Sunny Times

When you were littlish, you could sit on one side of the car and not have to touch your sister on the other side. The seat was like a small sea stretching across to Big Sister Island. Was it because the seats were big or we were small? Not sure really, perhaps a bit of both. The good old days.

Well, mostly good. If you put a little brother smack in the middle of the female siblings, then that blue seat became a battleground during long trips. Hair was pulled and arms were pinched. Dad's arm could magically snake around and tap a knee or whip an ice cream out of an unsuspecting hand.

There was another unsettling, feature of these car trips, as one sister peered out the window as Dad pointed out horses in the paddocks. The blue-eyed brother when not acting out some minor torture was inventing them in his mindseye as he sucked his thumb. The sun would shine, it always did. Happy childhood can seem like one big, sunny drought. It had to rain, but when?

Our car was a big, white Falcon. Shiny chrome and seats still preserved in a plastic covering. It smelt of Falcon, a vinyly blue, slightly petrolly smell. And on longer trips, thanks to the motion, the small blue ocean would sometimes offer up the whiff of forgotten bile.

The bile always emanated from one child. The child who got car sick.

On one trip, rolling along gravel roads towards Whitianga, the heat and the rolls of the car, caused the car-sicker to green with apprehension.

'Mum, I feel sick.'

'We're nearly there, don't worry.'

A little further, a little more petrol.

'Mum, I really feel sick.'

'Of course you don't darling.'

'I do.'

'You don't.'

The thumbsucker moved nearer his older sister, as near as his seatbelt would allow.

'Mum.'

Mum, turned, her hair full and firm, as was the style. Her glasses, big and round. 'We're nearly there.' Her irritation was carefully buried.

'Mum... I do.'

'No, you don't.'

And as she turned to me, smiling reassuringly, the little girl did.

Mum didn't say anything. Removing her glasses, only her eyes had escaped.

The little girl didn't have anything left to say.