by James Roy
'What are you going to wear?' Mum asked him. 'You didn't bring any car-fixing clothes.'
'I'll get him some of Frank's old mess-makers,' Greta offered. 'You'd be about the same size, I reckon.'
'Yes, my little pocket rocket,' Mum said, tousling Harry's hair.
'Mum! Don't!'
Frank's T-shirt was pretty much the perfect size, and his old jeans fitted Harry everywhere except around his waist, but after threading his own belt through the loops to take up the slack, he was ready to go to work.
Dad and Frank were at the back of the dead four-wheel-drive, talking. 'Ah, here's your helper now,' Dad said as Harry arrived. 'Well, if you'll excuse me, I've got those audits to get into. Unfortunately they aren't going to do themselves.' And winking at Harry, he headed back along the verandah towards the front door.
'Dad,' Harry called, trotting after him.
Dad stopped and turned. 'Yo.'
Harry lowered his voice. 'I thought you were staying.'
'I can't, mate. I've got work to do. Why, what's the problem?'
'Nothing, I just ... What if he's ...'
'He won't be. You'll be fine, Harold. He's good.'
'What about prickly?'
'What about it? Have you found him difficult so far?'
'No.'
'No. You'll be fine. I'll come back out in a little while.' Dad aimed a slow-motion punch at the point of Harry's jaw. 'Go get 'em, champ.'
'Yeah, whatever.'
Harry turned and went back to the garage, walking perhaps a little more slowly than usual. He knew Dad was right. Frank had been perfectly nice to everyone except Trent, and that was only because Trent had been disturbing the peace with a firearm.
'So,' Frank said as Harry re-entered the garage. 'Ever changed a water pump on one of these?'
Harry shook his head. 'Is it hard?'
'Nah, it's pretty easy, and it'll be twice as quick with help. So thanks.'
'No prob. So, what do you want me to do?'
'All right, if you can open the second drawer of the tool chest over there, I'll shout out the sizes of the different spanners and things I'll need, and you grab them for me.'
'OK,' Harry said, going around the front of the truck to the tall red chest. The second drawer slid out on silent runners. Inside, the spanners were all laid out in perfect formation, like soldiers on a parade ground, and just as clean and shiny. Harry wondered for a moment if Frank had ever even used these tools.
'All right, I'll need the five-sixteenth ring spanner – that's eight millimetres, I think – and a ... a half inch as well. That's a –'
'Twelve and a half mil,' Harry said.
'Yes, very good. And in the third drawer, you'll find the ratchet handle, universal joint and sockets. Get the sockets that match those spanners.'
Harry glanced across to see where Frank was reading these measurements from, but he wasn't reading them from anywhere. He was standing at the front of the truck, frowning down into the engine bay.
'Is that it?' Harry asked.
'Yeah. Bring me those, and the orange-handled screwdriver from the top drawer, and we'll get started.'
Harry crossed the floor and handed the tools to Frank, who reached down and slipped the ring of the smaller spanner over a nut at the side of the water pump. It was a perfect fit.
'All right, that's fine,' he said. 'Now, hanging above the bench, just near the oil filter wrench, are a couple of black plastic drain pans. I'll need the smaller one down on the floor so we can drain the radiator.'
Like the tools in the chest, the pan was precisely where Frank had said it would be. Harry was in his element. This was like working in a race pit. Everything was clean, and exactly where it was supposed to be. And even better than that, Frank had faith in him. It felt good.
While the radiator was draining, they leaned against the bench, side by side, arms folded, and waited.
'I like your workshop,' Harry said.
Frank looked around proudly 'Thanks. I've always tried to buy the best gear I could afford. You always do a better job with the right tools, and a much better job if those tools are good quality.'
'Are these ones expensive?'
'The best usually are.'
'You're retired now, aren't you?'
'Yeah, for a few years now.'
'What did you do before that?'
'A bit of this, a bit of that. Worked on a prawn trawler for a year or two when I was much younger, drove cane trains in north Queensland, ran a couple of businesses at various times.'
'What sort of businesses? Motor mechanics?'
'No. I owned a print shop for a while, had a newsagent briefly, and tried to run a cafe in Bunbury for a couple of years as well.'
'Tried?'
Frank laughed. 'If you'd ever tasted my coffee you'd know why that didn't last very long. I'm a small-business expert – just give me a large business and let me take it from there. Oh, and I was a four-wheel-drive guide as well, several years back, around the Kimberley, and in Kakadu, Atherton, all over the place.'
'Sounds awesome.'
'Yes, that was good. And after I retired, my wife and I bought an old caravan and did the grey nomad thing. My last wife, Cecilia,' he added.
'So all this ... stuff in here,' Harry said, looking around at the workshop. 'All these tools – they're just for fun?'
'Pretty much. Everyone needs a hobby. I guess I just enjoy working on cars and things.'
'Like jeeps?'
Frank glanced sideways at Harry, a smile glimmering. 'Why would you say that?'
'That is what you've got over there under that tarp, isn't it?'
The glimmer was building into something brighter. 'Why would you think it's a jeep?'
'Isn't it?'
'Well, yes, but how did you know?'
'The tyres. You can see the bottom of them under the edge of the tarp. They're skinny and a bit knobby, like ... like jeep tyres.'
'Pizza-cutters, they call those.'
'Right. Plus I can see it has no roof, just a windscreen.'
'Spot on. Would you like a look?'
'Sure!'
Frank wiped his hands on his thighs, and he and Harry crossed the garage. The tarpaulin slid off onto the floor, exposing the jeep, which was army grey-khaki in colour, with a white kangaroo painted on the side, just behind the front mudguard.
'Left-hand drive,' said Harry.
'That's right. So what do you think?' Frank nodded at Harry's Ford cap. 'It's a Ford, this one.'
'Really? Not a proper Jeep?'
'No, it's a Ford Mutt, which stands for Military Utility Tactical Truck. See the horizontal grille? That's how you know it's a Ford. The genuine Jeeps had a vertical grille.'
Harry ran his hand along the front wheelguard. 'Was this one in ... This one's from World War Two, isn't it?'
'No, she was built in 1971. She's an M151A2, which has better rear suspension than the previous model. Those pre-1970 Mutts have this ridiculous swing-axle at the rear, and they used to flip over on corners all the time.'
'That's bad.'
'Very bad.'
Harry cleared his throat. His voice sounded like a static-lined TV as he asked, 'So this one's from ... where was it?' He stopped, suddenly losing his nerve as he saw Frank begin to straighten, lifting his chin slowly, and turning his eyes to Harry who was beginning to wish that there was something urgent that needed doing back on the four-wheel-drive. Something that would allow him to concentrate on anything other than this. Because this moment was getting uncomfortable. He'd headed down a path that was fast becoming overgrown.
Frank started to pull the tarp back into place over the jeep, and Harry, who was already feeling useless and obvious, grabbed the other side and helped.
'Vietnam? Is that the place you'd be thinking of?' Frank asked.
'I guess so,' Harry replied, his voice still on the edge of failure.
Frank strode back to the other side of the garage. 'Yes, I was in Vietnam for a while
. We mostly used Land Rovers, but occasionally we'd swipe Jeeps and Mutts from the Yanks.'
'So your Mutt over there was in ... over there?'
'You can say the word, Harry. It's OK to say "Vietnam". Why are you so interested?'
'No reason, really. I just kind of am. In the cars, but also in the war. I mean, I don't know much about it. Actually, I do a little bit, from books and that –'
'Books?' Frank's voice was suddenly hard-edged. 'You've read some books?'
Harry no longer wanted an urgent problem with the truck; he wanted to be struck down by a dramatic and incurable case of disappearance. 'It was only a couple of books, and some stuff on the net, that's all. Probably all wrong anyway.'
The last of the coolant was dribbling into the tray with a soft plip-plip-plip, and Frank picked up his spanners and stepped to the front of the four-wheel-drive. And what did these books and websites have to say about it?' he asked.
'Not much. Just ... what it was like, I guess.'
'Yeah? And what did they say it was like? Enlighten me.'
Harry couldn't remember what they'd said it was like, just what had happened. So he imagined the experience, based on the events, and claimed that as his own, just long enough to change the subject, he hoped. 'Scary. They said it was scary. And hot. Hot and humid.'
Frank still had his head down over the engine bay. 'Yep, all of those things. What else?'
'I don't know.'
'Well, you read the books, didn't you? What else did they say about the war?'
'There were helicopters and jeeps and ... and guns.'
'Yes, they had all those things. What else?'
'And ... and shooting, of course. You know, in the jungle.'
'Guns and shooting! Did they talk about the booby-traps?'
'I think so.'
'Mines?'
'Yeah.'
'Napalm?'
'Yeah, I saw –'
'And the Agent Orange?'
'Um ...'
'And the Battle of Long Tan?'
'I think I remember reading about that one ...'
'And the fall of Saigon?'
'I might have read something ...'
Frank straightened up, rested his spanner on the top of the radiator cap, and turned to face Harry. 'So how much do you reckon you really know about the Vietnam War?'
'Not much,' Harry admitted, quite honestly. 'That some of the jeeps were actually made by Ford?' he added, trying to lift the mood a little.
Frank was unmoved. 'It was hard work over there, Harry. Hard, hot, sweaty work. Dangerous, too, much of the time.'
'Did you get shot at?'
Frank finally smiled, just a little. 'Once or twice,' he replied. 'Come on, this water pump isn't going to replace itself.'
Fourteen
Replacing the water pump turned out to be a much quicker job than Harry had expected. Frank knew what he was doing, and he worked fast. He was a good teacher, too. He let Harry loosen the belts, and showed him the best way to get hose clamps off. And when the old water pump was finally unbolted and removed, he explained how gaskets worked, and showed Harry how to check their condition and the fit of the new one. Then he took the old pump apart and pointed out the cracked plastic impeller.
They checked each of the belts, and replaced one of them. 'We'll change all the hoses while we're at it, too,' Frank said. 'We might as well, while we've got her in bits.'
Then, after an hour, maybe a little more, everything was back together. 'All right, start her up,' Frank said.
'Me?'
'Yeah, you. The key's in the ignition. Just make sure she's in park. And crank the heater to full. Do you know how to do that?'
'I'll work it out.'
Harry climbed in, checked the gear selector, wound the heater up as far as it would go, and turned the key. The engine kicked over, then started.
'And now we give her a few minutes to warm up,' Frank said.
'You've left the radiator cap off,' Harry pointed out.
'I know. I left it off on purpose. But well spotted. You're not bad, are you?'
'At what?'
'At this mechanic caper. You've done it before, haven't you?'
'Only a bit, helping Dad sometimes.' Harry chuckled. 'But he's terrible, and he knows it. That's why he's inside working on his laptop right now, while we're in the garage fixing the car.'
'Yes, I did notice he was out of here in some hurry,' Frank said, smiling.
'He'd rather pay someone hundreds of dollars to do a job that he could probably do himself in a couple of hours. But he hates it, I think. He gets cranky, and kicks stuff.'
'But you like it?'
'Yeah, I do. I think I want to be an engineer when I'm older. I mean, I'd really like to be a racing driver, but most of the guys who race supercars and open-wheelers were winning kart championships at my age.'
'Like who?'
'Well, Michael Schumacher won his first club championship when he was six or something, and Kimi Raikkonen started young as well. Ayrton Senna started racing when he was a kid, and he was the South American karting champ when he was still a teenager or something. Then he became the Formula One champ a few years later.' Harry looked up, caught Frank staring at him in bemusement.
'Ayrton Senna? He was a bit before your time, wasn't he?'
'Yeah, I guess, but Senna's my dad's favourite driver. He's got all these DVDs and books and stuff. Dad reckons Senna was the best ever when the track was wet.'
Frank nodded slowly. 'Is that right? So if these guys were so young when they started, you reckon you might have missed your chance?'
'Maybe. I was meant to be having a drive today, actually. My best friend is having a go-kart birthday party.'
'And you're missing out, thanks to my dumb old wedding?'
Harry smiled, and studied the floor. 'Something like that.'
'Well, I'm sorry I screwed up your future Formula One career, Harry, but I do appreciate your coming to the wedding.'
'It's OK,' Harry replied. 'It's been OK.'
The car seemed to be running well. 'I think we fixed it,' Frank said, checking the temperature gauge. 'Well done, us.' He reached out his hand, and Harry shook it, only hesitating slightly when he saw the stump of the pinky finger.
'It's all right,' Frank said.
'What is?'
'The missing finger. It does freak people out a bit, though.'
'How did you lose it?'
'I didn't lose it. I had it chopped off.'
'That's what I mean – what happened?'
'I got it jammed in a piece of machinery. A gearbox.'
'So it wasn't like an exploding grenade or anything like that?'
'Oh no, nothing as dramatic as that. No, it had more to do with some spotty private turning the engine over while it was still attached to the gearbox. That I had my hand in at the time.'
'That must have hurt. Why did you have your hand in the gearbox?'
'I was fixing it. They used to say that the best thing about the jeep was that you could fix it anywhere in the field, even with bullets whizzing around your ears, so long as you had a couple of screwdrivers, a half-inch wrench and some wire.'
'And could you?'
'Well, yes, pretty much. But I found out that you can't put a chewed-off finger back with some wire, unfortunately.'
'So it was gone?'
'Gone.'
'Did you ever find the missing bits?'
'Not really, no.'
'Then you did lose it.'
Frank laughed as he closed the door of the car and wiped his hands. 'Yes, I suppose you're right. You've done good work, Harry. Cup of tea while we leave her running a bit longer?'
'Sure,' Harry replied. 'Tea sounds good.'
Dad looked up from his work as Harry and Frank came in. 'How'd you go?' he asked.
'He's a natural,' Frank replied. 'Knows his stuff. He also tells me you're a big Ayrton Senna fan.'
'Oh yeah, big fan. They reckon he was the best ev
er, but looking back, I wonder how much of that was fact and how much was legend.'
'The media's never let the facts get in the way of a good legend,' Frank said as he headed through the living room towards the bathroom.
'You're right there,' replied Dad.
Harry put his mouth close to Dad's ear. 'Hey, you didn't come and check on me,' he murmured.
'Are you sure?'
'I didn't see you.'
'Doesn't mean I didn't see you.'
Frank was leaning against the kitchen bench, ankles crossed, drinking his tea and chatting with the other adults, while Curious Reg sat outside the back door and gazed in longingly. Harry hadn't finished his tea – it was Earl Grey, and he didn't like the perfumey flavour. He'd only started drinking tea a bit over a year ago, when Joel was in hospital for the last time, and he'd only tried it because he didn't think much of coffee. And coffee and tea were the only drinks they had in the little kitchenette in the Intensive Care Unit's parents' room.
He remembered his first cup of tea as clearly as anything. Some young doctor who'd introduced himself only as 'Dr Steve' was doing something to Joel, who'd wanted Dad to stay with him, so Harry had gone with Mum to get a drink.
'Can't we go down to the canteen and get a proper drink?' Harry had asked. 'I want a Fanta or something. And some chips.'
'No, we're not leaving the Unit,' Mum had replied. 'We're staying right here.'
'It's just down the corridor.'
'I'm well aware of where it is, Harry, but we're staying here.'
'Can I go by myself, then?'
'No!' Her face was stormclouded with fury, or was that just tiredness? 'Harry, your brother's sick –'
'I know that, Mum.'
'Don't talk back. We're staying here, all right?'
'OK, fine.' He stopped himself from rolling his eyes just in time to avert disaster on a monumental scale.
'I'm just going to make a cup of tea for your dad and me.'
'But I'm thirsty too.'
'I'll make three cups then, Harry.' Then she sighed.
'I don't like tea.'
'Have you ever tried it?'
'No,' he'd admitted weakly.
'Then you don't know what you're talking about. Really, Harry, it doesn't have to be this hard.'
So she'd made three white polystyrene cups of tea, with milk and sugar in hers and Harry's, and nothing in Dad's. Then she'd sat on the couch, just on the edge, and sipped her tea, staring at the opposite wall.