Standing at the corner of the paddock with his back to the Bruchners’, Vic stirs as if suddenly waking from a daydream. He motions to the other two who have now fallen behind again and moves forward down the road, aware that his mind has been elsewhere for the last few minutes or seconds, but he is suddenly not sure where or for how long. At these moments the world around him is a puzzle, a surprise. Like it is when you wake from an afternoon doze in a strange place. Familiar faces become a curiosity. Nothing is quite right or real. The street, the houses, his mind. There is grand mal and there is petit mal. A petit mal can last only a matter of seconds, and perhaps that was all the time he drifted off for, but seconds can be eons when the mind goes elsewhere.
It happens easily enough. It was so cold my fingers were stuck to the handlebars. My bag, slung over my back, kept bumping against my kidneys. The rain had stopped, that bloody awful misty rain that’s not even rain, just cloud. I don’t mind the rain, real rain, at least it’s got a sound. You can hear it, but not that misty stuff, not that morning. I was hunched forward on my bike to keep warm. The light wasn’t good and I didn’t like the sound of that chain. It was creaking like it was going to snap any minute, like it did the week before. And the last thing I needed going down the hill was for that bloody chain to go on me again. So I was looking at it, watching it, daring it to break. And then it happened.
There was no sound. At least I don’t remember one. And I don’t remember leaving the bicycle or leaving the road. But suddenly I had a free view of the sky. It was almost relaxing. Part of me said make the most of it, you don’t get a view like this too often. And I swear I could see the entire length of the street. The lights hazy in the mist, ’cause that bloody rain had started again. The roofs of the houses, like rows of pyramids in the drizzle. And at that moment I could also see the lights go on in somebody’s kitchen and I knew beyond doubt there was a cup of tea on the way. I could see the new scout hall, the road junction, the moving headlights of a few cars out there on the rim of the old river valley as it winds down to the trestle bridge that I’ve crossed time and again with a full load of coal or ballast behind me and, at the same time, I could see the point where the houses stop and the darkness of the paddocks begins. It was all spread out below me as I slowly turned round in the air. And it was almost good, almost good to know that everything was going on without me for the time being. I could even see my bike, back there on the road, and I knew I was about to join it again soon. Then I thought I could see my body back there on the road too, curled up with the bike and it struck me for the first time that I might even be bloody well dead. Well, be buggered with that. I’m not. Not yet. And suddenly I was in a hurry to get back to my bike, and that grey shiny road, and a car, half out of its drive and half in.
The road rose to meet me and the thud as I hit the ground was enough to wake the neighbourhood. I could feel my brain move. It just bounced from one side of my skull to the other and back again. Slapped up against my forehead like mince into a sheet of butcher’s paper. A car door slammed and someone was standing over me asking me how I felt. I didn’t say anything, I was just staring at him. I didn’t know how I felt and I rolled my head to one side and noticed my bike and the contents of my bag sprawled all over the road. Funny, I didn’t remember my bag leaving me. Yet there it was, and there was my tin billy with the stew inside. The lid was still on so I hadn’t lost my lunch. But the sugar jar was broken and my tea was all over the road. My bike was a bit jiggered too. The front wheel was twisted and buckled. The spokes were crooked. The back wheel was still spinning. At least my brain had stopped moving and I wasn’t feeling too bad. I could even collect my thoughts, and the first thing that occurred to me was that if I didn’t stop lying around I was going to be late for work. But when I tried to get up this bloke who was suddenly kneeling over me now said don’t move. Then he ran inside and came out again.
Soon my bike was being dragged off the road and my billy was back in my bag and my bag was back on the footpath. By then I was sitting on the fence looking at what was left of my bike. But I didn’t remember getting there, like I didn’t remember this other bloke turning up. A doctor, I guess, because he kept asking about my bones and my head, and I told him about my brain bouncing around. Apart from that I told him I felt good. Then I asked the time and mentioned that I was due at work, but this doctor told me I wasn’t going anywhere. Then they bundled me into a car with my bag on my lap and the next thing I knew I was sitting up in bloody hospital.
I hadn’t had a day off in years and I couldn’t help feeling I should be at work. They kept me there all morning, watching me and doing all sorts of tests, then they put me in a taxi home. Everybody was waiting for me when I got there. They looked worried and I told them to relax, that I was all right. The next day I was back on the engines like nothing had happened.
Two years later I woke up one morning and my wife, my son, and the local doctor were all standing round my bed looking at me like I’d just come back from the dead and I knew something was wrong. I’d been dribbling in my sleep and I was sweating all over and my jaw was aching like I’d been clenching my teeth all night. The doctor was asking me if I’d had a fall or knocked my head in the last few years. So I told him. He asked me what day it was, who the prime minister was and I couldn’t tell him. Then he asked me my name. Vic. My name’s Vic, I said. And I was going to shoot him the usual line but I knew he wouldn’t laugh so I left it at that.
That’s when he explained what happened. I had no memory of whatever it was, but I knew something happened. He called it a grand mal. I said what’s that? He explained it to me like it happens every day of the week, and it probably does for him, but not for me. Then he left a prescription and told me to cut back on the grog or the tablets were useless.
When everyone was outside I was still sitting up in bed staring out the window. The first thing I decided on was telling nobody at work. If they found out they’d stop me driving. And I’m not bloody well finished driving yet.
Vic is now walking ahead of the other two, about to leave the open paddock behind. He is drawing quickly on one of the cork-tipped cigarettes he keeps for social outings, so that he doesn’t have to roll his own at formal occasions, like he would at work or at the pub.
From the moment he first sat in the drivers’ classes at the VR school, from the first time he sat down with Bagley’s Guide and committed it to memory, page by page, asking himself the questions and chanting the answers in those routine late-night catechisms that preceded his driver’s examination, from that moment on words like ‘responsibility’, ‘mastery’, ‘devotion’, ‘judgement’ and ‘principle’ had been impressed upon him like key terms of a faith, not a profession. But as much as he knows he shouldn’t be driving, he also knows that his dream is now so near he can almost see his name on the Big Wheel roster. Probably only months, possibly weeks away. To stop now, at this crucial moment, would be a betrayal of a lifetime’s driving. He wasn’t bloody well finished with engines. Not yet. Even though all his better judgement tells him he should get out now, he can’t.
As he strolls along the footpath he hears Rita’s voice calling out after him, asking him if he’s all right. She sounds concerned and he turns, stops and tells her he’s all right. Straight away she relaxes and he smiles. He can’t blame her asking, if she feels she has to. But behind the smile he’s a bit shitty about the whole business. The family is always watching now, always keeping an eye on him, asking him if he’s all right. And he’s not shitty with them, not really. He knows they’re only worried for him, looking out for him. But it depresses him all the same, like he’s not quite the full quid any more. Then he stops, looks up the road as he waits for Rita and Michael, thinks of the party waiting for them, and the mood passes.