The Iberian Job

The Iberian Job

Rob Godfrey

The Iberian Job v1.05

Copyright 2014 Rob Godfrey

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Contents

Love and Big Coffins

Bonjour Dear Cowshed

The Corner House

The Iberian Job

A Secret Meadow

Clyro Commuter

Epilogue

For Amy, wherever I may find her

Introduction:

The Iberian Job got me into a whole heap of trouble, and now, all these years later, this book of the same name will probably do so as well. It’s a case of publish and be damned, because I feel a strong need to tell this story. Some might read what follows on these pages with a measure of disbelief. I can only say that it’s all true and it all really happened, as anyone who was there at the time will testify. I have changed the names of some people and places, to try and avoid having my rear end sued off. I’ve also left out some of the family stuff that wasn’t directly relevent to my own story. It’s always tricky writing about family members who are still alive.

This memoir is the third in a series and includes some of my poems. I hope the reader can forgive such indulgence. The poetry was written at the time and hopefully gives a flavour of my thoughts and feelings. With any luck I’ll get sued for the poetry - post-traumatic stress and all that - rather than certain parts of the story I’m telling.

Rob Godfrey

Charente, France, Christmas Day 2014

Love and Big Coffins

What is it about the early hours of the morning..? It's a time that's hushed, intimate, secret... the lights of Calais struggled through thick fog. A tired voice on the tannoy system told passengers to return to their vehicles. I finished-up my second pint of Best Bitter and looked at a one-way ticket to France. My watch proclaimed 6am on 11th November 2003. I noted the weird kind of symmetry to it all: almost exactly four years previously I'd been on a cross channel ferry, also at around 6am, going in the opposite direction; this, the final leg of a big adventure. The 2CV Alaska Challenge found me in North America for six months, covering huge distances, which might tell you why I now didn't bat an eyelid at the prospect of driving a Citroen 2CV thousands of miles across Europe, to Portugal.

The car in question was waiting for me down on the vehicle deck, loaded to the gunnels with all my gear, including a bicycle. One thing that the car did not carry was my laptop. This machine had become vital to the business venture I was launching and I carried it with me at all times. I put the empty beer glass on the table and got up. As I walked away I swung the laptop case and put the strap on my shoulder. I moved awkwardly. The strap came off my shoulder and the case flew away and hit the deck with a sickening thud. For a moment I just stared at the case, speechless. The case held a Compaq Armada 7400, which back in the day was a top of the range machine, costing a thousand bucks. My business venture, which I’d christened 'The Iberian Job', revolved entirely around the internet and my PC. If that laptop was broken the Iberian Job would be sunk before I could even properly get it off the ground.

No time to find out now. The ferry began unloading. I drove down the ramp onto the quayside and the chill November air seeped into my 25-year-old car. Fog blanketed everything and I had to drive slowly. As soon as I'd cleared the port I pulled into a small industrial estate. Would the laptop work..? In a state of anticipation I pressed the On button. Yes! the machine began starting up. In fact, despite the sickening thud as it hit that deck it started up perfectly, and sounded quite ok. The only problem being, the screen was completely blank. With a heavy heart I closed the laptop down. I'd deal with it later. In the meantime I was a man with a mission: I was on my way to Portugal, to get The Iberian Job up and running.

I took the A16 due south from Calais. Very little other traffic shared the autoroute with me. The fog persisted all the way down through Boulogne, Abbeville, Rouen and Le Mans. By lunchtime I reached Tours (pronounced: Tour), which is known as the gateway to sunny south west France. Alas, on that November day the sun was conspicuous by its absence. The heavy fog made it seem like dusk.

A chain motel on the outskirts of Tours became home for the night. I could have pushed on much further that day. However, although I was a man with a mission I also had a laptop that refused to work properly. I spent the afternoon in the hotel trying to fix the bloody thing. Hmm, no matter what buttons I pressed, or what tricks I tried, the blank laptop screen continued to mock me. Before having a steak in the hotel restaurant that evening I went for a walk, which didn't last long: it was like being in a Jack the Ripper movie. Back at the hotel I had an excellent meal and drank too much beer. I turned in early and slept like the proverbial log.

The next day I found myself in a different world. Blue sky and blazing sunshine met my morning yawns; quite a shock after all that fog! I felt uplifted. The laptop bad luck that started my journey to Portugal was blown away. I couldn't wait to hit the road. I rolled back the canvas roof on the 2CV and lapped-up the sunlight and the city of Tours, which dates back to Roman days and straddles the Loire river. The French Communist Party was founded here in the 1920s, and apparently the inhabitants of Tours speak the purest form of French there is. After crossing the magnificent Loire, I stopped at a service station just south of the city, for a breakfast of proletarian croissants and coffee and a chance to try out my bad French.

9am found me on the autoroute, heading south again, south for the Iberian Peninsular. From Calais, if you really pushed it you could drive down to Portugal in 3 days (it's a distance of about 1500 miles / 2400 kilometres). However, instead of taking the quickest route via the mid Pyrenees I decided to go via northern and western Spain, an area I hadn't explored much. It would take me 5 days, or so I thought.

I couldn't believe how warm and sunny it was for a November day. I couldn't believe the loud bang that came from under the bonnet. The car rapidly lost power and I pulled on to the hard shoulder, about 30 clicks south of Tours. The blue-coloured Citroen 2CV I was driving originally belonged to Chris, my mechanic in London, who used it as a courtesy car. When I got back from North America at the end of 1999 I was completely broke. Chris kindly let me use his courtesy 2CV, and as I started earning money again I bought it off him. The car had been trouble free, except four months previously, when one of the spark plugs fell out. Over time, the thread on the engine block had stripped, meaning that the spark plug would not screw in properly. Chris gave me the choice of either a new engine, or else he'd try to do a bit of welding magic to replace the stripped thread. I went for the welding magic, by far the cheaper option. On that hard shoulder in France, as I went to open the bonnet, I half guessed what the problem was. Yup, the spark plug was missing, now long lost further back down the autoroute; but of course I did carry spare spark plugs.

In French the Citroen 2CV is called a Deux Chevaux, which translates as 'two horses'. This is because a 2CV has just two cylinders, giving a massive 600cc of power. You can actually still drive a 2CV on just one cylinder, and I've done it. However, as soon as the car hits the slightest gradient it will grind to a halt. I looked around at the hills and woodland. Rather pretty, but rather bad news for a 2CV with just one cylinder working. Strangely, I wasn't too phased about the car breaking down. Maybe it was the sunshine.

I produced a brand new spark plug from all the junk in the back of the car. The trick was, not to screw it in too tightly. I got the trick right and the car started normally. It continued normally for another few clicks, then there was another loud bang from under the bonnet. By happenstance I came to a gentle halt right by one of those locked gates used by the emergency services, with a broad expanse of hard shoulder. The scenary still looked rather pretty.

I produced another brand new spark plug, but this one blew out as soon as I restarted the car. Ok, this had become a real breakdown and my laissez-faire attitude began to diminish; but it was still a lovely sunny day, even if I didn't have any kind of vehicle breakdown cover. A bottle of beer seemed in order, and as I drank it on that hard shoulder in south west France I pondered on life, the Universe and everything. Eventually I walked down the autoroute to the nearest emergency phone. Ma voiture est en panne. I thought I'd said it in perfect French. A voice replied in broken English that they'd get someone who could speak my language. Moments later someone came on the line whose English was marginally better than my French. We managed to understand each other and there was a hushed awe when I explained that the car in question was a Deux Chevaux. It took 30 minutes for the truck to arrive. My rescuer was a middle-aged man who puffed on a Gauloises and was actually called Pierre. My 2CV got winched on to the back of the truck. Gosh, it was all so French. Likewise when Pierre couldn't find the right key to open the emergency gate. However, he soon sorted it out and we left the busy autoroute and were on the back roads, with stunning countryside and pretty little hamlets. This unscheduled stuff finished in a picture postcard village called Dange-Saint-Romain.

Pierre owned the village garage. After a quick run through on his computer he told me the bad news: the car needed a new engine block, which would have to be sent down from Paris, which could take up to a week. He gave me a price of 400 euros to do the work, plus 70 euros for the autoroute rescue. My first thought was the expense of having to stay in a hotel for a week, on top of the cost of getting the car fixed. I hated having to abandon the 2CV yet realism reared its ugly head. My 2CV was left hand drive and UK registered, and as such it seemed unlikely that I'd get a good price for it in France, particularly with a busted engine. However, I asked Pierre what he'd give me for it and if he had any cheap cars for sale. Pierre laughed and offered 200 euros for the 2CV. He did have some second-hand cars for sale, but they were way out of my 750 euro price limit. I was directed to a car dealer on the other side of the village, who apparently did flog le old bangers. By this time it was getting late, so after thanking Pierre for his help I checked into the Hotel St. Romain. I told the hotel owner I would be there for just one night, maybe two.

Early the next morning, which was a Thursday, I walked through the fog to the other side of the village in search of Le Banger. Second hand car dealers all seem to be made from the same mould, and the one I found in rural France was no different. Monsieur’s grandmother did not seem conspicuous by her absence. I told him how much I was willing to pay and he shook his head. The cheapest vehicle he had for sale was up for 1000 Euros: a 20-year-old Renault 9 with bodywork and interior in good nick. Car Dealer got in and tried to start the car. Nothing. Completely dead. They pulled-up another car alongside and tried to jump-start the Renault. It painfully turned over but wouldn’t go. Car Dealer waved his arms in the fog and explained about the damp. A special battery booster unit was then hooked-up to the Renault and it finally started. However, as soon as the battery booster was disconnected the Renault’s engine immediately died: a knackered alternator. I told Car Dealer that I didn’t want to buy the car and spent the rest of the day asking round the village, seeing if anyone had Le Banger for sale: non.

In the UK you can pick up cheap secondhand cars just about anywhere. Not in France, though, not back then. I figured that it would be slightly cheaper to stay in Dange for a week and get my own car fixed, rather than buy that knackered Renault 9, a car which might have broken down on me straight away. At least I knew the Citroen 2CV, and also knew that hopefully nothing else major would go wrong with it on the journey to Portugal. I told Pierre to send for the part and fix the car. I told the hotel owner I would be staying there for a week, and asked for a discount on the room: non.

Dange-Saint-Romain is a quiet little place on the Vienne river, although the main Paris-Bordeaux railway line runs through the valley, which is great if you like watching TGVs in motion. On the Friday afternoon just about everything closed in Dange. The only shops that stayed open were the boulangerie and the pharmacy. I lived on bread and Strepsils for three days. Fortunately my hotel room was warm and comfortable, and with time on my hands I completely stripped down the laptop computer, in an attempt to fix it. No dice. I spent most of my time watching French television and going on occasional bike rides. Apart from a few brief sunny spells the fog hung heavy over the valley throughout my stay. It was like one of those dreams, where you're trying to escape but your feet are stuck in quicksand.

But I did eventually escape, the following Wednesday, when Pierre reunited me with the now fixed 2CV (you can't beat a 'part from Paris'). My forced stay in Dange-Saint-Romain, what with garage bills, hotel bills, etc, had cost me the best part of 800 euros, which made a severe dent in my already strained budget. It had also given me lots of time to think, and a lot of that thought was about Amy.

Four years previously I arrived in storm-lashed Dover at just after 6am on the 6th December, to discover that there was a warrant out for my arrest for non-payment of fines resulting from not having a tv licence. This, after spending six months in North America doing the 2CV Alaska Challenge, and definitely not watching any British television. Shortly after my return to the UK I had to make an appearance at Greenwich Magistrates Court, in south east London. The only reason I didn't spend time in the cells was because the Court Clerk noticed that my name had been spelt incorrectly, making the arrest warrant legally invalid. Of course, I immediately started a campaign to abolish the TV Licence, and could only regret that I didn't have the funds to sue the bastards.

At the time I felt angry, but I was also floating three miles high, because of course after doing something like the Alaska Challenge things are never quite the same. I had a hard time getting to grips with ‘normality’. It took me the best part of six months to start coming back down to Earth, and during that time I sort of fell in love, with Amy.

I've been online since 1996, when we used to be called 'nerds' (no Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al, back then). At the end of 1999 I joined a new web site called 'WrittenByMe', where writers could post their work for comment and critique. It was run by two drunken Aussies, who, like many other people at the time, were trying to figure out how to make money on the Web. It didn’t cost anything to join the site. The Aussies were trying to make money from advertising, mostly Fosters beer. I posted almost entirely in the poetry section, where I encountered someone who called herself 'Miriam'. Subjective as poetry is, I will still say that Miriam was excellent at her art. In fact, she wiped the floor with all of us poets on that writing site. From her syntax and language I took Miriam to be in her mid thirties; about the same age as me. We started messaging and e-mailing each other. Then we arranged to meet, under the clock at Charing Cross Station on a Saturday afternoon. If memory serves me right, this happened sometime in February 2000.

It wasn't the first time I'd met-up with someone encountered on the internet, but this felt different because I'd already fallen quite badly for Miriam's online persona. I know, dear reader, you can tell this is going to be trouble! I stood under that clock ten minutes early. Miriam turned-up ten minutes late. I heard my name being called. I looked around, and then I looked down, and there she was: a young girl with short, dark hair who seemed painfully shy. Her age became the first topic of conversation. She told me she was 18. We went to the Red Lion pub on Whitehall. After a few beers, Miriam revealed her real name to be Amy. I learnt she was the Head Girl at a well known public school. The strange thing about my first real life encounter with Amy was that, despite the shock of her age, I found myself getting slightly drunk with the same personality I’d fallen for online.

From our online encounters I knew that Amy was a big fan of Oscar Wilde (I am too, of course). Later that afternoon there was a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Whitehall theatre. Amy told me that she lived with her parents in a nearby apartment, and needed to go there for dinner. She’d be back later to see the performance. Did I want to join her? Well, for a painfully shy schoolgirl, Amy wasn't short in coming forward. I told her I wasn't sure if I'd be able to come back later in the afternoon. In the event I didn't join Amy for the theatre performance, because I was still trying to get my head around it all.

After that our online relationship became a bit more intense and in real life Amy and I started seeing each other. Looking back, it was all a tad surreal.