Next morning I don’t go running, as that might be pushing the coincidence thing a bit far. So I head off to the car yard, seeing the lady who plays in the brass band, although all she’s doing is dislodging snails from her letterbox with a stick, which tells me not a lot.
I’m the first to arrive at GateWay, so I hang around the front until Belinda turns up and parks illegally. In the backseat I see a little blonde kid.
‘That’s Casey.’ Belinda gets out and we unlock the gates. ‘She’s got a Correction Day, so she’s come to help.’ She introduces us through an open window. ‘Marc goes to school, too, Case. But this week he’s helping us here. Just like you are.’
Casey appears to be counting her fingers. I would’ve thought she’d have that sussed by now.
‘So, a day off?’ I say, having no idea at all how to talk to children, as I don’t know what they think, or if they think at all. ‘Hey, that’s good.’
She stares at me, her face small and triangular, with a fringe cut as straight as the top of a cereal box. She is holding a squashy-looking cloth zebra.
‘Mummy says I gotta do a card for Vinnie.’ Casey drops the zebra and picks up a bundle of pens. ‘With cows and cars on it because that’s what he likes. I’ll need paper. I haven’t got any.’
Now that’s one thing I do know about children. They’re maniacs for paper. And they only ever use one side, the freaks.
‘Great,’ I say. ‘I bet you’re a good drawer.’
‘I could be,’ she says. ‘I might be.’
Belinda gets back in the car and Casey winds up her window, looking like a small, bored member of the Royal Family. And she doesn’t even wave.
Mikey and I clean cars, kept company by our buckets and hoses. People pass by, making sure not to look at us, as if they think we might drag them in off the footpath and make them sign something.
‘She’s a funny kid, that Casey,’ I say. ‘She sounds like something off a cartoon.’
Mikey gives a Falcon a quick blast with the hose.
‘Yeah, Daisy Duck. Can’t be easy for Belinda. Keeping a kid happy and fed and full of vitamins.’
I reckon. I can’t imagine me having a kid; not that I’m in any great danger, as I believe to have one you actually have to have sex, and a partner to have sex with. So this’ll be pretty much a hypothetical conversation, although I do know a lot about not having a partner, and not having sex. Man, I could talk about that for hours.
‘Yeah. It’d be tough as.’
‘Families.’ Mikey slaps his sponge on a windscreen. ‘They can drive you mad. But yours must be okay, Marc. You turn up everyday with a smile on ya dial, ready to rock.’
Do I? Geez, I don’t know if I like the sound of that; it makes me sound a bit simple.
‘They’re all right,’ I say, although the only other family I can really compare mine to is Trav’s. ‘You know, the old man works. My mum arranges sticks. My little sister’s a psycho. Two cars and a garden. Standard.’
‘Sounds nice.’ Mikey gets to work with his chamois. ‘Yeah, my mob are pretty normal, too. In their own special way. Which leaves me to think that I might be the odd one out. As in, the problem.’
Sometimes I just get these massive blocks of feeling that arrive like two hundred rolls of instant turf accidentally dumped in your driveway. And they cannot be ignored.
‘You’re not the problem, Mikey,’ I say. ‘You’re fine. You’re a good guy. It’s just that, well, I s’pose being gay’s the problem. With them, I mean. Not you. Hey, you know. Respect. You know what I mean.’ I doubt he would after that, because I don’t think I do. Not entirely. ‘You’re cool as.’
Mikey steps back. I can see myself reflected in his sunglasses. I look like an ostrich.
‘Yeah, I hear you, Marc.’ He scrubs at a dried insect stuck on the front of the Falcon. ‘But the problem is that the problem for them will never go away. Me being gay, that is. So there’s no going back.’
‘Do you mean you can’t ever go back there ever?’ I ask. ‘Or that there’s just no going back ever with some things in general ever?’ I look to see what Mikey makes of that question, because it’s baffled me a bit.
‘It means I can’t change. They won’t change. So there’s no going back in any way what-so-ever, ever.’
I don’t like the sound of that last ever. I mean, if Mikey’s brother, Brad, was prepared to put people in hospital for him, he doesn’t sound like the sort of guy without any feelings. And people can change; look at Gretchen. One day she’s normal, next day weather stations all over the world are queuing up to name storms after her. I believe one was called Hurricane High Maintenance Stupid Selfish Princess Problem Child Gretchen.
‘I guess you could just ring them up sometimes,’ I say carefully. ‘You know, for a chat.’ I realise that giving personal advice is probably not in my Work Experience job description. And it’s probably not as if Mikey wouldn’t have thought of this before. ‘You know, to see how your dog is. Chopper.’
‘Marc – ’ Mikey, deliberately, perhaps even a bit menacingly, folds a polishing cloth and puts it on the car bonnet. ‘Chop’s a smart dog. But even he can’t answer the fucking phone.’ Then he turns his back on me.
‘Well, you could try texting,’ I say. ‘It’s cheaper, too.’
That, at least, makes him laugh.
But he doesn’t turn around.