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Driving Lessons Chapter 79 500 Miles
(With apologies to The Proclaimers)
"And I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more just to see that man who walks 500 miles…" Prussia and Denmark were singing as loud as they possibly could (which was very very loud) in very bad Scottish accents in the tiny confined area of a Ford Transit van with blacked out windows.
"Shut them up! Please for the love of God!" 'Lucien' asked England.
England couldn't hear. He had earplugs inserted in his ears - courtesy of France, who actually seemed to be the only person who cared about his wellbeing. He was sat in the back of the Transit reading Gardeners World and ignoring all about him.
The Transit van barrelled up the M1 motorway on the way to Glasgow with 'Florimund' driving. Lucien said to him, "We should hire these two as interrogators, just five minutes alone in a locked room with them and any terrorist would be talking straight away, we'd never have to use waterboarding."
Florimund nodded. "But at least that French guy isn't with us. He groped my ass."
"Or that Russian dude. He gave me the creeps."
Prussia and Denmark had begun the song all over again. It was their latest craze.
"When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you…" they sang.
…For the 24th time since they'd left London.
"Can you please shut them up?" Lucien asked England.
England pulled an earplug out. "Sorry what, old chap?" England couldn't deny he was delighted by their discomfort. He ignored the bouncing around in the back of the van as much as any Englishman reading a gardening magazine could do. The advertisements on wheelbarrows cheered him immensely.
"Shut. Them. Up." Lucien said through gritted teeth, looming over England.
"I'm sorry old chap, but when they're in this mood," England cocked an eyebrow at Prussia and Denmark who were dancing around each other in the confines of the back of the van. "They can't be stopped. Except by Russia or a nuclear bomb. Sorry." He stuck the earplugs back in his ears and carried on reading about gardening tools.
"He must have nerves of steel," Lucien said to Florimund as he climbed back in the front and sat in the passenger seat. "He doesn't look it though, does he? I thought this was a nation of shopkeepers and gardeners."
'Florimund' winced as Den hit a particularly high note. "He's a braver man than me. You say they've been living with him for a few weeks now?"
"That's what it says in the dossier."
"And our Nation was living with these…other Nations?"
"Yes."
"That's not acceptable for a superpower to be living with these degenerates," Florimund said. He glanced in the rear view mirror and frowned at Den and Pru showering each other with beer and England, totally immersed in his gardening magazine and attempting to use his iPhone (to which he was still not accustomed) to ring up an advertiser to enquire about a new spade.
"That Englishman must have nerves of solid steel," he observed as Denmark sprayed England with beer and attempted to enjoin him in yet another verse of '500 miles' to which England refused.
"Yes I'd like to order the stainless steel Fiskers 2000 please," England said into the phone.
"And two tins of stripy paint!" Prussia yelled and laughed. "Kesese!"
"To do the decorating? I love painting. Swe and Fin won't let me though after I painted a picture of Horik II and his longboat on their walls."
"No, stripy paint? Get it?" Prussia yelled.
Denmark shook his head. He didn't.
But at least they'd stopped singing for a minute.
"Damn and blast you only have the Fisker 1000?" England asked into the phone.
"It's party party party eh?" Den asked England, sitting next to him and trying to grab the magazine from him.
"Stop mauling Alan Titchmarsh you oaf. The man's a gardening hero!"
"Gay."
"What do you mean I've bought nine shirts in Fandango pink? I can assure I have done no such thing!" Austria was also having problems with the telephone. "And I've never been to Australia! I wish to speak to your supervisor." Austria, was once again on the telephone to his credit card company. This time he had received his statement and been utterly shocked at the items he had apparently bought.
He ignored his queue of customers at the door. A driving instructor who was still in the throes of a nervous breakdown, a rodeo clown who had been kidnapped and taken on a cross-channel ferry with Francis, a Royal Palace guardsman and a royal Prince. When the latter person interrupted him (most rudely Austria thought) to ask him if he knew who he was, Austria had replied that no, he didn't and did he know who Austria was? No? Well then, perhaps he should just wait in line like the rest. Austria was about to tell him that he'd taken none of this nonsense from Emperor Joseph II and he'd been one of the better ones, but decided not to as this young upstart wouldn't know who Austria was talking about and besides the young man on the phone (who was very very young compared to the 1000 year old ex-Empire) was talking.
"I'm sorry? Bondi Beach? Do I sound like someone who has spent five hundred Australian dollars on a round at a bar on a beach? I don't like beaches. I hate the sea. I live as far away from the sea as I possibly can. Leicester? No, I don't live in Leicester. Impudence!"
While Austria was arguing with a customer service assistant from the Bank of Austria, France was giving himself a pedicure whilst telling Charlemagne all about Paris. Russia, sat next to him on the sofa, had refused the offer of a pedicure and would have left the house (he didn't like being alone with France) but felt that the child needed a father figure around so in between binge-watching Downton Abbey, he told the child all about the Steppes and the Golden Horde.
"And so I will take you to see ze Louvre!" France told Charlemagne who stared back at him.
"And I will take you to visit the tomb of Saint Dimitry Ivanovich Doskoy."
Charlemagne had fallen asleep though.
"Who do you think he looks like? Moi?" France asked Russia, gazing at the child.
Russia grunted a 'nyet'. "I think he looks like America," he said. "Poor child."
France sulked and texted England.
Meanwhile in a shady corner two even shadier people were having a meeting.
"You're a hard man to track down," the woman said, sitting down, putting down her brother tracker 2000 on the table. It whirred and beeped. It seemed to tell her that her brother was at Watford Gap Service Station.
The 'man' was a bear. "Get to the point, Miss Belarus, I'm a busy person. People to see, things to do."
"You managed to get out of that Panda nursery then?" Belarus asked.
"Yes I did obviously." He said.
She grimaced. "Well there's no need to be snotty with me."
"Listen, I've got a squash match in a bit with the German Ambassador. He's been having problems with noisy Danes."
"You're really the Mr Fixer, aren't you?" She asked. "Were you the one who planted that child on Arthur?"
"Me? No. But I know who did," Mr Panda said with a wink.
Belarus leaned forward, "Tell me more," she said.
Mr Panda shook his head. "It would cost you," he said. "I also know who the father is." He grinned. "Let's get to the point shall we? What do you want?"
"Revenge," she said simply, her smile wolfish.
Mr Panda shuddered.
Behind them a child shoved past them to get to the vending machine.
"Hey! Got get a Kitkat from somewhere else. I'm having an important meeting here!" Mr Panda said, tossing the child a coin.
"I don't think North Peckham Leisure Centre was a good idea for a meeting place," Belarus said. She tended to agree now with England, these bears were really getting above their station.
In Watford Gap Service Station
"Francis has posted on Facebook that he can't get BBC1 on your television," Prussia told England. "Apparently, Russia is upset as he's missing Eastenders."
"I thought he was a Coronation Street fan?" Den asked. He also wondered why he was so invested.
"He's turned into a couch potato is what he is," Prussia said. "It's a shame when a Nation goes to seed and loses their oomph!" Prussia said the last word with a rather ostentatious pelvic thrust. The fact that they were in the WH Smith branch of Watford Gap Service Station looking at bags of sweets for Denmark was beside the point.
England apologised to a woman and her daughter who were passing at that point, "So sorry. I'm so sorry. They're both a bit simple," he explained to the woman's back as she hurried away.
"Who's simple?" Denmark yelled, picking up a large bag of Haribo sweets.
"What shall I tell France?" Prussia asked.
"He's just texted me," England said with a sigh, ignoring the text.
"England says 'tell Russia to go home'." Prussia said to himself as he began typing on his very battered android phone with a cracked screen and dubious-looking scotch tape holding the back together.
"No!" England shouted. "Are you trying to get me killed? Tell him it's channel number bloody one! It's obvious!"
"Number bloody one," Prussia said as he tapped on the phone screen.
"Do you sell beer?" Denmark asked the bored looking woman behind the counter.
"No."
"Lager?"
"No."
"Alcopops?"
Prussia sneered at this and shook his head. "Man, you might as well drink milk."
"No."
"What kind of country is this?" Denmark asked.
"This is a stationery and magazine shop, moron," England said and then to the woman, "I'm very sorry. He's a foreigner. He'll just have the sweets."
"We have to be moving if we're to get to Lieutenant-Colonel Jones before he goes on air again," 'Lucien' warned (he had forgotten his real name, he couldn't remember if he was Carlton Banks or JJ Bittenbinder and he didn't care).
He said it as if America going on air to do the weather forecast would cause an international incident.
"Lieutenant-Colonel! What a damned joke," England said. "Get me a KitKat," he added to Denmark who was rummaging in his pockets for the appropriate money.
"Jeez what a drag," Prussia said. "Russia's a couch potato, Alfie's reduced to doing the weather forecast in this lousy country which is always the same - foggy and cold - and we can't get beer."
"Get back in the van," England said, pushing them both out.
"I didn't pay for my sweets!" Den said.
But they were already heading back up the M1 motorway.
"I wonder if Miss Ukraine is still on that bus to Vladivostok?" England mused.
"I think you're not right in the head," Prussia told him grumpily. It was a pain being sober with England.
"Do you know, I keep getting a buzzing sound in my head," England said.
"Oh very funny."
"I mean it," England said and shook his head whereupon a strange small piece of metal fell out of his hair.
"Silver coloured nits!" Denmark said in awe.
Prussia picked it up, "It looks like a piece of your brain," he told England.
'Florimund' ('Lucien' was now driving) loomed over them in the back of the van and took the piece of metal off England. "It's a tracking device," he said. "Someone planted it on you."
England would have been utterly appalled at this normally, but nothing was normal these days and he put his earplugs in when Den and Prussia, in the confines of the van began singing "And I would walk 500 miles…"
"I think I preferred it when it was that Amarillo song…" Florimund said wretchedly.
Meanwhile at North Peckham Leisure Centre...
"They wouldn't stop singing some infernal song about Amarillo," the German Ambassador told Mr Panda. He was annoyed, firstly regarding being woken by Denmark and Prussia singing and then by the fact that he was being beaten at squash by a panda.
"I'm not sure what you want me to do about it?" Mr Panda said. He served, his squash racket hitting the ball with a thud.
"8-2," the Ambassador said ruefully. He was being hammered. "Well they've left now, but they said they'd be back." He shuddered.
"What about Ludwig? Can't he sort them out?" Mr Panda asked as he slammed the ball into the corner and gained another point. He needed to get Mr Kumajiro back. These humans were too easy to beat.
"He's too soft."
Soft was not a word that Mr Panda would have used for Germany but he shrugged anyway and served.
"I have to say this is an honour though. Where is your usual partner?" The German asked.
"He's on the run," Mr Panda said. "I blame England for that."
"Well if you can see your way to erm diverting Prussia and Denmark away from my abode then maybe I can help your 'friend'."
Mr Panda served again. "You mean you want me to blackmail England into letting Prussia and Denmark stay at his house and you'll give my friend asylum in your embassy?"
The Ambassador considered this. "What has your friend done?"
Mr Panda thought of his fellow bear, "A bit of fraud, a bit of theft, oh and kidnap and imprisoning some Nations," he said as a throwaway kind of remark.
The Ambassador thought about this. "He sounds dangerous."
"He's a bloody polar bear cub!" Mr Panda said. "Are you in or not? I can always send Gil and Den back your way."
The Ambassador shuddered. Granting asylum to a known fugitive at the embassy was not something he knew his boss would approve but it was either completely disregard the rules and bring the German Diplomacy Service into disrepute or have those two cretins sing their accursed song. "You drive a hard bargain, Mr P," he said.
"11-3," Mr Panda told him the score. "Best of three?"
"Francis is telling everyone that he's home alone in your house," Prussia told England with a devilish grin.
"So? And what do you mean by everyone? The whole world or just those degenerates he calls friends?" England replied, pulling out one earplug and putting down his magazine.
"Facebook. Big mistake."
"He's not home alone. He's got big bad Russia with him," Den pointed out.
"True dat," Prussia said.
It was a brief interlude to their singing. Florimund could be heard telling Lucien that all his CIA torture resistance training had not prepared him for forty-six renditions of '500 Miles'. But they were nearly there. The dreaming tower blocks of Glasgow could be seen through the windscreen.
"I wonder if that pub is still standing that we went to last time we were here?" Denmark asked Prussia.
"Ja! That was a wild night. I woke up in a barrel of fish on a cargo boat to Ireland," Prussia told England.
England shuddered. He was glad he'd missed that particularly night out.
The woman on the reception desk did not look impressed by the names given to her. In fact she only seemed to accept Arthur's - which caused him a lot of satisfaction.
"JJ Bittenbinder, Ma'am, and this is Carlton Avery Banks," the CIA man said and gave her his ID card.
"I'm Frederick Von Saxe Coburg Hollerenstein, and this is my friend…"
"Gorm Bloodsword," Denmark finished.
"You're always Gorm Bloodsword, pick another name!" Prussia yelled for all to hear.
"I like Gorm. He was one of my favourite kings."
"He was an idiot. A drunken idiot though."
"Your name is stupider than mine!" By now Prussia and Denmark's argument had descended into a mixture of Danish and German.
They then jumped on one another and began fighting. The receptionist discretely pressed an alarm button.
England slid away and into an elevator. He nodded to the person already stood in there. "Floor number 5 please or whatever one BBC Scotland airs from," he said to the woman for something to say. He then looked at her more closely, "Don't I know you?"
"You should do, Arthur!" The woman exclaimed.
"Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry!" England replied. He pressed a button quickly as the fighting bodies of Prussia and Denmark rolled perilously close to the lift. "I'm very sorry but I was very drunk and the mud was awful…"
"What on earth are you on about?"
"You're Priscilla who I met at 1983 Glastonbury aren't you?"
"I'm Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister for Scotland!"
"Oh right…"
"And your brother has told me that he's going to raise an army of 10,000 and invade your country!"
"Oh dear…" England's big bushy eyebrows shot up. This was painful indeed. Nicola Sturgeon was in effect Scotland's boss, the first minister of Scotland and she looked worried. If Scotland's boss looked worried then he should be worried.
"I'm going up there now to try to stop him broadcasting a call to arms to all Scots!" She said.
England listened in horror. The situation was far worse than he'd envisaged. "I'm going to get Alfred."
"I blame all this on him. He's a fool," she said. "He kept going on about Braveheart."
Arthur sighed. His idiot brother didn't need anyone to encourage him to invade England.
The lift doors swished open much to England's (and Nicola Sturgeon's) relief and a duck flew through the air at England.
"Ah Brian!" England said.
"You know this duck?" The Scottish First Minister asked. She raised an eyebrow and hurried on. She had better things to do. She had a Scottish Nation to sort out.
"Brian doesn't like me…" England said lamely. Brian quacked in agreement. "Where's Bob?" He asked the duck. He was talking to a duck.
"Dad!" It was Yorkshire. He approached them, nodding to Ms Sturgeon as he did so. "I'm sorry about what Uncle Hamish said. That wasn't my idea. It was better than him calling you a bawbag."
"Aye, well, I'm no going to be taking my place in the kitchen like he said," she told him in her thickest Scottish accent.
England shoved Brian off him as the duck tried to chew his trousers. "Damn and blast it."
"Don't bully Brian, Dad. He's my show duck." Yorkshire said.
"Where's Alfred?" England asked. "Let's get this over with."
"He's answering his fan mail in his dressing room."
"Fan mail? Has the world finally gone stark staring mad?"
"Probably."
"I've been told by the President that he has to go home," England said. "And where's Hamish? Apparently he's going to invade my country."
"He's been sacked but refuses to leave. He's taken the producers hostage in their booth with shaken but unopened cans of Irn Bru."
"I'll sort him out," Nicola Sturgeon told them in a determined manner.
"Tell him Sean Connery's here, that will bring him out," England said. His brother worshipped the ex Bond actor.
"Right… Alfred…" He said in a determined tone and headed down a corridor, bumped into some harried looking assistant, who looked as if they were done with it all. "Erm excuse me? Is erm Chad Vader in one of these rooms?" He asked. The name Chad Vader stuck in his throat. What a bloody stupid alias.
"Who are you?" The assistant asked.
"Arthur Kirkland, I've come to take him home. Well, back to America."
"Oh thank God!" The assistant hugged him in relief. "Can you take Hamish as well? He's a nightmare. He's taken the producer hostage and threatening to explode a can of Irn Bru all over the studio."
"No, although he's my brother and…"
"Your brother? You're related?"
"Well yes kind of in a way."
The assistant looked at him as if he were God.
England puffed his chest out.
"Did you actually grow up with him?"
"Not exactly. He used to bully me though. If he didn't have his tot of whisky first thing in the morning he would call me an eejit and steal my socks."
"Oh my God!"
"I know. I had a terrible childhood." England said. He was on a roll now.
They arrived outside a dressing room door with a star on it with the name 'Chad Vader' written in sharpie around it.
"Chad Vader…" England said with a sigh.
"That's not really his name is it?" The assistant asked.
"No, no my dear, it's not," England said and without knocking, shoved open the door.
America was sat in quite a normal suit and wearing a horrid tie tied rather loosely and badly, signing promotional photographs.
"Alfred, you need to come with me." England said with authority.
"Aw man! I knew you'd ruin it for me. You never wanted me to be a star."
"You're a second rate weatherman on a third rate channel." England pointed out.
"That's the worst thing you've ever said to me. Including that time you told me I couldn't fly a plane."
"You can't."
"And that time you said I didn't know where Japan was."
"You don't."
"Or that time…"
"Look, I don't have all day. Get your stuff together, you're going home."
"Oh right, back to London? But my career here…"
"Career?" England almost laughed. He was also about to say not London but back to DC, but had a weird feeling Alfred wouldn't come along peacefully. He wondered where the CIA men were….
Author's Notes:
Apologies to The Proclaimers
JJ Bittenbinder has been stolen from a comedy sketch by John Mulaney and obviously Carlton Avery Banks is from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.