the red van

Outside it's drizzling and the tiny coloured flags that run the rim of the car-yard whip in the wind like pistol-fire. I’m sitting in a tin shed at the back of the yard while a salesman sprinkles HP sauce into a bag of chips, mops beads of sweat from his forehead and tells me we’re getting a bargain. I sign some papers and he gives me a key flattened and worn like an old fingernail. A 1983 van the colour of a ripened tomato is waiting under a tree on the nature strip outside. I slide its back door open, hook up the baby's safety capsule then climb into the driver's seat.
No dashboard, no bonnet, just the steering wheel, windscreen and a long drop to the road. The mirror wobbles in my palm like a weak handshake, the glove box won't shut, but the baby gurgles and the key turns in the ignition.

The bongo van.

It’s cheap to run, the motor's quiet, and with five kids it's the only way we can all travel together. My husband takes the tiny blue bomb to work each day and I get the van. A roving red shoe with every window holding the face of a child peeping out.

When I was little my siblings and I were squashed together in a station wagon. There were no seatbelts then and no thought of accidents. Dad gripped the wheel like a rudder and off we went. A couple of times a year we travelled to Melbourne to visit my grandparents. I stood up, putting my feet either side of the hump that lay in the middle of the back seat floor and because it felt like a stage I sang: all along the highway I patted Mum's shoulder and sang little tunes while she nursed a baby and stared out the window.

At ten to nine I drive the kids to school. Past the shops and up the long hill to the steel gates where I park and watch as they climb out. Some mornings they hop off like frogs ready for fun but on other days I feel like I’m unloading tired soldiers whose voices trail away to whispers on the walk towards the asphalt. In the afternoon when I pick them up again, a day's stories fill the little wagon. Lunchtime goals, a lost library book, a friend who's mean. Their voices run over one another like tangled threads that unravel into single strands as we glide down the hill towards home.

One afternoon my daughter picks the front passenger seat lock after reading a Nancy Drew book. She uses a paperclip straightened carefully into the figure seven and pushes it into the hole. The metal snaps inside the barrel like a thin bone and stays there. No key can pass that way again. Another day when they're all on board I hit the dog. As I edge onto the driveway I feel a soft thud underneath the wheels and hear a pierced yelp. In the split-second quiet that follows someone notices the back gate’s open and a chorus of PADDY!! goes up. We find him in long grass at the side of the house, chest pumping, tongue trembling in the air like ticker tape and with a pink lump on his tail. In that space beside the fence, frightened and quiet, they kneel and wait as the breathing eases, the whimper fades and he begins licking the hands that stroke him. I watch as they carry him to the shed, the youngest running on tiptoes ahead of the parade like a king's messenger. It is only later when I'm in the van by myself that I notice my leg won't stop shaking.

On Saturday afternoons I park by the fence at the football oval and watch the older boys. Dark blue thoroughbreds pounding over the dry ground towards the boundary or bogged in the centre-square while rain falls in thick sheets. I turn the wipers on full, strain my eyes to pick out their numbers from the gloom and toot when there's a goal. Some days we go to Waverley and pull in beside thousands of others on the apron of land that lies in front of the entrance. Inside the ground the Record passes up and down the benches and they dribble sauce over their jumpers. On the freeway going home they fling their scarves out the windows and stare backwards at the striped arms that stretch and dive in the dark.

Often on a Sunday we go into the city and I feel my daughter's tiny feet kicking against the upholstery as she arches forward to glimpse the river. Her river. The Yarra lying just below us, curled underneath bridges and resting beside trees like a snake in the sun.

In summer we pack up and head down to the beach. They cram their bodyboards next to the windows and on the boot's tiny floor. Bags of clothes and food lie tucked against their legs. The wind batters us on the climb up the Westgate and we struggle to go forwards, but the Bongo Van fights back. My husband puts his foot to the floor, the tyres grip the road and suddenly we're on top looking out over patchwork land and the blue-grey water of the bay. At Ocean Grove the caravan park lies across the road from the sea and the van slips into a tiny space underneath the branches of a pine. At night we lie and listen to the roll of waves and the sound of the canvas annexe shuddering like a sail in the wind. During the week we drive down the Great Ocean Road and while my eyes follow the blue line that runs away to the sky, the van hugs each curve tightly in a slow, rocking dance that lasts all the way to Lorne.

And meanwhile they're growing up and one day the baby's midway through primary school and the older boys are taking driving lessons from their Dad. Clutch- gear -accelerator are the only words that matter on the back roads and then they have their licences too! Bit by bit the van show its age: dents appear on the duco, the gearbox packs up, the grey felt carpet peels away to a red metal floor and one night the engine seizes. Everything the Bongo Van needs now lies in rows of rusting bundles at the wreckers.

The boys get their own cars and we stop travelling as a family. The younger ones don't like to be seen in the van any more. Too daggy. My husband takes it to work each morning and I have a yellow sedan. At night though I reclaim it. Two kilometres from home is the park where I walk the dog. I toss the lead onto the back seat floor and Paddy jumps in. He pokes his head through the gap in the front seat and a hot, fluttering breath hits my neck. I drive into the car park thinking of the kids, hearing their voices and remembering how they all once looked in the seats behind me. Five bodies folded against each other like the pages of a book. I slide the side door open and Paddy bolts for the track that winds like a hem around the creek. I shut the door behind him and follow.