by Scot Gardner
I popped the bonnet and stared at the oily mess of the engine. I wished Bully was there. I have no interest in cars. I think I missed out on that gene. Got my mechanical sense from Mum’s side of the family. If it goes, drive. If it doesn’t, get somebody to make it go. Bully had been my make-it-go man. I thought about ringing him, but remembered he didn’t have a mobile phone.
Come to think of it . . . I slapped my hip pocket. No phone. I frisked myself and retraced my steps in my mind to The Hardware House, where I’d last held my mobile. I’d dragged it out to get to my wallet and pay for the concrete. I couldn’t recall picking it up again and it certainly wasn’t anywhere on my person.
I was still swearing under my breath when Mum’s Corolla parked beside the ute. She didn’t seem surprised that I was there under the bonnet of my own car.
‘Coming or going?’ she asked, by way of greeting.
‘Neither, at the moment.’
Mum chuckled. ‘Oh, I see. Like that, is it? Where’s Bully when you need him?’
‘On his way home.’
‘Already? I thought he might have hung around and checked out the sights. Still, with her and that kid around that wouldn’t be much fun.’
‘Her name’s Tori. His name is Francis.’
She sniffed. ‘Yes, I know that, dear.’
It was her smartarse tone that pushed me over the edge. A bad day got suddenly worse when I gave my mum a serve.
A big helping.
‘What the hell have you got against them? How have they offended you? They’ve never done anything to deserve the shit you give them.’
Mum scoffed and recoiled, her face coloured.
‘Francis is your grandson. He’ll be four next year and you don’t even know him. He’s a beautiful kid.’
‘He’s not my grandson,’ she growled.
‘He’s your fucking grandson!’ I hollered, right in her face.
She didn’t flinch. She stood there for a minute that felt like an hour, her eyes afire and her cheeks crimson.
I held her gaze.
A door opened on one of the flats opposite. The Asian guy who’d helped me jump-start the Subaru stuck his head out, saw Mum and me toe-to-toe, and retreated.
Mum snatched her shopping bags from the seat of the car and thundered up the stairs to the flat.
‘You can’t run forever,’ I said. ‘One day you’ll have to face up to it. It’s not her fault. It’s nobody’s fault.’
I heard her kick the door, but something plastic got crushed and stopped it from slamming.
Instead of feeling triumphant at finally having said what needed to be said, I felt ashamed, Tori’s words winging around in my head.
Drama queen.
Why did I have to turn it into a shamelessly public scene? Where was the dignity in that? Where was the humility in that?
I poked at the engine with a frustrated fury, swore under my breath and cursed the pain of coming clean.
It’s much easier to run.
Oblivion is so much more fun.
In the short term, anyway.
I wanted to work my way up the stairs and apologise, but I didn’t know what to say or if she’d even be able to hear me.
‘Hey,’ came a voice.
I thumped my head on the bonnet.
It was the Asian dude. Dave. I remembered his name. He was still wearing a singlet and I realised it was his uniform.
I rubbed my head and he sucked air through smiling lips. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to creep up on you. You all right?’
I nodded and rapped on my skull with my knuckles.
‘Where’s the Subaru?’
‘That was my mate’s car.’
‘And this is yours?’
‘Yep,’ I said, and kicked the tyre.
‘What’s happening? Won’t start?’
I explained the symptoms and Dave leaned under the bonnet with me. He unplugged leads, took the cap off the distributor and checked the oil. He may have been guessing, but he was guessing with a confidence that I found reassuring.
‘Dave!’ came a woman’s voice.
‘Yeah?’
‘We’ve got to go.’
‘Just a minute.’
She was probably his girlfriend or wife or whatever. Her hair had been bleached and dyed red-orange and the overall effect was exotic and very easy on the eye.
‘I’d better go,’ Dave said. ‘You around tomorrow? I could have a proper look tomorrow.’
‘Work.’
‘No sweat. Whenever.’
I took the spare key from its magnetic box under the dash and handed it to him. ‘Go for it, if you get the chance. I won’t be going anywhere soon.’
He took the key and jogged to his black Celica. He raised a single finger off the steering wheel in a wave as they pounced onto Mungo Road.
I prodded uselessly at the car for a full hour before the heat of my frustration had me in a spitting, swearing fume.
Trapped.
In Shit Town with a busted ute-shaped paddle.
On the train again, out past Bonnie and Harry’s place to The Hardware House looking for my phone. They were closing as I got there and nobody had seen the thing.
I jogged to Bonnie and Harry’s. As I got to the front door, I became acutely aware of the sweaty body smell about me.
And I didn’t care.
People in the city sweat, too.
They were sprawled on the couch watching some equestrian event on the ABC. Bonnie opened the security door for me and flopped back into her seat. Harry waved, but it seemed like a huge effort. His hair was still shower-wet.
‘Have you seen my phone?’
Bonnie said that she hadn’t and asked me if I’d tried calling it. I used the phone in their kitchen and had to sing the number and write it down before I could dial it successfully.
It didn’t ring.
‘The mobile telephone you are calling is switched off or not in a mobile service area.’
Gone. Just like that.
I couldn’t stand still. I couldn’t string a run of thoughts together. I felt flatter than road-kill rabbit and I looked around me for a comfortable place to sit and there was nothing.
‘What’s the matter, Chainsaw?’ Harry said.
‘Nothing.’
He scoffed.
‘What happened to Bully last night?’
They both laughed.
‘Why?’ Bonnie asked.
‘He couldn’t wait to get out of here this morning. What did you do to him?’
‘Me?’ Bonnie said. ‘I don’t think so.’
She pointed to her brother, who was pretending to watch the TV but had a mischievous smile carved into the corners of his mouth.
‘What?’ he said, without breaking his gaze at the box.
My guts churned. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing, I swear,’ Harry said.
Bonnie coughed.
Harry looked at me. ‘He got a bit wasted and couldn’t find his swag so . . . I let him share my bed.’
‘Bullshit.’
He shook his head slowly.
‘You slept with Bullant?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. We shared a bed. Nothing happened. We, quite literally, slept.’
‘Yeah, and you don’t have to be a psychologist to work out what that means,’ Bonnie said.
‘Shut up,’ Harry cursed. ‘Nothing happened.’
I laughed, but it was more of a nervous response. Harry offering his bed to Bullant didn’t sound like an act of kindness. ‘You guys are unreal.’
‘Me?’ Bonnie said. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’
‘What was he like this morning?’ Harry asked.
‘Like a bull at a gate.’
‘Stud bull. Ha!’
I groaned. ‘I’ve got to go.’
Harry lifted himself from the couch and followed me to the door. ‘Seriously, nothing happened. I’m not the kind of guy who takes advantage of piss-heads,
and that’s the truth. Bully doesn’t have a gay bone in his body. Well, not that I could find, anyway.’
‘Whatever.’
He followed me along the drive.
A patch of grey fluff was snagged in bark on the garden bed. I picked it up and showed Harry.
‘What?’
‘Cat hair.’
‘Wow,’ he said, and blew it off my fingers. ‘You country boys know everything about the bush, don’t you?’
‘I took your dog for a walk this morning while you were asleep. I tied him to the tap and he bent it and got loose chasing after a cat.’
Harry sniggered. ‘Felix hates cats. Did he kill it? He killed one that came into the backyard last year.’
I couldn’t believe how blasé he was about the whole thing. I could still feel my guts churning. It was probably some kid’s pet. ‘I don’t know. It ran off.’
He shifted feet and changed the subject. ‘Where’s your car?’
‘At Mum’s flat. It shit itself.’
‘They’re more trouble than they’re worth.’
Some part of me agreed with him, but I could also see that he was avoiding the responsibility of owning a car. He was happy to ride in Bonnie’s rocket. In the hills, where there are no trains, they are the wheels that help you stand alone. When they work, they’re your ticket to freedom.
As long as you obey the rules.
As long as you’re big enough to carry the responsibility.
‘Hey, it’s fixed,’ Harry said, pointing at the letterbox. ‘Did you do that?’
‘Yes, this morning.’
‘Bit crooked.’
‘The letterbox isn’t crooked.’
‘Yes it is. You have a look.’
‘The pole might be bent, but the letterbox is level.’
He laughed.
‘It’s an out-there letterbox for my out-there mates.’
He smiled and rolled his eyes. ‘Thanks.’
‘No worries,’ I sighed, and waved goodbye.
‘Where are you going? You can stay here.’
‘I’m going to have another go at fixing my car. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’
He waved and walked back up the drive.
Seventeen
There had been moments in my life when I’d realised that I wasn’t as big as I’d thought. The first time I played with the under-nineteens was like that.
Then, when they shifted me up to the seniors as an uncoordinated sixteen-year-old and I did an interview with the sports reporter from the Highland Times, I knew I’d hit the big time. But the paper came out and they’d spelled my name with two d’s and the interview said that I was playing with the seniors because they were so down on numbers. Dad read the article and told me not to worry about it.
‘Don’t listen to them, Adam. You don’t have to be the best player in the whole world, just do the best you can. They might think they’re Goliaths, but you have the determination of David. You’ll get on.’
On the train back to Mum’s flat, I saw the city skyline afire with sunset. So many people, hidden away like ants. And Melbourne isn’t even a big city by world standards.
Suddenly my thoughts were flying out the window and looking down on me sitting with my chin resting on my fist until I was lost in the silver streak of the train. Higher my thoughts climbed until the rail network was an erratic cobweb laid over the sprawl of the suburbs. Higher still, until the shadow of sunset was no longer a smear but a cut on the face of the planet – one side day, the other night. Up where the earth isn’t a distant horizon but a sphere. A ball, then a blue-green disc, then a pinpoint of light, then gone altogether. Lost in the mess of pinpoints that make up our universe, and still my thoughts flew. Higher until the pinpoints were no longer distinguishable from each other, until they were as small as atoms. Tiny atoms, drawn together by distance until they began to have form – an arc of mottled grey-white, flashing orange in the last rays of sunlight – and I found myself staring at my thumbnail.
If you were small enough, the atoms that made up the cells of my thumbnail might seem as big as stars.
If you were big enough, our whole planet might seem smaller than an atom.
I stepped onto the platform and had to shake my head. My flight of fancy hung with me and left me feeling strange. A tiny speck in the universe, but in command of the armies of atoms at my disposal, I realised I knew my place in the world. I knew where my home was and it wasn’t that place. If there had ever been a shadow of doubt about the things that would make me feel whole, it vanished on the platform. It disappeared on the back of that trippy waking dream.
I could hear the hills calling me.
And the ute hadn’t magically fixed itself.
I tried to be logical and methodical about my investigations under the bonnet. It didn’t help. One per cent knowledge and ninety-nine per cent good attitude still amount to one per cent knowledge. Dave’s car park was still empty. The likelihood of finding a mechanic on a Sunday evening would have been better if I had been part of an auto club, but those sorts of things didn’t exist in Splitters Creek.
I rested against the door of Mum’s Corolla. She hardly drove it in the city. She caught the train to and from work. To the best of my knowledge, she only took it shopping. There was a glow behind the curtains in her flat window but the thought of going up there and asking her for a loan of her vehicle was too daunting. It was the needful side of my personality – and of Simon’s personality and probably Dad’s, too – that Mum found most burdensome. That conversation would be another nail in the coffin of our relating.
For a full minute, I actually considered stealing it, but that plan fell over when I realised I knew less about hot-wiring a car than I did about fixing broken ones.
Besides, that wasn’t the bloke I wanted to be.
Own up. Fess up. Take responsibility.
I knocked on the security door and, when Mum realised I was alone, she let me in without a word. I sat at the kitchen table and she made us cups of tea. She stomped the cup a little dramatically on the table in front of me. The tea slopped and she pretended not to notice. Pretended to watch the TV.
‘Have you eaten?’
I nodded a lie. The mere mention of food got my guts going, but I wasn’t about to burden her with that.
‘What would it take for you to pack up and move home? What could I say to you to convince you that things will be different?’
‘Nothing.’
I knew that was a lie. I knew that was her anger talking, stuff bubbling around that black hole in her.
‘I’m going home,’ I said.
She didn’t blink.
‘As soon as I can. As soon as the ute’s fixed. I think I’ve found what I was looking for.’
‘Oh? And what was that, exactly?’
‘I’m not sure how to put it into words. A sense of direction. Hope. Family. All that stuff.’
‘Well, good for you,’ she said, with more sarcasm than I thought was humanly possible.
I finished my tea, showered and went to the ute to grab my swag, but the air seemed warm and I could actually see the stars.
I stuck my head back inside the flat and told Mum that I’d decided to camp out.
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘I’m not. It’s lovely outside.’
‘Lovely night to be murdered. Or raped.’
I smiled. ‘I should be so lucky.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ll be locking the door,’ she threatened. ‘And keeping the key.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Good night.’
And I lay there, naked in the swag in the back of the ute with the cloudless and light-polluted sky staring down at me. Cars came and went, aircraft blinked across my limited field of view and the night was certainly my friend. I woke to voices passing on the street and later to a catfight that sounded as if it was going on under the ute. Just as quickly as I woke, I slept again. The ringing of the level crossing was more musical with only air
between us. The layers of noise went on forever and I was okay with that. I could live in this world if I had to, just knew where I’d rather be.
It wasn’t properly light when I blinked awake for the last time that night. I rolled on my back for a minute, my hands clasped behind my head. The night was dying but I could still see stars. I dressed in jeans and a flannelette shirt, my old baseball cap with sunglasses on top. I grabbed the plastic bag with all my Hardware House uniform in it and walked the life back into my bones along Mungo Road. Delivery vans and garbage trucks. The bakers were already open and I found a coffee shop with three sleepy-eyed patrons, but I didn’t go in.
I bought breakfast at the golden arches but couldn’t eat it. It felt like a crime to toss it in the bin, so I trashed the wrapper and left the food in the gutter for the early birds. I bought grapes and an orange from a man with bed hair and a leather apron. By the time I’d eaten them and found a clock, it was time to go to work.
For the last time.
Take responsibility.
Tony was waiting at the front door.
‘Could I have a word?’
I chuckled. ‘I was just going to ask you the same thing.’
He led me up to his office and closed the door.
‘Your services are no longer required here, mate. I’m sorry, you’ll have to find yourself another job.’
He had his arms crossed, his fists pressed under his biceps like a security guard; only Tony was a quarter of the size. He wouldn’t last long on the footy field, which was a pity. I would have enjoyed mowing him down.
‘Don’t make a fuss and you’ll get what you’re owed.’
‘Don’t make a fuss? How could I not make a fuss?’
His pupils dilated. I let him stew in the sense that I was fighting the urge to punch the fuck out of him. Why would I want to do that? I’d come in to quit and got the sack. A far bigger part of me wanted to pat him on the back and underneath all that I felt sorry for him. Such a big fish in such a rank little pond.
‘Your pay will be deposited to your account on Wednesday,’ Tony said.
I nodded, handed him the bag of uniform, wished him luck and walked.
But my feet were slapping on the pavement and something didn’t feel right. It was like I’d hung up before I’d said everything I needed to say. What about Harry? What about Debbie?