THIS LIFE: BAIRBRE HIGGINS
WHAT IS IT ABOUT the smell of a new car? ‘Pure essence of plastic and rubber car-parts’, boasts one new-car-smell-airfreshener manufacturer on Amazon. Purchasing a ‘just-rolled-off-the-production-line’ motor is a rare occurrence for the average Irish person but, whenever it happens, some friend or family member is guaranteed to take an exaggerated sniff of the interior and say something like, ‘Ah, now, isn’t that wonderful?’
Apparently, it takes over 50 slightly volatile compounds to create this unique infusion that, we are now told, can harm our health. Experts advise opening all the windows whenever possible for a few weeks, to diffuse the chemical stew – that musk of freshly tanned leather, the metallic aroma of polished chrome and clean carpet. Are you kidding me? Batten down the hatches, I say. Preserve that perfume as long as possible. So what if it makes you a bit dizzy?
I last had this sense of motoring pride on one particular Friday in June 2013, the last time I purchased a new car. Virgin tyres purred home along a damp, post-morning-rush-hour M50 before I reversed (with extreme caution) into a spot parallel with the garden shed. Three hours of home-office work left before the school pick-up’s ‘big reveal’, ending months of giddy anticipation for the kids. Two cups of coffee later, sunlight winked in my laptop’s mirrored frame. Having muscled through stubborn summer cloud, rays were glinting in the car’s front, right alloy. D-r-i-v-e M-e! - said the heavenly Morse code. I had errands – enough excuse for another solo spin.
I bundled dry-cleaning into the boot, edged out and accelerated up the hill. Rounding the corner to the post office, a dog-walker on the footpath alongside tripped over his spaniel. We exchanged glances as he regained his footing, preventing a fall. I smiled in solidarity.
Letters posted, on towards the pharmacy. Cruising through an elegant cordon of plane trees I spied a brigade of buggy-pushers strolling in the opposite direction. They came to a collective halt as I passed, craning their necks in meerkat-like unison to track my progress to the traffic lights. Fellow appreciators of pearlescent paint and chrome trim, I thought, humming along to Coldplay.
The raised hand of a man in a fluorescent gilet interrupted my progress down the main road – a human stop/go, guiding traffic around a white transit van where two colleagues were unravelling cable from a spool. He turned to peer down the hill, beyond the van’s open doors, and saw what I could already see – clear road. My foot eased off the brake, expecting an immediate wave-through, but his palm stayed put as he called out to his co-workers. After looking up, both men shouted something into the van whereupon a yellow helmet emerged through the driver’s open window. Hi-viz turned back towards me, his smile as vigorous as his gesture bidding me forward. Rolling past the curious quartet, a wave of self-consciousness washed over me, suddenly mindful of fairly unpalatable stereotypes: fashionably grey 4X4 miles from rugged terrain (tick); blond highlights (tick); bug-eye sunglasses (tick).
Nearing the seafront, a duo of hoodied dare-devils wheelied out between parked cars in a risky bid to reach the opposite footpath before the gap between us closed. If I hadn’t stepped on the brakes it would have been close. I glared, fully expecting their knuckles (as white as their ankle socks), and brazen grins, to scarper. Instead, they slammed their unfeasibly large front wheels to earth and my wing mirror captured them gawking in my wake. Well, that’s boys and new cars for you, I mused.
A parking place came free as I drew up to the village shops. At peak lunchtime trade, people bustled between chipper, newsagent, restaurants and pharmacy. When I raised my eyes from locking the doors with the key-fob, I sensed immediately that something wasn’t right. There was nudging. A ripple of smirks slithered through the footpath’s sub-groups. A man exiting Spar, nose-deep in a newspaper, guffawed when he looked up.
Everyone stared. Not at my pride and joy, but at the street behind. I followed their gaze. Two motorists were driving at a crawl, studiously avoiding snagging their undercarriage on the 30 feet of green-waste skip-tarpaulin attached to my boot. The fancy self-close mechanism must have chomped a mouthful of the sheeting (used for garden waste the week before) when I stowed the drycleaning. I had trailed this bottle-green veil behind me through two miles of suburbia like a giant bride on the run.
The gentleman with the newspaper kindly helped as I sheepishly wrestled the monster into the boot, much to the amusement of all the onlookers.
Additional odours cut through the new-car-scent cocktail on the journey to the dry-cleaners. The crispness of freshly-aired goretex of course (with sweet back notes of grass trimmings) and, along with these, the unmistakeable whiff of humiliation, something that no wide open windows could shift for days.