Jimmy’s car approaches the top of the hill, the name of which has always amused him. Pretty Sally. He changes gears and the car lurches forward. And as he leaves the thick darkness of the river valley behind him, as he finally reaches the top of the hill, he slows the Austin Wolseley briefly. For there, spread out beneath him, washed up onto the wide coastal plain below, are the foaming lights of the city. And the nearest of those lights, some thirty minutes away, is the suburb to which he is travelling.
He’s been selling hi-fi’s door to door in the country through the week, now his week is finished and he’s driving back to the city. He knows the highway will take him on to Patsy Bedser’s suburb. He has been thinking about nothing else all day.
The Wolseley noses over the hill and rolls down the long, winding slope that leads onto the plain. The car is simply rolling like a large ball. Jimmy’s foot is on the brake, slowing the car at the curves then easing off the pedal when the road straightens out. It is a long, gradual descent and the car feels for a moment like it is falling out of the sky. There is a cigarette in Jimmy’s mouth and from time to time he flicks the ash out the open window without taking his eyes off the road. The radio is loud.
It is a clear night, no cloud, no rain, as there nearly always is on this hill. But it is getting dark and Jimmy occasionally squints into the glare of oncoming headlights. At times he catches his reflection in the suddenly illuminated rear-vision mirror. His hair is long. Brushed back. He takes pride in being a teddy boy. And when a voice quietly insists that he not take the turn-off to Patsy’s Bedser’s for there is no place for him at the party, he ignores it, singing to the songs that come on the radio, occasionally thumping the dashboard as if it were a drum. On the seat beside him he has a small stack of the latest forty-fives. They come with the job. Jimmy is driving with one hand on the wheel.
The lights from the houses gradually become more numerous, less scattered. Jimmy is on the coastal plain now and the lights of the city are only noticeable for the glow they create in the sky. He is approaching that hazy boundary where the darkness of the country merges with the illuminated city night. Jimmy is tired. He stares at the road in silence as it follows a small creek then turns left up the last of the hills before reaching the edges of the city.
As the Wolseley crosses the railway lines, the red, asphalt pathway that leads up to the station, the rail siding, and the flour mills on his left, Jimmy slows the car and studies the intersection in front of him.
He turns right and as he slowly drives along the old wheat road he notices that the television repairman’s shop window, usually aglow with the blue light of his television display, is boarded up with cardboard and wood. He passes the war memorial at the front of the RSL where a large bunch of fresh flowers lies resting at the base of it. There are, he reflects, always fresh flowers at its base. At least, whenever he has passed it.
The black Wolseley glides slowly past the old, double-storey Victorian terraces that house the greengrocer and the butcher. On the opposite side of the street, to his left, is the weatherboard Presbyterian church. At the dirt intersection before him he will turn left, then right at the playing field of the school.
Above him the comet moves slowly across the suburb, while the Wolseley quietly advances, and while Jimmy inspects the tall pines that line the northern border of the school as they sway in the moonlight.
The Wolseley is now parked in the shadows at the corner of the street. The engine has not been long idle and is still warm from the journey. The radio is turned low. Jimmy is sitting in the dark, behind the wheel, smoking and watching the house at the bottom of the street. All its rooms are illuminated and coloured party lights, red, green and yellow, are hanging from the guttering at the front of the house. The porch is lit-up, the windows have been opened, and music from the hi-fi that he sold to Patsy Bedser last autumn is audible, even from the corner of the street where Jimmy sits inside the black Wolseley.
From time to time guests at the party escape the house onto the front lawn. They stand, smoking, talking quietly and hoping to catch some of the cool evening breeze that is drifting in from the schoolyard, through the pines, and over the yards and houses of the street.
Jimmy is looking up the dirt road before him, watching the comings and goings of the party, sure that in the darkness of the street corner he is hidden from view.
Two women are standing near the front gate. One has red hair and is wearing a floral evening dress with a single bold strap across the right shoulder. It is not the type of dress he expects to see in this kind of street. The other woman appears to have longer hair and wears a dark dress that merges with the shadowy light. She looks impatient in her manner with the other woman, but it is difficult to be sure. In another corner of the yard, three men are gathered in a small circle, the tips of their cigarettes aglow. They are staring down at the dried lawn at their feet, nodding occasionally, not saying much.
The remainder of the party is inside the house, talking, listening to the music or dancing to the songs. All of them, the street that has been invited, the father whom he has never met, Patsy Bedser’s fiancé, and Patsy Bedser herself. All of them, no more than a minute’s walk from where he is. But Jimmy makes no move to approach the house. He stays behind the wheel of the car, observing the guests who come and go as they step from the porch, seeking the cool outside air, before rejoining the festivities.
All the time, the Wolseley sits quietly in the shadows at the corner of the street.