One more yard

It was late and I was in a hurry, inconvenient when living on an island with a 40mph speed limit and your only means of conveyance is a Citroën 2CV. But I was always in a hurry and, aged 17, had not yet woken up to the fundamental incompatibility between my surroundings and desire to be wherever I wanted to be, sooner than I was able to be there. That night, wake up I would.

The Citroën was ostensibly ‘my’ car, or so I considered it to be at the time – despite it being nothing of the sort. A white 2CV ‘Spécial’, where what was special was that it had even less going for it than a standard car. In this case a speedometer the size of that on my 10-speed Raleigh racer, a black vinyl roof, no internal hood release and round rather than rectangular headlights. I adored that 2CV.

I was on my way to see David, then and now my oldest and best friend. I lived in the north east of the island, he in the south west, but the flight time by flying 29bhp Citroën should still have been 25 minutes or less.