LOT 22

 Catalogue page: British Car Auctions

 

 

An auction hall filled with cars.

Vintage, classic, collector's vehicles; all

shapes, sizes, colours and marques

on display here today - all

for some reason no longer wanted.

A discordant cacophony

 

of excited voices conjure images

of a cattle market with all

the anxiety and suffering that implies

for those poor wretched animals - like these

with their four wheels and polished bonnets

instead of legs and fur coats.

 

Unbidden emotions begin to stir

in my solar plexus. My eyes

prickle with embryonic tears and I wish

to be a million miles away - or just

at home sipping coffee from my favourite mug

on an ordinary, nothing special day.

 

But this is an horrendous day, an

'I wish I could re-write history' day; when

grief and remorse are simultaneously

devouring me from the inside out.

All I want is to be sitting inside her

on Portsdown Hill admiring the view.

I need one last day with her.

 

Checking my watch. There's still

twenty minutes of ownership left.

So my attention focuses on the other entries.

And it strikes me that each one of these

beauties has a story to tell - about us,

and that brings me full circle

 

back to UNK. I've loved in her,

laughed in her, cried and screamed

words of anger - all this raw emotion

recorded in the fabric of her being

will exist for as long as she does.

But, soon, a new layer will bury mine.

 

At the appointed hour, the auctioneer's voice

is carried through the Tannoy into each corner

of the packed hall. Instant silence.

Anticipation is almost palpable.

Most of the first twenty-one entries

fail to reach their reserve prices, and

 

I can't help but hope it will be the same

with UNK, can't bear the idea

of a stranger's hands on her steering wheel.

Then those words like a sword through the heart:

'Lot 22!' Please don't let anyone bid

I pray silently inside my head.

 

But attack comes from every direction

like a conquering army, even through

the airways from France and elsewhere.

Figures rise, up, up. Spirits sink proportionately

It's as if I'm losing a love. No, worse,

a part of myself for twenty-one years.

 

Eventually it stops. The hammer falls.

Death sentence on ownership is passed.

All hope is lost. She's almost quadrupled

her reserve price, but how can mere money

compensate for the empty space I'll have to face

in the garage and in my heart?

 

'Well, we had a result there!' our agent

smiles, shaking hands with us and mistaking

these now falling tears for those of joy.

For how he know we'd let her go

not out of choice, but that increasing needs

for maintenance overwhelmed us?

 

Now, as we leave this fateful building

there are trailers everywhere

with happy buyers celebrating

their latest pride and joys.

And how it cuts me up inside

to walk away from mine.