The Art of the Engine Driver

by Steven Carroll

It is then that he stops, stock-still on the footpath with his hands clenched by his side and looks about the street, glowering into that warm, boozy Saturday night, demanding more of the world, with all the ridiculous rage and anger of a powerless child. To his right, swaying slightly above the houses, are the tall pines of the school. A row of five pines, tall as the mills. One Saturday morning he climbed the tallest of those pines. For a quarter of an hour, branch by branch, feet wedged into the gaps of the tree’s trunk for grip, he climbed the tree. Pausing on boughs as he did to regain his breath and strength in the hot summer air. But finally, he’d climbed as far as he could. There had been only a slight breeze on the ground, but the wind had been strong up there. He had gripped the branch that he sat on while the tree swayed from side to side. And sometimes, when the wind picked up, it almost seemed to topple forward as if it were about to fall over onto the playground, the shelter shed and the red school buildings of the third and fourth grade classes below him.

  He’s standing in the street looking at the pines, and he can feel the bark under his palms, smell the sap, and feel the cool wind on his face while he sways from side to side as if he were perched on the lookout of a ship’s mast. And from those remembered, windy heights of the pine tree he can still see the suburb spread out below him as it was that morning; the dirt roads, intersecting and crossing each other in the morning sun, the old settlers’ homes in the distance, the shining, silver railway lines that divide the suburb between east and west, the railway station, the flour mills beside the station, the factory owner’s four acre mansion to the right of the mills, his Bentley parked at the end of a long, sweeping driveway, the grazing cattle on the shrunken farm in front of him, the bluestone farmhouse, the old stable, the old wheat road, the war memorial, the shops, the black, bitumen line of the main street, the golf course, the greens and fairways, the square, box houses with their bare yards and struggling gardens, and the dry creek that trickles through it all.

  And almost directly below him, his own street. From up there he could see into everybody’s yards, see old man Malek watering his potatoes, Mr Younger staring at a partially completed wall of his house with a hammer in his hand, Mrs Bruchner in her garden chair, and just coming into view, his father, turning off the main road and cycling towards their street after having finished the night shift.

  He’d never seen it all so completely before, the street, the whole suburb, spread out below him. He had hurried down the tree, sliding down the trunk, stopping occasionally at the boughs and branches, until he dropped back onto the pine-needle ground and began running, determined to beat his father back home.

  Suddenly, standing in the street, his fists clenched tight, his knuckles white and his nails biting into the soft flesh of his palms. Suddenly, he wants that view again. And instead of continuing along the street as he normally would, he turns and begins running down the small lane that leads to the creek. To his father he would only have been a faint blur of movement in the night, vaguely recognisable as his child. As Michael hits the creek he leaps it, lands with a thud on the other side, and continues running along the lane until he reaches the tall pines of the schoolyard. And, walking to the tallest of those pines, he begins to climb.

  It is then, as Michael flies across in front of him, that Vic hears it. A low groan, coming from somewhere out beyond the flour mills, in the darkness of the paddocks where the suburb ends. He stands still and turns his ear to the sound, charting the car’s course in his mind. Slowly, inexorably, the sound gathers in volume. He hears the gears changing, the car slowing, the wheels squealing, and he knows the corner that the car has reached and the road it is turning into.

  Then the groan returns, more like a howl, and the long, uninterrupted run to the golf course end of the main road begins. From where Vic is standing he has a clear view through to the main road for there are no houses in front of him, only the open swaying grass of two vacant lots. As the car accelerates and the sound intensifies, shaking the whole suburb, Vic, to the exclusion of everything around him, concentrates on the view to the main street through the open section of the vacant paddocks. And then he sees it, a dark flash of gleaming black metal and shining chrome, low on the road and sleek. It is no sooner there than it is gone, accelerating into the night, into life, into death, towards the end of the suburb where the road runs out.

  Hats are out of fashion. Vic no longer wears one. Nobody does any more. But had Vic been wearing one at that moment, he would have raised it.

  The smell of the sap is stronger at night, the branches more difficult to find. But, slowly, step by step, Michael leaves the ground that is soft with pine needles below him, and branch by branch, climbs the tree. His eyes become keener the more he climbs, the moonlight stronger the higher he goes. The branches become surprisingly visible, the air cooler and sweeter, the climb a dream. And at the top, gripping the branch he is sitting on as it sways in the breeze that is always stronger at the top of the tree than at the base, he takes in gulps of cool, pine-scented air as if drinking water.

  In the golf course to his right he sees the headlights of a car and he knows it’s the police driving Hacker Paine home. His father told him that Mr Paine is still fighting the war. That he goes to the golf course and fights with shadows because his mind’s not right and that his wife telephones the police and the police have to come and take him home every time.

  Still gripping the gently swaying branch that he sits upon, he turns round towards the darkness of the schoolyard oval, the concrete cricket pitch invisible in the night. And as he does the thrill of the perfect ball passes through him, and he is sure that when he is ready, when he has taken in all that he can from the books that he keeps in his room, he will bowl that perfect ball and it will become known across the suburb as the ball that Michael bowled. And it will be agreed by all those who witness the event that the boy has a gift for speed. And it will be this, this gift for speed that he knows will one day carry him out of his street, out of his suburb, and into the world of the great Lindwall. For the kind of speed that turns heads can do all that. Calmly swaying on his branch at the top of the schoolyard pines, Michael waits for the day.

  Below him, the lights of his street lead down to Bedser’s. The house is still well lit, but he can just see people leaving, just hear the faint good nights, see the occasional car lights leaving the street and driving out into the darkness of the suburb.

  He doesn’t know it, but he has seen Patsy Bedser for the last time. She will leave the suburb the next morning, and the last image he will carry of her for years to come will be the Patsy Bedser who danced on her engagement night in her father’s house with the stranger from the old country church. From the top of the pines he sees it all again vividly; the room is cleared, Patsy and this stranger are dancing. The music is loud and the dance is fast and exciting. This stranger twirls Patsy round and as she spins on the lounge-room floor she catches Michael’s eye, laughs out loud like she did that afternoon he watched them at the old church, then taps his shoulder before continuing the dance. Of all the people in the room Patsy Bedser had chosen him to share the moment with, and he knew he should have waved or smiled or something. But he had suddenly looked to the floor and she had danced away. And once again, he was left wishing he could grow up fast. To dance with her, laugh with her, leave with her. When he finally looked up she was dancing on the other side of the room. Once more, out of reach.

  But, most of all, as he concentrates on the dark rectangles he knows to be the vacant paddocks at which the family had paused earlier that evening, he sees, again and again, the three of them as they were, standing by the paddock with the evening before them. Three figures under a sky the colour of ripe peach. Again and again, as he watches from the top of the schoolyard pine, he sees them walk down the street to the party at Bedser’s house, pausing by the paddock, breathing in the scents and the sounds of their suburb that for these few years will tremble between town and country. Once again, from the top of the schoolya
rd pine, he will watch as they walk down the unpaved, dirt road to Bedser’s house at the bottom of the street. He will always watch them walking down the street to Bedser’s house. He will always see them like this, and always at the same point in the walk. Again and again and again. And maybe, just once, in this endlessly repeated moment, a miracle will happen. And they will get it right, and things will be as they ought to be. Just once.

  Epilogue

  Sunday Morning

  48.

  The Bells

  Before she even enters the kitchen she hears that bloody teaspoon, going round and round in the cup. And she knows when she opens the kitchen door she’ll find him sitting there, staring down into his teacup, with that stupid, brooding look he gets on his face when he’s made a mess of things. The one he keeps for Sunday mornings, the surly, whipped-dog look. She knows also that it will be a silent kitchen, and that the morning will be silent like all their Sunday mornings.

  But none of that matters now. All their conversations, all their heart to hearts, all their attempts to talk a bit of sense into him came to nothing in the end. And this, she says to herself, this is the end. That’s why she’s leaving. Because there’s no point staying when the show’s over.

  She can say all the things she rehearsed last night in the street walking back from Bedser’s because now he’s sober, now he can hear every word, and he won’t have the excuse of being too drunk to remember what was said the night before. And that bloody spoon can go round and round in that bloody cup for an eternity because she’ll never have to listen to it again. And, standing in the hallway, just as she is about to push the door open, she closes her eyes and pauses for a moment as she rehearses the words she could never once have imagined even thinking, let alone uttering.

  He doesn’t look up when the kitchen door opens, nor does he look up when Rita crosses the room and takes a cup down from the cupboard. He stops stirring his tea. The spoon stops going round and bloody round, and it’s like the bells have ceased ringing in some giant cathedral. The radio becomes audible, but she doesn’t listen to it. She is formulating in her mind what has to be said. The radio is a quiet, almost comforting sound, but it doesn’t interrupt her thoughts. The words are ready. The time is right.

  But it is only then that she suddenly understands why Vic has stopped stirring his tea. It is because he has turned towards the radio and the spoon is still only so that he can hear it better. He is not listening to a song, or music or an amusing story. It is the news. To the exclusion of every thing else, he is concentrating on the words that are being spoken. Rita forgets her prepared speech for the moment, and follows the line of Vic’s eyes until she too is staring at the small plastic radio on the bench beside her.

  It is not so much the words as the tone of their delivery that tells her something is wrong. An event from the previous night is being spoken of. A small town is mentioned, not far from where they lived soon after they married. Then two familiar names are listed, and with a silent, inward moan she knows beyond doubt that the people she attaches the names to are now dead. Then come the details. The number of the dead and the injured, the trains, the hour of the accident. And as she stares from the radio to Vic she knows, in an instant, that she will never utter the words she came into the kitchen to say. That in between formulating the words in her mind and being able to say them, this bloody awful thing has happened. And she knows, she knows beyond doubt, that Vic is a goner. So does he. One look and she can tell. One look, and she can read every single thing that’s going through his mind. And it all comes to this. He’s a goner. And when the music returns to the radio, instead of announcing that she’s had enough, instead of saying that this is the end, that the show’s over and that there’s no point hanging about because you just wind up sitting around in the dark by yourself. Instead of saying all this, Rita crosses the floor and places her hand on Vic’s shoulder.

  The comforting gesture seems to go unnoticed because Vic shows no reaction. He is simply staring at the bare, white kitchen wall without blinking or moving any part of his face or body.

  After an accident like this, Rita knows without being told, there will be an investigation. What happened, and why it happened, will need to be established. All the drivers will be examined, their medications scrutinised, and Vic won’t stand a chance once all that starts. Not with the pills he takes, not with the turns he takes, on top of all the grog he puts away. You’re finished Vic, she could say. You’re finished with driving you poor bugger. What are you going to do now? What are we all going to do? For within a matter of minutes Rita has come to the inescapable conclusion that Vic is about to lose his job. It may take weeks, it may take months, but it will happen. And she knows, above all, that for all his whingeing and whining about the hours and the shifts and the mess and the dirt, that he’ll be lost without his job. They’ll offer him a desk, but you can’t drive a desk, can you Vic?

  And as soon as she recognises all of this, she also realises that it is an impossible time to leave him. That what she came to the kitchen to say will now have to be left unsaid. He will be lost. She will stay. And even as she recognises the inevitability of the situation, there is also a part of Rita that immediately knows that if she can’t leave now, she never will.

  In the bedroom, a few minutes later, she puts the small, cloth suitcase back on top of the wardrobe, then slumps back onto the bed and stares out the window at the dirt street, and the stirred dust of a hot, gusty Sunday morning.

  There she forgets about what will now be left unsaid, and thinks about what might still be said. About the things that just might still be worth saying. About the things that might just be worth a go. Who knows, Vic, she could say. Who knows, you may have had the art of engines. But you don’t have the art of simply living. The gift of just living. Of just being. Is this the one you’ve got to learn? Is this the one I’ve got to learn? Is this the one that’s escaped us all these years? The simple, bloody art of just living your life. And not as if every day will be there like it was the day before, because one day it may not be. But as it should be. Just living every moment we’re lucky enough to get, Vic, without all this looking back, and looking forward, and looking away. Do you think we can learn this one, Vic? Do you think we’re up to it? Do you think we can? I hope so. I really hope so, because if we can’t, we’re not going to be much good to each other, or anyone else. We give all our energies to engines and trains and God knows what else, and we forget that we’re alive. We forget that we’re bloody well alive.

  Vic is concentrating on the radio. He is aware of the fact that Rita is in the room. That she has touched his shoulder. That she has left the room. The radio is once again playing the soft, romantic music it always plays, the kitchen is quiet again, and Vic is left with the echoes of names, places, and times.

  Paddy Ryan, Queen’s driver, Big Wheel driver, the master artist of engine drivers, is gone. The classroom of his engine cabin, the master’s studio where the young Vic learnt his trade, is gone too. Paddy Ryan has committed the most basic of blunders, and in such a way as to drag the whole of his driving career into disrepute. Until now the name of Paddy Ryan has been synonymous with everything that is the best. The very finest. But from now on his name will be synonymous with this. And all the years that went before will count for nothing. This will be Paddy Ryan’s lasting legacy. Not his inexplicable gift for smoothing the rails, but his final shift. For, when it mattered, all his art, all his knowledge counted for nothing, and he committed the most basic of blunders. And it is for this that Paddy Ryan will be remembered.

  It is not only Paddy’s name, thinks Vic, but everybody’s. They will all be investigated now. They will all be examined. And Vic knows he will lose his job. His dream of joining the Big Wheel is so close he can almost see his name on the roster board. But he knows now that it will never appear there, that the object of a lifetime’s labour will not be his, that it will be suddenly taken from him at the very moment it seemed assured. Through the s
heer slog of the years of driving, of pushing old engines beyond their capacity, of difficult shifts, of impossible weather and wasted hours in country stations waiting for the signal to proceed. Through all this it was the object of being rostered on the Big Wheel that kept him driving. If that were to be achieved it would all have been for something. He could relax then. He would have the best shifts, the best trains, the best engines. For his final years as a driver he would have it made. But not now.

  And all because Paddy Ryan ran two sets of red lights. Vic knows the loop. He knows the procedure. He knows exactly what has to be done, as does any junior driver. And he slowly shakes his head at the incomprehensibility of it all. If Vic has ever had anything that could be called a faith, if he has ever believed in anything, if anything has sustained him and given him dignity through all these years, it is the art that he brought to his job. The art that they all did. The belief that something could be known so thoroughly, and performed so perfectly, that it became an art. But now the best, the very best, had blundered, just at that point in his career when he should have been invulnerable, and the faith that he embodied inviolable. But now, that faith is shattered.

  Now, all of that is gone, and as he sips his tea he realises it is cold and he has no idea how long he’s been sitting in the kitchen. Or when it was that Rita had entered the room and touched his shoulder. Or when it was that she had left the room and closed the door behind her.

  The best had blundered. The faith of a lifetime has now been shattered. Paddy Ryan is gone. Finished. And so is the Spirit that he drove. They might put the thing back together, as if nothing had happened. And in time people will forget. But they can put it back together all they like. Vic knows that he’d rather bow out now, having lived through a time when he could have driven the Spirit, the true Spirit, rather than be the poor bastard who had to drive what was left of it.