Vic nodded, took a sip and gave me a smile that seemed sad.
‘How long were you married for?’
‘Thirty-seven years.’
‘How many kids did you have?’
‘None.’
‘How come?’
Vic just poured himself another cup of brandy and stayed quiet. He drank the whole cup before he spoke again.
‘She died six years ago. When you’re a young bloke, you think about your life in terms of possibilities. The job you’ll have, the man you’ll be, places you’ll go. But when you get older, the way you think changes. You think about the stuff you’ve done, how you’ve done it, where you’ve gone. But the most important thing is who you’ve shared it with.’
Vic poured himself another drink, then he started talking again.
‘She was my best mate. And when she died, I died too. My life went with hers, because it was our life that mattered, not my own.’
My throat got really thick and fat, and I couldn’t swallow. I sniffed and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.
‘I promised myself that I’d stick around to look after the dog, because she spoiled that thing more than she spoiled me, same with all her dogs. Didn’t realise the little bastard would make it to seventeen. Arthritis, blind as a bat, pissed everywhere, bad-tempered, stubborn as a donkey. But not a bad little mate in the end. You get used to things being around, I suppose.’
Vic’s voice was really shaky. He shook his head quickly and blinked a few times and puffed out his cheeks.
‘Anyway …’ He shrugged. ‘Now the dog’s dead.’
I didn’t know what to say. We sat there without talking for over an hour. We were alone with our own thoughts, the same as a couple of nights ago on the overpass. We still had all the same problems, but I felt safe sitting there with Vic, and I didn’t want to die right then. I didn’t want Vic to die either.
‘I hope you don’t think I meant this to be your actual last meal,’ I said.
Vic smiled and shook his head. He looked really tired. Half the bottle of brandy was gone.
‘Vic?’
‘Yes mate?’
‘Is it alright if I stay the night here again?’
Vic looked me in the eye.
‘You can live here as long as you like. But you can’t die here. Understood?’
I nodded.
I got up and cleaned the dishes and put everything away in the empty fridge. When I was finished, I saw that Vic was asleep at the table. I felt bad for keeping him up. I shook his shoulder and startled him.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I thought you would be more comfortable in bed.’
He got up slowly, using the table for balance. He nodded.
‘You’re a good kid. Thanks for dinner.’
He slowly shuffled towards the spare room with the small bed and the stack of clothes.
‘I can sleep in there,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to give up your room.’
‘No, no. This is where I sleep. Night mate.’
‘Goodnight, Vic.’
The Black Shadow
It was late when I finally slept. I had the same nightmare that I always did. I was stuck on a train going in the wrong direction and I was trying to stop it. I hit the emergency buttons and ran down the carriages, but nobody paid any attention to me. I tried to force the doors open but they wouldn’t move, and the train kept going faster and faster, and got further away.
I woke up when I heard a noise. I opened my eyes and it was dark and I was sweating. I heard the noise again, and I recognised it. Vic was vomiting in the bathroom. I got up and walked quietly down the hall. When it was my mum, I always knew what to do. I would hold her hair back and get her some water and help her to bed. But this was different. The toilet door was closed and I could hear Vic heaving and groaning. I hoped it wasn’t my cooking that made him sick. I sat by the door and waited, and when the toilet flushed I crept back to bed.
In the morning I found Vic in his garage. It smelled like oil and it was full of tools and engine parts that Vic was sorting into boxes. His hands were black with grease.
‘Did I make you sick?’
Vic flinched because I startled him.
‘Eh?’
‘I heard you throwing up last night.’
‘Oh. No, no. Bit too much brandy, I reckon.’
I stepped into the garage.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Packing this stuff up. Otherwise someone’ll just run through here and toss it all out. Might get some use this way.’
I walked up to a big object that was covered by a white sheet.
‘What’s under here?’
Vic stopped what he was doing and wiped his hands on a rag. He came over and removed the sheet. Underneath was a motorcycle. It was shiny and black with a silver engine.
‘This is a 1953 Vincent Black Shadow,’ he said. ‘It was my old man’s.’
Vic went over to a shelf and kneeled down to open an old toolbox. He pulled out a small black-and-white photo and showed it to me. A man and a boy were standing on either side of the motorbike.
‘Is that you?’
Vic nodded.
‘Taken the day he first rode it home.’
Vic’s dad looked a lot like him. He had a handkerchief tied around his neck and his jacket had patches on the elbows. Both of them were squinting, and neither of them were smiling.
‘Your dad doesn’t look very happy.’
Vic laughed.
‘That’s because the old girl had just slammed the front door off its hinges. He knew how much shit he was in.’
‘How come?’
‘He’d gone out that morning to buy an automatic washing machine, and that’s what he came back with.’
‘Oh.’
Vic smiled and shook his head.
‘She saved the whole year for that washing machine. She gave him the money in an envelope and made me go with him so he couldn’t take a detour to the pub. Soon as we’re out the door, he tells me we’re going to the races at Ascot. He knew a groom who gave him the inside word on a three-year-old colt by the name of … what was it? Raconteur. That’s right. He put every pound in that envelope on the nose and made me promise not to tell. It was the boldest thing I had ever seen. I was shaking as they went into the barriers. He picked me up and put me on his shoulders so I could see. We bellowed it home. Came in with daylight in between. He let me hold the collect. I’d never seen so much money. We could barely fit it in the envelope. And within the hour it was all gone. Spent it all on this motorcycle right here.’
‘I can see why your mum was so angry.’
‘Angry doesn’t even touch the sides. She never washed his clothes again.’
‘Good for her.’
Vic rubbed the motorcycle with the rag. He was really gentle with it.
‘Made no difference to him. He loved this bike more than any of us. He’d take me out sometimes and open it up along the coast. Hundred mile an hour on a limestone track.’
‘Were you scared?’
‘Out of my skin. You’d never meet a man more accident prone than my father. He’d had more broken bones than a squashed snake, but he never got so much as a scratch on the Black Shadow. He was a different man when he rode it. I’d sit right here and close my eyes and hold on for dear life. He never took my sisters out on it. It was just for us. He took it apart to clean and repair it, showed me how the engine worked. That’s what got me started on all this.’