David Gairdner – Lemon

-        Citron is French for lemon.

-        My mother didn’t know that, but she knew she liked leather seating. In her sophisticated car, she developed a taste for 106.1 Classic FM, I think we called it.

-        The Citroën conked out mid-way through the Australian summer.

Electrics melted.

-        No mechanics au fait with Citroëns.

-        My mechanic still drives Holdens.

-        The Citroën was towed to wreckers.

-        Years later I still wonder what happened to the leather seating.

-        I wonder if the wrecker wonders about things, in the comfort of the Citroën seating.

-        I sit in a metal chair, coloured black, rust brown at the joints. It is not as comfortable as the Citroën seating.

-        My mother now sits on synthetic seating. (I don’t know the thesis or antithesis to get this synthesis)

My mother sits in a Toyota RA4 now.

She doesn’t play the rococo or baroque of 106.1.

She sits in Zen-like silence, reaching at times, prayer.

Most work days she drives from Werris Creek to her office in Tamworth.

In spring it gets hot in summer especially so.