How did they know him?
The question circled around and around in her head and none of the potential answers were comforting.
“Can you check the road closures?” Ed asked as they drove into the small town of Mount Magnet.
“What?”
“The Main Roads website records which roads are closed. I’m planning to take the road through Karijini, but I want to make sure it’s open.”
She dragged her phone from her bag and turned it back on. No more messages from Tan. She heaved a sigh of relief. Finding the site, she showed the map to Ed. He pointed to a section. “Zoom in there.”
She did as he asked, and he nodded. “It’s open. Great.” He finished his bottle of cola as they drove out of town.
His concentration was on the road as it had been all day. He had to be exhausted, but he hadn’t suggested she drive again. She should have insisted on learning to drive a manual car, but her parents only had an automatic.
But Da wouldn’t have let that stop her. Perhaps she could learn now. All she had to do was figure out the gears.
“Is it hard to drive a manual?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “Not really. All you have to do is work the clutch through the gears, and the engine noise tells you when to change.”
She bit her lip. “Do you want to teach me?”
He hesitated, and then sighed. “Yeah, all right. It might help if you could drive for a couple of hours.” He pulled into one of the rest stops on the side of the road. “Watch my feet and put your hand over mine,” he said.
She hesitated before placing her hand over Ed’s on the gearstick.
“Gears are written on the handle. Always press the clutch to the floor when changing gears.” He shifted the stick. “First, second, third, fourth, fifth,” he said as he moved through them.
It seemed easy enough.
He explained how to accelerate and when they reached the end of the rest stop, he did a U-turn and put the car into neutral and put the park brake on. “Your turn.”
She swapped places with him and shifted the seat into position.
“Clutch in and keep it down while you move into first.”
She did as he said.
“Now slowly take your foot off the clutch. There’s a point where the car will start moving on its own. When you get to there, gently press the accelerator.”
Her heart thumped as she did as he requested. The van crept forward, and she pressed the accelerator down, lifting her foot from the clutch.
The car jerked and stalled, and she shrieked.
“It’s all right. Next time don’t lift the clutch so quickly, not until you’ve accelerated some more.”
The second time she did better and managed to change to second gear before they reached the end of the rest stop, and she stalled when she braked.
“Clutch in whenever you’re stationary and not in neutral,” Ed said. “Try again.”
He seemed unfazed by her poor driving, but when it took her ten minutes to reach the other side of the rest stop with her bunny-hopping and stalling all the way, he said, “How about we try again tomorrow? It’ll be getting dark soon, and you don’t want to drive when the ’roos are out.”
She’d seen enough dead carcases on the side of the road and didn’t want to be responsible for one.
“All right. Sorry.”
“No problem. We’re both tired. It’s not the best state to learn.”
