The Fine Colour of Rust. P. O’Reilly A.
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But for the moment what I’ve got is cars, and there seems to be no shortage.’
I look at him again. I want to ask if it’s been mainly women customers but I don’t. I will have to tell Helen about Merv Bull. If Merv is single and if he doesn’t hook up with anyone in a hurry, he’ll be a rich man in this town. He’ll be mystified at how many parts appear to have simply fallen off cars. I inch closer to our loan car, still not letting on to Jake what I’m doing.
I stop as my arm is yanked backwards. Jake has caught on and he’s trying to pull his hand out of mine.
‘Can I stay here, Mum? Please!’
‘No, Jakie. Mr Bull has to do his work.’
‘I’ll be quiet, I promise. I’ll look at the cars. You go and I’ll wait here.’
Merv Bull looks at me.
‘He can’t bear to spend a minute without me,’ I say.
‘I can see that,’ Merv answers.
Finally we manoeuvre Jake into the car with a promise of a workshop tour when we return.
‘How much will it cost?’ I remember to ask as I pump the accelerator and turn the key the way I would in the Holden. The tiny Mazda lets out a roar of protest. ‘Sorry, sorry!’
‘Might drive a bit differently to your car.’ Merv calmly waves the exhaust smoke away from his face. ‘Should cost about a hundred dollars. Maybe a hundred and twenty, but no more.’
While the magically vanishing husband was not good for much, he did know how to change the oil in the car and do a few odd jobs. He probably could have managed fitting a second-hand windscreen. Now I have to pay for everything. And with Jake sick I’m taking time off work, and I have even less money than usual.
‘Feeling better today? Ready to go back to school?’ I ask Jake with a frisson of desperation as we drive along in the Mazda. The ride is so smooth we don’t even have the sensation of movement.
‘Can we have a car like this?’ Jake asks. ‘When’s Auntie Patsy coming to visit? How long will we be in town?’
‘No. Soon. Until I’ve finished photocopying the Save Our School flyers and it’s time to pick up Liss.’
Helen’s waiting to pick up her neighbour’s boy at the school when Jake and I zip down the road to collect Melissa. I execute a neat U-turn, a feat impossible in the Holden, and pull up at the gate. Helen almost falls out of her car.
‘Oh my God! A new car! Where’d you steal it?’
‘It’s a loaner from the mechanic.’
‘Oh.’ She screws up her face in sympathy. ‘Hey, a letter arrived for you at the school. Melissa’s probably got it. Another one from the minister about the school.’
I don’t ask how she knows. I never ask how she knows what we watched on television the night before and what brand of hair dye I use and how Melissa’s grades are going. But now I know something she doesn’t. I decide I’ll wait and see how long it takes her to find out about the new mechanic.
‘Do you know what the letter says?’
‘Loretta! As if we’d open your mail! But we’ve all guessed. It says, “Thank you for your recent letter. I’d like to take this opportunity”…da de da de da.’
Melissa appears at the car door holding out the minister’s envelope as if it’s a bad report card. I take it and fling it on the front seat and Melissa leans through the passenger side window and peers inside the car. ‘Is it ours?’ she asks.
‘Nope.’
‘Actually,’ Helen calls out on the way back to her car, ‘I’ve booked in to that new mechanic for a service, too. I’ve heard he’s very good.’ She waggles her bottom and kicks up a heel. Of course she knew.
Poor Giorgio, I think. Giorgio is the old town mechanic, pushing eighty, bald and bowlegged. We’ve all used him for years to keep our cars running with bits of string and glue. I decide I’ll keep going to him for my servicing, even if he is getting so absent-minded that last time he forgot to put the oil back in the engine. Luckily Norm noticed the car hadn’t leaked its normal drips on to his driveway.
When I get back to the garage I’m devastated at having to return the keys to the Mazda. We’ve been around town ten times playing the royal family, waving at everyone we know.
‘That’ll be eighty dollars. Didn’t take as long as I thought.’
Jake’s rigid beside me as I hand over the cash. Melissa stands next to him chewing her thumb. I’ve had words with Jake in the car about not nagging Merv for a tour.
‘Mr Bull’s a busy man,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t want to be bothered by little boys. You don’t want him to think you’re a whining little boy, do you? So you wait and see if he offers again.’
‘Anyway, mate, bit of bad news.’ Merv crouches down in front of Jake. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to get away early tonight. Can we do our tour another time?’
‘Yes, please,’ Jake whispers. Melissa puts her arm around his shoulders and they turn away and scramble on to the bench seat in the back of the Holden.
‘I mean it,’ Merv says to me. ‘I’d love to give the little bloke a tour. Another day. Give me a call anytime.’ He reaches into his back pocket. ‘Here’s my card.’
Something’s odd when I drive off: my vision. Through the new windscreen I can actually see the white line in the middle of the road. The Holden throbs and rattles down the Bolton Road and I find myself humming to an old song that I can hear clearly in my head. I can hear it so clearly that I’m singing along with lyrics I didn’t realize I knew. Even Jake seems happier. He and Melissa are bopping their heads along to the beat. Melissa leans over and turns up the volume on the radio and the tune bursts out of the speakers. We look at each other. Merv has fixed the radio. No more race calls, no more protests, no more ads for haemorrhoid cream.
‘I love this car,’ I sing.
‘Me too!’ Jake shouts over the pumping beat. By the time we’ve reached the supermarket, we’re all singing along at top volume, windows rolled down, faces pushed out of the car like excited Labradors. Brenda, who happens to be getting out of her car in the supermarket carpark, hears us roar up, turns, frowns and purses her lips. I’m convinced it’s because we’re exhibiting signs of happiness, until I pull into a parking bay and Brenda comes over to commiserate.
‘I heard there was a letter from the minister. Never mind, Loretta. We knew it wouldn’t work.’
Once we’re inside the supermarket, I tear open the envelope while the kids do their usual wistful lingering in the snack foods aisle. The letter doesn’t say I’ve saved the school. No surprise there. But there is another big surprise. On the way home we drop into Norm’s.
‘Guess what?’
Norm’s running his hand over my smooth windscreen.
‘Nice. The old one had as many craters as the surface of the moon. It was a wonder you didn’t run into a truck.’
‘I got a letter. The education minister’s coming to Gunapan.’
‘Whoa. Here comes trouble.’ He reaches up and fingers the ridge of scar on his forehead. ‘I can feel it in my engine.’
5
Over the next week, the heat builds until at eight thirty on Monday morning it’s already so hot that the birds are sitting on the fence with their beaks open. I walk out of the house with the children in tow and pull open the driver’s door. It squeals as usual.
‘Bush pig!’ Jake shrieks. He opens the back passenger door, which also squeals.
‘Bush pig!’ Melissa’s