My Mistake

CHRISTMAS

TREE BLUNDER

’Tis the season for a dodgy deal, some sub-standard axe work and a midnight dash from Scotland…

By Bill Dean

ILLUSTRATION ANITA WATERS

It was Friday night and I was sitting quietly, trying to reach my government weekly target of alcohol units after a week of early-start sobriety, when Ian walked into the pub. Seeing me, his usedcar-salesman smile got even bigger and less sincere (if that was at all possible), and he strolled over, indicating to the barmaid she should bring his usual and a fresh one for me. Minder had just started its run on mainstream telly, that’s how long ago this was, and Ian took Arthur Daley as his role model. He could enter a revolving door behind you, yet come out in front. Somehow he always ended ahead. He had a used car pitch on the nearby main road attached to a petrol station run by his father. The attached garage was where he stored whatever dodgy deals he’d got on the go. Any servicing

of his “one owner, lowmileage, executive cars” was done under the canopy. This usually only involved fitting a fully charged new battery so the ignition would catch, and putting three cans of STP in the engine. Valeting was done by his YTS trainee unless the local scouts were doing a fund-raising carwash. The employment exchange back then sent school-leavers out to get work experience at participating employers and paid them an allowance. This was before they were all sent to university to graduate in Media Studies, run up a massive debt, and work flipping hamburgers.

“I heard you’ve got a run up to Scotland next week.” This was news to me, but then he clearly knew someone who knew someone at the firm I was working for. I had won a nice little contract delivering electrical control

I would raise a pukka invoice for the job which he would pay with a cheque, his face distorted with pain at the thought of it being on the books, which I would clear before going. That way I had an out if these trees, as I suspected, were a foldingmoney job with some forestry worker.

A week later, I dropped him and two unlikely recruits off on the A9 above Pitlochry. They had saws to cut the trees – cheaper to buy that way, sort of like covered in scratches and smelling like I’d been dipped in disinfectant, I finally got home and fell fully dressed on my bed, totally exhausted.

I passed Ian’s place on Christmas Eve and was surprised to see his pitch was still full of trees; it looked like the slopes of Ben Nevis. He blamed the fickle public’s switch to plastic Taiwanese trees in garish colours.

I didn’t like to point out that the local garden centre sold identical trees,

boxes to substations around the country. Each one was about the size of a large fridge-freezer. I would fill my wagon and go off on a long, winding route for a couple of days. The money was good and because there would be another run waiting, I didn’t need to mess about with return loads. I could run back empty. Ian obviously knew that.

“It’s December and it’s Christmas tree time, so we can both make a bit of money.” Ian had realised several years previously that in December, he rarely shifted any cars – so an ideal replacement was Christmas trees. As his dodgy schemes went, it had worked better than most. Every year he would borrow a single-deck car transporter off a fellow dealer and travel up to an obscure estate in Scotland with whoever he could con into helping. It would be

My curtainsides looked like a pregnant elephant about to pop out triplets.

loaded as high as possible with trees to be brought back and sold. All for cash. It paid for his three weeks in the Canaries in January. Unfortunately, last year it had all gone wrong. He had taken the last roundabout off the motorway too fast. Half the trees fell off. In desperation he’d offered them free of charge to motorists inching their way past the chaos to remove the mess before the police arrived. No chance; and as the magistrate noted, the only thing he did have was an insecure load. The other essentials – licence, tax, insurance, valid receipt for the trees – were all lacking. No holiday for him.

This year it had to be all above board, or the next holiday would be at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

Whether it was the free beer or his salesman’s glib patter at closing time, I found myself shaking his hand. My only proviso was

pick-your-own strawberries according to Ian – and boxes of insulation tape to bind the branches down. I did my run and returned two days later to meet a mountain of badly trussed trees. After five hours of squeezing, pushing and being badly needled, the whole lot was loaded.

Within two miles the load had settled and my curtainsides looked like a pregnant elephant about to pop out triplets. My mirrors were useless.

Fortunately, by now it was night and the long trek South was quiet, except for the snoring of Ian and his helpers. At 3am we pulled onto his forecourt and with great effort pulled the curtains back and the trees spilled out. Aching all over, without badly cut saw

marks, cheaper and wrapped in a net so

punters cut get it in their car and still see to drive.

It looked as though he’d finally come unstuck. His

bad luck only seemed confirmed when I read his

showroom had been destroyed by a bad fire on

Christmas Day. So I was amazed at the beginning of

February when a brandnew open-topped Merc

pulled up to me. The tanned and sheepskin-clad driver

shouted up: “Same again next year, Bill? Pine burns

really well.” It was Ian. The lights changed and with a

wave of his hand, the winter sun glinting off his

dodgy Rolex, he roared off. Somewhere, somehow, I’d

missed out again. ■

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