So Pop first had to take her for a ride, up and down the lawn next to the house, around Lambert’s rubbish dump at the far end and down to the postbox again, just to give her the feel of it. And when she eventually got into the driver’s seat, Toby went ‘whoof’ and jumped right over her on to the bricks at the back, which Lambert had packed there for weight. There was no more back seat after that fire he made for Guy Fawkes. Toby’s breath on her neck made Mol feel more relaxed, and now Pop could show her exactly how the gears worked. First, second, third, fourth, reverse. Over and fucken over again. Later, Pop even made a drawing to show her how the gears went, ’cause the gear stick no longer had its knob with that diagram on it.
And eventually, there she went. ‘Oo-eee! God help me!’ she shouted. Slowly, she lurched over the molehills in first gear. Pop was treading like mad with his feet, letting the clutch go and trying to find the brakes. It looked like he was in a paddle-boat or something.
The next exercise was to go from first to second and to work the pedals. It looked like a paddle-boat for two. Mol lost her bearings and almost went right through the gate. Then she just wanted out of that car, clutching on to Pop like she was about to drown or something. Well, he supposes the past few days must have been a bit too much for the old thing, ’cause she suddenly started blubbering, and he saw Pop’s hanky come out to wipe her tears. First her tears and then his own. And then he put his arm around Mol’s shoulder. She, again, put her hand on his leg. Not exactly driving off into the sunset, but there they sat, on the lawn in Flossie, with its bumper against the pole holding up the postbox. They sat there, staring at that backside-front postbox, and the postbox looked back at them through its receiving end, twisting its head.
What Pop told Mol to make her feel better, he doesn’t know. All he could see was Pop pointing his arm this way, that way, and then up into the air. Maybe he was pointing out all the places they were still going to visit. Heaven help them. And Toby too, he kept following Pop’s hand. This way, that way, up into the air. Man’s best friend.
It was then that he began to hear the sound of old pianos. At first all he heard in that bit of late-evening silence was the nervous traffic of cars beginning to drive faster and faster around Triomf as the election approached. But then, coming right out of his centre, he heard those old pianos, handfuls of old chords. It was so bad he felt like his heart wanted to combust. So he took a little turn past the fig tree at the back of the house. The autumn sun was shining so brightly through those leaves he could see every vein. And the light shone through the holes in the rust spots. The late figs looked as though they’d been preserved in golden syrup as they hung there, so sweet, so sweet. His gills contracted with tears.
Not enough sleep over the last few days. That must be his problem. So he came back to the front and drowned those terribly sad pianos with a few neat shots of Klipdrift. Then all that remained of the combustion were a few hissing and spitting coals in his insides, and a shoulder jerking like it wanted to shoot right off its socket, arm and all, so it could bugger off somewhere on five fingers. But he can’t fuck off from here, neither he nor any of his parts. He’s just going to have to see this one through to the bitter end.
He told Pop he should rather leave third and fourth for another day, ’cause he doesn’t have the time tonight to cure damaged Mol-skin. But all Pop wanted was to fuck off into the street with that Triomf-turbo of theirs after they’d finished their crying and comforting.
So now it’s dark and Flossie’s ready for the last round. Not for spare parts, but for geriatric training in parallel parking. The candles are burning on the Dogmor tins, one car’s length apart from each other. That’s how Pop set them out. Christ, if you didn’t know them, you wouldn’t believe your eyes tonight. It looks like a church. Half-holy, kind of beautiful, the dogs on the tins smiling with their mouths open through patches of rust in the candlelight.
He sees Pop flick on his lighter to show Mol where reverse is. She can’t find it. There goes her lighter too. The light from the little flames shine through their hair as they bend forward to look at the gear lever: through Pop’s white tufts and Mol’s loose strings next to her face. From her bun that’s been unravelling for the past two days. Woe is me!
There she starts now. Into reverse. Pop gets out. She must go slowly, backwards, he calls out to her, he’ll show her. Pop has to shout hard ’cause Mol’s revving Flossie to hell and back. Pop’s holding a lighter in each hand. With large circles he motions to her, now she must turn the steering wheel, now she must let go of the clutch, slowly, now she must give petrol, just a little.
Mol’s sitting with her neck twisted around. Here she comes. Well, he must say, for someone who can’t even open a Tic-Tac box she’s learnt very quickly. Here she comes now, here she comes, steady does it. She reverses slowly, towards her goal, with neither a roof nor a mirror.
‘You’ve got the angle, Mol!’ Pop shouts. ‘Just perfect, old girl, just carry on like that! Now swing her nose in! Turn the wheel the other way! No, the other way. Slowly, look in front of you, Mol, there’s a tin in front.’
Mol looks. She bumps the Dogmor tin, just a little. The candle doesn’t even fall over. Just the flame nods up and down and the Dog laughs once, a flash of red tongue showing. Just a little more, a little more, Pop shows her, with a lighter in each hand. Like he’s conducting a big Jumbo on to a landing strip in the middle of the night.
‘Hold it now, hold it just there!’ he shouts with his hands up in the air. The glow from the lighters falls over his face and over the back of Mol’s head. Happy landings! She stops. Hic, off! goes the car — she forgot to step on the clutch and put the car back in neutral. But she’s done it. Parallel parking! Bull’s eye, first shot! Who’d ever have believed it! Just look how she’s smiling as she gets out of that driver’s seat, between two of those tins with candles on top.
Chord upon chord, there’s the piano again. Take another swig.
‘Put out, put out the ancient psalm
lest the holy notes combust
in the smoking fire of the heart’
Why’s Pop telling him to shuddup now? He must stop singing and go to sleep, Pop says. He must let this day come to an end now. He mustn’t stand here and make himself sick for nothing. It’s all over. They’re still alive and Mol has just parked Flossie. Does Treppie want to borrow his hanky? Not a hanky, thanks, he says to Pop. What he needs is a fucken sheet.
‘Come, Mol, it’s bedtime!’ Pop calls out.
‘I’m coming now,’ Mol shouts back. ‘I just want to sit here a little. Rest a bit. Pass my lighter.’
‘Blow out the candles,’ Pop says as he goes inside.
‘Yes, put them out, put them out
before the Milky Way goes to sleep.
What you sow you also have to reap.’
Treppie stays on the stoep for a long time, watching Mol light a cigarette and smoke it all up from beginning to end, there in her victory chariot. And all the while her other hand plays the giddy goat with the gear in neutral.
WONDER WALL 
Pop’s sitting in his chair in the lounge. He came and sat here ’cause it was the only place he could still find in all the commotion. He was so tired and everything suddenly looked so strange and far away, as if he was in a different country. It was all he could still do for himself and his chair. They were both out of their depth. The chair had hardly found its way back from the den when it was shifted again, this time on to a heap along with everything else in the lounge; and he himself felt like his flesh was about to start falling off his bones.