"The Best Pubs In The World Are In The East End..."

Sid appears to be sniffing the air as he says this. “In another life I’d like to have my own place on Brick Lane. I’d be like Sam on Cheers.”

“I’d be your Norm.”

“I see you more as Cliff.”

“No one ever gets drunk on Cheers.”

We are two-thirds of the way through our third pints and we are both slowing down because we don’t want to leave.

Reluctantly, Sid brings us closer to the inevitable. “I’m happy to drive you home but we’ll have to leave after this.”

“I know.”

“We can stay but we’d have to get the tube…”

“It’s stupid to leave your car here and have to get it in the morning. We’ll go now.”

It’s decided so we finish the drinks and visit the gents. At the exit, Sid stops suddenly. There are three average-looking girls at a table. Apparently Sid thinks otherwise. “Oh my God,” he says, licking his lips. “Let’s get the tube.”

“What are you going to do, Sid? Ask them out? Take them home? Come on, let’s go.”

“Hey, I’m a world class girl watcher.”

I follow him to the bar and he orders two more pints. He points at where we were sitting. “Look, our table’s taken.”

“So?”

“All the tables are taken. But I bet we could squeeze onto the end of theirs.”

“And then what?”

“Who knows? Come on, you ask them, you’ve got a ring so they’ll think it’s innocent.”

When I ask them though, I keep my left hand in my pocket and they are polite enough to let us sit at the table and then I lean forward to chat to Sid but he is leering at the girls with a childish smile plastered on his face and eventually the girl next to him is forced to talk to him. “What do you do?” she asks.

“I’m a literary agent,” he tells them. “And Christopher here is a writer. A novelist.”

“Really?” they say and we’re off and Sid buys them drinks and shots which they refuse and so we do theirs as well as ours and by the end of the night I have kept my hand under the table and asked all three of the girls in turn for their phone numbers.

“I just heard you ask both of my friends,” the third girl says.

“That was just practise,” I slur. “You’re the one I really like.”

Sid is knocking drinks over and buying more and when the girls ask us to leave we refuse and get rowdier and the bouncers are escorting us out and Sid pushes one of them and gets thrown on his arse onto the pavement.

I walk towards the tube but Sid goes the other way and I stop. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll drive you home.”

It seems like a good idea but we are immediately lost and I squint at his A-Z London, trying to make out the meaningless shapes on the page under moving patches of light from the passing street lamps. When I realise that I have been holding the book upside down I throw it in the back seat. “Try to find the A4,” I say.

“What’s an A4?” he says.

We pull away at a green light and the car leaps into the air. “Shit,” I say.

“Shit,” he says. “What was that?”

I look back. “I think you drove over a kerb in the middle of the road.”

“A kerb?”

“A divider.”

“I didn’t see it. Did you see it?” I shake my head. “That is so dangerous.”

“Are your lights on?”

“I’m not sure.” He leans forward. “No.” He switches them on. Our vision does not improve. The lights were not the problem.

I turn down the stereo. “What is that noise?”

It was a rumbling, crunching grinding.

“I don’t know.” He turns the stereo back up.

We are lost in the Docklands, then deeper in the heart of Tower Hamlets. “If we just drive in a straight line at least we’ll get to the M25,” I say.

“I can’t find a straight line,” he says.

Shadowy figures are staring at us from the side of the road. “Are you sure the car is alright?”

Sid looks at me. “It’s okay if I hold the wheel upside down.”

“Upside down?” Sid had his arms wrapped around each other, fighting to keep the steering wheel in some position that it should not be. The grinding noise is now louder than the stereo and the car is bouncing as though the wheels are square.

“Maybe I have a puncture?” Sid suggests.

“I think there’s something seriously wrong.”

“It’s okay. Where the fuck are we?”

“I don’t know.”

People are running after us in the street now. “I think you should stop.”

Sid suddenly pulls over and scrapes along the kerb. We both stumble out of the car and stand unsteadily in the night air. Sid tries to look at the front wheels. “Christopher. I don’t think there’s any tire here.”

I lean over on my side. “Nor here.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been driving around on the alloys.” The wheels are smoking.

Three men who may be tramps reach us, out of breath. “You guys are crazy,” one of them says. “Didn’t you see the sparks shooting out of your car?”

“I thought they were in my head,” Sid says.

The tramps look at the damage. “Have you got a spare?”

Sid nods. “It’s okay. We’ll change it.”

“What are you going to do about the other one?”

Sid shrugs. “Call the AA?”

The head tramp waves him away. “We’ll sort it out.”

“It’s okay,” Sid tries again. But the tramps are already getting the wheel out of the boot and jacking up the car.

He pulls me away. “Shit. They’re going to want money.”

“Fuck ‘em,” I say quietly.

“Oh yeah, right. Do you have any cash?” I shake my head. “Stay here with them. I’m going to find an ATM.”

He shuffles off and I wait with the tramps. One of them takes a swig from a bottle of something. “Let me have a shot,” I say.

Reluctantly he hands me the bottle and I take a couple of swallows. They pass it round. Sid returns just as they finish changing the tire. “Here’s thirty quid for your trouble,” he tells them, handing the money to the head tramp.

“Let’s go find you another one,” he says.

“That’s okay,” Sid says.

“I’ve got a friend nearby with the same car. He won’t mind.”

“Okay,” Sid says. He heads off with two of the tramps and the tools. The other one stays with me but I crawl into the back seat and pass out.

Sid shakes me awake. “Have you got any cash?” he says.

“No,” I tell him again.

“They want a hundred for the wheel. I don’t have any more money in my account.”

I get out of the car. Somehow they have put the new wheel on without waking me. “One hundred pounds parts and labour,” the head tramp confirms.

“What happens when their friend wakes up to find his wheel gone?” I ask Sid.

“I’m not convinced they knew the owner,” Sid says. “I think we just walked until we found another Beetle.”

I lead them to the ATM, cursing them. I put my card in the slot. “Give me that,” I say to the tramp with the bottle, grabbing it and taking another swig. It takes me three attempts to enter my pin correctly.

When we drive off Sid still has to hold the wheel in the wrong position. “I can’t drive this,” he says. He has sobered up a little.

We pull into a twenty-four hour service station and Sid calls the AA. I pass out again and am woken up by the tow truck man wrapping chains around the axels. He calls us stupid sons of bitches as he takes us to Sid’s house.

His mother wakes me up on the living room sofa by rubbing her wet hands over my face. It is just as well. I have to be at Bid TV by 10 o’clock.