Chapter 9: Gareth Chancelor, Saturday

I was in the 2nd garage polishing my other car. This one is a 1948 Holden FX that my father restored.

People tell me that the Holden FX was the first true Australian car, even though it was based on a Chevrolet design from the U.S. I gather it’s not as big as the U.S. Chevrolets of that era, but it has a very similar shape. Holdens were built in Australia and the Holden FX and its successors dominated Australian roads for many, many years. If you’re interested, the FX is a mid-sized 4 door sedan with 3 speed column shift transmission and a whopping 132 cubic inch engine. This one is painted cream to match the original colour. Based on its serial number, my father found out that it was built in the Pagewood Factory in Sydney in August 1950. My father named her Mabel.

Restoring cars was my father’s passion rather than mine. I enjoy the work it takes to care for Mabel, more in tribute to my father rather than for itself. I think he restored about 12 different antique cars in his lifetime and then he would sell them and start again. Mabel was his favourite though, so he kept her and would often take us driving in her. Father started teaching me about antique cars before I could walk. My earliest memories are of hanging around in his garage and fetching tools for him while he was working – and of me and my sister Maggie sitting up in the passenger seat of one antique or another as we cruised along in a parade of antique cars on a club outing.

I inherited Mabel when Father passed away soon after Bonnie was born. I built a 2nd garage in the bottom of our yard and moved the old Holden FX into it. The garage opens out onto a laneway that leads out onto a side street. She’s fun to drive, and I make a few extra bucks on the side hiring out to weddings and so forth around the district. I don’t mind putting in the extra work to look after her, but I don’t think I would want to start from scratch with a restoration – that was Father’s thing.

When Jen and I first talked about going to the club to celebrate her birthday, I offered to drive Mabel and Jen was happy about that. While she hasn’t shown any interest in the mechanical side of things, she enjoys the romance of driving around in the big old car with its beautiful curves and leather bench seats and purring motor.

As a result, I spent some of the afternoon checking that everything was working properly then washing and polishing the outside.

I was nearly finished when I started to hear screaming floating down from an open window. It sounded like Estelle in full flight. It wasn’t aimed at me, so it had to be one of the girls. I dropped the cloth I was using in its container and headed back up towards the house, determined to rescue whichever one of my daughters had become a target for Estelle.

I burst into the room to see Jen struggling to hold Bonnie away from Estelle. Bon was waving a cricket bat. She had the clear intention of performing some physical mayhem on Estelle. Bon was screaming, “Stop it! Stop it!” over and over.

Estelle was ignoring the struggle in front of her. She was screaming abuse at Jen – nonsensical meaningless abuse – the sort of abuse that can be incredibly hurtful to a young woman. Then Estelle saw me and redirected her abuse towards me. Fortunately, I have a thick skin.

Jen caught my eye and told me to get Bonnie out of there. She seemed confident that she could handle Estelle if I was looking after Bonnie.

I plucked the cricket bat out of Bonnie’s hand and tossed it into the corner of the room. Then I pulled Bonnie out of Jen’s grasp. Bonnie had her back to me, so I wrapped one arm around the base of her chest and other below her hips. Then I lifted her and carried her out of the room. I couldn’t stop Bonnie from wildly kicking out or from yelling at her mother that she hated her and wanted to kill her and never wanted to see her again and so on.

Once I was out in the hallway Jen slammed the door closed behind me. I left her to it, trusting Jen to somehow calm Estelle down. As I kept walking, I managed to swivel Bonnie around so that she was held against me but facing me. That reduced the bruising to my legs from Bonnie kicking. Almost automatically, her arms curled around my neck and her legs wrapped around my waist. Finally, she stopped yelling back at her mother and she stopped kicking. Her face was over my shoulder, so I couldn’t tell what was going on there, but her body was rigid with anger. She was saying over and over “I hate her! I hate her!”.

I kept walking and carrying Bonnie, down the stairs, through the rec room and out onto the pool deck.

I stopped at the edge of the pool and heaved Bonnie away from me so that she flew out over the pool. I had one glimpse of her outraged face as she glared at me when she realised what I’d done. I think she was opening her mouth to yell at me when she hit the water and disappeared in a wild splash. A moment later, she reappeared, treading water as she coughed and spat water out of her mouth.

In the meantime, I was rapidly stepping out of my greasy overalls. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt underneath, but I didn’t stop to think about those as I jumped in so that I landed close to my daughter. I put my feet down and stood where I was. At that place in the pool, I was able to stand with the water only coming up to my armpits, but Bonnie was out of her depth. Bonnie closed the distance between us and wrapped her legs around my waist. She took a loose hold of my shoulders and hung there in front of me, looking into my eyes. Her wet shirt plastered to her skin and her hair straggled over her face. She was breathing deeply but seemed to be back in control of herself.

I bent my knees and lowered us so that we were both submerged to our neck. That meant I was supporting less weight as well as helping both of us relax. Then I used one hand to move the hair off her face while the other hand hooked behind her back to hold her steady.

Everything was quiet for a moment.

“You threw me in the water,” said Bonnie with a scowl.

I nodded, my expression serious. “Yes, I did.”

“Why’d you do that?” she asked with a bit of a whine in her voice.

“You were a little bit out of control,” I said. “I thought maybe the shock of the water would bring you around.”

She bit her lip and was quiet for a moment.

“Maybe you should’ve thrown her into the water,” Bonnie said eventually. “She was more out of control than I was.”

I looked straight into her eyes – not that that was hard, our faces were less than a foot apart. “Estelle wasn’t trying to hit anybody with a cricket bat.”

“Oh!” she bit her lip again. “I wasn’t going to hurt her or anything. All I wanted was for her to stop saying the stuff she was saying to Jen.”

I nodded and then glanced up at the open window. “I’m not hearing anything now. She seems to have stopped.”

Bonnie scowled up at the open window and said, “Good.” Then she looked back at me.

“I guess I was a bit out of control. I was so angry. It was kind of scary.”

Then she used her grip on my shoulders to pull herself forward. She wrapped her arms around my neck and tucked her face beside mine. “Shh!” I whispered in her ear. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She didn’t say anything. She was squeezing her legs tightly around my waist and with her arms around my neck to the point where I had to adjust her arms a little to ensure that I could breathe properly.

I ran a hand up and down her back. The wet shirt had floated out away from her back, so I was mostly stroking skin, except for the band which was the back of the little vest thing she was wearing under her shirt – I guess it’s a training bra or whatever. I ran my hand all the way up to the base of her neck and then down to the top of her jeans, then up again. I could feel the tension gradually drain out of her. I stopped moving my hand and kept it in the middle of her back, supporting her and holding her close to me.

A moment later she loosened her hold around my neck and leaned back so that we were face to face again.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be bad.”

“I know that, sweetie,” I said and kissed her nose.

“I shouldn’t have tried to hit Mum with the bat,” she said. “That was bad.”

I nodded.

“And I shouldn’t have shouted at Mum like that,” she added. “That was bad too.”

I nodded again.

She gave a sorrowful sigh. “I guess you’re going to smack my bare bottom again.”

I looked at her for a moment. Her sad little face was breaking my heart.

“I’m not going to smack you today,” I said. “I never liked smacking you. I need to think of something different as a punishment.”

“Oh!” she said and looked down.

Then she looked up again. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m thinking.”

And I really was thinking. Nothing was coming to mind.

“What punishment do you think I should give you?” I asked the question more to buy time than in the hope of getting a suitable answer.

She thought for a moment and then tears started running down her face. “Maybe I shouldn’t get to go to the club tonight,” she said through her tears. “That would be a punishment.”

I actually thought about that but then I shook my head. “Tonight is supposed to be a celebration for Jen,” I said. “She wanted all her family there with her. Jen doesn’t deserve to be punished by missing out on having you there.”

“Oh!” said Bonny and the tears stopped.

Then I smiled at her. “This is going to be your punishment,” I said. “You’re going to spend the afternoon helping me detail the inside of Mabel.”

She looked puzzled. “But I like doing that with you. How’s that a punishment?”

I nodded. “And while we do that, you and I are going to have a long, long talk about the way you behave around Mum, and what you need to do differently.”

“Oh,” she said. “You mean we have to have one of those talks?”

I nodded. “Yes. And then you and Jen and Estelle are going to help each other get ready for tonight like you always do and then you’re going to go to the club with us tonight and enjoy yourself. And all the time, you’re going to be nice and polite and friendly towards Estelle, no matter how she behaves or what she says. Do you think you can do that?”

Bon looked unhappy. “That might be hard to do. I promise I’ll try really hard.”

I kissed her on the nose again. “Good girl.”

She tilted her head forward and planted a delicate kiss on my lips.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, honey,” I replied. “We should probably get out of the water, but first...”

She must have seen the gleam in my eyes or something because she glared at me sternly and said, “No. Don’t you dare. Don’t do it. Nooooo...”

Then I tilted forward and dropped my weight so that we both plunged under the water with her underneath me.

I opened my eyes under water and looked down at her. Her cheeks were puffed out with a hastily grabbed mouthful of air and her hair was lazily spreading out in all directions. She saw me looking down at her and frowned at me then wriggled a bit as if wanting to put up a pretence of struggling without actually trying too hard.

I straightened us up so that our heads poked up out of the water with her still clinging to me.

Once she had taken a breath she tried to glare at me, but the effect was spoiled by the way her mouth kept trying to twitch into a grin.

“You’re such a meanie,” she said. “I’m so going to get you for that.”

I grinned at her and she said, “No. Don’t. No.”

Her words were saying no but her eyes were dancing in delight, so I went for it again.

We started to move and she took a deep breath, but at the last minute I changed my action and flung myself up into the air then fell backwards into the water. With her legs wrapped so tightly around my waist, she rode me like a cowboy at a rodeo as we sank underneath the surface amidst a fantastic splash. She’d let all that air out in a squeal as we flew so she had to take another quick breath before we hit the water.

I got us back to the surface and called out, “Big breath.” We both took a deep breath and I held her to my chest as we sank to the bottom. Then I lazily pulled us through the water towards the end of the pool. I wasn’t exactly streamlined with the extra encumbrance clinging to my chest, but we made steady progress and we reached the end of the pool well before either of us ran out of breath.

I stood up and started walking up the steps with one arm wrapped around her back and the other looped under her backside to support her weight as we came out of the water. Bonnie still clung to me like a limpet as I walked us over to the outdoor shower attached to the side of the second garage.

Bonnie was giggling as I stepped under the shower and started rinsing in the clean water.

“We need to get out of our wet clothes,” I said. “We can’t rinse them out properly while they’re on us.”

“Not out here, Daddy,” said Bonnie. “That would be embarrassing.”

I looked at her. “Nobody can see. The privacy fence screens us pretty well.”

She looked up. “But what if a plane flies over or something? And you’re here – and Jen and Mum could come out that door any minute. I don’t like undressing where people can see me.”

I was tempted to launch into the whole ‘I’ve changed your nappies,’ speech but then I thought better of it and simply nodded. My little girl was growing up and she deserved to be able to make those choices for herself.

“Okay then sweetie,” I said. “Let’s dry off a bit and go inside and change.”

At that moment, Jen opened the door from the rec room and called out that she and Estelle were going out for a drive. I told her to take care and she closed the door and was gone.