Spectator sport
Jeremy Clarke The first thing me and my boy do when we go to the car auction is to head for the burger van and order a cheeseburger each. The burger bar is called CJ's. We jokingly call it CJD's because we say the burgers consist of cartilage, udder and compacted sewage. Sometimes we pretend to identify bone or dental enamel. Smothered in brown sauce, however, they're not bad.
The purveyor of this unpretentious fare is a cheerful middle-aged woman called Peggy. 'With or without, my lovers?' she says. (We're always her lovers, her bucks or her handsomes.) She means fried onions, rather than spinal cord. 'One with and one without, please, Peg,' I say. Right-o, gorgeous,' she says. The risk of a slow death in five or ten years' time from spongiform encephalopathy seems a small price to pay for such prompt and affectionate service.
Last week we queued up and found ourselves behind a middle-class person: Barbour jacket, tan corduroy trousers, tan brogues, tanned face. In general this market-town car auction attracts people who exist below society's Plimsoll line. He stood out. 'With or without, my lover?' said Peggy. 'Sorry?' he said.
The deal at the car auction is this. A couple of hundred cars are lined up on the tarmac outside. From six o'clock onwards they are driven one by one into a big shed, where they go under the hammer. Buyers and dealers congregate in the shed, where there is tiered seating. Officially you aren't allowed to look under the bonnet of a car before you buy. Unofficially, if you ask the driver nicely he'll flick the bonnet catch for you while he's waiting to take the car in, which gives you a chance to raise the bonnet and run your finger around the inside of the waterfiller cap to check for gunge resulting from a blown head gasket.
But we don't go to buy any more. It's a risky business and we've been done over too many times. In any case, second-hand cars are cheaper on eBay. These days we go to the car auction simply to watch. Also, the auctioneer, a hyperactive man with a baleful, red-rimmed stare, can be mildly entertaining. He tries to quicken the pulse as yet another pile of rubbish comes kangarooing into the arena, by growling as much theatrical excitement as he can into normally mundane phrases, such as 'taxed and tested till June' and 'ninety-seven thousand on a P plate'.
We took our cheeseburgers into the auction arena and sat down to watch the bidding. Earlier we'd liked the look of a metallic blue Subaru Impreza, and when it came in we each took a guess at how much it would make — whoever was widest of the mark to buy a round of teas. I thought two grand; my boy reckoned two and a half. Five people entered the bidding right away, including the bloke in the Barbour, who registered his bids with decisive little nods of his head.
At fifteen hundred pounds three bidders had fallen out. A new bidder joined at seventeen hundred and fell out again, looking crestfallen, at eighteen fifty. Finally it was a straight contest between the bloke in the Barbour and a young mechanic. The young mechanic shook his head finally at two two fifty. Crack! Down came the gavel. The bloke in the Barbour had bought the Impreza.
The routine is that the winning bidder goes immediately up to the auctioneer's platform and gives his name, address and a £200 cash deposit to the secretary. The bloke in the Barbour was directed over to the secretary who noted down his particulars. Then he and the secretary appeared to be in dispute about something. The dispute quickly intensified and then the auction was suspended because the auctioneer had been drawn in.
It was the usual story. The bloke in the Barbour had committed the cardinal sin of bidding without having the £200 cash deposit on him It happens now and again, and, when it does, the auctioneer goes absolutely spare. Without bothering to turn off his microphone, he let him have it. 'You don't fill up your trolley at Morrison's unless you can pay for it, do you? So why do it here?' he raved. 'I want you off the site right now. Go on! Off!'
A group of piggy-eyed car dealers applauded as the bloke in the Barbour made his exit. On his way out he had to pass by where we were sitting. He looked ashamed and deeply embarrassed. I leaned forward. 'Don't worry,' I said. 'You're not the first.' But the public dressing-down had disoriented him and he looked at me with loathing, as if I'd added a parting shot 'Thinks you're barmy,' said my boy. I looked at my cheeseburger. 'Maybe it's started already,' I said.
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