Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [34]
Jewish architect David Rosenberg was another proud new car owner in Golders Green. He had infuriated his neighbours by buying a Mercedes 500SL, a German car. He was a chancer who began selling ice creams in the City before convincing a Japanese customer to let him redesign his offices. He made money wherever the opportunity presented itself. He once shut his own fingers in the door of Barclays Bank and sued them for a small fortune.
He was cunning and crafty, the kind of guy who does well on The Apprentice with Lord Alan Sugar, doesn’t win, and then gets booed on The Apprentice – You’re Fired with Adrian Chiles. He was also a terrible driver and had so many accidents he was considering shutting his fingers in another bank door to pay the astronomical insurance premium on his new sporty motor. Steve, my mum, Lucy and I met David in a head-on collision on Redington Road, in Hampstead. Our short and disruptive romance with our seven-grand sports saloon ended just weeks after it had begun.
Lucy and I were in the back, Mum was in the passenger seat, and Steve was driving. Redington Road is a residential road, home to the rich and famous. We had friends living there, the married actors John Alderton and Pauline Collins. John and Pauline’s youngest son, Richard, was at school with Lucy and me, and they had hit it off with our mum at the school gates. By sheer coincidence, David Rosenberg’s Mercedes and our BMW crashed directly outside the home of the Forever Green stars. They both heard the impact and rushed outside. The scene they found was not pleasant. Both cars were written-off, or ‘totalled’, as Holly would have said. I had managed to cling on to the seat in front of me, Lucy injured her leg and my mother’s head smashed through the windscreen.
Because David Rosenberg had been involved in so many car accidents, his only concern was liability. He jumped out of his broken car, camera in hand, photographing the crash site. He was collecting evidence. Hilariously, these photos were self-incriminating because his car was clearly on the wrong side of the road. So while the stars of Please, Sir and Shirley Valentine were recovering us from the wreckage, David Rosenberg was busy proving beyond all reasonable doubt that the accident was his fault.
Distraught and slightly concussed, my mother telephoned my grandmother and told her about the accident. Thank God, everyone had escaped with only minor injuries. The car, however, was unsalvageable. She totally forgot that Grandma was unaware we owned the car involved. It still hadn’t dawned on her when Grandma and Jim came round the following day with a bag full of goodies past their use-by date, to console us. They were twenty minutes late so I peeked out of the window to find them in our driveway, circling the 3-Series inspecting the non-existent damage. I ran downstairs. ‘Grandma and Grandpa are outside.’
‘Why don’t you let them in?’ Steve said.
‘They’re inspecting the 3-Series. Why did you leave it in the drive?’
‘Shiiiiiit,’ my mum screamed. At that moment the doorbell went. ‘What am I going to say?’ They had put themselves in the awkward position of having to explain how their unsalvageable car had been miraculously restored to its former state in less than twenty-four hours. They briefly considered climbing over the garden fence and making a run for it, but Lucy’s bruised leg wasn’t up to it. The doorbell sounded again. My mother finally opened the door.
‘Helloo, daaarling, ze car it is fine. Vot is going on?’ My mother began lying through her teeth. She explained how the crash wasn’t as bad as she first thought.
Steve chipped in with the classic line, ‘The damage was mainly internal.’
Grandma and Jim didn’t believe a word of it and pretty soon the truth came out. ‘You vucking liars, I’m cutting you out of my vill,’ she yelled as she sped off.
Grandma wasn’t speaking to us,