Stories of Ourselves: "Tyres" by Adam Thorpe

But, he said, if you fall short of the highest standards, and start ‘cutting corners’, or grow sloppy, and let a man drive away with a set of tyres unevenly inflated, or with an inner tube that – from the very kindest of intentions – you have pretended to yourself is passable, though frayed in one spot, or with a tread that is smooth as here (he’d smack his furrowed brow), you might be sending that man to his death.

But, he said, if you fall short of the highest standards, and start ‘cutting corners’, or grow sloppy, and let a man drive away with a set of tyres unevenly inflated, or with an inner tube that – from the very kindest of intentions – you have pretended to yourself is passable, though frayed in one spot, or with a tread that is smooth as here (he’d smack his furrowed brow), you might be sending that man to his death.

His face has always had an emaciated look, perpetually sucking on its dead cigarette, glossy with grease and seamed with dirt.

In their treads I have found the hair and blood of small, hapless creatures.

In the great chasms of a giant truck’s treads I once found a shrew, intact but quite lifeless, its tiny paws folded as my mother’s were on her death-bed, in the room smelling of camphor and candles.

We had seen German trucks before, passing through the unoccupied zone, on their way to elsewhere, but never before had we seen a big, black Mercedes, with a little flag fluttering on its bonnet, and motorcycle outriders.

Our old tyres were soon used up, and new tyres were only fitfully available, until my father came to some agreement with the local powers in the town.

At least, the mas was ours, and the mas was well nigh a village in itself.

She would work all day in the roar of the river-race and the typewriter clicking away like a mad nuthatch, and I would work in the hiss of the compressor and the clatter of my tools and the intermittent gossip of our clients, dreaming of Sunday, when I could walk in the woods and mountains, and breathe good air, and forget the war.

But some dart must have wormed its way in, for when I saw her pass on her way to work (as I surmised, and soon confirmed) I recognised her immediately.

The whole stretch of the road, either way, was empty (just before all those refugees from the north trudged past, with their wheelbarrows, in June); the poppies thinned into one crimson thread of silk either side, and the plane trees dappled nobody but the birds, alighting while the coast was clear.

The whole stretch of the road, either way, was empty (just before all those refugees from the north trudged past, with their wheelbarrows, in June); the poppies thinned into one crimson thread of silk either side, and the plane trees dappled nobody but the birds, alighting while the coast was clear.

My skin is from my mother’s side; my mother had red hair, which everyone claimed was from German mercenaries a thousand years ago.

I indicated my admiration and commiseration, as one always has to with these bores, and then looked after the girl, who had now dwindled to a dot.

You cannot fail to strike up some relationship with those who pass you at definite times six days a week, but it took two years before I had reached a sufficient maturity to wave at her as she passed, and shout some innocuous greeting (I mean, more than bonjour or bonsoir).

The military vehicle swirled the dust so much that I was not certain for a few moments of her safety, but she emerged from the cloud, hugging the verge, with a somewhat shocked expression, which did not preclude her look of gratitude as she pedalled past me, thanking me very much.

There was something sinewy about her, though, that one could trust.

It never occurred to me that she might be working for the other side: that possibility might have been suggested by my feigned ignorance, but that was an automatic reflex.

My father wondered at my whistling gaiety that day.

Apart from anything else, he had put all his eggs into the basket of progress, which he saw as intimately connected with the automobile.

Thus he felt no compunction in screwing what he could out of the enemy.

Far too good for a dolt like me!

(The idea popped into my head, just like that – really, it was not so far as the crow flies, but then I am not a crow!)

So we worked out a place to meet, in very sensible tones, as if we were talking about prices, or bent wheel-spokes – and as she pedalled off I realised that I had made my first secret assignation with the one I adored.

I spread too much grease on the wheel-rims, and dropped a ring spanner on my toe.

‘Bloody Boche,’ murmured my father, followed by something ruder, in patois.

The officer’s chauffeur and some other armed minion watched me fit it onto the wheel – the nearside front one – but I could scarcely stop my hands from trembling.

He must have been some sort of technical engineer before the war, for he was full of this idea that would avoid ‘grovelling in the road’ with a jack and getting your knees dirty: some sort of crowbar lever that would work a fitting under the bonnet, and put up either set of wheels as desired, and bring the whole car into suspension with a final twist.

The officer had evidently been staring at her, for he then boomed his own greeting: ‘And might a fellow take a lift on the saddle from a pretty damsel, like a stick of bread?’ – some such tripe.

I ran as fast as I could, in the silence, but could not finally approach the spot for all the uniforms ringing it already, waving their guns – like excited kids around the blazing effigy of the Petassou.