Hell's Back Alley

They’d said to expect rain, but this is next level. Why didn’t I change those wiper blades before leaving? Why did I take the short cut? What if the road washes out? 

It’s almost Christmas and I’m heading up to my best friend’s new place on the East Cape. It's my first visit and I hadn’t appreciated just how remote she was living. No tar seal this far from the city and the road’s already churning.

It’s teeming now, so bad the wipers have clapped out altogether. Might have to pull over and wait it out. As if it could hear me, the engine stalls. Won’t even tick over, just gives an ominous clunk. If I keep on cranking it the battery will go flat. Trust me to get bogged down on a back road in the wop-wops the day the almighty decides to let rip with the second great flood. 

Better call the emergency service and give Wai a heads up that I might be a while. What the heck? Not even two bars. It dawns on me then that there’s been no sign of life, apart from sheep, for hours. No point waiting for the one car a day to come through. Best make a run for the nearest truck stop. 

Grabbing a parka from the back seat I wrestle it on, breathe deep, dive into the murk. My Nikes immediately take on water, my jeans are soaked in seconds, but at least it’s not cold in the Antipodes this time of year. Salvation lies somewhere down the road, if I can just get there alive.

Wai and I go way back to pre-school. We know each other better than our own selves. No year can end without us touching base, even if only online, from the other side of the world.  

There’s this dumb thing we always do:

“You’re the greatest.” 

“No, you’re the greatest.”

“You are so greater than me.”

“No way. You’re a million times greater.”

It goes on like that until the giggles gag us. I’ll make it to that girl’s house. Neither hell nor high water can stop me.

Note to self: never trudge a dirt track in a deluge. I’m now covered in mud, holding my ankle, agonised tears braiding with water from my sopping hair. I’ve been tricked by an underwater pothole in the road that’s now a stream. I ride the pain upward to stand on one foot, the other hanging like a dead duck, screaming my fear at the sky. “What have I done to you? Why are you messing with me?” The voice of sanity intervenes. Save your breath. Get moving before you seize up. It’ll hurt like the devil but anything’s better than being stuck here.

Eons pass as I plod on, head down, counting my steps out loud. “One, two, three…” Keep losing the plot at 100 and have to start again. My ankle’s numb now. Probably not a good sign, but the relief’s welcome. 

The sky is indigo, then suddenly neon white. Static shoots up my arm. I can almost taste the ozone. I recall that this is how lightning and splitting atoms smell. The revelation precedes a sonic boom, seemingly right above my head.  Get out of here now, before you fry, I tell myself. Hopping like a hare, eyes darting left, right, left again, seeking any kind of shelter, I make it under an overhanging hedge with nanoseconds to spare. Hailstones the size of golf balls rocket down and I curl into a ball. My teeth clatter.

Hard to credit, but I must have dozed. It’s still raining and I’m floating. Water has spread across the road and into my shelter that’s now as much use as lungs to a fish. The slightest movement is torture and it’s only the thought of Wai worrying herself silly that gets me vertical. Don’t be a big useless lump, I chide. You’re not dead yet. “One (hop), two (hop), three…”

Hang on a sec, what’s that, out beyond, in the mist? Hallucinations wouldn’t surprise after that hellish night, but no, my eyes do not lie. I’d know that shape anywhere. There, squatting among the dripping roadside weeds, is my saviour. I fall upon it like a ravenous woman on a Big Mac and fries.

Shit. No damned key. Maybe under the seat, on top of the back tyre? Neither, damn it. Where would the miserable tick of an owner have stashed it? I lose it then, screaming into the weeping void. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?” I can hot wire any car on the planet but I’ve never tried to start a four-wheeler that way. “Get a grip,” I hiss out loud, “the principle should be the same. But should you really be fiddling with electrics in a downpour?”

Find tape. Must be some in the toolbox. Here we go. Get the coat off and over the engine. With you underneath, fool. Now, what’s it gonna be, red or black? Damn, why’s it smoking? Must have touched the wrong one. Okay red it is. Woohoo, there’s the neutral light. Now, twist and shout, tape round the ends and we’re laughing all the way home. The beast coughs, chokes, dies. 

I am now beyond reason. “What have I ever said or done to deserve this, you white bearded old bugger?”

“Nothing that I know of.” If this is God I must be at rock bottom, but the battered features, the wink he shoots me from under his sorry excuse for an oilskin hat, are the sweetest things I’ve ever seen.

“Saw your car a few klicks back. Jump in.”

I collapse against the side of his Hilux. “Gonna throw up.”

“Best do it now, then. Car doesn’t need cleaning.”

I clear a space on the seat, haul myself in. “Doesn’t look like a bit of puke would hurt.”

“My car, my rules. Name’s Wade. Where you heading?”

“Tirohiti.”

“Family up there?”

“Yeah.” 

I must have drifted off. The rain has stopped. We’ve pulled up outside a service station-cum-diner. Wade hauls on the handbrake. “Righto. Here come the troops.”

 “Thanks Wade. Shout you a coffee?

“Cheers. Meet Baz. He’ll have you sorted in no time.”

Hallelujah my bars are back. “You have ten new calls,” says the voicemail server. Plus a gazillion texts. I call her. “I’m fine, hun. You won’t bloody believe what’s happened though. In Awatoru now, getting the car fixed. Text you when I’m leaving.”

I give my grungy angel a thumbs up, hop into Baz’s truck, inhale my coffee. 

“Humdinger of a storm.”

“You’re telling me.”

“So, how far up the road’s your car?”

Turns out it's mortifyingly close. “Seemed further.”

“Can feel like that when you’re up against it.”

Minutes later Baz bangs down the bonnet. “Looks like the solenoid. Lucky it’s a Holden, should have a spare in the shop. Let’s get her on the truck."

Back in town, Baz is all business. “Grab a feed. I’ll come and find you when we’re done.”

An hour later my car gives a reassuring roar and a belch of blue smoke. She’s an automatic and my right foot’s still working. As Pink blows me one last kiss from Spotify, we’re off.

Twenty-four hours ago I’d thought I wouldn’t make it. Now Wai’s waiting thirty kilometres up the road. I can hear the kettle whistling on the coal range and smell the scones as they rise in the oven.