Holden's Performance by Murray Bail

O'Clock. Over’—but soon returned to his position at the boss's elbow, igniting the oxy torch with McBee's temperamental Zippo, handing him spanners, helping him undo the nuts on Merlin rocket-covers—that sort of thing.
    The complexities of identical aircraft constantly posed a different set of problems. Nothing remained static. A part was always being dismantled or swapped, reducing the whole. The great powerhouses of frame and solid metal laced with wire, piping, clips and cable, the sleeves and brackets of many different sizes, and the hundreds of watch-like screws and nuts engrossed the two of them. There was always something to do, always something to look forward to. And as Holden studied McBee's neck as he strained and swore, unbolting a stubborn supercharger, he was bathed in a kind of liquid gratitude.
    Wiping his hands at the end of a long day, and kick-starting for the return home, McBee often got it into his head to suddenly slalom, just for the hell of it, through the formation of Dakotas and Ansons and, in late 1946, an American Liberator—‘There's a rare bird for you’—with Holden gripping his waist, until they lost control one night, clipped the propeller of a Mustang and somersaulted, and McBee practised his ratbaggery alone. As it grew dark the hills several hundred yards away became silhouetted, as did the patient shapes of the planes in cold gun-metal against the sky, standing on angular undercarriages of polished bones. Without lights McBee made a point of riding faster and faster. Holden followed his progress through sound and imagination, sometimes deceived by a backfire of bluish flame. In another little game, McBee on AJS motorbike gave the boy a ten-second start and then hunted him down in the style perfected by the SS. Unfortunately it revealed the former corporal's worst qualities—his ruthlessness, for example—and Holden felt hurt when he was caught and then repeatedly run over by his otherwise generous friend.
    Leaving Parafield, approaching the streets of Adelaide, McBee's reluctance to turn for home was transmitted through his back in a series of muscular contractions. A hesitancy stuttered the exhaust note. If there was a phone call to make, or someone to see somewhere, Holden waited outside on the pillion seat. But once—it was raining—McBee took Holden inside the Maid ‘n’ Magpie. The big boy sat there with his glass of lemonade, appearing not to follow the conversation, and after that always accompanied McBee into the public bar whether there was business or not.
    McBee was at his most relaxed there. The enclosed noise of men blurred distinctions. A bar had an anonymous, respectful quality. Men enjoyed each other's noise. They wanted to be there, and the noise further confirmed it. They were comfortable; Holden admired their ease. And McBee became laughingly expansive.
    â€˜We'd better go,’ Holden had to tug his sleeve.
    It always took a few more minutes. Usually McBee made an exaggerated show of consulting his watch fitted with a learner hood. (Protective leather watchbands were common after the war: as if they obliterated the past and offered an open future.)
    And Holden quickly knew how long they'd stayed by the rate of acceleration up Magill Road and, turning into their street, if McBee sped down the gravel footpath between the shadowed hedges and the flashing jacarandas, his chin on the petrol tank, before broadsiding to negotiate the gate.
    They banged into the kitchen with extra loudness, McBee still talking and Holden half-grinning behind him. The passivity of the soft-skinned women—the familiar shape of Holden's seated mother, his sister Karen—seemed like a rebuke. Bold as brass though McBee kissed his missus on the lips and neck.
    â€˜Here! You've got dirty paws!’
    And when he trotted off she turned to Holden.
    â€˜I know where you've been. Do you know what time it is? Why are you doing this? The