jmgoyder

We had taken a taxi to the ‘Rent-a-Bomb’ place so that I could drive the car/bomb back to my place where Anthony could get into his commodore and drive back to the farm, knowing he had made this magnificent gesture and I would be able to drive a car, not a scooter, to work for a few days.

Halfway back to my place, the little rentabomb spluttered and died.

Now I do cry quite easily, and sometimes unexpectedly. My eyes seem to have a leaking tap condition, a bit like the taps in our kitchen, laundry and everywhere else at the moment, but that’s beside the point because I didn’t always cry so easily.

But when that stupid, rotten bomb of a car broke down, I let it roll to the side of the road and I broke down too, quite dramatically.

Anthony had never seen me cry like that – never! And it was in that moment, at the side of a strange road, in a crap car, that he finally realized the error of his ways and declared his love.

Then we got the towtruck.

I know I’m skipping back and forth a bit in terms of this story and I have quite a few missing pieces to fill in but I am in the mood to write about the funny incidents, so bear with me.

Okay, so Ants and I finally got married on March 27, 28 or 29th (I can never remember which and we both always forget our wedding anniversary) in 1993. We honeymooned in Broome because it was cheap at that time of year and Anthony has always been very careful with money. In Broome, we soon discovered why it was so cheap – it was an extremely hot and unbearably humid time of year.

Nevertheless it was a lovely resort right near the beach (if you wanted to wilt and fry), but luckily the rooms were air-conditioned. Anyway, we had a great time overall and came back to the farm a week later … to discover that I was pregnant.

Mmmmm. A little soon perhaps, oh well. At the time, though, apart from feeling an overpowering sense of joy, I also felt extremely embarrassed and hoped that the the local gossips wouldn’t assume that the confirmed middle-aged bachelor had married the ‘girl’ in a shotgunny way. Unfortunately, by June it had become obvious because I had become rather Dolly Parton-ish, so, yes, the small town rumours spread.

I became so self-conscious of this that when people asked me when I was due, instead of simply saying next January, I would stutter and stammer about how it probably happened around March 27, 28 or 29th because I wanted to make it clear that I got pregnant after we got married and not before, because I didn’t want everyone to think Anthony had been forced into marriage.

One day, after my usual response to the ‘when are you due?’ question, an elderly woman, having overheard me, whispered in my ear, “They don’t want to know about the date of conception, dearie, just the date you are due to give birth.”

Oh!

Just before our courtship years, the love of my life came to Perth one weekend and, seeing that I was still relying on a scooter to get me to work and back, and, seeing that the scooter was on its deathbead, he very generously offered to hire a car for me for a few days.

I was quite excited about his newfound generosity and imagined he would be taking me to a lovely Rollsrocey place. Instead he took me to the outskirts of Perth to a place called ‘Rent a Bomb Car Hire’.

Needless to say, our courtship was put on hold for a little while.