The Sound of Trickling Water

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There was a trickling sound coming from behind the dashboard of my car. I was instantly alarmed. I peered under the bonnet but could see nothing amiss, and there were no puddles pooling underneath the engine. I tried a few engine starts and heard the sound again, something like water trickling against cool rocks.

The Internet also offered calming suggestions giving me links to peaceful Japanese gardens and inner peace despite typing in the word Peugeot.

I felt like a hypochondriac fearing to take the car on any further journeys after all it was only a little sound. I wondered if water had somehow got lodged behind the dashboard and was trying to find a way down towards the ground, but was instead like water trapped in a bottle sloshing from side to side. More Internet research and I knew what the problem was namely the head gasket.

I booked an appointment at the garage and duly arrived motoring down there as gently as I could. I parked my car amongst the glamorous looking second hand models that were for sale where it looked sheepish and out of place.

The receptionist listened carefully to my description.

‘So it doesn’t sound like water sloshing against rocks on a seashore?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said ‘more like water just trickling down.’ I was beginning to grasp at false hope: if I wasn’t hearing the sound of the sea crashing against rocks and was instead simply hearing the sounds of a peaceful Japanese garden perhaps my diagnosis was wrong.

I remembered the words ‘head gasket’ from my late teenage years. The words were spoken in awed terror and dread by fellow students as they peered at dirty hot oil-covered Cortina car engines. It is the hushed cancer equivalent phrase that often spelt the death knell of a car.

‘Sounds like the head gasket,’ he said without any reassuring bedside manner. Then he began the numbers game. ‘It will cost…’ he paused. ‘£46 to diagnose, but with that description it can’t be anything else.’

I despaired at his expensive logic.

He’s peering at his computer again. ‘To repair it will cost…’ there is a long pause. I’m counting £50 with each passing second. I’ve reached £2000 before he finally says ‘over £600.’

I am both relieved and shocked.

‘Then of course if there’s been damage we may have to send other parts away to be re-engineered.’

I sign the consent form and wait for my lift home amongst the shiny brand new cars that are prostituting their wares around me with tempting open doors and the alluring perfume of clean plastic.

My car is gone from amongst the gleaming second hand models as I leave.

‘It’s already being stripped down,’ I’m told.

I feel embarrassed and ashamed.

I’m driven back home in a large floozy of a car. It has a control panel as big as the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise.

‘£109 a month,’ the man pimps, ‘that’s all it costs.’

A tuneless song is blaring from the radio.

I long for my dear old car which smells of chocolate, and runs to a different tune.
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