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BARRY
Barry looked at the exorbitant tip and decided not to say anything, not even a word of thanks. The drunk guy clearly didn’t know what he’d just done. Barry watched him in the rear-view mirror struggle to open the door then almost trip over the kerb beneath it. Even though he’d obviously had a skin-full already, he made a beeline for the Shepherd and Goat next door to the station.
The radio hissed with static, then a crackling voice asked, “Anyone free in the Salfords area?”
Barry grabbed the radio off the dash. “Yeah, I am.”
“That you, Barry?”
“Yeah. What’s the op?”
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pick up Miss Crowe from the London Road, number thirty-seven, and take her to Gatwick Airport.”
“All right. I’m on my way.”
“This message will self-destruct in three seconds.” After three seconds the radio turned to static.
Barry turned the car around. As he drove past the Shepherd and Goat that drunk guy came out, looking left and right, looking lost.
It took no time at all to reach the London Road. Barry stopped outside number thirty-seven and thumped the horn.
A woman promptly opened the front door. She was in her sixties with buoyant silver hair. She acknowledged Barry, then stopped to lock the door. She was carrying only an overnight bag, which Barry was glad about; it meant he didn’t have to get out for luggage duties to ensure a tip.
“Miss Crowe?” he asked when she opened the car door.
“Yes. Going to Gatwick,” she said.
“Righto.” Barry nodded.
Once she was sitting down, arm resting over the top of her bag, Barry put his foot on the accelerator.
His route to the airport was basically a case of retracing his tracks back to Horley and then keeping going for another few miles. Traffic in the towns wasn’t too bad; it was only on the approach to Gatwick that the roads got congested.
“Going on holiday?” Barry asked.
“No,” Miss Crowe said. “A funeral.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Miss Crowe nodded.
Barry was glad to get moving again. He took her right up to the terminal she was flying from.
“Do you have change for a ten pound note?” she asked, cradling her little purse open in her palm.
“Sure thing.”
“Keep a pound for yourself.”
“Oh, thank you. I hope you have a good flight. Here, how’s this?”
NOTES:
This is the start of the largest single plot arc in this story, spanning seven characters and nearly 9000 words. It's something of a Dickensian melodrama set on the edge of the wilds of Scotland. Incidentally, though Barry was a name that just popped into my head when I thought of a name for a taxi driver, it's more than likely that I was thinking of Barry the transsexual taxi driver in "The League Of Gentlemen" at the time I first wrote it.
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