Roadside Sisters

by Roadside Sisters (epub)

  The breeze chilled the places where Bill’s tongue had licked at Meredith’s bare breasts. The planks of the bleachers under her naked back were still warm with the absorbed heat of the day. She couldn’t believe she was doing this—in a place that must have been the scene of a thousand teenage trysts. No doubt they would have laughed to see two middle-aged lovers desperately clawing at each other under the stars.

  The moon was low and heavy in the sky, and over Bill’s head Meredith could see a restless, endless sea of silver. She was entirely naked now and so was he. He lay over her, covering her body with a fleshy warmth that stopped the shivering. The heat from his body infused her limbs and she relaxed. Her fingers trawled across his hard, muscled back and found crusts of dried salty foam.

  The waves were breaking on the rocks below and, as Meredith slipped out of her skin, they seemed to be breathing for her. A long, slow intense pulse of energy roared and peaked and crashed. Meredith was swept away into the depths. She was a mermaid swimming away from all she knew.

  ‘You had sex with that bloke last night, didn’t you?’ Annie was revelling in the exquisite pleasure of having her tormentor in the spotlight. There was no need for Meredith to reply—she was smiling like the cat that got the cream.

  ‘Meredith, you only just met him!’ Nina was aghast.

  Meredith refused to surrender any information. She stood beside the flimsy camp table and stretched languorously. ‘It’s a divine morning. Who’s coming for a walk?’

  ‘It’s past midday. We’ve been up for hours,’ said Annie, making the point that she wasn’t the only one capable of sleeping in and wasting the day.

  ‘Just hang on a tick,’ said Nina. ‘I want to see what the weather’s doing at home before I ring the boys. They’re playing football this afternoon.’ She collected the breakfast things and the remains of the fruit salad and ducked into the van. When she switched on the television to see the Saturday afternoon sports show, the panel discussion immediately caught her attention.

  ‘It’s probably a day Corinne Jacobsen would like to forget,’ the young female ex-hockey champion in the red blazer was saying.

  ‘Well, she hasn’t commented yet so . . .’ began the telegenic male host sitting next to her behind the desk.

  ‘But, you have to say she’s got a lot of fast talking to do if any of these reports are true,’ the salt-and-pepper-haired elder statesman of the panel interrupted and stubbed his finger on the pile of newspapers in front of him.

  ‘If you’ve just tuned in,’ said the host, ‘Logie-winning actress Tasha Bowen has this morning made sensational allegations that her husband—tennis ace, Mitchell Haddon—has abandoned her and their nine-month-old twins for the veteran former Channel 5 TV hostess.’

  ‘She’s almost twenty years his senior,’ the hockey champ chick chimed in.

  ‘Well, this one’s definitely not “love-all”,’ punned the chirpy host. ‘We’ll be back with more—an exclusive interview with Tasha Bowen, and a look at the career highlights of Mitchell Haddon—right after the break.’

  Time had stood still for Nina as she watched all this on the van’s small television. Now she wrung her tea towel nervously. This was obviously Brad’s handiwork. Tasha was the famous younger sister of Travis Bowen—one of Richmond’s star wingers. By the time Nina had screeched for Meredith and Annie to join her at the table in front of the TV, and furnished them both with cups of tea, the sports show was back.

  The three hosts efficiently summed up the allegation made in that morning’s Sydney Telegraph, Melbourne Herald Sun, Brisbane Courier-Mail, Adelaide Advertiser, Hobart Mercury, Perth’s West Australian and the Cooktown Courier. Corinne’s affair with the twenty-seven-year-old tennis star had (allegedly) begun when he was the number two seed at the Australian Open that January. He had recently moved out of the marital home, citing a need for ‘more space’. The space he had found was in Corinne’s bed while the billionaire (with a special emphasis on the ‘b’) packaging tycoon Malcolm Pearson (her second husband, it was noted) was in New York working on a company takeover.

  The evidence? That had been kindly supplied by the nation’s sweetheart, Tasha Bowen herself. A blurry black-and-white nude photograph of Corinne in the shower, with the various rude bits blacked out, flashed up on the screen.

  ‘Oh my God!’ exclaimed Nina.

  ‘Holy shit!’ muttered Annie.

  ‘Shoosh!’ commanded Meredith.

  ‘This is just one of the many photographs found by Tasha Bowen, and supplied to the nation’s media,’ intoned the host. ‘And Tasha has agreed to speak with us from her hotel. Good afternoon, Tasha. Can you tell us about this photograph?’

  ‘It’s one of the ones I found on his computer,’ said Tasha, her eyes brimming in a damning close-up. ‘And I took his phone. He thought he’d lost it. I know I did the wrong thing, but I had to know for sure. There were lots of text messages on it from her. Nothing that, you know, you could say on television ’cos there might be kids watching.’

  The panel members all nodded sympathetically, even though they had an urgent requirement for more information before the next break.

  ‘Tasha, we know this is a very hard time for you,’ crooned the host. ‘Especially when your twins Violet and Daisy are so young . . .’

  ‘Six months old! Hard to comprehend this sort of behaviour.’ The crusty old ex-footy player crammed into his red blazer shook his head with genuine wonder. ‘Tasha, do you think that this alleged affair had anything to do with Mitchell’s much-criticised performance at the Australian Open this year, when he was bundled out in the first round by the unranked Russian?’

  ‘Well,’ Tasha sniffed, ‘Corinne . . . Miss Jacobsen . . . she was there. She was there the whole time in the same hotel. Mitchell said that he couldn’t sleep in our suite ’cos of me breastfeeding the twins and everything. So he took another room up the hall. I couldn’t understand why he still looked so tired. Now . . . I reckon I know why.’ The camera zoomed in to catch her tears.

  ‘He should of won.’ She sobbed. ‘If he didn’t want to do it for me and the girls, he could of done it for Australia.’ She dropped her head, unable to continue.

  This was possibly the worst news of all for Corinne. She’d already been branded a husband stealer, home wrecker and cradle snatcher. Now she’d done something far more reprehensible—robbed the nation of international sporting success. Her reputation was rubble.

  In the van, Meredith was slapping her hands on the table in merriment, Nina was open-mouthed and speechless, while Annie cringed in the corner, chewing on a cushion.

  The piece wrapped with an invitation to viewers to take part in an exclusive Sportsdesk poll: Which Woman Would YOU Rather Be With? The choice was between a blurry image of the naked forty-six-year-old Corinne Jacobsen, taken with a mobile phone, or a glossy portrait of Tasha Bowen in a leopard-print bikini on the beachside set of her soapie series for the cover of TV Week. It was a no-brainer.

  ‘I have to find my mobile and vote.’ Meredith jumped from her seat and began rummaging through cupboards.

  ‘Don’t! You’re being a total bitch!’ admonished Annie. ‘Poor Corinne.’

  ‘Poor Corinne?’ Meredith was scandalised. ‘Shane Warne went down for less!’ She stabbed her finger at the television. Annie could find nothing to say. Meredith had a point.

  The weather report was halfway through when Nina’s phone trilled. She fell downstairs and took the call.

  ‘Did you see it?’ Brad’s tone was triumphant.

  ‘Bloody hell! How did you pull that off?’ Nina was genuinely in awe of her husband’s powers.

  ‘Bit of inside info from young Travis . . . Apparently the kid sister and the in-laws were waiting for hubby to come home. I talked her out of it. Convinced her that she was far better off financially if she nailed the prick.’

  ‘She did that alright! And Corinne . . .’

  ‘I told you I’d fix her too. Didn’t win Best and Fairest over so man
y years for nothing!’

  Nina smiled. It was an in-joke between her and Brad that the Best and Fairest title was won by rat cunning more than anything else.

  ‘I’ve just gotta get Tabby through this court thing in Melbourne on Monday and I’ll be back to my usual shit-fight. Jeez, I’m knackered with all this! I wish you were here. I just checked and the boys are off to footy with Dad, so it’s all good at home. I’ll see you soon then. Miss you, babe.’

  ‘Bye, honey, see you soon. I miss you too. I love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  Annie was strolling to the beach under the shade of the paperbark trees for an afternoon dip when she was stopped in her sandy tracks by a sight she’d long given up on seeing again. There, on the boat ramp, was a LandCruiser with Victorian plates. Behind it two men were uncoupling a tinnie on a trailer—Matty and Zoran.

  The last time Annie had spotted their rig was outside Foxglove Spires at Tilba Tilba. She hadn’t set eyes on Matty himself since that first night at Lakes Entrance. She had been entertaining herself with daydreams about him, but time and distance had made her think that she was probably nurturing an adolescent fantasy. Well, she’d soon find out. She pulled the combs from her hair and shook out her curls, tugged her bikini into place and draped a beach towel over her shoulder.

  As she came closer to the ramp, Matty stood up from behind the boat and Annie instantly knew he was no conjured fantasy. She stumbled on the fringe of the towel. In that moment he saw her.

  ‘Hey, Annie! Annie Bailey?’ he called and waved.

  ‘Hi!’ She regained her balance and waved back.

  He was out from behind the boat in an instant, and coming towards her—a bare-chested, sandy-haired, muscled . . . dreamboat. Annie couldn’t believe she’d come up with that word. It was out of some 1950s Gidget movie. And then he was standing in front of her smiling, and leaning in to kiss her cheek. Her nose touched his broad, suntanned shoulder. She was reminded of those passionate kisses in the dark, and her face felt hot.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you. I’ve got your sunglasses,’ he said with a broad smile. So that was it, thought Annie. She was thinking that might be the reason he was seeking her, but hoped it wasn’t the only one.

  ‘Great! I’ve been looking everywhere for them.’ The words and for you popped into her head.

  ‘Come on over—I’ve got ’em in the glovebox. You remember Zoran?’

  Zoran turned to wave and grin, and went back to loading the fishing rods. Matty found the sunnies and pressed them into Annie’s hands. He held her slim fingers for a moment—long enough for Annie to remember that his hands had cupped her bare breasts under her velour top.

  ‘We’re just about to go out for a session,’ he said, taking back his hands and running them through his mop of sun-bleached hair. Annie guessed that he’d also remembered where they’d been. ‘We’ll trawl over a few reefs, after Spanish mackerel, so . . .’

  Annie expected that his next words would be: good to see you again—bye.

  ‘. . . you staying here?’

  ‘With my friends, Nina and Meredith. In this bizarre giant motorhome.’

  ‘I remember you said that. It’s not the van with Elvis on the side?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Annie replied. ‘Or should that be uh-huh, uh-huh!’ She threw in a salutation from The King.

  Matty got the joke and grinned at her. She noticed that his teeth were even and white. Perfectly formed, like the rest of him. Annie caught herself thinking that one could tire of such physical perfection. There had to be something wrong with him. In that moment she saw it—his ears were just slightly out of proportion. For some odd reason this made Annie feel better. Perhaps, she thought, because it was proof he was human after all, not just some figment of her almost middle-aged imagination.

  ‘If it’s the same van, that’s weird.’ Matty wrinkled his tanned nose dashed with freckles. ‘Nina and Meredith, right? I’ve met them. We caught up with them in Mallacoota the day after I met you. They said they didn’t know you.’

  And then Annie remembered Meredith’s ridiculous lesbian charade. ‘That’s because they were trying to . . . I know this sounds stupid, but they are pretty protective of me. I was down by the lake when you were there.’

  ‘They don’t like men, huh?’ Matty nodded. ‘That’s cool—a lot of women like that don’t like—’

  Annie had to laugh. ‘They’re not lesbians! They just made that up.’ She could see he was struggling to make sense of it all.

  ‘So I guess that’s why they turned down the invitation the second time to meet up with us at Pretty Beach.’

  ‘What? You saw them again?’

  ‘I ran into Nina at the beach showers at Gillard’s. We were all due to have sunset cocktails at Pretty Beach.’

  ‘Really? We stayed at Pebbly Beach that night.’

  ‘Well, anyway . . .’ Matty shrugged and grinned again. ‘Here’s an idea. We’re staying at Lot 55, just next to the path over the dunes. So why don’t you bring the ladies over around six, and we’ll have those cocktails and make you dinner? Zoran’s a top cook. And, hopefully, there’ll be Spanish mackerel on the menu.’

  ‘I’m sure the girls would love that. Although . . .’ and here Annie thought she might entertain herself, ‘do something for me. Don’t let on you know they’re not gay. I’d like to see them squirm for a bit.’

  Matty laughed. ‘I’m remembering now that you have a wicked streak in you, Annie Bailey. OK, deal. See you then.’

  ‘Good luck with your fishing!’

  ‘I’m not staying long,’ Meredith hissed. The sun was sinking behind clumps of ti-tree as they trailed through the campgrounds to Lot 55. ‘I’m having one drink and then, I have . . .’ she paused, trying to find the right term, ‘an engagement.’

  ‘Oooh! She’s gonna bonk her mystery man again! You trollop, Meredith!’ Annie nudged Nina. ‘Your woman’s bisexual. Can’t keep her eyes off the blokes. Did you know that, honey? When do we get to meet this stud anyway?’

  ‘They think we’re lesbians!’ Nina grizzled. ‘How long do we have to keep this up?’

  ‘Come on now, girls—hold hands, play nice,’ sang Annie as she marched ahead with righteous purpose. ‘Serves you right for lying to them back in Mallacoota. If you hadn’t tried to interfere in my love life this wouldn’t be happening.’

  ‘Shut up, Annie,’ said Meredith. ‘This is completely embarrassing. We’re having just one drink and then we’re going. As for your “love life”, someone’s got to interfere sometime. You’re not making much of a success of it.’

  ‘Oh that hurts, Meredith! But I like this guy, so just do it for me. It won’t kill you. He doesn’t need to know my friends are total fake lezzo weirdos.’

  ‘I met that Matty again,’ Nina blurted.

  ‘What!?’ Annie turned and glared at her with as much fake indignation as she could muster.

  ‘At Gillard’s Beach and we were all going to meet up and have a cocktail party on the beach . . . only,’ now Annie and Meredith were both eyeballing her, ‘I got a bit lost.’

  ‘So did you tell him then that you weren’t a lesbian?’ demanded Annie.

  ‘Not exactly. He just assumed so . . .’

  ‘You let your filthy lie follow us up half the east coast of Australia. So, serves you both right! You better start acting like a lovely couple.’

  Annie trotted along, happily humming to herself. Meredith and Nina straggled behind her, arms folded like two sullen schoolgirls on a dreaded excursion. Up ahead Annie spied Matty and Zoran standing under the striped annexe of a handsome old-fashioned green canvas tent, complete with seven-foot wooden poles. They were dressed in clean shirts and cargo pants. As she came closer, she could see five chairs arranged around a camp table set with an ice bucket and plates of antipasto—dips, olives and bread sticks.

  For a pair of ‘yobbos’, they were surprisingly domestic, thought Nina. They looked far more like a same-sex couple than she and Mer
edith ever would. Annie couldn’t have chosen a gay man again, could she? She looked at Meredith who raised her eyebrows. She seemed to be thinking the very same thing.

  After a hearty round of kissed ‘hellos’ and the acceptance of Annie’s bottle of wine, Matty offered drinks. ‘We have vanilla martinis, or would you like to start with your very impressive chardonnay?’

  Zoran stepped forward and proudly explained the menu: ‘Grilled eggplant and red pepper antipasto. This one’s ceviche—raw snapper cured with lime juice. I caught the fish this afternoon, so it’s about as fresh as it can get. Then the dips are beetroot and this one’s basil and fetta. All home-made. Please, help yourselves.’

  Nina was bug-eyed. They didn’t seem like ‘union thugs’ or ‘idiots’. She searched for confirmation from Meredith, who refused to look at her.

  When they were all settled with drinks and plates of food, Matty gave Annie a secret, conspiratorial smile and began: ‘So, you’ve been a little mischievous, hiding Annie from us.’

  Nina and Meredith shifted uneasily in their chairs, coughed in unison, sipped at their martinis.

  ‘Yes, they’ve been impersonating the ugly stepsisters, I’m afraid,’ scolded Annie. ‘Very naughty ladies indeed.’

  ‘And Matty’s been chasing Cinderella up the coast with a pair of sunglasses. Priceless!’ chuckled Zoran.

  ‘Still,’ continued Matty, ‘when you’re in such a close relationship yourself, you want the best for your friends, don’t you? So we forgive you. That’s a brilliant rig you’ve got. You gals do a lot of travelling?’

  Nina stuffed her mouth with bread so she didn’t have to answer. This was torture.

  ‘We get away whenever we can,’ Meredith mumbled.

  ‘And you’re obviously both huge Elvis fans. Where’d you meet? At a convention or something?’ asked Zoran. Meredith said nothing. Bugger Nina—it was her turn. Annie was pinching her own thighs, trying not to laugh—this was the best fun she’d had in ages.

  Nina almost choked on her half-chewed lump of bread. ‘Um . . . well, we’ve all known each other for about twenty years. We used to sing together in a gospel choir called Sanctified Soul. But Meredith and I only recently . . . got together.’ She looked to Meredith for assistance. And found none. ‘Didn’t we . . . sweetheart?’