This cove has a car. He isn’t a cobber of mine but he goes round with a bloke I know.
It is Cup Day and I am standing in Sydney Road with a piece when they pass making towards town. I yells out and they pull up. I leaves this piece—she isn’t much—and gets in with ’em. They are on the pirate.
We goes round St Kilda and tries a few but we want three together. We drives along the beach and, near Hampton, sees four beauts.
Sam—that’s this bloke’s name—pulls up and I beckon ’em over. We want three but four’d do. Three of these have class. One is a dead pan.
‘Hop in an’ we’ll take you for a ride,’ Sam says.
‘On the level?’ the biggest girl says.
‘Sure,’ says Sam, indignant. ‘We’re just driving down to Frankston. We want to crack a couple of bottles and have a bit of fun.’
One of the girls looks at me and says, ‘Is that oke, sport?’
Everything’s jake,’ I says.
So they climbs in.
Sam is an engineer and has a shop of his own. He uses the car to cart things round. There are hack-saws and drills and bits of iron on the floor at the back. Ted climbs over with me. Sam grabs the prettiest—she is the big girl—and the other three get in with us. We sit the girl with the flat face between us and nurse the other two.
‘What’s this—a foundry?’ says Ted’s girl, kicking things with her foot.
Ted picks up a hack-saw and says: ‘We use this when we cut up rough.’
We all laugh and the girl I am nursing says to me, ‘I’ll bet he’s a character.’
‘He’s a cobber of mine,’ I says.
‘And what about the other chap?’ she says.
‘He’s all right,’ I says.
‘I don’t like the look of him,’ she says.
Sam drives fast. He tears round corners and we all slide together and the girls squeal and we get fresh.
‘Hey! Quit that!’ says the girl on Ted’s knee.
‘That’s nothing,’ says Ted.
‘Well, quit it just the same,’ says the girl.
‘He’s a character all right,’ says my girl.
‘She’s jake,’ I says. ‘Just a bit of fun.’
The girl sitting between us says: ‘Where’s he going? I’ve got to be back early.’ She hasn’t got a bloke. She is a grape on the business.
‘We’ll run round by Frankston,’ says Sam.
He drives one hand. He has an arm around the girl beside him. She is a big girl about eighteen and leans back in the seat looking round. But she keeps a grip on Sam’s hand beneath her armpit.
We pass people picnicking and the girls wave to them and yell, ‘Oo-oo,’ and when the people look we laugh like hell. When we laugh it makes us sort of closer and we hug ’em while we’re laughing.
We are going well.
Way past Frankston Sam turns up a side road and runs into the scrub.
‘What’s the big idea?’ says Flat Face.
The other girls get quiet like, and look at each other.
‘We’ll go for a walk through the bush,’ says Sam.
‘Like hell we will!’ says the girl in front. ‘We stick to the car.’
‘What’s wrong with a walk?’ Sam says.
‘Plenty,’ says his girl and draws away from him.
Sam pulls up among the trees and says, bossy like, ‘Hop out. We’ll only go a little way.’
‘Hop out yourself,’ says this girl, and the girl on my knee says: ‘What’s he think we are?’
I kiss her and she moves her head about trying to get away. She breaks loose and gasps: ‘Cut that out.’
Sam begins to paw the girl in front and Ted’s girl squeals. Ted says: ‘What’s a squeal or two between friends?’ and the girl on my knee says, ‘He’s a character.’
‘Nice man!’ says the girl between us, sarcastic like. She hasn’t got a bloke and is a grape on the business. She has a flat sort of face.
Sam’s girl starts telling Sam off. ‘You’re with no low-heels here,’ she says. ‘I’m no piano for your hands. Play your dirty music on the steering wheel.’
‘Nice turna words your cobber’s got,’ I says to my girl.
‘Yes. She’s a character,’ she says.
Flat Face says: ‘Nice men, I must say.’
‘Shut your trap, you!’ says Sam, turning to her.
I don’t like it. I says, ‘Break it down, Sam.’
‘He doesn’t know enough to break down his whisky,’ says his girl, looking at him with her nose wrinkled as if he smelt of Scotch.
‘So what!’ says Sam.
‘Work it out yourself,’ says his girl.
‘It’s just too bad we’ve run out of petrol,’ says Sam.
The girls all look at him with their mouths open trying to make out the strength of it.
‘Out of petrol!’ I says. ‘Why, you got four gallons in town.’
‘Funny, that,’ says Sam, lifting his lip at me. ‘She must be eatin’ up the juice. We got none now.’
‘What’s that mean?’ says Flat Face. ‘Do you expect us to walk home?’
‘I expect nothin’ from you lot,’ says Sam and laughs.
‘He’s only jokin,’, I say to my girl.
‘Jokin’, is it?’ says Sam. ‘You dames hop it. Us blokes want to do some quiet drinking.’
The girls all talk at once. The big girl in front tells Sam off and then some. ‘If I had a face like yours I’d go round fightin’ all the bull-dogs about the place. One look at you and the milk curdles. Walk home! I’d love to.’ And she gets out. They all get out. So do I.
‘I’m walking with you,’ I says.
‘Don’t be a mug, Pete,’ says Sam. ‘Hop back.’
‘Go to hell,’ I says.
Ted gets worried. ‘Go easy, Pete.’
‘You go to hell, too,’ I says.
The girls gather round arguing. Flat Face leans on the back guard, listening.
Ted says: ‘You girls ain’t sports. That’s the trouble.’
‘You thought we was easy,’ says the girl that had been sitting on my knee.
‘By hell! I didn’t,’ I says, thinking about her.
‘Let’s be friends,’ says Ted.
Flat Face pokes her head round the side. ‘The only way to be friends with you is to sleep with you,’ she says. She is a grape on the business on account of not having a bloke.
‘Sleep with you!’ snarls Sam. He looks her up and down then laughs.
‘Bugs always shun a clean bed,’ says Flat Face.
‘What are we standing here for?’ says the big girl. ‘Let’s get going.’
‘We’ll get a train from Frankston,’ I says.
‘Don’t be a mug, Pete,’ says Sam.
‘You go to hell!’ I says. ‘Come on, girls.’
‘You’re a character,’ says the girl that had been sitting on my knee.
We sets off through the scrub leaving Ted and Sam knocking over a bottle. Flat Face makes us walk through the scrub. She says she don’t want them to pass us on the road.
We make Frankston in an hour. Are the girls limping! I’ll say! I am a deener light on the fares. I says: ‘I don’t like putting you girls back a bob, but I’m that much light. Pll let you have it back tomorrow if you can raise it now.’
Flat Face supplies it. ‘It’s worth it for the experience,’ she says.
I gets the tickets and the girls sprawl on the carriage seats when the train arrives.
The big girl starts to talk: ‘These blokes with money are all the same,’ she says. ‘They exploit you, see. I know. I’ve read what you call it in books. Wait till we control the means of reproduction,’ she says.
‘We wouldn’t need men then,’ says the girl that Ted had.
‘What!’ says the big girl.
‘Havin’ babies an’ that,’ she says.
‘Babies, nothin’!’ says the big girl. ‘I’m talkin’ about what blokes with money do. That guy thought we were sodas, see. Just because he had a car and we had nothin’.’
I likes this girl. ‘You put it like what things are,’ I says. ‘I feel like going back and hopping into the cow.’
‘That’s what you call “The Spirit of Revolt”,’ says the big girl. ‘It’s a good sign.’
‘I’m full of signs like that,’ I says.
‘It’s too late now,’ says the big girl. ‘We all should have hopped into him.’
‘While youse was all talkin’,’ says Flat Face, ‘I did a spot of revoltin’ myself. I sawed through his back tyre with a hack-saw I got off the floor. The tube came out like a b’lloon.’
Gripes! We gets a surprise. Then we starts to laugh. Laugh! We nearly bust ourselves.
‘It came out like a balloon,’ roars Flat Face.
We rolls about laughin’.
Hell! I enjoyed sleeping with Flat Face that night.