The Right Time (27 page)

He shook his head. ‘You're going to have to fix it properly, Ellen. It'll never get through rego like this. And anyway it's easily going to cost over two Ks.'

‘Excuse me?' she said, stunned.

‘Ellen, two doors have to be replaced.'

‘Replaced? They can't just beat them out?'

‘That's not how it's done these days,' he said with a smile. ‘But it's going to be okay, I doubt you'll have to pay anything.'

‘Seriously?' she said. ‘What about an excess?'

‘Maybe you'll have to pay a small excess,' he allowed. ‘Depends on your insurer. Some of them have safe driver arrangements, you're rated on the number of years you've had insurance without a claim. If you've been insured for longer than ten years and you've never made a claim, you'll be fine. Did you bring your papers?'

‘No,' she said weakly.

‘But you do know who you're insured with?'

She nodded.

He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘It's going to be okay, Ellen. Trust me.'

She did trust him, strangely, but she should never have trusted Tim. Ellen had always left this kind of thing to him. It was probably sexist, she realised, but as she had to handle just about everything else, she figured it was reasonable for him to be responsible for matters relating to the car. They'd had one or two incidents over the years, nothing major, small bingles in carparks, that kind of thing, and Tim had always insisted they must never claim on their insurance. Ellen remembered being annoyed one time – why were they paying insurance if they were never going to use it? Tim had insisted that it was for major accidents only, if they wrote off the car, or someone else's.

The smash repairers turned out to be only a few blocks away. As soon as Ellen pulled up Finn jumped out of the car and walked straight over to a guy in overalls. They were in conversation when Ellen joined them.

‘This is Jake, Ellen,' Finn introduced them. ‘He's going to write up the quote.'

‘I'll just go get the paperwork,' he said, excusing himself.

Ellen turned to Finn. ‘But if I'm going through insurance, won't I have to get three quotes?'

Finn scratched his head, smiling. ‘You really haven't dealt with this kind of thing in a long time, have you?' he said. ‘You don't have to get three quotes any more. This is an approved repairer, and everything's standardised now. They'll send an assessor out this week, and they decide how much the work will cost, so there's no need to get multiple quotes.'

Jake returned and handed Ellen a clipboard with a form attached. ‘Just fill in the details that you know,' he said. ‘Have you got your keys? I'll move the car into the workshop.'

‘Oh, sure,' said Ellen, handing them over.

‘Come into the office,' said Finn. ‘You'll be more comfortable there.'

Ellen followed him inside, and Finn indicated for her to take a seat at the desk where she could fill in the form. It was fairly basic, her personal information, the name of her insurer, make of car, but then it moved on to details about the accident.

‘I'm not sure about all of this,' she said to Finn eventually.

He took the form from her and scanned it. ‘This is enough to go on with,' he said, as he sat down at the other side of the desk and picked up the phone. Was he going to call the insurer? Seemed like it; next thing he was going through the details, checking boxes as he spoke, talking schedules and appointments. He hung up the phone and looked at her. ‘All set.'

Ellen frowned. ‘You seem to know a lot about all this. Do you moonlight here or something?'

Jake came back into the office then. ‘Got the paperwork, boss? I'll start marking up the repairs.'

Finn handed him the clipboard and Jake glanced over it, before giving Ellen a nod and a wink. ‘Don't worry, Ms Cosgrove, we'll get it back to you as good as new,' he said as he walked back out of the office.

Ellen looked at Finn, raising an eyebrow. ‘Boss?'

He shrugged sheepishly. ‘Yeah, I kind of . . . own the place.'

She frowned. ‘What about the garage?'

‘Mine too.' He stood up. ‘Come on, I'll buy you a cup of coffee.'

He led Ellen around a corner to a small kitchenette, where a coffee machine took up most of the bench.

‘This is buying me a cup of coffee?' Ellen said wryly.

‘Well, I do pay for it,' he said, rinsing out a couple of mugs. ‘How do you take it?'

Finn made the coffee and passed her a cup, then he pushed open a door which led outside to a large vacant lot behind the workshop. Old tyres and car panels were discarded amongst the overgrown weeds, while a couple of whole, rusted-out car wrecks languished in one corner. Finn overturned an old milk crate for Ellen to sit, then one for himself.

As he sat down he turned to her with a grin. ‘There, don't say I don't take you anywhere nice,' he said.

Ellen smiled.

‘Ah, look at that,' he declared. ‘Finally a smile.'

‘You think I had any reason to smile today?'

‘Yeah, I do actually.'

‘And how do you figure that?'

‘Okay,' he began, ‘you thought you were going to have to pay for the repairs yourself or lose your bonus, but instead, everything's covered. And you know what else? The impact won't have affected anything mechanical, including any of my hard work of the past few weeks. If you were going to get hit, it was the best place to get hit, unless you were in it, which you weren't, so, it's a win-win.'

Ellen shook her head in wonder. ‘You're a real glass half-full kind of guy, aren't you?' she said.

‘It's better than the alternative.'

‘Yeah, well, okay for you to say. My glass seems to be emptying out so fast these days I can't even get it to half-full. When I came back and saw the car the other day . . .' She paused, shaking her head, feeling teary again. ‘I just don't know how much more of this I can take. It feels like I'm paying for something bad I did, like the whole world is against me.'

‘You can't think like that, Ellen.'

‘Even when all evidence points to the contrary?'

He looked at her directly. ‘So you really believe the cosmos is somehow pitted against you? Sorry to burst your bubble, Ellen, but you're just not that significant, you're one person out of six billion
across the planet. Now if you were in the path of that tsunami way back, or in Haiti when the earthquake hit . . . or let's face it, if you were born in some poverty-stricken country in Africa, maybe you've got a right to feel like you've been dealt a dud hand. But you live in one of the richest countries in the world. You were born lucky. You're just having a run of bad luck at the moment. And when it passes, which it will, you won't wake up dirt poor in a hut in Africa, wondering if you're going to get anything to eat that day.'

‘That's very philosophical, for –'

‘A lowly mechanic?' he finished, raising an eyebrow.

‘I was going to say “for a Monday morning”.'

He smiled, putting his cup down on the ground beside him and resting his elbows on his knees. ‘Look, I've been where you are before, and it sucks. But you only make it harder for yourself if you think the whole world is against you. It doesn't do you any good.'

‘It's just hard sometimes,' she confided, ‘when everything seems to be going wrong.'

‘Depends which way you look at it. It is really bad luck that some dickhead ran into your car, but it's really good luck that you have insurance. And it was really bad luck that your car broke down the other week, but how lucky are you that when it did, the tow-truck driver brought you to my place?'

Ellen grinned. She had to admit that was probably the best bit of luck she'd had in a long time. ‘How am I going to repay you?' she said sincerely.

‘Fortnightly,' he said, picking up his coffee cup again. ‘It's all set out in that payment schedule I gave you.'

Liz buzzed the inter-office intercom. ‘Michelle, can you come in here for a moment?'

Liz had been checking off her appointments for the afternoon
on the computer. Michelle walked into the office and sat down on the other side of the desk.

‘What's up?'

‘I just noticed this double appointment booked in for this afternoon. What that's about?'

‘Oh, yeah, I was going to talk to you about it,' she said. ‘This woman rang, a few weeks ago now, wanting to book two full appointments, the last of the day. She insisted, said she'd pay for both. She has a disabled son, apparently, who needs treatment for eczema, and she wanted to see you first herself, before she brings him in. She wanted to make sure she had plenty of time.'

‘What kind of disability?' asked Liz.

‘She didn't say.'

‘Well, she doesn't have to pay for two appointments,' said Liz. ‘Only bill her for one.'

When the woman walked into the office later that afternoon, she looked fragile and weary, even though she was only around Liz's age. She offered her a seat.

‘What can I do for you, Ms Harris?'

‘Please, call me Julie,' she said. ‘Okay, well, here it is. My son, Alex, is autistic,' she said, catching Liz by surprise. ‘And he has severe eczema. He can't cope with new people, and he certainly can't tolerate being touched by anyone he doesn't know. Even then . . .' She paused. ‘Anyway, we've tried to treat it ourselves, with medical advice, of course. But it's just not getting any better, and the poor kid gets so agitated, he scratches himself raw. Someone has to look at him. You came highly recommended.'

Liz nodded. ‘I'd like to help in whatever way I can,' she assured her. ‘But you need to be prepared – eczema is a complicated condition, very frustrating for the patient and the doctor, let me tell you. It's usually caused by a whole raft of irritants and agents that are difficult, if not impossible, to isolate. I assume you've been down the whole food allergy route?'

‘Of course,' she said. ‘We have him off dairy at the moment, but we've tried cutting out a lot of different foods that haven't really made any difference in the end.'

‘That's right, because it's never one thing alone . . . if only,' Liz smiled sympathetically. ‘There are environmental allergens as
well, and as I imagine you know already, they're almost impossible to eradicate entirely – house mites, grass pollens, pollution.' She paused. ‘Having said that, the accepted and most successful approach is not to aim to cure, but to treat the individual. That will be my primary focus with Alex, the other will be to stop him from scratching. That's hard for anyone, children as well as adults. I imagine it's very difficult in Alex's case.'

‘That's why we're here,' said Julie. ‘I know it's a big ask, but if you can get him to trust you . . . it will take time, and a lot of patience, but if Alex believes what you tell him, well, anything's possible. He's a very determined boy when he puts his mind to it.'

Julie went on to explain how Alex had to be handled – he couldn't be touched at all, under any circumstances, which was the first hurdle. He may not even let Liz look at the affected areas this time, they'd have to wait and see. She should avoid making eye contact, but she should address him directly. He didn't like being talked about in the third person.

‘He might have become agitated sitting around in the waiting room,' Julie explained, ‘so my husband has taken him for a walk. I said I'd call as soon as you're ready to see him.'

‘Please, go ahead,' said Liz. ‘Do you need to use the phone?'

‘No, it's okay, I have my mobile,' she said. ‘I'll wait for them out at the lifts. Will it be okay to walk him straight in?'

‘Of course, I'll let my assistant know.'

‘Probably best if she doesn't speak to him, or acknowledge us.'

‘I'll tell her.' As she started for the door, Liz stopped her. ‘Julie?' she said.

She turned around.

‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?'

‘No, of course not.'

Liz sat back in her chair. ‘How do you do it, how do you cope?'

Julie shrugged. ‘Like they say, one day at a time. It's not all hard, he really is a great kid.'

‘I'm sure he is. I'm just wondering about the . . . relentlessness, I suppose.'

‘I couldn't do it alone,' she said. ‘My husband is amazing. He's always been completely involved, he's so good with him.'

‘Well, Alex is his son, too.'

Julie shook her head, taking a few steps back towards the desk. ‘That's the thing, he's not. I mean, Neil considers Alex his own, but Alex's father left about a year after he was diagnosed. He couldn't deal with it. Then when he realised he missed him and he wanted to be part of his life, Alex didn't know him any more, or he didn't want to know him. They see each other occasionally, but they can't get established. Neil is with him every day. He's put in the hard yards. They're bonded for life now.'

Before Liz left her office that afternoon, she called Andrew to see if he was still at work. His secretary told her he was in surgery but that he should be through within the hour if she wanted to try calling his mobile then.

Liz had a better idea. She drove to the hospital and parked in the visiting doctors' carpark. She was waiting out in the corridor when Andrew came out of surgery. He was talking with some colleagues when he noticed her. He excused himself and walked up to where she stood, his expression curious, to say the least.

‘Liz, what are you doing here? Are you visiting a patient?'

‘No, I came to see you,' she said plainly.

He looked around uneasily. ‘I wasn't going to be able to see you tonight,' he said in a low voice. ‘Jennifer's expecting me home for dinner.'

‘That's fine,' said Liz. ‘I just want to talk to you about something. Have you got time for a coffee?'