The End of the Road

* * *

It was thirty minutes before they were clear of Tidmarton and on the open road again. Smithers and Robin maintained a hostile silence, while Dalgleish stared morosely at the backs of their heads. To his chagrin, he suddenly felt a call of nature. Spotting a service station ahead, he tremulously requested that they stop to allow him to relieve himself. Without a word, Robin pulled into the forecourt, stopped, got out, and tipped the seat forward. Dalgleish found that he was the wrong way round to exit feet first. The obvious solution would be for Smithers to get out and allow him to disembark that side, but that individual was giving a good imitation of the Rock of Gibraltar. He had no alternative but to turn himself around in the confined space. He drew his knees up to his chest, eliciting grunts of disapproval from Smithers as his left foot hit the back of the front seat. He took hold of his right shin and pulled it as close in as he could, his knee joint protesting painfully. He managed to pull that leg around until his foot was on the seat beside him, pointing right. His hip joints complained that such a position was not to be found in even the most extreme of yoga handbooks. He now had to let his body fall to the left sideways onto the seat to allow his left foot to join his right. He twisted to the right as he did so, ending up lying on his back with his feet touching the roof of the car. He twisted onto his left side so that his feet fell out of the open door. He was then able to crawl out of the car backwards on his hands and knees. He rose to his feet and ran for the toilets.

Once he had returned and they were on their way again, Smithers said, without turning around, "While you were gone Robin looked at the map. We didn't have to go through any towns. It would have been better to take the B6804. I'm surprised you didn't know that, Dogfish."

There was no more conversation until Robin said, "I think we're nearly there."

Smithers looked ahead and said, "Is that your unused road, Danglers? Where that crowd of workmen are?"

Dalgleish was horrified to see the activity taking place at the end of Honeypot Lane, and hurriedly tried to rescue the situation. "That just makes it worse, Mr Smithers. Public money still being spent on Tories' useless road."

"You want us to take photographs to prove that a Labour council is wasting ratepayers' money on a useless road, Dogleash? Are you mad?"

* * *

As they reached the road junction, a workman stepped into the road holding a sign, the 'STOP' side towards them. Robin stopped and indicated his intention to turn right. The workman looked up and down the road, saw that it was clear, turned the sign to show 'GO,' and waved them into Honeypot Lane. As they drove towards the first bend, Smithers asked, "What's that racket? Is there a kennels near here?" They rounded the bend and stopped, surveying the sight that faced them.

In front of them to the left was a parked Jaguar with a door open. Sitting in the car with her legs outside, a young lady was repairing her makeup. In front of the car was a motorcycle and sidecar in RAC livery, its uniformed rider standing next to it in conversation with the car's driver. A little further along on the right hand side of the road was an overturned flatbed trailer hitched to a tractor, with a number of milk churns scattered about it and puddles of milk on the road. Beyond that a saloon car was nose to nose with a steamroller whose chimney belched smoke and which emitted occasional bursts of steam from a number of orifices. Next to the saloon car was a male Police Inspector and a female Police Constable holding three manacled prisoners. All around milled a number of foxhounds which two whippers-in on foot were vainly trying to round up. Behind the hedge on the right hand side two mounted huntsmen watched the scene as other riders arrived and gathered behind them.

Smithers spoke. "This is your empty road, is it, Dalgleish? I'll not forget this, and I'll not forget you, Dalgleish. That's your name, isn't it? Dalgleish!"

It was all too much for Dalgleish's bladder, which began to send urgent messages through his nervous system. "Let me out, please," he begged. "Now! I need to go, quick!" Robin alighted, and tipped his seat forward. Dalgleish had no time for Houdini-like contortions. He dived head first out of the door, landing on his nose. He scrambled to his feet and looked around frantically. Seeing a narrow gap in the hawthorn hedge to his right, he pushed through it, feeling his coat tear as he did so. As he fumbled clumsily with his fly, he pondered a dilemma: for maximum privacy he needed to stand close up to the hedge, but to keep his private parts safe from the thorns, he needed to stand back. Before he had reached a decision on that problem, another posed itself. Cold air and shame had combined to shrink his flesh, and by the time that he had manœuvred his member through his underpants, shirt tail, trouser fly, jacket, and overcoat, there was little left to hold, severely impairing his control over the direction of flow. His trouser turn-ups and shoes suffered in consequence.

Meanwhile Robin had taken a few snaps of the scene in the lane, wondering, as he got Violet in focus, whether he could afford one of those cameras with a zoom lens. He managed also to take a surreptitious shot of Dalgleish behind the hedge. Smithers called to him, "Let's go home, Robin." He got back into the car, executed a three-point turn, and drove back along the lane, turning left towards London at the end.

Looking over the hedge, Dalgleish watched them go. He shook the drips from his member, adjusted his clothing, and made his way back through the hedge, his overcoat sustaining more damage in the process. After reviewing his options, he trailed wearily back up the lane, and turned right towards Nutchester, hoping to thumb an early lift. As he walked he fingered the career timetable in his pocket, wondering if any amendments to it were now necessary. Perhaps the two gained years were not the great leap forward he had anticipated.

* * *

It occurred to Smithers that, having come so far already, it might be as well to get to the truth about Honeypot Lane before returning to London. "I've changed my mind, Robin," he said. "See if you can find somewhere safe to turn round. I want to see if there's someone at County Hall who knows what this is all about." Robin spotted a pub forecourt where he was able to execute the required manœuvre, and they were soon on their way northward again, passing by the end of Honeypot Lane and proceeding onwards towards Nutchester.

As they drove, they spotted a weary figure trudging disconsolately along the roadside verge, right arm outstretched with thumb extended. Robin looked enquiringly at his father-in-law. "Keep going," Smithers said. "We didn't see him."

Dalgleish recognised the car as it passed him, and saw it disappear into the distance. He took the timetable from his pocket and tore it into tiny pieces. He threw them like confetti into the air and watched the wind disperse them, along with his ambitions.

* * *