Location: Portsmouth – Southsea – M27, England
Summary: A late-night drive, a borrowed car, and an exhaust with other ideas.
When my old friend Dave came to stay with me recently for the Simple Minds concert in Murcia, we spent half the weekend laughing about the trouble we used to get into as teenagers. This little episode resurfaced from somewhere in the mid-80s, around 1985 or 1986, and it still makes me shake my head.
The Night Out
Back then, Dave and I were regulars at a nightclub in Southsea called Fifth Avenue. I would usually drive over, we would stay until closing time, then sleep in the car and head home the next day, sometimes after squeezing in a round of golf, because we were young and apparently indestructible.
One particular weekend, my own car was out of action, so we borrowed his dad Michael’s. Michael was forever telling us how fast the car would go, although we never quite believed him. That night we had not stayed late, and I had not been drinking, so we decided to drive home instead of sleeping in the car.
The motorway was completely empty, just us, loud music, and a long stretch of road. Naturally, two young idiots decided this was the perfect moment to test Michael’s claims about the car’s top speed.
As we picked up pace, I noticed sparks flying behind us. Proper sparks, like something out of a film. I told Dave to turn around and have a look, but as quickly as they appeared, they stopped. The car still felt fine, so we carried on home, parked up, and went to sleep at Dave’s place without giving it another thought.
The Following Day
The next morning, we wandered downstairs to find Michael in full fatherly fury, reading the riot act to Dave’s sister, Ann. She had taken the car out early to buy cigarettes without asking, and when she returned, Michael was waiting outside. He heard the car coming up the quiet road making a noise like a tank with a hangover.
When he checked the car, the entire exhaust was missing.
Ann swore she had not noticed anything. Michael did not believe a word of it and let her have both barrels. Then he turned to us and asked if we had heard anything strange the night before.
We said no, of course. And to be fair, with the radio turned up the way we had it, we would not have heard a bomb go off, let alone an exhaust pipe dragging itself to death on the M27.
Thankfully, he did not ask whether we had seen anything strange. The sparks, which we now realised were the exhaust scraping along the road, had stopped because the exhaust had simply given up and detached itself completely.
I know Michael eventually found out the truth, and I am pretty sure Ann did too. Whether Dave or I confessed, or whether the story just surfaced years later, I honestly cannot remember.
But when Dave arrived in Spain forty years later, this was one of the first memories that came flooding back.
Sorry, Michael.
Sorry, Ann.
And, whoops, Dave.
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