Summer
Summer is hot, as hot as it gets,
The man is in his prime.
He’s fit and he’s lean,
More action he’s seen,
And he can do it time after time
*
Melbourne, Australia 1964.
Nineteen years to the day and I met Wendy for the second time.
The morning had started with the same madness as they all do in my business. Juggling drivers and loads, the diesels roaring in the yard and the usual stragglers and damaged survivors from the night before.
In the sixties and beyond, trucking in Australia, like most countries, was a game for hard drinking men who were ready to take a few risks. None of the zero alcohol readings required today, nowhere near the enforcement on the roads for maximum hours spent driving, none of the controls on overloading and speeding that there are today. We had a job to do and most of us did not give a shit how we did it, as long as it got done.
There were three calls from irate car drivers who had been “nearly killed” by my drivers and wanted to know what I was going to do about it, there were a heap of cancelled and altered jobs, some new ones that were emergencies and two salesmen wanting me to buy more new trucks. I had just finished assuring some idiot, who thought that towing a caravan down the Hume Highway at forty miles per hour was not obstructing traffic, that the driver who overtook him at some ridiculous speed would be severely disciplined when the phone rang again.
I picked it up and said “David’s Transport.”
A woman’s voice hesitatingly said “Hello David?” She had an American accent.
My god, I thought, it couldn’t be. “Wendy?” I asked praying it was.
“David, I’m so glad you remembered me.” She sounded more confident now.
“How could I ever forget my special number one girl?” I asked, “And exactly nineteen years to the day too.”
“I thought I might have been lost in the sands of time.” Wendy said.
“Never, my dear, not while I still breathe.” I told her in no uncertain manner.
Just then Barry burst in yelling “David, the cops are here looking for Steve over that smash last week.”
“Shit.” I said. Steve was a good driver and I didn’t want to lose him.
“Sorry?” Wendy sounded more amused than upset.
“Sorry, Wendy,” I said and Barry’s eyebrows disappeared under his fringe, “I forgot I was talking to a lady and things are bedlam at the moment.”
“David, I will meet you at five at the Royal, in the ladies lounge, you’d better get back to it.” Still amused, thank goodness.
“No worries the…” I started but Wendy had already rung off.
“Wendy?” Asked Barry desperate for some gossip.
“Yeah, Wendy,” I said, “so where’s Steve now?”
The topic was dropped while the problem was sorted, Steve was served a summons and it looked like I was going to be without one of my best drivers for at least six months.
I was in turmoil. I knew it was nineteen years since Wendy’s promise and as it had got closer and closer I tried to convince myself that she wouldn’t show so I could avoid any disappointment on the day but it hadn’t quite worked. Now she had rung me and I was going to see her again. In the middle of that very hectic day I found I could not concentrate on work.
She had said she would find me and she had. After our one night together, her first time and mine, I had moved on in the world. The farm was suddenly too small a world to live in and my friends did not seem the same either. I had told Johnno what had happened and then had to convince him I wasn’t making it up. I never knew if he really believed me or not, but I eventually realized it did not really matter what he thought anyway.
With my brothers back from the war and wanting to settle down there was not enough work on the farm for all of us so I said my goodbyes and moved to the big city of Melbourne to try my luck at a real job. I drove a delivery truck for a green grocer for a while and within two years I had saved enough to buy a cheap 1942 Chevrolet Lend Lease army truck at one of the surplus sales. I had started small and did a few years local work while building my knowledge of mechanics, essential for a truck driver in those days, and driving in general. Reversing into those tiny Melbourne lanes with the small mirrors of the day is a job for an experienced driver.
After a while work was harder to come by. There were a lot of surplus trucks on the market and there were a lot of war veterans wanting to drive them. Some unscrupulous employers paid less to drivers with disability pensions because the government was already paying them too. As a younger driver, and not having served in the armed forces, I was often the last on the list for jobs, so I looked around. The trade between Melbourne and Sydney was a dangerous job. Six hundred odd miles up a track that eventually became the very nice, usually double lanes, Hume Highway (route 31) we have today. Being game I turned to interstate driving and did a hard apprenticeship on the Hume.
Highway 31 was tough on trucks and tough on drivers. I went through two Chev trucks in ten years but even that was like your grandfather’s axe. I replaced motors, gearboxes, diffs, springs etc but it was still the same truck. The only reason I had to get the second truck was I rolled the first one when I hit a cow in the middle of the night twenty-five miles from Tarcutta.
Being on the interstate run was not good for the social life either. While my old schoolmates were out courting and going to dances and the pictures I was fighting the potholes. I met a few ladies and could have got seriously involved but the sort of girls that I met who were interested in a struggling truck driver, particularly one who was away more than he was home, were not like Wendy. I had been spoiled with my first love and my expectations were high. Couple that with my job and my liaisons of the time were often fleeting and I spent hours holding the gear stick in top so it didn’t jump out and I dreamed of Wendy.
And now Wendy had called.
I got through that day half functioning while my mind replayed the events of a night nineteen years earlier that had changed my life. Wendy had taught me so many things. I had learned girls could be attracted to me, I had learned about finding and losing love and together we had learned about sex. I had used what I had learned in that night on those rare occasions when I was making love to other women and I had got a reputation as a bit of a Romeo because the ladies almost usually wanted to come back for more. Many boys in the day thought sex was just a struggle to get her legs open then shove it in. Pump until finished then take her home. I had learned that most women wanted more and discovered some of the ways to provide that.
My business suffered badly that day as I was more interested in what Wendy would look like, what Wendy wanted (she may be happily married and just wanting to catch up), what would Wendy think of me, there were so many questions. I finally decided to leave Barry in charge and went home early for a shower and a clean change of clothes. Home was a two-bedroom farmhouse right near my yard in Doncaster, an outer suburb with orchards etc all around and it wasn’t too flash but it did have access for trucks and was comfortable.
I showered and tried to make the best of my appearance and then it was into the car and off to see Wendy.
There have been plenty of times in my life that I have been nervous but that drive to the Royal must be in top three. The questions returned, the worries increased and by the time I got there I was a wreck. There was no way I was going to not show up but it took all of my will power to walk through that door at five to five.