Driving to England

Driving to England

We throw what we can into the car and leave Melbourne. Why we are
leaving is not important now. Denying our criminal past makes it feel
like we're cowboys from an old west story, moving on to the next town.
We mount our horse and drive into the darkness of early morning. And
strangely enough we say nothing. We don't talk about why we're going
off into the sunrise. We don't talk about where we're going. We just
drive.

Slowly, the sun crawls high enough for us to see the dry, yellow grass
of the paddocks that line the sides of the freeway. The road glistens
with morning dew. Cows and sheep stare at us, their big, brown eyes
from behind the fence envious of our freedom. I wind down the window
and move my hand up and down with the wind. I moo at the cows and baa
at the sheep. They just stare from behind the fence.

The town we've stopped in is still. A lone, silver Kenworth moves down
the main street, past the closed shops, reflecting off the windows.
Only us and a few truck drivers who have stopped at the same roadhouse
are awake.
'So where are we going?' Rich says, holding a Styrofoam coffee cup in
one hand and a cigarette in the other. He smokes comfortably, like the
movie stars do it, blowing out thick swirls of white grey smoke. I
think he only smokes to have this cool look. Sitting on the front of
the car, I look down the road ahead.
'I don't know, man,' I say.
A truckie eyes us suspiciously on his way towards the diner. Rich
blows out smoke in his direction. The truckie laughs, walks into the
diner and takes his seat at the counter.
'Let's go.' Rich drops his cigarette on the concrete, smoke still
flowing from it.

It's 8:24 am, and we're still drifting through acres of paddocks. The
hum of the tyres on the road is slowly lulling me to sleep. Rich sings
quietly to himself, a You Am I song. Heavy Heart. He squints as he
looks ahead, watching the distance get closer. She cheated on him. His
ex. He walked in on it two days ago. And he's too proud to cry, too
tough to talk about it. He just sings to himself. But it's killing him.
And even with our little revenge, his final 'screw you' message to her,
he's not feeling any better.

My eyes close, I try to force them to stay open, but I give in. Rich
stops singing just as I fall, and I force myself awake to see what he's
doing. He's staring intently into the rear view mirror. I check my
mirror, and see the red and blue lights on top of the white car behind
us.
'Cops. It's cool, we're not doing anything wrong,' Rich reassures me.
The police drive along on our tail for what feels like forever, then
they pass us, breaking the speed limit as they go. Rich lights a
cigarette and starts singing again. I fall back into my dream.

We stop for petrol in another small town. The land is flat as far as I
can see, with rocks littered through the dry grass. I go into the
service station to get a Coke.
'How are ya' mate?' The service station worker asks, taking the Coke
from my hand and scans the barcode. He hasn't shaved for a while, and
he wears a green cap to cover up his scruffy hair.
'Yeah, mate, not bad' I answer, searching through my wallet for the a
loose five cent coin to give him exact change.
'Where you two goin'?' The worker continues.
'We?' I don't know what to tell him.
'Well you must be off to somewhere, no one comes here.' He speaks just
slowly enough to drag out every vowel sound.
'I, um?'
'There's nothin' 'ere, mate. Nothin' happens in this shit 'ole.'
I look at the worker, only a young guy. There's an open newspaper and a
half eaten donut on the counter. Hi, I'm Brad, How Can I Help You? His
nametag cheerily states. The statement seems a far cry from Brad
himself. Brad looks so disappointed, and behind him I can see through
the window, acres of nothingness into distance.
'Um, and the petrol on number two,' I say.
'The little red beast. Forty two bucks fifty, mate,' Brad says, holding
his hand out to me.
'Yep, the only thing we're known for out 'ere is our suicide rate. Kids
got nothin' better to do' Brad drops my change into my hand, conveying
this information so comfortably.
'Thanks'
'Hope I don't see ya' again.' Brad waves happily as he watches me walk
out.
Rich is smoking in the car when I get in, the no smoking sign on the
petrol pump framed right next to his head. He shakes his now empty
cigarette packet.
'Do you reckon we could rob a servo?' Rich asks.
Brad is reading his paper again.
'I reckon it'd be easy as in a small town like this, no one around,'
Rich continues.
For a moment, I think it might be good for Brad to rob his station,
just to give him something to talk about, something different.
Something to do. 'You wanna' do it?' Rich looks surprised at my
question. I'm not sure how serious I am. Rich has a look in his eye.
Without a word, he gets out of the car and walks towards Brad's store.
And I follow.

'We must be near the border, yeah?' Rich asks.
'I don't know, didn't bring a map.'
'Well, you've looked at the road signs haven't you?' He quickly snaps
back at me.
'Yeah, but so have you.'
'Yeah, I have.' Rich rips the plastic off a new packet of cigarettes
and takes one out. 'And I know where we are, but I was wondering if you
know, are we near the border?'
'So what if we are? We don't even know where we're going' I defend.
Rich is struggling with his lighter. I take it and light the cigarette
for him. He takes a long drag and breathes it out slowly.
'Where do you wanna' go?' he asks, impatiently. I try to imagine where
we could be going. I remember looking through holiday booklets as a
kid. I remember booking holidays that I knew I could never afford only
last year, to have something to pretend to look forward to. Even false
hope is hope.
'I want to go to England,' I say.
Silence. The hum of the road.
Rich blows a mass of smoke into the dashboard.
'I want to go to Egypt,' he says.
'I want to go to Japan,' I say, smiling.
'I want to go to America.' Rich laughs.
'Hey, we better decide on somewhere, we can't go everywhere.'
Tourist brochures. Green fields. Castles. Forests. People. People who
don't know me. All pictures in my mind, flashing by.
'Let's go to England,' Rich declares.
And the trip is booked. I throw Brad's plastic nametag out of my window
and watch it bounce along the road.

Rich toots the horn, yelling out the window excitedly. We've come into
a city. There's people everywhere, shops, cars, people flashing by.
It's 2:30pm now. We're still excited about England. I'm thinking of old
British comedy shows. Of Robin Hood, Sherwood Forest. Of English
accents everywhere. Rich says nothing, but smiles. He hasn't smiled for
a while. I guess it is hard for him to smile, considering what she did
to him. Considering what he did to her. Considering when she wakes up
she's not going to find her car where she left it, her red car that she
loves so much. And Rich is smiling, but he's trying to hide it. And the
city is flashing by us still. We're cruising through crowded streets
and busy shopping strips with neon lights in the windows. And we can
see water. The sea. Out onto the horizon. Flowing gently, the sun
reflecting off each blue ripple.
'Thanks fellas' Brad says from the back seat, looking out at the water,
the sea breeze blowing his hair.

'Thanks heaps for this.'

We've stopped for petrol again. Brad and I are kicking a soccer ball we
brought from the local toy store on a vacant block of land by the
petrol station. Rich comes over after filling the car, looking cool
again, cigarette and blue jacket. He stands watching us, looking like
kids with a new toy, no idea what we're doing, but trying to be as
British as possible.
'You playin' man?' I yell across at Rich.
'And look as bad as you two?' He asks back, shaking his head and
blowing out smoke.
'Yes,' I say back. 'Yes, come look as stupid as we do. Who cares?' Rich
stares for a moment, then smiles, dropping his jacket and cigarette on
the grass. And we play. Each of us trying to do what we think we're
supposed to. Each of us falling down, slipping over, missing the ball
and laughing at each others mistakes. School kids come past and laugh
and point with us. A young guy with missing teeth points and yells
abuse. A few of them join in and make goal posts out of rubbish bins
and sticks. Young girls in their school dresses laugh as they see Rich
stand on the round ball and fall onto his back. Rich bows to the crowd.
There's a line of blue school bags along the makeshift boundary. Brad
somehow manages to kick a goal and he yells loud. His young, blue
school uniformed teammates running up to pat him on the back and hug
him. Brad smiles, surrounded by people. And after we shake hands and
say goodbye to the last of our new friends we take a last look at our
soccer field, and walk away. We leave her red car behind. The car that
Rich used to own, before giving it to her. Rich looks back at it, one
last time.
'She loved that car, hey?' Rich looks satisfied. He laughs with his
mouth closed, pushing air and noise out his nose. We walk along the
road, kicking the ball as we go.

The three of us sit on a pier, eating chips, throwing the odd one out
to the seagulls. I can hear the soft clicking of the sand crabs below
our feet. I look out across the water, into the distance. Brad is still
holding onto the soccer ball, leaning on it as he eats. I look up at
Rich.

'We can't really go to England, you know?'

'Who cares?' He says.