Big Sunday

 Driving Lessons

 

 

There is peace in late afternoons I enjoy, a time when one considers the events of the day or contemplates what meal to cook for dinner. On occasion even a thread of philosophic reflection. I stand and water my vegetable seedlings one ordinary day, somewhat oblivious to the sounds of neighbours and passing cars. 

 

The interlude is broken by the tell-tale screech of tyres hard pressed on bitumen and a sickening loud bang. In the time my heart skipped a beat there is another almighty crash, and another, like rolling thunder, then an eerie silence.

 

The roundabout has claimed another collision I tell myself. Running from the backyard along the side of the house, I reach for my phone and prepare to tap triple zero. Compared to previous accidents this one sounded bad! I psych myself for the likelihood of human injury.

 

Imagine my surprise! I’m confronted by the sight of a dark grey behemoth occupying not the nearby intersection but my front yard. A huge dual-cab ute, bonnet ripped open and twisted like an ugly mouth. Steam rises from its gaping wound, the acrid smell of spilt fuel signals danger. It appeared angry, first crashing through a concrete fence that tore out its undercarriage before its path was stopped by a large thirty-year-old palm (I know because I planted it!) that now lies horizontal, its fronds squashed against the front of the house and the telegraph pole size trunk balanced precariously atop the stair railing. The ute lies vanquished, askew headlights shine across the lawn highlighting car wreckage and small pieces of plastic, fake chrome thrown into the air like confetti. Shattered sections of concrete fence, some nearly a metre wide, have flown five metres, bounced across the lawn leaving huge divots, and come to rest just centimetres from the front step of my house.

 

Like me, neighbours have heard the crash, stopped whatever they were doing and converged in my front yard. A black electrical wire dangles on top of the car and low across to the other side of the street. We are wary but need to get to the occupants. Peering through the tinted dark windows my shock is compounded by the sight of a diminutive female teenager sitting in the driver’s seat, barely visible above the steering wheel. She understandably looks dazed and disorientated. The male passenger is talking on his phone. Neither appears urgent to open their door, rather, reticent to engage with the faces looming at the window. My immediate response was disbelief. This young girl could not possibly be the driver!

 

An unsettling mood of confusion and a desire to help permeates the gathering neighbours. Sally from directly across the street was on the footpath with her young children at the time, although facing the other direction, so didn’t see the accident unfold. It is hard to fathom what happened because my house is not on the corner, in fact some forty metres from the roundabout intersection. No other car involved, several bent road signs trace what appears to have been an out-of-control route. It is all a bit of a mystery!

 

Shane from next door has determined the black wire to be the NBN line, so thankfully it is not a live electrical hazard. I’m on the phone to emergency services when the first occupant opens their door, the tiny driver climbs out holding her wrist. Wearing the uniform of a local private school she is clearly in shock and bewildered by the attention. Helen, at one time a teacher at the same school takes her aside and endeavours to keep her calm. The passenger, about forty-five years old, is intent on his phone, and wanders around avoiding any contact, presumably making necessary calls. One must have been to the lady who has just arrived by car. The girl’s mother it would appear, as she parks and runs to embrace her daughter. 

 

Today is Chloe’s sixteenth birthday. It was a much-anticipated rite of passage her mother informs us - her father picked her up from school and drove to the motor registry. Having passed the written test, she became a legal learner driver. The family lives only three blocks away. Somewhere on the way home they swapped places, it was her first drive of a car. 

 

The Police arrive to take statements, a moment of light relief as Chloe is breath tested. Even the Constable had a chuckle asking the tiny shy girl neat in school uniform if she had consumed any alcohol or drugs. Energex also survey the scene and secure the dangling wire. Cars were passing under safely enough, but our fear was the likely garrotting of a supermarket delivery van. 

 

With the immediate emergency past I am relieved there are no obvious physical injuries. My feelings shift first to the damage, I can see the neighbours’ worried faces, and their disbelief, proud homeowners all of them realising the extent of the impact. How much damage has there been to the house? Half of the front fence has been demolished. What price a fully grown tree? But the overwhelming sentiment is that no-one is seriously injured, considering what might have been. Sally ruminates that I could have been watering my front garden as I often do. A passer by walking their dog would have had no time to evade the careering car, or herself playing with her children on the opposite footpath. 

 

There is something strangely familiar about the father. As he is still on his phone I approach Chloe, having had time to consider my own youth and experiences with cars. She sits quietly with her Mum as I inquire about her wrist. Please go and get it x-rayed I advise. I proceed to tell her of my motor bike accident some fifty years ago. Racing behind a carload of mates, as we descended a hill they veered right and then turned sharply left in front of me toward a side street. Unable to stop, I smashed into the front fender, flew over the handlebars, cleared the car and somersaulted to land on my feet. All very surprising as I found myself unbelievably standing upright. My arm had taken the headlong fall on the bitumen as momentum flipped me back onto my feet. I was shaken but felt no immediate physical damage. Dented pride and feeling deeply embarrassed, yes! A kind householder appeared and sat me down with a glass of water, just as Chloe was now. Subsequently it was found I had broken my wrist.

 

Chloe is clearly remorseful and apologises for the damage she has caused. Accidents happen I tell her, and property damage can be repaired. My swim buddies and I often talk on the drive to and from the pool about our youthful escapades involving cars, idiotic and stupid in some cases, fatefully unlucky in others. Thinking about this I recall a conveniently forgotten practice in 1972, my final year of high school. A friend’s father owned a used car yard, and he would drive to school in a car from the lot, almost a different one each day. In the leafy suburb behind the school, he had discovered a hill that fell away steeply after the crest. It looked directly towards the ocean, so you had a big sky view as you reached the top and descended. The practice was to accelerate as much as possible on the long up section and then like a roller coaster plunge downwards, slightly weightless, stomach churning. It was sheer stupidity, so dangerous, and I’m flabbergasted that I was a passenger more than once – the folly of youth!

 

Satisfied all is in order the two constables depart, handing me a card with all the details. Jacob Barnes was the passenger and car owner. He and I look at each other, both still puzzled.

‘I know you from somewhere’ he says.

‘Yeah, I was thinking the same thing …. Do you swim?’

‘That’s it! Langlands pool, of course! I’m Jake’.

 

Jake has been on the phone to his insurance company and texts me the details of the claim, already lodged in fact. I think he is mortified, probably feels responsible, wearing uncomfortably the guilt of a father’s regret. To be fair Chloe being the only daughter and youngest child may well have pressured him, knowing just how to gain her father’s favour.

Jake too repeats how sorry he is for the damage. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. 

 

‘So, what happened? I ask?

 

Intending to go straight through the roundabout Chloe must have misjudged her speed. As she pulled hard on the steering wheel the back of the car started to slide, along with the perplexing squeal of rubber. Having over corrected the car then slewed back almost 180 degrees from her intended direction of travel. In a panic she pushed or even stood on the accelerator instead of the brake. The car powered up and missile like careered, pushing aside road signs, bounced over a small traffic island, across to the opposite side of the road, jumped the kerb and crashed into my front concrete fence at considerable speed. Had the fence been lightweight, or the tree immediately inside been insubstantial they would have ploughed into the front of my house. It was probably just luck that she hit the tree dead centre; its round form forged permanently into the front of the car. 

 

As night closes in the tow truck winches the car up onto the tray back, like a dead beast being dragged out of a bullring. My friend Keith from down the road has walked up with his two Jack Russells to see what the commotion is all about. 

‘She’s a write-off mate’, he says shaking his head. 

 

He would know a thing or two about such things. A drag racer in his youth, it only took one big crash on the quarter mile to leave him the legacy of chronic back pain. Whenever I bump into him on my morning walks the first thing he says is, 

‘It’s not good mate’, his gait awkward and walking pace slow, ‘Oh the drugs keep me going mate’.

 

He has discovered a new passion – an in-demand Father Christmas for Capalaba Shopping Centre. A rather niche role, but one where he humbly concedes to be the best in the business. He needs no props or makeup, just a red suit. Perfectly cast you might say. Keith is a proud man, one who commits to whatever he chooses to do. Take his cars for instance! 

 

Like everyone else he would be thinking the fateful Chloe moment could have coincided with him, not just walking the dogs but driving past in one of his classic cars, the crowd favourite 1929 Dodge delivery van or the newly restored early 1950’s Ford Mainline ute replete with spray painted flames, spoiler and a white leather interior. The Dodge looks like a hot-rod panel van and is a long-time, multiple car show champion, but his recently finished Ford is now his pride and joy.

 

‘Took the Mainline to the Mt Gravatt Car Show mate …. I cleaned up! First time too.’ 

He users his fingers to help list all the prizes, 

‘Best under the bonnet, 

Best flames, 

Best interior, and would you believe, 

Chick Magnet!’ He smiles with not a touch of self-deprecation.

‘Yeah that’s … impressive!’ I say, trying to imagine the likely consequence of the latter.

‘But mate, then, blow me down, Best in Show.’ 

 

The show judges would have been impressed as his cars are impeccable restorations. There is no such thing as ‘once bitten’ with Keith. Intending to drive the Mainline on the quarter mile track,

‘She’s got some legs mate; I reckon under thirteen seconds for sure!’ 

He surveys my fence before wandering off, picking up on my melancholy, he calls out,

‘No problem mate, you’ll get a new fence out of the insurance’.

 

The following day I arrange for a crew of emergency tree cutters to clear away the fallen palm. Thirty years of love and care chipped into the back of a truck. I’m on the phone to Suncorp on and off, but they seem continually in a period of high demand as automated messages repeat their privacy policy and assure me my business is important. Late in the day I finally speak to someone but am told they can’t deal with property damage as it is a vehicle insurance matter. 

‘Best try again tomorrow …… you will have to arrange fence repairs yourself ……. What city do you reside in? …….. only half the fence you say …….’

 

 

 

 

Scott Avery 2021

Version 21-2 (some names have been changed)