To Hell in a Handcart. Richard Littlejohn

       Two

       London

      Mickey French handed over two £50 notes and trousered his £2 change. Petrol had hit a tenner a gallon during the last fuel blockade and what went up never seemed to come down again.

      He walked back to the car, turned the key in the ignition and pressed the pre-set button on the radio.

       ‘You’re listening to Rocktalk 99FM. I’m Ricky Sparke and these are the latest headlines. In Kent, another thirty-five Romanian nationals were found wandering along the hard shoulder of the A2. Police officers gave them meal vouchers and rail tickets to Croydon, where they will be able to register for free housing and social benefits. It brings to over 150,000 the number of asylum-seekers currently waiting for their applications to be processed.

       ‘Fighting broke out on the Chiswick flyover in west London as motorists abandoned their vehicles to escape a five-hour, ten-mile traffic jam caused by the new 25 mph speed limit on the M4, which is being rigorously enforced by cameras and satellite technology.

       ‘Police made more than two hundred arrests, three for assault, two for threatening behaviour and the rest for exceeding the temporary 15 mph speed limit on the elevated contraflow section.

       ‘The trouble was witnessed from above by the Deputy Prime Minister who was flying by helicopter to Norwood, where an RAF jet was waiting to transport him to Acapulco for a seventeen-day fact-finding conference on the future of the lesser-spotted Venezuelan swamp vole.

       ‘More news later. This is Madness.’

      You can say that again, old son. Complete madness. Mickey French shook his head, smiled a resigned smile and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as his old drinking mate, Ricky Sparke, fired up the opening bars of ‘House of Fun’.

      ‘Thank Christ I’m out of it,’ he said to his wife Andi, perched beside him on the passenger seat of his pearl-white M-reg Scorpio Ghia.

      ‘How many times have I heard that? I’m still not sure you really mean it,’ she said, as he pulled off the forecourt and forced his way into the right-turn-only lane to avoid the half-mile queue for the pumps in either direction.

      ‘Honest, love. I do mean it. Cross my heart, on our babies’ eyes.’

      The babies in question were sitting in the back seat, oblivious to their parents, to each other, to the outside world.

      Katie was now fifteen and had a portable stereo permanently glued to her head. Occasionally she paused to change her chewing gum or call a friend on her pay-as-you-go mobile.

      Her semi-permanent pout could not, however, obscure her looks. Katie was destined to break a few hearts. She was a pretty girl, dark-haired, olive complexion, slight, boyish figure, pert nose, just like her mum, who was of Greek Cypriot extraction, maiden name Androula Kleanthous, known to all as Andi.

      Katie would sometimes complain that she wasn’t as full-hipped or ample-breasted as her classmates, but Andi reassured her that she’d be grateful for that in twenty or thirty years’ time.

      Andi herself could still squeeze into a size ten at forty-plus and compared to some of the grotesque, lard-arsed old boilers outside the school gate, looked like a movie star. That’s what Mickey told her, at any rate.

      And he meant it.

      Young Terry, just coming up thirteen, was built like Mickey. He was already 5ft 9ins, just four inches short of his dad, and weighed in at eleven stone. He adopted the same cropped haircut as his father, but unlike his dad not out of necessity.

      Mickey’s fighting weight was fifteen stone, but he’d gone to flab since he left the Job. Not so as you’d notice, mind. He came from a long line of dockers, brick-shithouses of men who could carry a few extra pounds. But Mickey knew.

      Terry pulled down the peak of his baseball cap to obscure the light shining on the screen on his Gameboy.

      They were driving from their home in the village of Heffer’s Bottom on the Essex borders to Goblin’s Holiday World on the south coast for a long weekend.

      Driving would perhaps be overdoing it. Inching forward in a southerly direction might be more accurate, that’s if you didn’t count the regular periods of complete standstill.

      Despite Katie’s initial protestations, she was looking forward to the holiday. She doted on her dad and vice versa. They didn’t see much of each other, never had really, what with Mickey’s work when she was growing up. He was always there, though, when it mattered, and she appreciated that.

      Her friends had parents who were always going on about spending ‘quality time’ with their children, but Katie could tell they only ever thought of themselves.

      Who needs quality time when you’ve got quality parents?

      Apart from the metallic leakage from Katie’s Walkman, the occasional ‘cool’ from Terry as his micro-electronic alter ego slayed some more aliens and the Rocktalk 99FM soundtrack on the radio, all was peaceful and cordial.

      ‘You still don’t believe me, do you?’ Mickey said.

      ‘If you say so.’

      ‘No, love, this is important to me. I don’t want you to think that I’m still pining for the police.’

      ‘Yeah, yeah.’

      ‘What’s with the yeah, yeah?’

      ‘Mickey, you were married to the Job for as long as you’ve been married to me. You were like a bear with a sore head for months after you put your papers in.’

      ‘Not any more. The game’s not worth the candle.’

      ‘I never thought I’d hear you say that.’

      ‘Me, neither. It’s just, well, you know.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘For instance, take that last news bulletin.’

      ‘I thought your mate read it very well. For once. He didn’t stumble. Or swear.’

      ‘Come on, Andi. Be fair. Ricky’s cleaned up his act.’

      ‘About time.’

      ‘Case of having to. Anyway, it’s not how he read it, it’s what he read.’

      ‘What about it?’

      ‘Two news items, right? Between them they just about sum it all up. On one hand, we’ve got waves of so-called asylum-seekers pouring into Britain, scrounging, thieving …’

      ‘You can’t lump them all together as crooks and scroungers,’ Andi interrupted. ‘My family are immigrants. We came here to make a better life, too, just like some of these people. You don’t think we’re all scroungers and crooks.’

      ‘I know that, love. But there’s a world