Maxwell’s Ride Read Free Page A

his feet on a hard surface this time. Nothing to this one. A little sub-Exorcist head rotation, a few things going bump in the night. Piece, as Maxwell’s 11C would have it, of piss.
    It may have been Lucy who screamed first. It may have been Tiffany. Come to think of it, it was Maxwell. The car had stopped, dangling it seemed by the slenderest of spider threads over a yawning precipice. Far, far below, the flames of Hell crackled and roared and sharp-fanged monsters rose from the abyss, snapping at their heels, swinging now over the sheer drop.
    ‘Oh my …’ But Maxwell hadn’t time to finish his sentence. His head tilted forward, his knees came up, his stomach had an out of body experience. The noise was deafening, the rush of terror in his ears as the car plunged vertically down into the hellfire. None of them would ever be the same again.
    It didn’t help that Maxwell could remember when this place was still the home of the Duke of Somebodyorother. It had a great house, now demolished and graceful follies where the said Duke played bezique with his friends and dallied with the maidservants. A boating lake was as racy as it got when Maxwell first moved to Leighford. But Leighford Hall was ruin and the then Duke had death duties and an expensive wife and sons at Harrow. So he’d thrown open his gates to the public and sold hot dogs and burgers and things on sticks. He’d had the Doctor Who exhibition with the BBC corridor faithfully reproduced in the Orangery, the sleek racing cars of yesteryear Brooklands on show in the Old Stables. At least then there’d been a semblance of Old World Charm.
    Now it was Magicworld, a cacophony of piped music, shrieks and screams, the smells of the Subcontinent. Maxwell made for the only familiar sight in the whole boiling, a sow roasting on a spit, reminding him of Merrie England by way of Errol Flynn. Pig on the bone. Grand.
    Tiff and Lucy of course had other ideas. Clutching their multi-coloured purses, they tottered on their fashionable heels to join the line for the doner kebab house. The grey glistening thing twirling under the striped awning had more to do, Maxwell thought, with the Donner party, but it wasn’t his place to say so. He settled for an appalling coffee apparently made with meths and looked wistfully at the way out.
    ‘Montezuma’s Revenge, Uncle Maxie!’ Lucy tugged at his sleeve, pointing with all the glee of a five-year-old to the huge, concrete gaping mouth of a particularly vengeful- looking Aztec.
    ‘Been there,’ Maxwell was drawing a metaphorical line in the sand, ‘done that. Something restful now, I think. Something redolent of Cambridge summers and Grantchester and strawberries and cream. “Stands the church clock at ten to three?’”
    Lucy was looking around. ‘I can’t see it, Uncle Maxie,’ she said. ‘I make it half past one.’
    His look said it all. ‘Wild Water,’ he said. ‘It may not exactly be punting, but it can’t be as wild as all that.’ He missed the knowing glance between his nieces, failed to catch their momentary smirks. All he saw was the black rubber ring of the car, like a large version of what old men with piles sit on. It had high plastic yellow sides to it to make the public think they were getting value for money. That solitary weasel-eyed man was ahead of them, getting into one all by himself. Lucy slid past the barrier.
    No,’ the man said, reaching out to stop her. ‘Get the one behind, will you?’
    Lucy frowned, surprised by the request. Tiffany was standing next to her now, both of them staring at him.
    ‘What’s the trouble?’ Maxwell asked.
    The weasel-eyed man was steadying himself against the jetty, clinging on to Lucy’s arm for a moment, ‘No trouble,’ he said and pushed himself off the planking so that his car swept away on the eddying ripples, Number Four gleaming in silver on its sides.
    I le obviously wants to be alone,’ Maxwell shrugged, his Greta Garbo utterly lost on the girls.