Get A Life | ONC2023 Shortlist

6 | A torque of mechanics | Hunter

A tear falls on my wrist before I realise I'm crying. It's Manny who spots us first, looking up from under the hood of a white late model Mercedes. He wipes his hands on an old rag and moves towards me as fast as his arthritic knees will allow. Darcy releases my hand and steps back to give us room. 

He's a big man, Manuel Delgado, the length and breadth of his arms alone giving new meaning to the term 'bear hug'. Before I know it, four other men have thrown their arms around us. Clutched in the embrace of a torque of mechanics, I sob loudly and bitterly, hurting too much to care what anyone might think. They hold me tight, these men who loved my brother. Without judgement, without reproach, without a single fucking word. It's not until Manny and his boys finally step back I realise I'm not the only one crying.

"Your brother was a prince, man." Bayani's voice cracks as Harry nods his agreement.

"A prince." Wozza wipes his bloodshot eyes with the back of his sleeve. 

Amandeep pats Wozza on the back, his own dark eyes wide and serious beneath his turban.

"He was so proud of you, Hunter." Manny's raspy bark is gentler than I've ever heard it, laced with sadness and pain, and, knowing my dad's oldest friend­, with misplaced guilt.

I'm determined to stop another wave of tears from spilling over. My eyes dart around the shop but freeze when they hit the back wall. The mural of a cream 1971 Thunderbird that has always adorned it is gone, replaced by a massive portrait of my brother. A life-sized Archer sits on the bonnet of the 1974 Ford Falcon XB he started restoring with Manny when he was twelve—the year our dad died of brain cancer. By the time they finally painted Roberta a crisp Apollo Blue, Archer was eighteen and a second year apprentice. I've never seen him grin so wide as the day he drove her home.

The artist has captured Archer perfectly. Chaotic blond curls. Blue eyes sparkling with mischief. Head tossed back in laughter so vivid you can almost hear it.

I turn to Jin, Archer's fellow apprentice and the only one of Manny's team who didn't throw themselves into the group hug. Boisterous displays are not Jin's way. Instead, she's painted her love and respect for my brother into permanence.

"Thank you, Jin Mai," I say. "You did him proud."

"Archer is in our hearts, always," Jin says. "Now he's with us on our wall, too."

"We touch his shoulder every time we walk past," Amandeep tells me. "Workshop rules."

"He'd love it."

A quiet sob has us all turning to the corner of the room, where Lily crouches on the floor, her left hand under a car cover.

Roberta.

Darcy gets to Lily before I do, going to her knees on the painted cement and reaching out her arms. Trembling with emotion, Lil buries her head in Darcy's shoulder and cries. I join them seconds later, and there we stay, a human tangle of arms and legs and grief delayed.

Around us, Manny and his crew get back to work, giving us time and space. After what might be a minute or could be an hour, I unwind myself from the girls and peel the cover off Archer's pristine muscle car.

"I kept her safe for you." Manny walks up behind me, and we stand there together, staring at Roberta.

"One thing has never added up for me." Lily's eyes are puffy and rimmed with red, but her voice is steady now. "If Archer died during a robbery gone wrong, then why didn't they take Roberta? Or any of the other cars you guys have on the floor. They break in and ruin the empty till but leave the prestige and classic cars even though the keys are hanging right here?"

"Never added up for me, either." Manny rubs a beefy hand across the back of his bald head. "The police gathered CCTV footage from the surrounding streets. No one entered or exited through the front after Jin and Wozza left. Which means they must have come from the alley in the back. But if Archer's here alone, there's no way they make it in through the back door without him hearing them. That thing creaks worse than my knees. Archer was quick on his feet and a decent fighter. Yet they somehow manage to hit him from behind? It doesn't fly."

Darcy and I exchange a look of raised eyebrows and churning thoughts. Archer's unlikely to have let an intruder sneak up behind him. But he wouldn't have expected Shane to do anything other than talk, so he might have let his guard down.

"Did you tell the police you had doubts about it being a robbery?" Darcy asks. No one's introduced them yet, but Darcy's here with Lily and me, and that's enough for Manny.

"I tried," Manny says. "Maybe I didn't try hard enough. If only that old security camera above the back door worked. I should have replaced it years ago." His eyes drop to the ground.

"None of this is your fault." I'm speaking to Manny, but some part of me knows I'm talking to myself, too. 

I run my fingers over Roberta's perfect paint work, from headlight to taillight and over the rear emblem. My brother's heart and soul are in this car.

Maybe something else is too.

As realisation dawns, I cross to the neat row of hooks above the workbench and grab Archer's car keys. The boot latch sticks, but I wiggle the key the way Arch taught me until I hear the distinctive pop of the hood.

My brother was obsessive about very few things in life, but Roberta was one of them, and her interior is as painstakingly neat as her paint job. Leaning into the boot, I push down sharply with the heel of my hand and open the small secret compartment Archer installed after watching one too many spy films.

"The cheeky little shit." Manny peers over my shoulder, an affectionate smile softening the square lines of his face. "Never told me he put that in. Fine work, though. Fine work."

There are two things inside the carpet-lined cavity: a burnt orange lock box like the ones used to handle cash at school fundraisers, and a carefully rolled piece of white A4 cardstock. I sit back down on the floor with Lily and Darcy and place the discovered treasure on the concrete between us.

"This is so ridiculously Archer," Lily says to me with a wobbly laugh.

"Through and through."

"He was a prince, man," Bayani calls from underneath a nearby Jaguar.

"Prince of the bus," Darcy whispers.

"Prince of it all," Lily whispers back.

"You open it, Lil." I hand Archer's keys to her, partly because my hands are shaking, but mainly because I know she needs this moment as much as I do. Maybe even more.

Once the lock's undone, Lily slowly lifts the lid of the small metal box. As the contents come into view, Darcy grabs my arm and Manny emits a grunt of surprise. All I manage is a slightly hysterical laugh, because, really, what was Archer thinking? The shallow top tray of the box is full of cash—twelve identical rolls of fifty-dollar notes fixed neatly with elastic bands. Years of Archer's savings, thousands of dollars, stored not in a bank account like the money of a sensible person, but in the boot of a car.

"Prince of the morons," I mutter, equal parts amused and appalled.

Underneath the tray of cash, Lily finds a carefully folded piece of lined paper. She glances at me and I nod. Within seconds, she's smiling through a fresh batch of tears.

"Archer planned to propose," she says. "These are his notes... things he thought he might say. He really..." Lily chokes back a sob, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. Darcy and I each wrap an arm around Lil's shoulders, book-ending her with silent comfort until her breathing evens out.

"I'm guessing this is also for you." I pull a small black velvet bag from the bottom of the box and hand it to Lily.

Lil undoes the satin ribbon with trembling fingers and tips the contents into her hand. As pretty as it is simple, the small solitaire diamond sparkles in the afternoon sunlight, whispering my brother's intentions as clearly and as permanently as any proposal would have done.

"It's perfect," Lily says, slipping the engagement ring onto her finger.

And it really is.