OUTSIDE MR CLUTCH

I’m not sure I’m a fan of regular life. Shame; I can’t really avoid it. And that’s why I’m sitting outside Mr Clutch, waiting for Sammy to drop off her car so I can take her back to work.

There’s a nervousness about these places. They always seem to end in either tough decisions, or a hefty price tag. And then you’re never sure whether Kwik Fit, or The Clutch Centre, or Colin’s Carpool Cowboys down the road or whatever, might just have diagnosed a different thing and charged you more, or less, or exactly the same. It’s so hard to tell when the bonnet clicks shut.

Yeah. Can’t really avoid it. Harry Boiler (not his real name but exactly how he appears in my phone) is coming round tomorrow to give the boiler a service. I doubt very much he’ll click the lid shut and tell me it’s in perfect working order, even though it currently does okay at heating the water. I’d give it a 7/10, which I think (and I might be in the minority here) is okay. 

So, what’ll it be? A hefty price tag or a difficult decision? Probably both.

The other thing about these places is that there’s always someone in greasy overalls, another customer usually, who’s on high-level banter terms with the burly mechanic behind the counter, like a pub regular.

“Alright Dave?” he chimes in, squeezing dirty hands between scrunched up paper towels. Dave gives a nod of recognition. You stand there, trying to look at the grubby posters and the wall-clock instead of interrupting the flow of mateyness between Dave and the other guy.

“Nutter,” says Dave, halfway between insult and greeting, “You here for that A5? Broken flange conductor weren’t it? Warping the pulley-catch on the conk shaft.”

“That’s the ticket, David. How d’you get on?”

“Flunked it mate. I’ll just go check with Richie though.

I used to wonder how you get to be a ‘Nutter’ in these places. You probably have to actually be a local mechanic who, doubtless could fix a flange conductor on the pulley-catch of a conk shaft on an A5, but just doesn’t have the tools. He’s here all the time then.

Then it’s my turn. And for some reason I’m steadily turning cockney.

“Yes, thanks. Er, brought me motor in last week for a um, a sticky brake pad. Yeah - that’s it. Reg number? Yes mate, it’s B for Bertie, D for dog. U, 8… yeah that’s the badger, Dave, cheers mate.”

Blimey. It‘s enough to summon Mary Poppins.

Dave tells me they found oil under the brake pad and they’ve traced it back to a leak and it’ll cost five hundred quid to replace it. My eyes widen, tellingly, and Dave knows the game is won. Nutter, still waiting for Richie to fill him in on the A5, chuckles knowingly from behind a paper coffee cup. I’m starting to feel as though this is a world I don’t fit into.

Anyway. Sammy’s arriving now and Mr Clutch rolls up the shutters and unlocks the door to ‘Reception’. Harry Boiler is booked in for tomorrow.

I guess trying to avoid regular life is a bit pointless; it finds us wherever we hide. There’s just something very grinding about working and working and working, and then giving large chunks of the reward away just so you can live, then finding that there’s a lot less available for the bit you thought was really living.

My guess is though that Harry Boiler, Dave, Richie, Nutter, and maybe even Mr Clutch might agree. And that’s something.