For someone whose mother brought her up right, I’ve gotten
into a lot of cars with strangers. For the record, it was never what was in the car that lured me, it
was where I wanted to go that made me do it and seeing as I didn’t have a car,
someone else was going to have to get me there.
Here’s how my mother brought me up: We were not to get into
cars with anyone we didn’t know. Not if they offered us sweets, toys and especially
not if they said they wanted to take me to see their kittens. We were not to
trust anyone that told us my parents had asked them to pick us up. We were not
to help anyone read a map in their car and we were not even to go near to an
open car window of someone we didn’t know. We got a bit older. Appendage added
to original rules: We were not to get into cars with boys we didn’t know. Even
if they looked like Adam Ant or Matt Dillon. Especially not if they looked like Adam Ant or Matt Dillon. We were
not to get into cars with anyone who’d been drinking. We were not to get into
cars with anyone who’d been drinking who assured us they could still drive okay
when drunk, in fact, we were just not to get into cars with pretty much anyone.
And all the other mums concurred.
It was with this foundation, at the tender age of 16 that we
started dating. Up until that point, not getting into cars with anyone who’d
shown any interest in me wasn’t a problem because no one who tried to cop-a-feel
round the back of youth club was old enough to drive let alone have a car. But
then one night, my friend N and I were standing in a drunken stupor waiting for
the last bus home when we met some boys who were old enough to drive, and we
agreed to go out with them on a double date. They were to pick us up the
following Friday at N’s house at 7.
I’m sure that if these two young men, J and P actually
spared a thought to us in the week leading up to this date it was probably to
figure out who was going to try to get off with whom. Or how to get us drunk.
Or where to take us to get served- after all, we were only 16. But N and I were
not concerned about these things. We were in a mounting panic about the fact
that we were going to get into a car with strangers who were obviously going to
abduct, rape and kill us. The fact that their full names and phone numbers were
stuck up on the pin boards in both of our parents’ kitchens was irrelevant; by
the time that the police tracked them down we’d be long gone. During the
mounting panic about getting into an orange Escort with J and P, and about our
impending deaths, it didn’t occur to us to cancel the date. No. There was
obviously only one answer. We had to get a gun.
With hindsight, the date didn’t really stand a chance. The
fact that these nice two boys turned up on time and opened the car doors for us
and took us to a nice pub in Litchfield where they paid for the drinks and entertained
us like perfect gentlemen all passed unnoticed because of the thickening fog of
panic over what was going to happen next. And sure enough, on the way home J and P drove into
Sutton Park and pulled up in a deserted dusty car park where they made a lame
attempt to get something going. But they quickly realised that they were onto a
non-starter when we nervously confessed that there was a gun in N’s bag and she
might even have waved it around for them to see that we were serious. At
that point, they probably wanted us to get the hell out of their car as fast as
possible, because what kind of nut-job girls go on dates with certain killers
and end up brandishing around a miniature gun cigarette lighter in a dark car
park.
J and P didn’t ask us out again, though in fairness, we are
all still friends. Maybe they feel safer knowing where we are at all times;
keep your friends close and your enemies closer and all that.
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