A Helping Hand

A Helping Hand

Michael Graeme

I was bound for the West, crossing a waste of snow-flecked moor when, with an almighty bang the old Morris gave up on me. I should not have been surprised. The car had been on its last legs when I had set out the day before, but I hadn't worked in six months and I'd not had the money to spend on her that she'd needed.

"Perhaps it's not so bad," I thought, but when I stepped out into the bitter-cold, I saw an ominous pool of black oil creeping from beneath the engine.

I was still five miles from the nearest town and I'd seen not a soul on that lonely road all morning. I was truly stuck and wondering what on earth I was going to do, when I heard a roar and turned around to see a scruffy old breakdown truck lumbering up behind me. There was a squeal of brakes as it drew level and then a big, genial looking man stepped out. He was sucking on an empty pipe and was greasy from head to foot.

"Trouble?" he asked.

Speechless at his miraculous appearance, I gestured to the pool of oil. Without a care for the cold, he lay in the road and wriggled half way under the car. Then he gave a whistle. "You've a broken con-rod," he said. "It's sticking clean through the engine. You'll be needing a tow. Lucky I happened by."

Lucky was I? Sure, the coincidence was beyond belief but it made no difference. I had spent almost my last penny getting this far and had nothing left for any repairs.

"Might as well just dump her here," I said.

He eased himself to his feet and ran a big, oily hand over the roof. "She's in fine condition for her age," he said. "You could never abandon her, surely?"

Then he saw my easel on the back seat, jammed in with a couple of canvasses and all my baggage.

"Doin' a bit of painting?"

"I was heading for the coast," I explained, lamely. "I was going to paint the sea."

"Ah, that's grand," he said. Then he turned to his truck and made to break out the tow-chains.

"Wait," I said. "I've nothing to pay you with."

He shrugged carelessly. "We'll work something out. I can't just leave you stuck here, can I?"

After hitching the Morris up, I climbed into the cab beside him and we set off, driving at a steady pace around the tight bends in the little road.

"Are you a student then?" he asked.

"No. I worked in a mill,... but the mill closed. I was struggling to get a job." I shrugged. "The was painting always just a hobby,... before."

"Ah," he said with an intuitive nod. "But now you'd like it to be something more?"

"I thought it was worth a try," I said.

His name was Peter. He was in his fifties and he told me he had been a mechanic all his life, that he had taken over his father's garage as a young man and that all he knew was cars. I envied him the clarity of his vocation, for since the redundancy, it was a thing I had been sorely lacking.

After a while, we came upon a lone house by the side of the road. There was a rickety workshop and a forlorn looking set of petrol pumps, at which there stood a little old lady. He gave her a wave and pulled over. "Mother," he said. "What are you doin' standing out there? Go back inside, where it's warm."

She raised her head defiantly. "Someone has to mind the pumps while you're off roaming the countryside."

"Away with you," he said, affectionately. "There's been no one on this road all day."

She turned and went inside muttering something about dinner being spoiled and Peter winked in my direction. "She'll have heard us coming," he said.

I looked around at the bleak, brown hills and was struck by the overpowering isolation. "Do you get much trade up here?" I asked.

He sighed. "Not much these days. It used to be the quickest way into town, across the hills, and there was always quite a bit of passing trade - but since they finished the new road last summer it's been very quiet." He looked at me curiously. "Got somewhere to stay?"

"I was thinking I'd find lodgings in Galway, tonight."

"Ah, well. You'll not be getting there for a while. There's a room in the house you can use, until you're back on the road."

I hesitated, still trying to count the cost of everything. "I don't know,... I can't pay for any of this."

He gave me a slow smile. "You'll be needing somewhere to stay. You want the best part of a new engine. There's a scrap dealer in town who might be able to get his hands on one - but I'm thinking it'll take a week or so."

"There's no point," I said. "I have nothing in the world, except the car and what's in it. Perhaps I should cut my losses. You said she was in good condition. Would you like to buy her from me?"

He seemed surprised. "But then how would you be lugging all your gear to Galway?"

I looked away, feeling thoroughly disheartened. "Maybe I was never meant to get there. I should get the bus back to Dublin and find myself another mill to work in."

"You don't mean that," he assured me. "Why, I'd rather be painting the sea myself than working in a mill. No, I'll not take her. Don't worry, we'll get you there. Can you pump gas?"

I looked at the paint-peeled pumps. "I suppose I could," I said.

"That's settled then. Mother shouldn't be out in the cold at her age. If you could lend a hand for a week or so, it would be a weight off my mind."

So, that was how I came to be biding my time at the garage. I say 'biding my time' because I never had the feeling I was truly earning my keep - there simply wasn't enough to do. In the mornings, I'd be wakened in the cold and the dark by the sound of Peter's truck roaring into life, and then I'd hear it grinding it's way down the hill towards town.

He'd return after dark, sometimes with an old wreck of a car in tow. Then he'd be up late at night, fixing it. In the morning, the car would be on the windswept forecourt, still looking weary and battered, as if all it wanted was to lie down and crumble into dust - except Peter had coaxed it into hanging on a while longer.

Meanwhile my old Morris languished in the bitter cold, her paint work dulled by a mixture of frost and filthy rain. Peter never mentioned if he'd spoken to the scrap dealer about a replacement engine and, being so much in his debt, it seemed rude to pester him about it.

Still, house was cosy and the old girl proved to be a pleasant sort. She was in her eighties but carried her years well. She was very active, always cleaning and cooking. Most of the time she left me to spend the time alone in her sitting room, reading old magazines, but sometimes she would settle down for a chat.

She had a lucid memory stretching back to the nineteen twenties, but she spoke mostly of her marriage to Peter's father, of her early life in the garage and of the summers when the road would be busy with tourists in their cars and charbancs, all heading for the coast.

"There were times," she said, "I'd be on the pumps from dawn 'till dusk, and the garage would be full of cars from town all wantin' repairs." She showed me an old picture of the forecourt, crammed with cars, a nostalgic line-up of Morris's and Hillman's and Rovers,....

"Where does Peter go every day?" I asked.

"Ah, since the summer he's had a contract with the big garage in town. He picks up breakdowns for them." She frowned. "But it barely pays for his petrol. They're only interested in the newer cars. Any older ones, they let Peter bring up here to mend. That's what keeps us going ."

Now and then, a little bell would ring and I'd venture out into the bitter wind to pump a few gallons - usually into a farmer's muddy Landrover. In two weeks, I took less than fifty pounds.

At tea time we would begin to watch the clock on the mantle, waiting to catch the sound of the breakdown truck howling its way home. And when Peter appeared in the door, I'd look at him expectantly,... but he'd just smile and ask if there'd been much trade.

At first I was frustrated by the delay, but after a while, I'm afraid I got to thinking that it didn't much matter. I was warm and well fed and I'd probably be much worse off wherever I went from here.

A month passed. It was March now and for a few days the weather improved, the grey clouds lifting to reveal little slices of blue. The old girl told me I should get out for a while - after being cooped up for so long. So, one morning, I set off down the hill without much in mind but to get some air, but after only a mile or so, I was disturbed by a dull, continuous roar. Intrigued, I carried on and eventually came across a junction with a wide highway, the cars zipping by in quick succession. Their noise was unsettling after the quiet of the hills.

It was the new road Peter had spoken about and at once I could see it was strangling the life out of his business. He worked so hard, such long hours,... but surely he was only delaying the inevitable.

There was a hand-painted sign lying in the grass. "Garage - Petrol and Repairs 2 miles," it said. The wind must have blown it over, so I set it up again - not that I believed it would make much difference - the cars were passing so fast, I doubt they even noticed it.

Back at the garage, I looked at my road map. Like most of the stuff I owned, it was rather old and did not show the new road, but I had a guess at it's course. It was barely five miles long, yet it cut out ten miles of twisting mountain road, allowing people to zip into town and maybe on to the coast in a fraction of the time it would once have taken.

It made sense. Sure, had I known it was there, I would have gone that way myself and maybe spared myself a broken con-rod in the process.

In the early spring, Peter finally returned with an engine in the back of his truck. "It's rather old," he said cautiously, as I helped him into his workshop with it. "But I'm told it hasn't done many miles."

Over the next couple of evenings, he fitted the engine, in between his other jobs. I helped out as best I could, watching while his big hands coaxed the life back into my little car. And when he finally turned the key and the engine started, I swear my relief was matched only by the look of satisfaction on Peter's face.

"She'll do," he said, modestly.

In the morning, I was up before he left, and after loading my gear I found him at the breakfast table.

"I'll send you my address, once I'm settled," I promised. "Then you can let me know what I owe you."

He shook his head "Forget it," he said. "It's me that owes you for keeping my mother company."

"But I must pay you something," I insisted. "It doesn't feel right,... this is your living."

He gave me a look then which made me realise that beneath his carefree air, he knew full well what the future held, so far as his living was concerned. "I'll tell you what," he said. "When you're settled, paint me a picture of the sea and we'll call it quits."

I didn't know what to say and was moved by the fact that anyone could be so generous to a stranger when they could see their own fortunes slipping through their fingers.

Peter just smiled in that quiet way of his and then he tipped his head towards the door.

"On your way, lad," he said. "And good luck to you."

I've lived in Galway for ten years now and I'm still running around in that old Morris. I've painted the sea more times than I can remember and, though I barely earn a living at it, I have fulfilled a dream I once thought impossible.

I did not forget Peter, nor the debt I owed him, though it was a few years before I managed to return to his garage. I almost missed the little turning from the highway. The sign had blown down again and was almost overgrown. I wound my way up the lonely road, the promised painting on the back seat,... but I arrived to find the house boarded up and empty, the slates already hanging off the roof.

The workshop doors had fallen asunder and the place had been stripped out except for a few bits of scrap metal,... and an old engine with a con-rod poking through its side. I knelt by it and ran my fingers through the small pool of oil which had weeped out onto the floor. Then, I thought of all the people whizzing along that highway and how they were oblivious to the existence of this quiet little place and also to the passing of the quiet lives of its people. And I was reminded then that there is always someone who pays a price,...

....for the greater convenience of others.

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First published 1999

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m_graeme@yahoo.co.uk