Usual, because everyone filled their car with fifty-fifty. As a kid you’d watch the little cups stirring the pink water, passing it into the tube as Mr H stood smoking, watching the road for something different, although there never was. He wore a shirt with a BP logo; a proud company man (I guessed). Grey hair, slicked back, and a carpenter’s pencil in his pocket. As he filled our car he’d take my nose between his fingers and twist it and say, ‘Careful, it might drop off.’ Then he’d get bored, put out his smoke, ask for Mum to pop the bonnet and check the oil.

Once, in 1977, there was a raffle. A Christmas stocking that touched the station’s ceiling. Being Whelans, we never won anything. Mum had given up buying lottery tickets. It was, she said, like God had painted a cross on her forehead. Anyway, Mr Haslam convinced her to have a go (because it was for the crippled children), and we won. I can still remember Gazza (not that we could call him that) helping us tie it to the roof of the Datsun, driving home, unloading, Pop saying something like fuck me, taking it in and standing it beside the Christmas tree. And Mum saying, ‘See, if you live long enough everything happens.’

July 2: the middle of a warm, dry winter. It was quiet, so Curtis opened a pack of Winnie Blues, offered me one and said, ‘He doesn’t care.’

We smoked. A few people stopped, so he went out and served them, came in with the money and returned with their change. Ernie and Fi-fi walked past on the way to the Windsor and I called out the door, ‘Ernie, Pop’s got new springs.’

He smiled and gave a thumbs up, but continued, because cold beer would only stay cold for so long.

The newsstand had the paper and the Post and some titty mags. Curtis opened one, showed me Mrs July and explained how they injected pig fat to make them big. ‘You gotta admit, it’d be nice.’

‘Not her.’

‘Taken.’ He read: ‘Glenda studies hydraulic engineering at a Queensland university … yeah, right.’

‘So what about Tracey?’ I asked, placing my smoke in a tray, eating a handful of teeth.

‘All sorted.’ He continued studying the magazine, then approached the staff toilet.

‘I’m not serving no one,’ I said.

‘Fuck.’ He went in and locked the door.

‘Hurry up.’

No reply. Of course, a car pulled up. ‘You got a customer.’

‘Can you?’

The car tooted so I headed out, undid the cap and said, ‘Fill her up?’

An older woman with what must have been her grandkids. I started, waited, stopped and took her money. I went back in and said, ‘Don’t worry, I got it.’

Nothing. I returned, gave her the change and another car pulled up. I did this one too, but when it’d gone, I knocked on the door. ‘How long’s it take?’