At the bottom of the hill the King of the Road slowed and turned to lumber along the main drag of darkened souvenir shops, deserted mini-golf courses and fast-food outlets now firing up neon lights in the lengthening shadows. Annie reluctantly resumed her place up front and was instantly revived by the salty smell of the sea. She was back there as a child on Christmas holidays, sitting between her parents in the front seat of the Commodore. She clapped her hands with delight. ‘Can we buy some prawns at the Fisherman’s Co-op? There’s a pub—let’s go for a drink!’
The van stopped at a zebra crossing and Meredith noticed a surfer in a ludicrous pose. As if he was ‘a hunk of burnin’ love’. He was sporting board shorts and a knitted beanie and carrying a parcel of hot chips. She was confused for a moment by his street mime, but then she remembered the artwork on display. No doubt the multicoloured jewels on The King’s jumpsuit were glittering in the setting sun. What a sight they must look! Like the carnival had come to town. She ducked her head.
Annie cheered out loud at the surfie’s salutation and was suddenly inspired by the sight of the steaming takeaway. ‘Let’s get fish and chips for tea.’
‘For God’s sake, Annie, you’ll be wanting a game of mini-golf next!’ Nina was horrified to hear herself regurgitate this nag. ‘I mean—of course you can have whatever you want,’ she said quickly, hoping no-one had caught her mother-hen peck, ‘but we’ve got all this food in the fridge. I was thinking of maybe whipping up a grilled chicken salad.’
It was almost 7 pm and Nina had been awake since before dawn. In truth, about the last thing she wanted to eat was a salad. The thought of fish and chips was a delicious, greasy, salty, vinegary hug and Nina felt her willpower slipping off her like the transparent layers of a pickled onion. She looked at Meredith, hoping she would be outvoted.
‘Gorgeous! Haven’t had fish and chips for years,’ Meredith enthused. Nina’s shoulders sagged with gratitude. She slowed and parked alongside a papier-mâché shark hanging in a fishing net over the footpath.
Once the steamy, aromatic package of fried whiting, scallops and chips was in the van, the hunt for a place to stop for the night was on in earnest. Nina was driving and looking at the caravan park signs—Lakes Haven, Lakes Ponderosa, Lakes Caravilla. She peered beyond the thicket of tents, speedboats and four-wheel drives, trying to find a picturesque spot, but it was a pointless exercise in the gathering darkness. Garlands of fairy lights sparked into life in trees and very soon one spotlit caravan park entrance looked much the same as another.
Meredith and Annie were no help. They’d torn a hole in the paper fish-and-chips wrapping and were extracting tasty battered morsels. Like bloody seagulls, the pair of them, Nina thought with irritation. ‘Look, let’s just find ourselves a basic park and stop.’ She turned into the next caravan park driveway and leapt from her seat.
Annie licked salt from her fingers as she watched Nina slide open the glass door on the tatty little prefab building that was the park’s front office. ‘Remind me again,’ she asked, ‘what the hell are we doing here?’
‘We’re having an adventure, apparently.’ Meredith thought of her house back in Armadale. If she were at home she would be padding in silken slippers across her Tibetan wool rugs to the courtyard with a cup of chamomile tea.
Annie watched two grey-haired women in dressing gowns with damp towels slung over their shoulders shuffle along the path next to the van. They were nattering and swinging floral toiletry bags. ‘Looks like a whole lot of pensioners towing caravans ticked the same box,’ she said, fishing in the paper for another scorching chip. She imagined the scene at Jupiter’s Casino. At almost forty, Annie was the elder stateswoman at these events. The younger female delegates would be ordering in sugary fruit cocktails and complaining bitterly that the spa was booked out. Annie, who always arrived a day early and indulged herself in every pampering treatment on offer, would have already tipped the barman to stash a bottle of Stoli under the counter and put it on the company tab. But there was no point in thinking about any of this, she reflected. This ‘adventure’ was already past the point of no return. They’d hit base camp. No doubt there would be a lot of tricky terrain to negotiate before they saw home again.
‘Forty bucks for the night.’ Nina climbed back into the cabin. ‘A bargain, huh?’
‘If you don’t count the cost of the fuel . . .’ began Meredith.
‘There’s no use talking about cost. We’re going to have an experience money can’t buy.’ Nina waved the paper receipt. ‘Now we’re on lot 47 according to this . . . it’s down this road here. Close to the toilet block.’
‘God, I wish my mother could see me now.’ Annie leaned between the seats at Nina’s elbow. ‘That was always at the top of Mum’s agenda when we camped at Sorrento every Chrissy. “Brian, get as close as you can to the taps and the conveniences.” Jean’s a nice country lady, of course, she still can’t bring herself to say “toilets”. Little does she know I first learned about sex in that caravan park. You can see right through canvas with a good light behind it. Kama Sutra shadow puppetry.’
Soon the RoadMaster was parked on a concrete pad underneath a gum tree, plugged in and humming with electricity. A bright and cosy nesting box for three hens who’d flown the coop. They’d scored a prime position—no campers either side. The standard-issue breeze-block conveniences were a short walk away through flower beds and, at the back of the van, the manicured lawn gave way to darkened scrubby bush.
Half an hour later Nina was stuffing paper wrappings into the plastic bin in the van and cursing herself for eating most of the fatty chips. She thought about breaking her promise not to use her mobile phone again. She shouldn’t have agreed to the pact in the first place. Nina had a young family at home and they needed to hear from her. It was something the other two couldn’t really understand. In the pool of light coming from the van’s windows she could see Annie outside, now wearing a stylish pale-blue velour tracksuit and white ballet flats. She was sitting back in a canvas camp chair, on her third cigarette and nursing a champagne flute. Where does she think she is, thought Nina—St Bloody Tropez?
Nina fished for her phone, tucked it up her sleeve, stepped into the bathroom and called the home number. No answer. Then Brad and Jordy’s mobile phones. No answer again. Where were they? In the lounge room, making some point by not picking up? Or had Brad taken the boys to Wanda’s for their favourite meal of borscht with herb dumplings while her own maternal offerings sat unwanted—a pile of freezing bricks? She willed herself not to call her mother or leave any messages.
When Nina finally made her way down the van’s steps she found Annie and Meredith both leaning back and surveying the starry southern skies. Neither of them could remember the last time they’d sat in a camp chair in the dark, so maybe they were having an adventure. Nina was mugged by the beauty of the rising moon, its edges hazy with a silver corona of salt and surf thrown up by the sea. The night was warm and clear.
‘I’m trying to remember the last time I looked at the stars.’ Meredith regarded the sequinned heavens. ‘You know—really looked. Did you ever try to count the stars when you were little?’ She held out her empty glass for a refill.
Annie retrieved the bottle of champagne from the shadows. ‘There’s about a hundred billion of ’em last time anyone counted, and between 56 and 250 million bubbles in a bottle of champagne—depending on which estimate you want to believe.’
‘Someone counted champagne bubbles?’ Meredith licked the rim of her Danish crystal champagne flute etched with stalks of wheat.
‘When Dom Perignon first tasted champagne, they reckon he said: “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars.” But then, he was pissed at the time!’ Annie grinned and held up the bottle to Nina.
‘Come on, Nina, have a champers.’ Meredith produced another flute and they were all amazed to hear the fizzing of the bubbles in the quiet, even as they could hear the distant tumbling surf.
Nina found some absoluti
on in her glass. She forgave herself for the chips . . . the piece of fish, two potato cakes and three fried scallops. It was the last meal of the condemned fat woman. That’s how she’d think of it. The harsh words between her and Brad? That was understandable. They were both trying to navigate their way through this unfamiliar scenario. She’d never done this before—left her family to fly solo. Now, after weeks of planning all their lives to the last detail, she was on the road and travelling north away from everything she knew. She had wished for this for so long and resolved not to miss what was in front of her.
Nina kicked off her rubber thongs and dug her toes into the damp grass. Who, she wondered, was this anonymous woman, more than three hundred kilometres from all care and responsibility, listening to the surf pounding beyond the dunes?
‘Here’s to us!’ Annie raised her glass. ‘And to life on the open road.’ A sultry breeze blew through the caravan park carrying the sound of tinkling crystal away to the shoreline.
The next breath of wind brought with it the unmistakable sound of Meatloaf belting out ‘Bat Out of Hell’.
‘Good God, it’s SO loud! It’s deafening! Couldn’t they turn it down?’ Meredith was kneeling on the top bed, winding the van’s windows tight against the assault of AC/DC’s Greatest Hits. ‘Isn’t there someone at that office who could order them to turn it down?’
‘It’s only half past nine,’ Nina called from the sink, where she was calmly boiling the kettle for a cup of tea. ‘They’ll pack it in before long.’ Meredith groaned and fell back with a continental pillow over her head. ‘TNT . . .’ blasted its way through the open door.
‘Fucking hell, it’s SO loud!’ Annie scrambled inside and slammed the door after her. ‘So much for the eerie silence of the Australian bush! I need another drink.’
Nina wiped the counter with a tea towel. They were both looking at her as if it was her fault! Nina was accused on a daily basis of sabotaging the lives of her loved ones—of hiding socks and homework and sports gear with deliberate intent. A tiny mutinous voice urged her to abdicate and let the Forces of Chaos reign, but what would happen if she did that? ‘Look, tomorrow . . .’ she began.
‘WHAT?’ Meredith and Annie chorused. They couldn’t hear her over the relentless thump of the music.
‘Tomorrow we’ll camp in the bush away from everyone! We really only have to bring the van into a campground once a week to empty the grey water and black water. The rest of the time we can park anywhere we like.’
Annie was puzzled. ‘I know what grey water is, but what’s black water?’
‘Sewage. There’s a canister under the toilet. You pull it out and you empty it into a—’
‘Do NOT continue!’ Meredith commanded. ‘I’ve just eaten. That is enough to convince me to never use that toilet. If I don’t use it, I won’t have to empty it. I’d rather take my chances behind a bush with the ants nests.’
‘JAILBREAK . . .’ Another gust of wind blew Bon Scott’s strangled cry for freedom through the gap at the bottom of the van’s door.
‘That’s it!’ Annie upended the bottle of red into her glass. ‘I’m going to see where the fuck it’s coming from.’
‘Forget it, Annie.’ Nina flapped her tea towel. ‘It’s no big deal. It’s probably just a bunch of blokes on a fishing trip having a few drinks. Let’s all have an early night. We’ve got a big drive tomorrow and—’
‘I’m off to Camp Yobbo. I’ll be back in a minute.’ Another high-pitched guitar siren sounded as Annie wrenched open the door and plunged into the darkness.
‘Take the tomahawk from the bottom locker,’ Meredith called through a pillow. She’d clambered up the ladder to Annie’s bed in a futile attempt to find some refuge from the noise. Nina caught the door and turned back to the counter. She didn’t mind the music—she was used to the screech of guitars and drumbeats thumping through the kitchen ceiling. She checked her mobile. Still no message. She’d now rung Brad four times. His mobile and the home phone remained stubbornly silent. She ran through an alphabetical checklist of calamities that could have befallen her home and family, from ‘Asteroid Impact’ to ‘Zeppelin Crash Landing’.
But there was only one real looming disaster: Brad would leave her for a skinny blonde football camp follower. She knew he would. If she were Brad, she would have left two years ago. Around the 85-kilo mark. Or maybe he was waiting until the boys moved out. By that calculation she had about five years of married life left until she was a clapped-out divorcee. Fair, fat, fifty . . . and forgotten. Like the rest of the dumpy discarded women living in her street.
Nina pulled the plug on the kettle and reached for a bottle of red wine. She thought of her new Patricia Cornwell crime novel stowed in her handbag, along with the family-size block of hazelnut chocolate she’d brought along for an emergency. That was the answer to her maudlin musings. In a moment she would be curled up in bed . . . except that her cosy corner was still in pieces. A jigsaw puzzle of cushions that would have to be assembled after she’d pulled down the table.
Bugger! It was always like this. This was her life. No matter how tired she was, there was always one more thing to do: a shirt to put in the dryer, a stack of mugs to wash, wet towels to hang up. Why hadn’t she insisted on the top bed? It was her bloody van after all! What would Annie care? She’d soon be drunk enough to sleep outside on the concrete.
And then the noise stopped.
‘Hooray!’ Meredith sat up on the top bed and banged her head on the roof. ‘Ow! Damn! Ow!’
Nina laughed, then apologised for laughing and then laughed again.
Meredith slid her gangly frame down the flimsy metal stairs with her hand nursing her outraged forehead. ‘Yes, very funny! I’m glad I didn’t get that ridiculous bed. I’d have permanent brain damage by the end of the week. And the stairs are impossible. Ow! Can you see a lump?’
Nina brushed at Meredith’s fringe. ‘Do you see him much?’ she asked.
‘Who?’
‘Donald.’ Nina took her drink and sat at the table. She popped a square of dark hazelnut into her mouth. ‘Want some?’
Meredith waved away Nina’s offering. This was what this trip would be like, she supposed. Every personal detail would have to be offered up for forensic inspection. ‘Enough to know that he’s apparently perfectly happy living in that dreary flat in the city by himself.’
‘Do you think there’s some woman involved?’ Nina broke off another piece of chocolate. Meredith couldn’t quite believe Nina had asked. Stuck in this sardine can, it wasn’t only her physical space that was being compromised.
‘No. I don’t.’ She batted Nina’s question out of bounds. ‘In some ways, I could have dealt with it better if there was. Apparently he disliked the colour I painted his den, and that was enough to walk out after twenty-eight years of marriage. He hasn’t even got a den in his new place. I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to make of that.’
‘What colour did you paint it?’ asked Nina.
‘Mallard grey.’
‘You mean, like the duck?’
‘It’s a lovely soft shade,’ said Meredith defensively. She’d had this argument before. ‘It complements the whole cream-to-brown spectrum. I had cushions done in a light rice raw silk.’
‘And what colour did Donald want it painted?’
‘He wanted it left the same hideous dark green it had been for years. Apparently it reminded him of some old car he had before we were married. Honestly, there were bits flaking from the ceiling, scuff marks on the walls. It had to be done.’
‘I know what you mean,’ agreed Nina. ‘You should see the walls at our place. Ten years worth of grunge from dirty footy boots and cricket balls. I’d love to have the place repainted.’
There had to be another woman, Nina immediately concluded. How many men of Donald’s age—and he must be almost sixty—would leave to set up house by themselves? He was using the repainting of the den as an excuse. Nina might not have seen Donald for a long time, but she
did know that Meredith had expertly organised his life for two decades. This new chick would be young, naive—probably an actress looking for a father figure. In Donald’s line of work he met them all the time. There was no other explanation.
‘Will he be at the wedding?’
‘I imagine so. Donald and Sigrid were always close. Closer than . . . well, anyway, close. It’s their shared artistic vision, apparently. Funny how it’s ended up. He makes junk television; Sigrid’s selling tat at the markets—last I heard, anyway. While I have my store full of beautiful things and Jarvis is dealing fine art.’ It was indeed a strange turn of events, thought Nina as she noisily crunched another nut.
‘Anyway, I hope he’s happy. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough, won’t I?’ Meredith turned and rummaged in an overhead cupboard for a glass. ‘How do I get water out of this tap again?’ Meredith perched her reading glasses on her nose and peered at the row of switches and dials on the panel above the fridge—AC current/DC current/gas—their operation was beyond her capabilities.
‘You flick that red switch over the stove and it starts the pump.’
Meredith duly flicked the switch. The pump shuddered and water spluttered from the tap into the sink, splashing her shirt. Meredith jumped back. ‘Damn! There’s a knack to everything in this van. It all looks simple, but there’re so many switches and keys and vents and dials. It’s like being in a wretched submarine!’
Nina saw the door was now closed on the uncertainty she had glimpsed. It was as if, in Meredith’s perfect, sunlit, art-directed home, there was a hidden room at the end of a long corridor crammed with heavy furniture. Nina figured that she had a while yet before she could get inside that space and explore. She was sure Meredith would be grateful for her expedition. After all, wasn’t that what best friends did? Held hands and comforted each other as they poked in dark corners. Nina resolved to try again another time.
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