BLUE EYES

 

He was a big man, tall and solid from a lifetime spent amid lofty timber, with the wind in his face and tools held easily in his big knobbly hands. That was all a while ago of course. These days he was too important to get out into the bush for anything more than a couple of fishing trips a year, time out to get pissed, catch fish and try to forget about tomorrow.

 

I’d met him before, once on a whirlwind trip when Caroline and I had taken the kombi south so that she could show me where she was born and raised, and before that at our house when he’d come up on business and stayed over. We’d had a real panic that time, as we had to buy a single bed and move all Caroline’s gear into the spare room to make it look as if that’s where she normally slept. He wouldn’t have approved of us co-habiting so soon – can’t say I blame him, we were still a bit unsure about it ourselves back then.

 

Anyway, that was months ago and now I had to pick him up from the conference centre in the heart of Melbourne where he’d had meetings for the last few days with the Premier and politicians and unionists, all dodging and swerving, trying to navigate a pathway through the bullshit. I knew already that he’d be wound up tight, chain-smoking and only capable of the shortest syllables until he’d sat down with a bottle of scotch for and hour or so. After that he’d become a gracious, genial, friendly man and kiss his daughter heartily, and make long eye contact with me, as if we shared some secret joke between us. Right now though he was going to be a shit.

 

I was in the bug. We were broke and I was proud of the way I’d got this old veedub for $300. Cheap because it had no second gear. I’d changed the gear box for another $100 and now it went fine, even if it was still only a  rather grim old bug. Because he finished before Caroline, the arrangement was to pick him up first.

 

So here I was.

 

Standing under the facade of the conference centre trying to remember what he looked like so he wouldn’t walk right by me amongst all the crowd of suits.

 

Not that I needed to worry.

 

When he appeared there was no mistaking him, striding along in conversation with some bloke whose face was familiar from the six o’clock news. He saw me, but let his eyes drift on as he said his goodbyes and shook hands.

It was bucketing with rain and I’d stopped the bug right opposite the entrance, where the taxis and government cars pulled up, so I was anxious to get going and headed towards him. He held out his hand and craned his neck around looking for Caroline.

 

” Hello, Carolines still at work so we’ll pick her up on the way. Have you had a good day?”. Banal. Almost glib but I was nervous and he was distant. I gestured to the bug and said ” Lets go”.

 

Watching him fold his six foot four inches stiffly in half, and almost in half again to lower himself into the seat, and then have to do it all again, as he realised that he’d left his briefcase on the roof where he’d left it after its secondary function as a makeshift umbrella, and then a third time to take off his suit jacket and fold it away carefully in his suit bag was painful. His glance around the interior of the car spoke volumes as he adjusted the cuff of his pure wool suit trousers so that they wouldn’t get soaked from the damp carpet squares on the floor. By the time I had him and his briefcase and suit bag loaded, there wasn’t a lot of space left, and we still had to get Caroline and her capacous bags and bits in somehow.

 

Heading across town in peak hour was even more hassle than normal when the visibility was so poor in the late afternoon Melbourne gloom. The marginal windscreen wipers were blurring ineffectively away and cars were whizzing everywhere, fighting their way home.

 

He was used to being driven about, but not in a car that was as big as the back seat of his normal ride. He telegraphed tension, braked repeatedly with a stamp of his big foot , looked over his shoulder at every lane change and restrained himself from comment only by the exercise of extreme will power.

 

When we got to Caroline’s building she wasn’t standing outside as faithfully promised. We did a block and she still wasn’t there. I pulled to an illegal stop on the dotted lines out front and turned the engine off, remembering to give it a big rev as I did so to prime the carby so that the engine would start again. It was quiet all of a sudden, and we sat there, steaming up the windows, wreathed in that humid, slowly rotting, old dog odour that old cars have when they’re hot and wet.

 

“I’ll go and find her” I said but he grabbed my arm and said ” No, don’t leave the car here and go off; we can just wait”.

 

So we sat and waited. Mercifully not for long. Caroline burst onto the scene, all wide smiles and sparkling eyes, talking nineteen to the dozen, answering her own questions and trying to kiss her father through the two inch gap at the top of the window – which was as far as it opened. Now the performance of two door cars started.

 

He sat there waiting for her to climb in, staring questioningly at her until she laughed ” Get out then, so I can get in. I’m drowning out here!’.

 

The now slightly less than elegant suit trousers leapt convulsively as he searched for the door handle and tried to climb out all at the same time,. I could almost hear his joints creak as he climbed onto the pavement which was almost at seat height because I’d stopped so close the curb.

 

Caroline clambered in with a quick peck at me on the way past, sitting on the suit bag and then heaving it out from underneath her and bundling over the back seat. He eased himself back in and I hoped he hadn’t noticed.

 

Caroline was still talking away, keeping both sides of the conversation going and letting him contribute grunts and nods as he liked. We were off, fifty minutes home and then an hour to get him thawed out.

 

I wasn’t looking forward to the drive. Fortunately the bug started first time, often it didn’t. I revved it hard and opened my window to look for a gap in the traffic to screech into. I reckoned I’d just about make it between a van and a taxi, you could usually rely on taxi drivers to protect themselves and accept the inevitable. Just as I let the clutch out the engine died and stalled, before we’d gone two feet!. I didn’t say anything, just turned the key and once again it started first time – but it wouldn’t rev, the accelerator pedal was dead on the floor.

 

I knew immediately what was wrong but I couldn’t believe it. Not here. Not now. It just wasn’t fair and I felt like crying, or getting bloody angry, or blaming someone.

 

But there wasn’t anyone and it was all up to me. I turned the engine off and glanced at him. He was staring right at me with a gimlet look, totally ignoring Caroline in the back seat who was still trying to extract some minimal news about the last six months from him.

 

” I’ll go and have a look at it” I sighed glancing out at the rain.

” What’s wrong?. Is something wrong?”. asked Caroline but I was outside and he was silent.

 

It was pretty easy to confirm a snapped cable, right at the toggle on the carburettor. I thought about trying to tie a knot or something but there was nothing to tie it to and I knew it would just pull straight off.

 

I stood there, getting soaked through in the torrent and splashed from the cars roaring past about one foot away. At least I now had a reason to be parked illegally. If this had happened any other time it wouldn’t have mattered much.

 

I’d have been late for whatever I was doing but there was another cable at home, salvaged when I’d dismantled another bug to get its gearbox – it was cheaper to buy the whole car than a separate gearbox and I had a spare just-about-everything.

 

Thinking about it now though, I didn’t like the immediate options. We couldn’t afford to be in the RACV, and they’d take hours to get there anyway on  a day like today. There were no garages in the inner city, the closest was over in Fitzroy, and it would take too long to fix it anyway. There was one option though, albeit not one I relished. I had a long length of nylon cord holding the front bonnet shut as the lock didn’t have a key and I kept my tool box in there. The cord was too long for the job but I hadn’t been keen to cut it as it was a good bit of cord. I’d wrapped it around about twenty times instead. If it was long enough I thought I might be able to rig that up as a hand throttle.

 

I went round to my door. I couldn’t go the passenger side as the window didn’t wind down and if the door was opened he would get soaked. Opening the door six inches, and very conscious of the whizzing traffic another six inches away from my bum I grumped out

“I’ll just fix it, won’t be minute”, and shut the door on Carolines entreaties as to what was the matter.

 

Around the front the cord was very tight, it felt like wire. Something must have moved in the boot and forced the lid up a bit. I tore the nail on my index finger trying to get it undone but at least the blood washed away in the downpour. My hands were so cold that I could hardly feel them anyway. At least I didn’t have an audience as the windows were so steamed up they couldn’t see out at all. It didn’t take long to tie the cord onto the throttle lever on the carby and thread it up through the hinge of the engine cover, along the side of the car and in through the window. I climbed in and got The Look again.

“I’m going to try this and see if it works” I mumbled into the blast of permafrost that hit me, despite the steamed up windows. The engine started o.k. and, sure enough, when I pulled the cord it revved like crazy – albeit somewhat jerkily and with a five second delay, the trouble was it wouldn’t stop revving!. I turned it off again and climbed out. By halving the length of the recoil spring I thought it would be tight enough to pull against the drag of the cord so I hooked it on shorter and buzzed around to get back in out of the deluge.

 

” Right, …this time” I said, all business now. The engine started and revved and the spring hauled it back, not quite all the way to an idle but far enough. I wrapped the cord around my hand a few times and tried to pull it from inside the car – it wouldn’t rev. I’d have to have my hand outside in the rain. This was going to take some coordination. As I put the car into gear I realised that I was going to need some help. With one hand on the cord and one hand on the wheel I couldn’t change gear. I sat there for a long moment, thinking.  ” Ummh, could you give me a hand please?”.

 

Two blue lasers sliced through the door pillar, half way along the windscreen and onto my face” I beg your pardon?”.

“Just to change gear every now and then, I’ll tell you when.”

He reached down and felt his way through the gears, like stirring porridge.

“Alright then”. I didn’t dare look at him and busied myself looking out the window for a gap in the traffic. Caroline asked me what I’d done and would it work and was it dangerous and could she help and what did we want for dinner in one sentence but I was too busy to answer. A gap appeared and we roared off into it – for about fifteen feet!. That was as far as first gear in a bug will take you.

 

“Second, into second!” I yelled as I thrust the clutch in. With a graunch which all but dropped the gear box on the road we leapt forward again.

 

“No point in having teeth if you don’t clean them” Caroline tossed into the chasm between the front seats

 

“Third now” I screamed.

 

“Don’t shout” he said quietly. We were cruising towards a set of traffic lights and I tossed the clutch in again and we rolled to slow stop. I glanced towards him and couldn’t believe that there was a hint of smile on his dial.

“We might get good at this by the time we get home”

“If we get home” he replied and smiled at Caroline over his shoulder.

“Don’t worry” said Caroline “This sort of thing happens to us all the time, we always get home though don’t we”. All delivered with a wide eyed smile at me – great!.

“Yep, no worries. Be glad to get out of town though”.

 

The traffic moved, and so did we. I learnt to rev it a bit further than normal and linger at the high rev so that he would get the hint, then throw in the clutch and say “Now” at the same time. It must have looked a hoot with me with one hand out the window in the gale and the car lurching then gliding along to the next lurch but my hand was numb by the second set of traffic lights and I had to judge the delay in the line purely by the engine note. Fortunately, you can always hear, feel and taste the engine in a bug.

 

One thing it did though, there wasn’t much room for conversation with me saying “Now” as quietly and calmly as I could and both of us concentrating on getting the timing right. By the time we got out of town we had it nearly down pat and soon we were able to get it into fourth gear and just cruise along. I still had to hold onto the cord but managed to pull my hand inside every now and then so at least it was out of the wind. Caroline chatted to both of us in her special way and I actually began to feel quite relaxed, as if this was a perfectly normal way to drive a car. What was even more amazing was that he seemed to be relaxing as well. Having something that we had to do together like this seemed to make it easier for both of us.

 

By the time we arrived home, after a not entirely uneventful trip, I felt good, with a sense of accomplishment.

“That’s the first time I’ve driven a semi-automatic, thanks very much for your help” I said, a little embarrassed but smiling.

“Wouldn’t have missed it, mate” he laughed back and slapped me damply on the shoulder, and for the first time I noticed how similar the crinkles around his eyes were to Caroline’s.