Custom Car Hire

From Blushes 27 Ten o’clock on a wet Thursday evening in February just has to be the worst time in the life of an ageing, penurious bachelor. Thus the reflections of Cyril Regis, ageing penurious bachelor of no certain address, as he brooded over the impressive bank of telephones — all of them contemptuously silent — of Custom Car Hire. Once divorced and once stood up at the registry office, Cyril was going nowhere at the speed of light and knew it. Such pleasures as he enjoyed nowadays were few and fleeting and, some might say, a trifle esoteric — not to mention, very often, more damn trouble than they turned out to be worth. Controller of all I survey, he mused — to wit, four silent telephones, one base radio of uncertain reliability, one grotty office, and, somewhere out there in the dripping darkness, three of Custom Car Hire’s finest. Which thought brought him to the evening’s indubitable remaining pleasure — the return of ...