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Driving Lessons
Chapter 2 - "Baby you can drive my car"
England knotted his tie, gave his unruly hair a quick brush, wiggled his eyebrows and picked up a well-thumbed copy of the Highway Code. This latter item was placed in his briefcase, along with a sandwich, a flask of hot tea and a wrapped buttered scone.
He considered wearing a crash helmet or some other safety equipment but a knock on the door distracted him.
"Why don't they use the bloody doorbell?" he muttered as he went to answer it.
France leaned against the doorway with a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips.
"Ah Francis, you're early."
"I am, mon ami. I thought it was wise to be up in time for this joyous occasion." France imbued these words with suggestiveness.
"It's not bloody joyous in any sense of the word," England said.
"I will never forget zis, Angleterre."
"I hope you do," England replied, following the Frenchman down the garden path. He really hoped none of his neighbours saw him.
France sauntered down the path wearing red velvet flares so wide you could hide a small Nation in them, a lacy pink shirt, sunglasses and flip flops.
"You can't drive in those," England said, pointing at him.
France looked down, "Mon pantalons? Zay are too groovy, non?"
England shook his head, checked his pockets, ran back to his house, hissing behind him, "It's not your bloody pantalons, you fool."
"Zen what is it, mon ami?" France looked puzzled.
England re-emerged with his briefcase and locked his door. Phew. He'd nearly forgotten his flask. "It's your bloody flip flops."
"Ah," France nodded. "Zay are too sparkly."
"What has that got to do with it?" England almost shoved him down the path. His nosy next door neighbour was peering over the fence at them.
"Problem, Mr Kirkland?" the neighbour asked.
"No, no, not at all…"
"Bonjour!" France called cheerily. "I am to be Monsieur Kirkland's student!" France told the woman and leered suggestively.
Somehow, England thought, France managed to make everything sound positively filthy.
"Oh my!" the woman said as France took her hand and kissed it.
England grabbed France and shoved him down the path.
"Call me!" the woman shouted after them.
"My flip flops offend you?" France asked.
"Everything about you offends me," England said. "Oh damn, I think I left the stove on." He hurried back to the house, checked, re-checked, emerged, checked his pockets and hurried back to France (the Nation/person not the country) who was stood leaning lazily against his gate.
England shoved him off, "You're scratching the paint," he told him. "What I mean is that you can't drive in flip flops. You should wear sensible driving shoes like mine." England indicated his own shiny black Oxford brogues.
"Zay are for old men!" France cried.
"You're bloody older than me!"
France looked appalled and then shrugged, "Ah but I don't look it."
"You look like a middle-aged hippy."
But France was distracted. "Oh mon dieu, zis eez wonderful!" he exclaimed.
This wasn't due to England's insult but due to the car in front of them. A gleaming vintage Bentley sat like a hulking beast awaiting its master. That master was not going to be France…
"I love you, Angleterre!" France said, suddenly hugging Arthur. England shoved him off, brushed down his suit, looking round quickly. "Get off me! What in the name of cricket?"
France was swooning, running his hand lovingly over the car. It was England's pride and joy. His baby. He washed it every Sunday. He had even driven Churchill in it.
"Zis means so much to me. Because I know how much zis means to you…" France whispered.
England ignored him, walked passed the Bentley and halted next to a 20 year old beige Austin Mini parked behind it.
"Yes I know, Francis, I think £100 at a car auction was an absolute bargain. Even Austria would be pleased. Get in!" England replied, unlocking the mini and motioning France to get in.
"Zis is terrible! Eet eez worse zan ze cars I was driving in gay Paris!"
"Exactly. 850 cc engine. 34 brake horse power… my lawnmower has more oomph than this." England was inordinately pleased with himself. "Hopefully, this means you can't cause too much damage." He got into the passenger seat and shuffled himself comfortable. "Right, put your seatbelt on."
This was already a matter of confusion for France.
He'd only been in the car for five minutes and he was in a stage of 'debaclé'.
"Everyzing is back to front!" France whined.
"This is how it should be, you silly foreigner!" England almost yelled, completely ignoring the fact that it was only himself and his ex-colonies who drove on the left.
"Check your mirrors."
"I do not need to. I am gorgeous."
"No! I mean check your bloody mirrors that you can see behind you."
"Is that what they are there for?"
"Are you bloody joking?" England was already beginning to regret this and France hadn't even started the engine.
France sighed and turned the ignition key. He went to change gear and wound the window down instead.
"What kind of crap Engleesh car is zis? Where are ze window buttons? Where are ze gears?"
"There are no window buttons, there's a handle to wind them down. And the bloody gear stick is the other side, idiot."
"Ha! English always have to be different to anybody else!"
"India's the same as me. I taught him to drive. Good lad. Until he started listening to that Gandhi chap that is."
France said nothing but raised his eyebrows and tried to get the car in first gear.
"There's a first gear there somewhere," England sighed, never the most patient of Nations. But he was stuck in a car with the most annoying of Nations.
Eventually, the car shrieked off down the road.
There were quite a few people out watching its progress. The reason for the audience? France seemed to believe there was just one gear only and one speed - 40 miles per hour.
They slid to the junction, and England prised his fingernails from the dashboard.
"Dear God."
"I know. I am good am I not?"
"We've gone 400 metres and you haven't changed gear."
"Oui!" France winked at himself in the mirror.
"That's not a compliment."
"Oh."
"Turn left."
"I would really like to go right. I can see a very cute girl down there."
"That is not a good reason."
"Angleterre! Zis is why you are single."
"Go left. And besides, you are not going to spend the whole of this driving lesson wolf-whistling at ladies."
He was right. France didn't wolf whistle at any ladies. He wolf-whistled at men instead.
England sunk deeper and deeper into his seat. He really wished he'd worn a disguise.
France, he thought, was a worse driver than he'd realised. Perhaps even worse than both Italies, who drove as if they were in a car chase. Worse than Spain who often forgot where he was going and used his car-horn incessantly. Worse than Russia who saw pavements as an extension of the road. Worse than America who could barely drive in a straight line.
"Change bloody gear!" England yelled.
"Oui," France said, waving out of the window at a startled London cab driver.
"Get your hand off my knee."
"Zat is not ze gear stick?"
"Non! I mean, no."
"Ah."
"Keep your bloody hands and all your other body parts over there, please."
"I am shocked, Arthur."
"Right…" Arthur began to say.
France spun the wheel right.
"Did I say go right?"
"Oui!"
"Go left!"
"But you said right!"
"Oh for heaven's sake, we're going the wrong way down a one way street."
"Bonjour!" France called out of the window at an oncoming motorist.
"Turn round."
"Turn left, turn right, turn round. Make up your mind."
"Just put it in reverse gear!" England yelled.
They were in a narrow one way street with parked cars either side and six cars facing them.
France crunched the gear stick through all the gears until he found the one he desired and the car snaked its way backwards, France blowing kisses at the car in front. The motorist facing them looked horrified, embarrassed and angry in equal measure.
The car reversed at high speed backwards and into a busy carriageway.
France spun the wheel round as cars screeched and swerved past them. England closed his eyes and prayed desperately to the patron saints of motorists, lost causes and idiot nations as a 40 tonne articulated lorry sped towards them.
France grinned at him maniacally and flicked the wheel as they spun 360 degrees and they were magically facing the same direction as the oncoming traffic. He still had time to check his hair in the mirror.
As the car drove off, England finally took his hands from his eyes. "I thought we were dead."
"Non! We are Nations so we cannot die," France said confidently.
England didn't answer this. His immortality didn't console him at the moment. He could be teaching France to drive for the next few centuries.
Four hours later...
It was probably when the tea ran out that England finally decided to take matters in his own hands. Being stuck in a confined space with France could do to that a man or Nation.
To establish why the two bickering Nations were stuck in a car we have to rewind four hours to England's fateful instruction: "Parallel park just here".
No matter how many centuries there were left in England's life, and there were probably quite a few, he would berate himself for this mistake.
"I am good at zis," France told him confidently.
England was about to say that he'd seen the Frenchman park in Paris and that had involved hitting the cars in front and behind until your space was big enough to get your car in.
After 24 ins and outs. Mainly with England saying quite a lot, "Back a bit, forward a bit, back a bit, forward a bit", the small Mini was finally parked.
This, however, was not the end of the matter. England had made another mistake, poured himself a cup of tea from his flask as he recovered from having his knee grabbed and used as a gear stick.
Then the parked car in front moved off.
France emitted a yowl of frustration and gave a rude gesture to the driver.
England had shaken his head sorrowfully and then their fortunes took a grave turn for the worst.
A large lorry driven by an equally large man pulled up in front of them, so close that all daylight was blocked.
And then the car behind them pulled away and a large car took its place.
They were trapped.
England was at first not concerned. So what? Surely, they could wait a few minutes until the respective drivers arrived and they could then get out.
But then, after half an hour of trying and failing to quiz France on the Highway Code (surely, not all the signs were of a filthy connotation?) England decided to try to get France to 'un-park' the car.
France pointed out there was not a 'gnat's breath' between the front car and the back car. He even indicated the width with his thumb and forefinger and said it was less the size of some Nation's private parts. England did not wish to enquire how France would know this or whether it was true.
So this was why England and France had spent the last four hours stuck in a tiny Mini parked in a leafy street in South West London.
Drinking the last of the tea had finally done it for England. Even more than France dialling through all the radio stations and back again before he broke the dial. England yelled at him and told him that he would bear the cost of another one.
France had then begun texting random people on his phone and then holding what England could only surmise as filthy telephone conversations with 'degenerates'.
Having eaten his cucumber sandwiches (he refused to share them with France) and finding that he'd forgotten to butter his scone, England decided to take matters into his own hands.
"I'm going to go and get help, see if we can get someone to tow these bloody idiots out of the way," he told France.
He said this as if they were in the wilderness.
France shrugged and continued purring down the phone at some poor idiot.
But England found getting out of the car easier said than done. He tried to open the door and it slammed against a lamppost.
"France! You damned idiot!"
"Que?"
"Don't you 'que' me!"
France frowned and switched off his mobile.
"I can't bloody get out!" England yelled at him.
"I will help you!" France said.
"No, you bloody won't!" England said. "You and your damned pantalons." He wound down the window and began climbing out. "If you touch my bloody arse, I will end you!" he shouted behind him as he stuck his head out and began to shuffle out.
England found himself in the awkward position of the upper half of his body hanging out of the car and his lower half, the one he particularly guarded against France, stuck in the car with France.
"I could give you a shove," France said helpfully.
"You can bloody well get out and pull me out," England said.
"Are you stuck?"
"Of course I'm bloody stuck, would I ask you to help me if I wasn't?"
"Je ne sais pas."
"Puuuuull," England yelled at France as the Frenchman grabbed England under the arms and pulled.
"You need to lose weight, Angleterre."
"You need to work out more instead of sitting around drinking wine."
France looked appalled, "I am all muscle!" he whined.
He finally tugged England out. They stood panting and staring at each other wildly.
"I could ring someone," France said as they looked around.
England merely grunted, "Go on then."
"My phone is in ze car."
"Oh for God's sake!" England was about to climb back in. Then realised this was moronic and walked around into the road, a car whizzed past honking its horn and he quickly jumped into the driver's seat.
Between thumb and forefinger he gingerly picked up France's phone, vowing to wash his hands as soon as he was able.
He was about to telephone the Automobile Association and pretend they had broken down (after all they had, in a way), when France attempted to climb back into the car the same way England had exited it.
But… several things happened at once.
England accidentally pressed 'dial' on the first contact in 'A', there was a tap at the driver's window and France lost his 'pantalons'.
"I hate my life," England said desperately into the phone.
"Yo! Artie! Why're you talking on Francy's phone?" Alfred's voice came over loud and clear. The annoying American shouting so loud, he may as well be sitting right next to him.
The tapping on the window was a bemused looking London police officer.
The police officer was concerned. Not due to their abysmal parking situation. But because there was a naked bottom sticking out of their passenger window.
France's velvet flares had given up their job of keeping their owner decent and dropped as France squeezed through the window and landed, face first in England's lap.
It did not look good. The policeman looked horrified.
"It's not what it looks like!" England said, winding down the window. He tried, in vain, to shove France's face from out of his groin region.
France spluttered, "Mon pantalons!" he shouted.
It was another two hours before they were released from the police station. England refused, absolutely and utterly refused, to give France a lift to his disreputable hotel and drove himself home alone.
He unlocked his front door, closed it behind him and fell to the floor in exhaustion and just lay on the hall carpet face down. "Never again…And I bet he never got me a bloody date…" he muttered to himself.
There was a knock on the door…
He got painfully to his feet, "Does nobody know how to use a bloody doorbell?" he yelled as he opened the door.
"Hello Arthur! I'm your date tonight…!"