |
| was an ugly shade of gold in pvc. | | | | more than two minutes, and that she would pay some |
| The parcel shelf at the back displayed a series of | | | | attention to the tyres before driving the car again. |
| gonks in multicolored suits, Zora thought they made the | | | | |