Grandpa and Me

From its lines I reasoned that the engine wasn't up front, so I looked for a way of raising the rear hatch. This required me opening the driver's door. There was a handle concealed behind the lower edge of the door, and when I released the catch the door slowly lifted by about ten centimetres allowing me to raise it easily, this was helped by gas struts. It had a large single hinge at front that was angled so that the door opened upwards and out slightly. I found the hatch release button and pushed it. The hatch was hinge at both sides and it moved backward and up to allow clear access to the engine compartment. I noticed a small battery charger connected to the battery, the LED lights indicated that it was on maintenance charge, presumably providing just enough charge to maintain the battery on full charge. There was a small container taped to the bulkhead, it contained a key, and a note. 'Michael, this car is yours. It is fully registered and comprehensibly insured. In the glovebox is an instruction book, in it you'll find instructions for all of the features that I have built into it. Read these before you do anything else. When you have done that, take it for a spin and tell me what you think of it. But, a word of warning, take it easy until you get the feel of it, and watch out for dickheads on the road.' I didn't realise just how prophetic his words were.

I disconnected the charger and placed it on the workbench. "Well here goes nothing." I said as I climbed in. My first impression was that, despite it being a lot closer to the ground than my clunker, it was surprisingly easy to get into. I turned the ignition on, the ignition light came on but the key didn't turn any further, it was then, after a little looking, that I noticed a red 'START/STOP' button under a lift up cover on the centre console. I pushed it and the motor fired up immediately before settling into a throaty burble. The dash panel lit up like a Christmas tree with all sorts of information presenting themselves.

I climbed out, a relative easy feat, and walked around to the passenger side. I opened the door. "Climb in." I said to Felicity. I had to admit that the vision of her sliding in and her semi-reclining body, that revealed a goodly amount of her cleavage from my position above her, set the testosterone galloping around my body like a teenager perving on a Playboy magazine. All right, I have had that experience to draw upon. She settled in and buckled her seat belt. I closed her door.

As I climbed in I wondered how I was going to reach my door to close it, that was until I saw a sign under a switch that said 'DOOR OPEN/CLOSE' I pushed it and the door slowly closed and latched itself. I realised that I didn't need to close her door, by pushing the button, both doors would open and close.

The clutch pedal felt light but not spongey as I depressed it, moving the gear lever into the first gear gate, I slowly released the clutch and it move smoothly forward. I stopped outside the shed, got out and locked it before climbing back in. "Well, here goes nothing." I pulled out onto the street and began to accelerate. The change from first into second was smooth. "I like this." I said as we reached the end of the street, I gave it a little more throttle and accelerated quickly to just under the speed limit, the sound of the exhaust increased slightly and there was just a slight kick up the arse as I changed gear. "I like this even more." I said.

"Don't get to like it too much or I'll get jealous, I know about boys and their cars, they take up so much time that there is little left for any meaningful relationships."

"I like this, I haven't said that I love it. What would you say if I said that I love you?"

"I'd say that you just want to get into my pants. It's much too soon to be making that sort of statement."

"Okay, I admit that the thought of getting into your pants has crossed my mind, I am human after all, but that isn't the main reason I said that. And don't you tell me that you haven't been thinking along those lines yourself. I've noticed the subtle little hints that you've been throwing into our conversation."

"Subtle? Mate, I've been beating you around the head with them!"

"So you do fancy me?"

"Of course I fancy you, I wouldn't be my grandmother's granddaughter if I didn't. Thankfully I take after her and not my mother, great women seem to have skipped a generation in our family. We compared notes before you came this morning, and reached the same conclusion, you take after your grandfather, and she fancies him in a big way, so it looks as if our fates are sealed."

I would have come up with something brilliant to say to her, but the flashing of headlights in my rear vision mirror, followed by the red and blues and the whoop, whoop of the siren could only mean one thing, a cop. I hit my indicator and pulled into the kerb. He stopped behind me and climbed out, citation book in hand. I hit the door open button. "Good morning officer, can I help you?" All very polite.

"Would you mind stepping out of the car." It wasn't a question, it was an order, an aggressive order.

Now stepping out is not a very apt description of the process, I had to sort of lift my bum onto the door sill and swing my legs out before standing up. "What seems to be the problem?"

"The problem is that I clocked you travelling at fifty-six kilometres an hour in a fifty zone."

"Really? Let me check my system." I leaned in and scrolled through the information provided by the car's trip recorder. "That's interesting, according to both the speedometer and Satnav telemetry, I have not exceeded forty-seven kilometres an hour since I left home. Look, see for yourself." I pointed to the screen, it had a red line set at fifty and the green and blue graph lines never reached the red line, both read-outs showed the same maximum speed. "That is nine kilometres per hour less than you claim that I was doing."

"Your equipment must be faulty, I definitely clocked you at fifty-six."

"Felicity, could you get the book out of the glove-box?" She reached in and handed me a largish book that I thanked myself that I had looked at while I was checking the car out. It contained several certificates on the telemetry and other instrument calibrations. I pointed my finger at the relevant sections that certified that the equipment was accurate to within a 001 percentile range. "My grandfather, who built this car, is an Automotive Engineer and, as part of his work, he conducts the testing protocol on police vehicles. He told me that the acceptable accuracy of your equipment was 1 percent, but that, due to a variety of factors, variations can appear within days of testing that make accuracy a fiction. The accuracy of your laser speed recording is affected by that of your vehicle telemetry. The telemetry in this car is guaranteed to be more accurate than that in your car."

"What originally attracted my attention was that your exhaust was too loud." He was clutching at straws for something to book me for here. "I am going to have to issue you with a defect notice."

"Before you do, do you have a decibel metre on you?"

"No, but take my word for it, it is definitely too loud."

"What is the maximum noise level allowable for motor vehicles?" I asked him. I knew the answer of course, it was on the sheet in front of me.

"Ninety-five decibels at three thousand revs (RPM)."

"Now I don't want to have to be the one to cause you embarrassment," Bullshit, I am relishing the chance, "but would you read that certification." I pointed to the figures on the certificate that indicated that the noise level was ninety-two decibels at three thousand RPM. "According to this, the noise level of this car is within acceptable limits, especially as the tachometer telemetry will demonstrate that the engine never reached three thousand revs. If you wish to take this matter further, I will happily oblige." He was struggling to come to terms with this technology overload. "I notice that you are wearing a body camera. If you take a look on the dashboard you will see a small camera pointing at us, and the flashing blue light indicates that it is currently recording. This recording, even though I did not ask for your permission to record this conversation, just as you did not ask my permission to be recorded by you, will be acceptable in a court of law. Do you wish to take this further?"

He closed the citation book and spun on his heels and walked back to his car.

"Science rules!" Felicity said as I climbed back into the car. "You'd better get a move on, within reason of course, before Grandma and Grandpa begin to think that we've got ourselves lost, or decided to go for a drive in the countryside, or decided to stay at home," She looked at me, "In bed."

I felt a stirring in my loins. Could this really be happening to me? Does she really want to go to bed with me, or was she winding me up? Was there a significance in her including her grandmother and my grandfather in the same sentence?

Our journey to the retirement home ended without further interruption from dickheads of any sort and we soon found ourselves outside Grandpa's door. I knocked. We heard a muffled response from inside. Felicity took a keyring from her pocket and inserted a key in the lock. "Master key, we all have them in case of emergency." We entered the unit to be met by Grandpa emerging from his bedroom, closing the door behind him while hastily tying his robe. Felicity stepped past him and opened the door. "Grandma, what are you doing here?"

"I was being entertained by Harold until you two interrupted us." She said. She was sitting upright in bed, with the sheet pulled up to her chin.

"Well, what do you think?" Grandpa asked.

"About what?"

"About the car, what did you think I was asking about?"

"About this situation between you and Dorothy here."

"That's not really any of your business. Now tell me what you think of the car."

"It's great, but then you probably already know that."

"How would I know? I have never driven it."

"Why not?"

"Because I was too scared to." He saw the puzzled expression on my face. "I was scared that if I got in I'd have to call for help to get out again, and that would have meant calling your father, and that was never going to happen."

"She's great!" Felicity said. "Apart from a brush with the law on the way over. Don't worry, my hero, and your grandson, managed to baffle him with science and he had no option but to let us go."

"That's another thing that I was afraid of. Way, way back when I was a teenager, a friend offered to sell me an MGTC, and I really wanted to buy it, but unfortunately for him, he suggested that I borrow it for the night to test drive it. I picked up my then girlfriend, who later became your grandmother, and went for a drive. We were followed by a police car all the way to her girlfriend's house, and while we were there, a couple of my mates saw the car and stopped for a chat. We were minding our own business and talking, when a police car stopped and the cops asked us what we were doing. Then on the drive back to her place we were followed by another police car. I figured that if I were to buy it I wouldn't keep my licence for long, so I handed it back."

"So, are you telling me that I will face the same problems if I drive this car?"

"Only if you break the law."

"Where's the fun in that? Some of the laws we have to abide by are ridiculous."

"If you join a car club there will be opportunities, track days are one, where you can stretch her legs."

"I have to admit that she is by far the most amazing thing that I have ever seen."

"Are you still talking about the car?" Dorothy had put on a robe, I wasn't going to ask where that came from, and joined us.

"Both." From Felicity's reaction I had scored some brownie points here. She came to me and flung her arms around my neck and kissed me. I kissed her.

"Now isn't that nice." Dorothy said to Grandpa as the kiss ended. "See, I told you that they were in love."

"I think we are." My lips whispered to her lips.

"I think so too." Her lips responded, just before conversation was impossible.

We turned as soon as this kiss ended to see our grandparents, standing with their arms around each other and benevolent smiles on their faces.

Grandma, I guess that I can call her that now, now that it's obvious that she soon will be, went into the small kitchen and put the kettle on. "This calls for tea, only because there's no champagne left." She smiled and grabbed Grandpa's hand. "We had a celebration after you'd gone to check out the shed. We have decided that we are going to get married."

"Congratulations." I said.

"That's it, just congratulations? I would have thought that announcement would have warranted at least a hug." I hugged her, Felicity hugged Grandpa, we then changed partners before a group hug.

"I hate to put a dampener on the celebrations, but what will your son, my father, say about this?"

"I don't give a fuck what he thinks."

"Harold! Such language." Dorothy admonished him.

"My feelings towards him demands such language. He is an arsehole with no thought for anyone other than himself, not even his wife. I like her, yet I don't know how she has managed to put up with him all these years. He, it was, that forced me to come to this prison, but does he come to see me? No, the little shit is too scared to come to see me because he knows that I hate him for this place."

"But if you weren't here you would never have met Grandma." Felicity told him.

"We can thank heaven for small mercies. I'm sure that the big Kahuna," He pointed to the heavens, "would have found a way to get us together." Another hug from Dorothy.

"The yacht, did you ever get to sail her?" I asked, in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the burgeoning relationship between Grandpa and Dorothy.

"No, I'm not a sailor, it's just that I saw the possibility of that design. I know that there are many water ballast yachts out there and a few bilge keel designs, but I wondered what the combination of the two would go like. There is nothing to suggest that this combination will not result in a better, more stable yacht than either of the other two designs. We'll just have to take her out for a test sail. Your car, is it capable of towing the trailer?"

"Yes, it doesn't look much, but it runs well and has a greater towing capacity than the weight of the trailer, particularly as there is no heavy ballast in the yacht to weigh it down. I can't really understand why you make these things, and I notice that there are many projects, unstarted or unfinished. What surprised me was that you were even interested in them to begin with."

"Have you never had an idea that arrived out of left field, one that set you wondering why you thought of it, and if it would work?" Grandpa asked.

"Yes."

"And have you ever done anything about them?"

"Most of my ideas have been for stories."

"Have you written any of them?"

"Yes, but I find it hard to get started and I usually lose the plot before I have finished them. If only I could find the process of writing, you know, the beginning, the middle and the end." I guess that the frustration showed in my voice.

"You don't have to start at the beginning." Grandpa said. "If you have an idea how a story is to end, it's just a matter of establishing a beginning, and that can mean working back from the end, or spending some time trying out different beginnings until one fits in. There is no set formula for writing, not even with formula stories. Some of my projects began with a vision of the finished product and I then had to build the framework to support it. The same holds true with writing stories."

"I'd like to read some of your stories." Felicity said. "What sort of stories are they?"

"Fantasies, usually of an erotic nature."

"Now I'd really like to read them."

"So would I." Dorothy said, a strange look on her face. "I might pick up some ideas."

"God help me, there'll be no rest for the wicked. I don't mean you my dear." He gave Dorothy a hug and kiss. "I mean me, I don't think that I'll have the stamina for this."

"Ah yes, but what a way to go."

"I think that it's about time that we left you to do what it is you intend to do." I told them. "I'd better get the car back and under cover, the forecast was for rain this afternoon."

"Which means that we'll have to stay indoors." Felicity said, with the same look that Dorothy had just given Grandpa. I took her hand and we headed for the door.

"You two behave yourselves." Grandpa told our backs.

"No." We answered in unison.

"How long do you think before they give in to the inevitable? Dorothy asked, just loud enough for us to hear.

"Inevitable what, sex or marriage?" Grandpa asked her.

"Both, but not necessarily in that order." She chuckled.

It was a close call. The decision that we should give serious thought to whether we got married was delayed for however long it took for us to make love. We were just coming down from our first when I rolled toward Felicity. "I know that this has been a hectic couple of days, and there are many things that we need to find out about each other, but this feels so right to me. Felicity, will you marry me?"

"What took you so long to decide that you wanted to marry me? I knew days ago, probably even before I met you, really met you. Don't get me wrong, I knew a lot about you already, both from Grandma and the other nurses who've had their eagle eyes on you for months, and had checked up on you. I'd seen you around when you were visiting Grandpa," There it was again, she was calling him Grandpa. "And I agreed with the other nurses that you were a bit of all right, and then when Grandma started extolling your virtues, I knew that I just had to meet you to find out if you were that good. They were wrong, you are so much better." She kissed me.

We were just about to begin our second when I heard the front door open and a voice yell out, "Michael, are you home?"

"Fuck, my father." I said as I scrambled out of bed. "Stay here." I kissed her. "Just a minute, I'm on the toilet." I yelled back at him to buy time to get dressed." I slipped into the en-suite and flushed to support my story before walking down the hall to the living room.

"I dropped by to see how the renovations were progressing." He told me. "I need the job finished in a month because I have some people interested in buying."

"That doesn't give me much time, the inside was the easy part, the exterior will take longer because I need to hire scaffolding to reach the fascia and gutters."

"If you can't get it finished in a month I'll have to hire professionals to do the job, and that will cost money."

Money, that's all he ever thinks of, money. I have to tell you that my father is what Grandpa calls a leach, a blood sucker, he's a Stock Broker, and his whole existence revolves around shifting money, other people's money, and skimming his percentage from all transactions, whether buying or selling.

"And I have a Locksmith coming this afternoon to unlock the shed. I want to see if there is anything in there that's worth selling or if we have to hire someone to take it to the dump." With that he left. Talk about dropping a bombshell.

"I heard, what are we going to do?" Felicity came up behind me and hugged me, her naked body pressed against me.

It took all of my willpower to concentrate on what to do. Taking my phone from my pocket I rang Grandpa. "This had better be worth interrupting me for." He said when he eventually answered, he sounded out of breath.

"We are in deep shit." I told him. "My father was here just now, threatening to get professionals in to finish the renovations, because he has someone interested in buying." I waited for a second or two for that bit of news to sink in before I hit him with the worst bit. "And, he has a Locksmith coming this afternoon to open the shed so that he can check it out to see if there's anything in there worth selling, his words, not mine."