Driven round the bend

MY noisy old car and the Northern peace process have a lot in common. They've both been going for more than a decade, for one thing, but it's only in the past few years that either of them attracted serious public attention.

They've both had major setbacks, too. And the pace at which they move has become frustratingly slow, especially over the past year. Even so, until recently, neither one had irretrievably broken down - although, as I write this, both are undergoing review processes, one in Stormont and the other in a garage in Monaghan.

The other thing my car and the peace process have in common is that John Hume has featured in both of them. But I'll come back to that in a moment.

I bought the car from the proverbial one careful female owner and, by and large, it has served me well. But it does have a history of letting me down at crucial moments, most notably the night my daughter was born. It chose to mark the impending occasion by breaking the front section of its exhaust: we announced the birth, not in the social columns, but by roaring across the city to Holles Street at 4 a.m., rousing frightened pigeons from their sleep.

My wife may have been in labour, but she still wanted to get out a half a mile from the hospital and walk the rest of the way. I just told her this was no time to be feeling embarrassed, and drove right to the door.

Anyway, in recent months the car has been accumulating problems. Someone hit my side-door in a car park and didn't let on. It was too expensive to fix, since I planned to trade it in soon, so I didn't. Then the back section of the exhaust went and the garage didn't have the part at the time. And, as it was only a rattling noise, I wasn't sufficiently moved to bring it back in since.

More worryingly, the car had been labouring in the lower gears of late and was going up hills like an articulated lorry with a puncture. But it was still performing well enough on the flat, so I wasn't unduly worried when I had to drive to Donegal last week to interview John Hume. And we were still in good shape as I drove down the steep lane to his house, noting only that the car might struggle to get back up, and parking a discreet distance from the gate.

Shortly into the interview, however, the SDLP leader suggested we adjourn to a restaurant in the local village and, immediately, alarm bells went off in my brain. I made a mental calculation that, having recently undergone surgery, my interviewee probably wasn't driving. Then I asked if we should take my car, while offering a secret prayer to the patron saint of potentially embarrassing situations that the answer would be no.

The prayer went unanswered. In Northern politics, no is what the Reverend Ian Paisley says. John Hume, of course, said yes.

It's not every day you have a Nobel Peace Prize winner and living legend in the passenger seat of your car, and when it happens, it would be nice if it was a new car. But it's from situations like this that you learn the art of poise.

It isn't easy, when your door has a big dent in it and the exhaust is rattling and you can only make the hill in first gear and, as if that wasn't bad enough, you've just noticed for the first time the week-old milk formula stain on the passenger seat where the baby threw her bottle, to turn casually to your passenger and ask: "So, how do you think the Mitchell review is going?"

But I did, and apart from a feeling of mortification which will follow me to the grave, the incident passed off well. We made it safely to the village, and we made it safely back. I should have known, though, when John Hume said in parting: "You need to get that car looked at soon, or it'll leave you in the lurch somewhere" that his words would prove, as so often, prophetic.

I said a few harsh things to the car as we drove home through Derry, and that turned out to be the final straw. We had just reached Newtownstewart when we started slowing dramatically. And we were in the middle of the town's main street when the car ground to a complete halt. I didn't know then, but the clutch had gone. I only knew that, in peace process terms, the car was refusing to move the situation forward (or indeed backward); and since it was late Saturday night, the chances of my finding a mechanic locally were about the same as of me being offered free drink at a DUP conference. I had no choice but to stage a walk-out.

Newtownstewart is a Protestant town, and I knew my predominantly Catholic vehicle would stick out like a sore thumb if I just abandoned it. Indeed, as I locked the doors, I told it - cruelly - that there would be a British army robot along shortly to attach an explosive device to the boot (it's terrible when your relationship with a car turns bitter). But to forestall just such an occurrence, I went to the local police station to inform them the vehicle would be staying in town for a while, or at least overnight.

Luckily I have a sister living near the Border, and she was able to come and collect me at no greater inconvenience than losing half the night's sleep she had planned before going to work very early the following morning. Even more luckily, my sister's brother-in-law happens to be a mechanic with a pick-up truck, and he was able to liberate the vehicle in a daring pre-dawn raid.

Now the same man is attempting, Senator Mitchell-like, to put together a deal which will allow me and the car to live in peace. And for my part, I'm prepared to work the process, and to put the bitterness of the past behind us and move forward together.

At least until I can finalise the wording of this advertisement: '89 Nissan Sunny for sale. Two prev. owners, one careful. Small dent in door, otherwise mint cond. Many extras, incl. new clutch. Once sat in by Nobel p.p. win'r. Any reas. off. cons'd.

fmcnal@irish-times.ie