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CHAPTER EIGHT: AN AFFORDABLE MOTOR MECHANIC.

The following morning sharp at nine there is a surprise knock at the front door of the Fleming house. It is surprising if only because this is actually the first time anyone has knocked at the front door--Liz and Grandma always used the back door whenever they came to visit.

Kathy experiences an anxious sense of foreboding, the fearful expectation of something bad, of bad news rapping at her front door. As she walks toward it, her imagination scans every conceivable scenario at frenetic speed in an effort to forewarn her or perhaps provide council or reassurance, or an explanation as to why someone might have reason to be calling at her place.

Upon opening the door, she sees a man standing on the porch, someone she has never met before. She wonders who he might be and what he might want, but she says nothing, preferring instead to wait for the caller to supply that information.

"Hi! Kathy?" said the man, pronouncing her name with an accentuated, rising inflection and thereby effectively stating it in the form of a question.

"Yes," she replied, cautiously.

"I'm Tom. I'm a mechanic. Peter Stevens sent me to check out your car."

Kathy now realizes what this is all about and yet the realization does not cause her to stop worrying.

"I don't have much money, so make sure you tell me how much it's going to cost before you go ahead and fix anything."

"Sure. Sure thing." His tone of voice is reassuringly friendly.

He walks to his van, which is parked just behind her car, and takes out a toolbox.

After raising the hood of her car and making a brief inspection, he turns the engine over a couple of times, but it won't start. He then works on the engine for about an hour, during which time Kathy sees him go back to his van from time to time to get more tools or whatever else he might need.

At this point she hears the engine start and it continues to run normally. Her mood is now quietly optimistic, so she goes outside to be appraised of the situation.

"What was wrong with it?" she asked.

"Faulty distributor. Worn out."

"How much will it cost?"

"Nothing. It's on the house."

Far from being pleased, Kathy is alarmed and probably more put out than she would have been had he said 'two-hundred dollars'.

"But it must cost something! I don't like feeling obligated," she protested.

"It's okay, I owe Pete a favor."

"Yes, but I don't want to owe Pete a favor."

"Well, it's only an old, second-hand Holden dizzy--they're a dime a dozen. The job is only worth about five dollars in any case."

"How about the brakes?"

"They're fine."

Kathy is totally incredulous at this apparent reversal of everything she has come to learn about life in general and mechanics in particular. But she decides to go along with "the pretence"(as she sees it) by giving it a twist of her own:

She insists on paying the mechanic the paltry sum of five dollars but she also insists on his writing her a receipt. She then makes the further proviso that he must write 'paid in full' upon the front of the receipt.

Politely and obligingly, the mechanic does precisely as she asks. He even does it with a smile, but his smile is besmirched with obvious embarrassment.

Kathy feels pangs of guilt in being so defensive and even rude to a guy who is almost certainly good-natured, but she offsets that guilt by imagining there are far worse things in this world than mere rudeness.

At thirty-six years of age, Kathy is more than attractive; she looks ten years younger than her actual age.

That night in particular, and for the next several days, she is seriously expecting the Pirate to come knocking on her door at any moment. He will then, presumably, in an attempt to redress an unwritten and unspoken obligation, proffer a suggestion. This would be, from his perspective at least, the most appropriate and realistic way for her to pay off the sizeable debt she has unwittingly incurred.

But that doesn't happen, and, as the days pass, the chance of it happening appears to steadily diminish--so does her anxiety on that score. It isn't until a period of a week or more has elapsed that a visitor finally calls. But it isn't the Pirate--it is sister, Liz. She knocks at the back door. She is all smiles and excitement.

"I heard you met Peter Stevens. He's really nice isn't he?"

"Yes, he seems that way. It was certainly decent of him to take the time and trouble to tow my old car for thirty miles, and even risk damaging his very expensive car in the process . . . You know him then? Is he one of the guys you were writing to in prison?"

"Yes, he's actually the main one."

"How can he afford a car like that if he's not long out of prison?"

"He's well to do. He comes from a really good family from Vaucluse in Sydney. They are all really high class and important people."

Is the Pirate a nice guy? I could maybe believe that at a stretch. Does the Pirate have an upper-class background? The saints preserve us! How could anyone believe such a thing? How could even dumb, dopey Liz believe something like that?

It boggled the outer, far-reaching limits of credibility. In an outward expression of her inner thinking, Kathy responds by rolling her eyes up high into their sockets. It is all too much for her to swallow and digest.

But Kathy is nevertheless grateful and genuinely pleased at what the Peters have done for her. She is gradually coming to view their spontaneous helpfulness as an expression of genuine concern for another human being in trouble and not an insidious means of imposing invisible strings of obligation upon her.

By contrast to such an irksome scenario of sexual harassment, things are now looking rosy: she has a car to drive, a secure long-term pension from Social Security and fifty dollars set aside. It may not have been much but it was nevertheless reassuring. It was like a small piece of solid ground to stand on.