Man hug

A story

Red dust hits my eyes just as the phone rings in my pocket. I ignore it - there’s no one I want to talk to. My arms are full of fallen tree ferns. I cram the dead fronds into the Mazda's open boot; they disintegrate, throwing up choking dust. I’ve already made two tip runs, with full loads of spiky bougainvillea and hedge clippings. This should be the last.

It’s cool and overcast in the northern beaches, not yet raining. I’m in work gear. Retirement, a sort of work. Torn jeans and a paint-splotched T-shirt, chewed collar. Retired hiking boots, ripped at the toes and gaffer-taped. A real man.

The shed door is open. Always that rusty petrol tin. I give it a shake. When did I last use this? The kids were little: maybe mowing the grass at the big house. Does petrol go off, lose its firepower?

I wedge the can in, hard up to the driver’s seat.

Those two paintings, they never got hung, not even when the kids were here. They’re Gemma’s from primary; Year Four perhaps?

One is a red and yellow circus tent with an elephant, ears flapping. The other is a pink hibiscus, like a stamp from a tropical island: it was her fairies and flowers period. I like seeing them every time I open the shed door, but the cheap boards have curled in the heat. After a long look I toss them on the passenger seat.

Reversing, I can’t see out. I use the side mirrors to look backwards but it’s not easy.

My phone rings again, I dig it out. ‘Hello?’ ‘Make sure you call your daughter.’ ‘I was just thinking about her,’ I say, as I buckle in. Is she starting a new job, I can’t remember. I feel a twinge of guilt: weeks pass with just a text message.

The road to Kimbriki is high and straight, almost a country drive. There’s a speed cop who operates there. I’m alright, I know where he sits. The entry to the tip is on a dual carriageway. It’s dangerous. Too often, you see flowers stacked against that telegraph pole. Someone should do something.

Kimbriki is a one-time quarry. Down and down, it’s steep, you have to sit on the brakes. It’s hard to hold at twenty on this slope, you always trigger the warning sign. ‘Too fast.’ The brakes are metal on metal, need a service.

At the bottom there’s a massive sign. ‘No Asbestos, No Medicine, No Car Bodies’. And there it is, yes, ‘No Petrol’. Next, a sentry box where an elevated watchman looks down into your car.

I follow the arrows to Garden Waste, Drop Point 2. The place is expansive. To the right is a sheer mountain of broken concrete. And there, a Mad Max of twisted metal and car parts.

You hear a steady drone here, there are excavators, trucks, blokes in high-vis jackets.

You know when you’re there: there’s a scrunch of tyres on wet gravel, the intense smell of rotting green stuff.

The man on duty is older than I expect. He has cropped silver hair and a weathered face. He’s talking to the car in front, gesturing across the open space. I can see the issue - ruts and puddles from the bulldozer.

My elbow is on the car window sill and I pre-empt his question. ‘Garden clean-up,’ I say.

His face is wind burned and lined. It’s an outdoors face, but he’s not a farmer, not a tradesman. I can’t quite place him. He doesn’t answer but steps forward.

He puts a hand on the roof of my car and leans in. ‘Mazda, is it?’ That’s unexpected. His face seems too close, like when you’re in the front row at the movies. His eyes are clear and blue.

‘It is,’ I say. ‘CX 7. Twelve years old.’

‘Had any trouble?’ he asks. ‘It’s only done a hundred thousand. I use it for this, for the dog. I’m not really a car guy.’

He shows no sign of pulling away, so I add, ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I bought my daughter a Mazda when she turned eighteen,’ he says. ‘She learned in my old Ford.’ He’s still in close up. ‘You want them to be independent, don’t you.’

We’ve been through it, the L’s, the P’s, the car keys gone from the hook.

‘It’s a pain isn’t it, the hundred and twenty hours,’ I say. I could sense Gemma’s paintings on the seat next to me.

The pause isn’t too long. ‘She went and had a prang,’ he says. ‘Straight up, first day. Slippery road, mind, not her fault.’

Again, unexpected. Now it was more than a pause.

I turn off the engine. ‘In the new car?’ I ask.

He drums his fingers on the car roof. ‘The B pillar collapsed and she got a head injury. That’s why I asked about yours.

‘The B pillar?’

Now he taps a fingernail just above my ear, swivels his head in the window frame. I can see each crease in his face. ‘This. Where the seat belt bolts on.’ He’s matter of fact.

‘That’s terrible. My daughter did something similar,’ I say. He steps back. ‘Oh yes?’

‘She’s a rower. Very early, five in the morning; half asleep, empty roads. We took turns doing the Learner trips. She pulled out in front of a lorry: middle lane.’

‘Jesus,’ said the man; a grimace.

I hurry to add, ‘She’s OK. Bit of a miracle in a way, anything could have happened.’

A car horn sounded behind me. In the side mirror I could see a black Range Rover. It looked fully loaded. I turned the car key and my new friend stepped back.

‘They’re all the same aren’t they?’ he said.

The girls, or the fancy cars, I’m not sure what he meant.

He pointed across the expanse of gravel and mud, to the right. ‘Thanks for the chat,’ he said. Over at the mounds of green waste, a shredder was drumming away, very loud. I retrieved my work gloves and started pulling stuff out.

The Range Rover has followed me. In the car two two little girls are head down in their phones. The dad is tip-toeing on the wet ground, tossing one small plant at a time onto the heap.

‘Hey.’ It’s the shredder man. ‘No pots, mate. No plastic.’

A yellow excavator rumbles nearer. It’s so familiar, there was a children’s book. A drizzle starts. I stand up to enjoy the first drops and remember the name. ‘Snort’, Gemma calls them, those front bucket machines. I climb back into the car, but something is bothering me. Something’s missing.

On the seat next to me I see the circus tent and elephant. I look up, scan the drop zone puddles, and the penny drops.

My eyes close - a slow blink.

I turn the car round, head past the Exit sign, and circle back to my silver haired friend. He’s standing in the full rain now, is putting his jacket collar up.

‘Sorry. Me again,’ I say.

‘You’re back.’

Again, I switch off the engine. ‘I realised, I didn’t ask. How is your daughter? How is she after the crash?’

He looks straight at me. There is a pause.

‘Sixteen days,’ he says.

I stare back at him, because I already know.

‘She didn’t make it. In a coma sixteen days, then we had to turn off the machines.’

I stop breathing for a few seconds.

‘Yep,’ he says, ‘we had to turn her off.’

Nothing. I open the car door to get out.

‘It’s twelve years now,’ he says.

I’m not demonstrative, not generally. I can deny tragedy, avoid responsibility, up with the best. But now in this wet and miserable landfill, we hug. His arms are around me. It’s not an embarrassed double-tap man hug: it’s a full embrace. There’s rain running down my neck now. I’m not sure who’s hugging whom.

Then he told me how he had separated from his wife two years later. How he took the job at the tip to get his mind off things. How he had been a fireman, the full thirty years.

Fireman, I thought. Of course.

Now he’s thinking of moving, his brother’s on a farm. ‘He struggles a bit,’ he said. ‘I’ll be able to help. There’s a little house there for me,’

We were getting wet. Two cars were pulling up, and he stepped back, gave me a nod. I put my hand on the door.

‘Maybe I’ll see you again,’ I said.

Are we allowed to make new friends like this? Sad full moments; people we won’t see again. Aren’t we too busy? We’ve got houses to renovate, phone calls to make.

He tightened his collar over his chin. ‘Zone Two. I’ll be here for a while.’

The climb up and out of Kimbriki is a grinding climb, and you have to be careful in the wet. There’s a scary drop where the polystyrene bin used to be. Everything was a bit blurry: maybe drizzle on my glasses.

At the top, the traffic is too fast. I can’t do the right turn at the main road. I turn left instead and drive slowly to the lights, I’ll do the loop at the shops.

Back towards home, the speed trap is gone. But my head and hands are shadow boxing, and I pull over. I twist the hibiscus painting towards me, and sit with my hand on it. I’ve got dust in my eyes, maybe, or it’s the petrol fumes. I pick up my phone and hold it in my lap, blow out a breath.

The weather is lifting. The road from Kimbriki is high and straight, and, an evening like this, the sun will take longer to set.