by Sally Piper
‘Happy birthday, old girl,’ he joked, and lowered the esky to gather Grace into a two-armed embrace.
‘Thanks, Nick,’ she said, and hugged him back.
‘How are you, Nick?’ Richard extended a hand to his nephew.
‘Still breathin’.’
‘That must be a relief.’
Jorja stared, starstruck, at her cousin. Jaxon gave him a high-five.
‘Holy shit, Aunty Ada. What happened to you?’ Nick’s brow-piercing got lost in a fold of concern.
‘Mike Tyson,’ Ada said. ‘This is nothing – you should see the state of him.’
‘Respect.’ Nick gave her a gentler high-five than he’d given Jaxon.
‘Hey, Aunty Susan.’
Susan offered her cheek to Nick. ‘You not with your mum and dad?’ She looked to the back door.
‘Nup. Mobile now. Anyone want to see my new car?’
‘I do,’ cried Jaxon.
‘Me too,’ said Jorja.
‘I might have a look next time, if you don’t mind, Nick,’ Ada said.
Touching her friend’s shoulder as she passed, Grace joined the conga line out the front door.
Parked in the driveway was what could have been a large item of rubbish, but was in fact Nick’s red Suzuki hatchback. It showed signs of having been a workhorse: small dents and scratches to most panels, the hood and roof dulled and whitened in places by a long life in the sun, and the blistered paint at the bottom edge of the driver’s door suggesting rust. It featured recently blackened tyres.
Nick placed his hand on its faded roof and beamed back at the family. ‘What d’you reckon?’
‘Awesome,’ reckoned Jaxon.
‘Looks like a death trap.’ Richard bent to check the tread on a tyre.
‘Is it roadworthy?’ Susan asked, looking from one end of the car to the other, face crinkled.
Grace watched Nick’s smile shrink a little.
‘It’s a beauty,’ Grace said. ‘Will you take me for a spin?’
‘Sure.’
The passenger door rolled back soundlessly on its hinges as Nick opened it for Grace. ‘Your chariot,’ he said with a flourish and helped her into the car.
‘Can I come?’ Jorja called.
‘Me too?’
Jorja and Jaxon clambered into the back, and their parents looked on as though the children were being abducted by aliens.
Grace wound down the window. ‘Don’t wait up,’ she waved as they drove away.
Looking into the back of Nick’s car, it was hard to imagine fitting three children there – the car wasn’t as wide as Des’s Belmont had been and her two grandchildren’s tangle of bare arms and legs took up most of the seat. The nudging went on the same these days though, but with less meanness, and Grace couldn’t imagine it would ever end in the same violent outbursts she remembered from Des.
‘Enjoying the ride?’ she asked them.
‘Great,’ Jorja said.
‘Does it go any faster?’ Jaxon asked.
‘Not with you in it, mate. Your dad’d have a fit.’
‘Where’d you get the money to buy it?’ Jaxon ran his hand over the cloth seat, flipped the back ashtray lid open then snapped it closed again.
‘Weekend jobs – saved nearly every cent. Took a while, but I got there. I know it looks a bit rough but it gets me to uni and back, all right.’
‘I think you’ve done very well,’ Grace said. ‘Not many young men can boast buying their own car at nineteen.’
‘I’m gonna do the same,’ declared Jaxon. ‘How old do you have to be to get a job?’
‘You won’t even pick your schoolbag up off the floor so how are you going to do a real job?’ Jorja asked her brother.
‘If I was paid to pick it up, I would.’
‘You are. It’s called pocket money.’
‘Get real – ten dollars a week is nothin’.’
Grace smiled as she listened to this exchange. Yes, little had changed. She recalled similar conversations when the going rate was twenty cents a week.
Nick cruised the suburban streets; his greatest challenge was when he had to dodge a bag of rubbish that had rolled onto the edge of the road from the nature strip.
He was a careful but confident driver, unlike his grandfather who had been a slow and nervous one. Car journeys with Des that went beyond the local shops had frustrated Grace beyond any of his other tedious ways. She’d sit there willing him to press the accelerator further to the floor. He never did though, apart from the odd occasion when he had to overtake another, even slower, vehicle. And rarely did he take a hand from the steering wheel, unless it was to smack at legs along the back seat. Instead, he gripped it in two places as though it might try to steer itself off in another direction altogether. If the kids played up, he’d shout quickly, easily, so that everyone could feel his tension, palpable as a pulse inside the car.
Grace would offer to drive before they set off from home, but she’d always get the same response: How would it look for a man to sit up front while his wife drove? She supposed she should have thought him brave, for not taking the easy way out – she knew he feared the machine. But she couldn’t get beyond his cowardice.
The slow pace meant family trips of more than an hour required a roadside stop – sometimes two – for Des to have a smoke. Grace would stay seated and gaze absent-mindedly at the countryside during these stops. Des leant against the bonnet of the car, one foot on the front bumper, casually taking his cigarette. She would listen to the tick of the cooling engine or the erratic buzz of insects. Sometimes, if a good song was playing on the radio – Johnny Nash or Neil Young – she’d turn up the volume and sing along, drumming her fingers to the beat on the door’s armrest. The kids might get out of the car if Des allowed it, and they’d busy themselves taking potshots at trees with stones or foraging with sticks in roadside gullies, which was all the better fun if there’d been recent rain and they held pools of water.
After five minutes Des would bellow, ‘In the car!’ and they’d come scuttling back up embankments or from behind trees while Des carefully ground his butt into the dirt with the heel of his shoe, checking it was all out once, twice, sometimes three times, before getting back into the car himself.
As Peter got older, his conversation invariably turned to cars on these slow journeys. ‘Hey, Dad, what d’you reckon about me getting a Charger when I’m old enough to drive? A yellow one with a black hood and side air-extractors and a spoiler on the back and the front.’
As Grace remembered it, he was still a long way off being able to reach the clutch at the time.
‘Nah,’ Des said. ‘Bloody dago’s car. Stick with a Holden.’ He risked taking one hand from the steering wheel to slap the dash. ‘You know what you’re gettin’ with a Holden.’
‘What about a GTS Monaro then?’
‘Too powerful. Kill yourself in one of them.’
‘I’m going to get a Datsun,’ Susan said. ‘A lady’s car.’
‘Can’t trust ’em,’ Des said, ‘more plastic than anything else, being made by the Nips.’
‘Well, I’m getting a pony,’ Claire declared. ‘A white one.’
Grace turned to look at Claire, sandwiched between her two older siblings on the back seat, and tried not to laugh. Her youngest child had thinned her lips to a stern line and folded her arms across her small chest, daring anybody to tell her what she was or wasn’t going to use to make her mobile in the future.
‘Gonna take you a long time to get anywhere.’ Des laughed.
‘Maybe she reckons a white one will go faster.’ Peter nudged his sister who wasted no time in nudging him back.
‘How many horsepower you reckon it’ll be, Claire?’ Des asked. ‘’Bout four legs and a tail?’
‘Don’t tease her,’ Grace said, looking at
Des.
Peter pushed Claire again, which sent her into Susan who pushed her back into Peter.
‘Oi,’ Peter shouted, and pushed her again.
‘Clair-e,’ Susan whined, as Claire was sent rocking back into her sister like the smallest of a matryoshka doll.
‘It’s not my fault,’ Claire said. ‘Peter keeps pushing me.’
‘Do not.’
‘Do so.’
‘Do n—’
‘Shut up, you two,’ Des thundered.
Grace turned round to placate them. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Be nice to each another.’
‘It’s Peter’s fault, Mummy. He keeps pushing me.’
‘Do not,’ Peter said, and he pushed Claire again.
‘Clair-e,’ Susan whined, and it was about to start all over again, except Des stopped it.
He risked a hand off the steering wheel, reached behind him and brought it down hard half-a-dozen times at random on the bare legs along the back seat. Most of the blows landed on Claire, an easier target in the middle.
All rocking and shouting was shut down in the back. The only thing Grace could hear was the restrained sniffs of Claire. She knew she’d be fighting back the urge to cry.
Grace reached her hand over the seat back and caressed Claire’s leg, hoping she’d fallen on the spot where Des’s hand had landed the heaviest.
‘Don’t care. Still getting a pony,’ Claire mumbled.
When Nick pulled back in front of Grace’s house, she saw Peter’s clean, white Statesman parked in her drive.
‘Looks like the olds are here.’ Nick pulled the handbrake on and turned off the engine.
‘Thanks for the drive, Nick. And you’re right, she runs like a dream.’ Grace patted the dash.
Peter came down from the porch to meet them. ‘You’re back in one piece then?’
‘I’d expect no less,’ Grace said. ‘Nick’s a very good driver.’
‘A driver’s only as good as the vehicle he’s in control of.’
‘Have you been here long?’ Grace asked, changing the subject, knowing where her son’s conversation was headed.
But Peter was never easily circumvented. ‘About ten minutes. I offered to take him to the government auctions, you know – help him buy a good solid Holden or Ford. But he took himself off and got this Asian rust-bucket from some dodgy backyard dealer instead.’
‘At least there’s no question of ownership,’ Nick said.
Peter guffawed. ‘Not now, maybe.’
‘There wasn’t when I bought it either.’
Father and son locked eyes. Nick’s face looked the more dangerous, given his stubble and glinting metal. Peter’s showed his age: he’d lost some of his menace with his receding hairline and puffiness under the eyes. His words could still pack a punch though.
‘How could you tell? You didn’t even know to look for a compliance plate.’
Grace reached out and squeezed Nick’s arm, willing him to let it go. The muscles felt taut under her fingers.
‘You should be proud of him,’ Grace said to Peter. ‘At least he had the gumption to go out and buy his own car and with his own money. If my memory serves me correctly, you were more than happy to accept your father’s Belmont for nothing – regardless of how old it was or its history.’
Grace subtly propelled Nick forward. ‘Let’s go inside,’ she said, carefully.
Why couldn’t her children be more kind?
Susan looked flushed when they got back into the kitchen and her wine remained untouched on the bench. Ada, glass empty in front of her, was nodding politely at Richard, who was enlightening her about the efficacy of one pain reliever over another. Richard loved nothing more than an ear to bend on the wonders of pharmaceuticals.
Jane’s wine glass was nearly empty. ‘Happy birthday!’ She clicked across the tiled floor on high heels to drape both arms and the glass round Grace’s shoulders. The many gold bangles on her daughter-in-law’s wrist clattered against Grace’s back, and what she always suspected were breast implants pressed firmly into her front. ‘Sorry we’re late. Bit slow out of the starting blocks this morning, weren’t we, Pete? Work function last night. A biggie, as it turned out.’
Susan scraped the last of a salsa dip from its jar into a serving bowl. She banged the spoon loudly on its edge. Grace hoped the bowl wouldn’t break too.
‘Well, you’re here now.’ Grace patted Jane’s back – the biggie, she noticed, still laced her breath.
‘Happy birthday, Grandma,’ Meg said from the table where she was colouring in. ‘If you come here I’ll give you a special birthday kiss.’
Grace obeyed, bent down to her youngest grandchild.
Meg gripped Grace’s face in her small hands, kissed one cheek, then the other. ‘That’s how the French do it. Mummy told me.’
Grace smelt Jane’s fragrance on her granddaughter’s neck.
Stroking Meg’s hair, Jane said, ‘She’s a sponge, this one. Remembers everything I tell her.’
‘Don’t bump, Mummy. I’ll go outside the lines.’
‘You didn’t tell me we had to be here by a certain time.’ Peter looked at Jane. ‘I thought it was a late lunch.’
Jane pulled a Don’t ask me face and took another sip from her glass.
‘At this rate it’ll be three o’clock.’ Susan tossed the empty jar into the bin.
Grace didn’t think this the right time to mention recycling.
‘Sorry, sis. If I’d known I’d have made sure we got here earlier.’
‘Three’s good,’ Grace said. ‘After seventy years of watching the clock, it’ll be good not to have to for a day. Here, let me finish that off, Susan. Take the weight off your feet.’
‘I’m fine. It’s your party.’
‘And yours to enjoy as well.’ Grace took the bag of corn chips Susan was opening from her and filled her daughter’s hand with her untouched glass of wine.
‘What can I do?’ Jane asked, looking around, brow furrowed and glass held up as though toasting the mess in Grace’s kitchen.
‘You could refill Ada’s glass.’ Grace knew her friend would need it, should Richard move on to beta-blockers or respiratory inhalers.
‘I better do mine while I’m at it then.’
Susan sat down opposite Ada and sipped at her wine like a bird, looking every bit like she’d rather be elsewhere.
But Susan often looked like she had some place else she needed to be when at Grace’s. Visits were regular but brief, though always pre-planned nowadays. And as a young woman, just as Grace had looked towards the day when she could leave Harvest, Susan had looked just as keenly to when she could leave her family home. It took no time at all for her to find a share house once she’d completed her teacher training and had secured her first job.
‘I’m gonna miss you, Susie,’ Des had said with genuine sadness. ‘Who’s gonna protect me from your mother now!’ He’d laughed when he said it but Grace felt she’d gained a small victory from those words, because the laugh was thin and hollow.
Grace looked on with sadness too, the day Susan packed up the last of her clothes and loaded them into the boot of her Datsun. She remembered being shocked by this emotion, and not because she thought she’d be pleased to see her daughter leave home, but because for the first time Grace realised just how her own mother must have felt the day she’d left Harvest. Grace felt ashamed that it had taken her this long to realise it.
She’d tried to coax Susan to sit with her at the kitchen table for a short while before leaving, to have afternoon tea at the place where Grace hoped her daughter had felt her greatest sense of belonging.
Grace even remembered what cake she’d made – a moist carrot cake with plump, juicy raisins and the top frosted with snowy, cream-cheese peaks. One of Susan’s favourites.
But Sus
an couldn’t stay.
‘Sorry, Mum. The others are expecting me. They’re putting on a welcome dinner for me tonight. I’ll take the cake with me, though, for dessert.’
Grace put the cake into an airtight container, one she valued.
‘Bring the container back to me, won’t you?’ she’d said to Susan.
It surprised Grace that she’d give Susan this particular container – she’d never have considered giving it to anybody else. It was one she used regularly and would miss, even for a week. Later she recognised why: it would guarantee Susan return it and therefore Grace would get to see her.
Each time Susan visited, Grace would have another sweet treat ready to send off with her. But the containers weren’t always returned as quickly as Grace would have liked.
Susan’s packing had been easy – all done in two hours, having so few boxes.
Grace had tried to appear upbeat as her daughter put the last of her things in the car.
‘All grown up, eh?’ she said, but then felt silly for saying it. Of course she was … a young woman now, able to live by independent means.
‘It was always going to happen.’ Susan laughed. ‘That’s what kids do … they grow up.’
Grace remembered the fear she’d felt upon boarding the train to leave Harvest. So uncertain, so alien was this proposed new life in the city that she briefly questioned the logic of her decision to leave at all.
Apparently there was no such uncertainty for Susan. ‘I can’t believe it’s finally happened!’
Grace supposed Susan wouldn’t recognise the sadness in such departures till she herself was a mother.
She felt her daughter’s absence acutely as she waved her off.
With Peter already left home a year earlier, Grace remembered thinking: With Susan gone now, what’s left?
But children must leave home to return to it with more. One came into Grace’s kitchen now.
‘When’s lunch? I’m starving,’ chubby Tom asked.
