Roadside Sisters

by Roadside Sisters (epub)

  This was beyond excruciating. Nina wanted to run away and jump into the sea.

  ‘That often happens, doesn’t it, Zoran?’ Matty turned to his mate. ‘You’re friends for years and then one day it just turns into . . . something else.’ He reached for Zoran’s hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Zoran ostentatiously blew Matty a kiss.

  At the sight of Meredith and Nina exchanging looks and then turning back to Annie, their foreheads furrowed with concern and sympathy, Annie couldn’t help herself. Her head pitched forward to her knees and she exploded with laughter. On her cue, Matty and Zoran saw the game was up and both fell about.

  ‘Very, very amusing.’ Meredith was stony-faced. Nina scowled.

  ‘You should have seen yourselves!’ snorted Annie. ‘Oh God! That was the funniest thing I have ever . . .’ She collapsed into giggles again.

  ‘Sorry,’ Matty apologised. ‘Annie made us do it.’

  ‘And you’re not the ugly sisters at all,’ added Zoran. ‘In fact, if you weren’t gay, I’d ask you to dance.’

  He reached behind him for the ghetto-blaster, and soon Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ rocked out through the caravan park.

  Three hours later, Zoran and Nina had decided they must be related to each other. Her parents were from the Ukraine, his were from Slovenia. What were the odds of them meeting at the Scotts Head Reserve Trust Caravan Park on a Saturday night in April?

  They’d had a true meeting of minds over Zoran’s dry red Spanish mackerel curry and mango salad. Nina pronounced it the best curry she had ever eaten . . . in her entire life. Zoran had flushed with pleasure from the tips of his long skinny toes to the whiskers on his black goatee, and given her the recipe.

  After that, they had fallen into a deep discussion about food and Nina’s café plans, about life with immigrant parents, and politics in Eastern Europe. Nina couldn’t recall anyone understanding her as completely as Zoran did. She talked with him for three and a half hours and didn’t feel the need to mention her famous footballer husband once. This was another revelation. That question she had asked at the beginning of the trip—Who was this anonymous woman far from home, listening to the surf pound beyond the dunes?—she now had the answer to: she was Nina Kostiuk. Herself. No-one else.

  Annie was some metres away, just beyond the banksias, rolling in the damp sand on the moonlit beach in a passionate embrace with Matty. Sand did get into everything, as her mother had once complained. They paddled, splashed, crawled, built a soggy sandcastle and kissed over its collapsing towers. They kissed and kissed again, lying at the water’s edge with their feet in the foam and their heads tangled in seaweed. Annie was water-logged, sand-logged, lust-logged. Her jersey skirt was wet and heavy, her knickers damp, her hair coarse with grit, tiny shells were pressed into the soft flesh between her toes.

  When the moon was at its biggest and brightest, Annie whispered to Matty that she wanted to spend the night with him in his tent.

  ‘No.’ He put a wet finger to her lips. ‘No. It’s not right tonight. Not with the others here. Not now. Let’s wait.’

  By shifting, random scraps of moonlight Annie and Nina peered at the lock of the RoadMaster’s door. Annie jiggled the key and pronounced it locked from the inside. Nina cursed herself for handing over the main key-ring to Meredith earlier in the evening. She must have secured the latch from the inside.

  ‘Oh no!’ groaned Annie. ‘I’ll bet Meredith and her bowls club fuck buddy are in there!’ She threw herself into a flimsy metal camp chair and checked her watch: 11.30 pm. She was tetchy and frustrated. She lit a cigarette, which she thought was ironic, considering that her libido was stranded at high tide.

  There was no cloud and the onshore breeze had turned into a fair wind. Nina’s teeth were chattering. They were both sleeveless. Annie walked to the end of the van, near to where she imagined Meredith’s bed must be, and put her ear to the thin aluminium wall.

  ‘I can’t hear anything. They’re probably unconscious from too much rooting.’

  ‘What’ll we do?’ whispered Nina.

  ‘Well, when I was a boarder at good old Girton Grammar in Bendigo, you had to leave your shoes out the front of the door if you had a boy inside your room. Can you find any?’

  Nina scavenged in the shadows. ‘Just this.’ She held up a garment for inspection in the dim light from the park’s power pole. It was a thick, cream-coloured Aran-knit fisherman’s jumper.

  ‘OK then,’ said Annie. ‘At least you can wrap that around yourself to keep warm. We’ll give her ten more minutes . . .’

  There was an urgent ‘ding’ from Nina’s handbag. She scrabbled through the debris inside and found her phone. The text message read: ‘Luv U Mum. Miss U. Cum home soon. Jordy. XXX.’

  Nina’s heart melted. Her eldest, darling baby boy was thinking of her. ‘Isn’t that gorgeous?’ She allowed herself a nag-free moment of pure maternal love. ‘Although he should be in bed by now. You know, it’s the weirdest thing. I was just thinking, back there while I was talking to Zoran, that finally . . . finally, I might be the old Nina. Not “wife” or “mother” or “daughter”, just me . . . And now look! It’s like the boys have sensed I was somehow drifting away from them.’

  ‘Remember the Force, Luke!’ declared Annie, throwing her cigarette into a bucket under a tap where it hissed and died. ‘Remember the Force.’

  The front door banged open. A hairy hulk of a man barged down the stairs, grunted, ‘Night,’ and sprinted for the car park in front of the surf club.

  ‘It’s a Wookie!’ cried Nina.

  ‘And he’s just shagged Princess Leia!’ yelled Annie. ‘After him, Han Solo!’

  They moved on from Scotts Head early that morning with bruised hearts. Annie was thinking about Matty. Meredith was mooning over Bill. Nina, unusually for her, had stayed curled in her bed complaining that she wasn’t feeling too well as the camp was packed up. She drifted in and out of sleep dreaming she was protecting her three baby boys from the Attack of the Poisonous Curry Pot Noodles.

  They were in for a long drive that Sunday. Angourie was Annie’s choice of destination. Her brochures raved about the legendary surf, the famous Blue Pool, the Yuraygir National Park and stunning beaches. She had to see the place and, if they stayed there for the night, it would put them within easy striking distance of Byron Bay. They could make a stately procession into town on Monday morning, in good time for the wedding the next evening.

  However, they weren’t too far down the road before Nina skidded the van to a halt in the gravel at the side of the road. The fiery mackerel curry had done its work. She leapt from the driver’s seat and flew through the cabin to the toilet. A series of graphic explosions and low groans propelled Annie from her seat at the table, gagging, with her hand over her mouth.

  After emptying half a can of vanilla-scented room spray in the cubicle, Nina emerged clutching her stomach. ‘Must be the chillies,’ she said weakly. ‘We don’t usually eat anything too spicy at home. The boys don’t like it. Oops! Hang on. Here I go again.’

  Annie stood at the side of the road puffing at cigarettes and surveying empty paddocks while Meredith inspected the wild-flowers in a damp drain. Twenty minutes later it was plain Nina was not in a fit state to drive. She was in agony. She lay down on Meredith’s bed in the rear of the cabin, within easy reach of the bathroom.

  There was no way Meredith wanted to brave the stink of the toilet, but she suddenly realised that her need was equally pressing. A stinging hot stab of pain in her bladder sent her sprinting up the stairs and into the loo. The eye-watering experience told her one thing—she had an attack of cystitis to equal Nina’s diarrhoea. A few minutes later she emerged, pale-faced and shivering. She considered saying: ‘I usually don’t have any sex at home—I don’t like it,’ but decided that might be too much information. ‘I might sit up the back here with Nina. I’m not feeling too bright myself. Chillies probably. Are you OK to drive, Annie?’

  A
nnie, apart from the usual crashing hangover and a nasty sand rash on her knees and elbows, was feeling fine. ‘No worries! You two just get comfy there in the back and I’ll get us to Angourie in no time,’ she sang, impersonating the jovial leader of a Japanese tour bus. Meredith and Nina vowed to strangle her—when they felt up to it. With a protesting crunch of gears, the RoadMaster lurched onto the highway with Annie at the wheel. For the next leg to Coffs Harbour, Nina and Meredith wobbled up the galleyway and took turns in the stifling, stinking loo.

  As she looked for a chemist and a place to park the hulking van, Annie made a cursory tour of Coffs. Her survey of the place confirmed what she had suspected—that there was a direct correlation between the number of old blokes in whites at the lawn bowls club and the amount of rocks dumped on the beach. The locals up and down this part of the coast had spent a lifetime battling the ocean with their earth-moving equipment—building sea walls, marinas, groins, harbours, breakwaters, boat ramps, docks and piers. They apparently considered it their patriotic duty to divert the rivers and thwart the tides. The bowls club was packed this morning and the Coffs Harbour front was a fortress of massive boulders.

  A packet of Ural urinary alkaliniser crystals and Panadol capsules for Meredith; a box of Lomotil anti-diarrhoea tablets for Nina; and cigarettes, hot chips and a can of Coke for Annie. Then, suitably medicated, they were soon heading north again, past the Big Banana.

  As she cruised the highway in the driver’s seat, Annie was enjoying herself hugely. She was playing her favourite Black Eyed Peas Monkey Business CD and joyfully puffing on her fags—the smoke streaming out the partly open window in satisfying, elegant ribbons. In the back, Nina and Meredith, lulled by the drone of the engine and the gentle rocking of the cabin, were both, mercifully, asleep.

  Annie thought back on last night. Was it her heart that was bruised, or her ego? She decided that Matty had rejected her. He could have found a way for them to have sex last night if he’d really wanted to. He could have moved Zoran out of the tent or dragged a sleeping bag out on the grass under the stars. She wasn’t used to getting knocked back and didn’t like it one little bit. There was something about Matty that was way too self-possessed and controlling for her liking.

  She had Matty’s phone number in her mobile and the promise of a dinner date back in Melbourne, but was now thinking that she might just pass on the offer. She decided there just wasn’t that spark between them—that ‘certain something’ that would sweep her off her feet. And that, she realised, was what she was hoping for—a king tide of emotion that would wash her up into her future, so that she wouldn’t have to dog paddle anymore.

  They were six hundred kilometres north of Sydney now and well into subtropical climes. The Pacific Highway had turned inland and the dense dark-green of sugar cane plantations stretched either side on fertile river flats.

  Annie drove into South Grafton and saw that, if she followed the highway, she would bypass Grafton itself. However, the chance to see the mighty Clarence River was not to be passed up. With the Murray River now reduced to muddy puddles in some stretches because of the drought, she longed to see a deep and fast-flowing waterway. This was big river country and the brochures she had been reading promised broad, shiny expanses plied by gaily painted houseboats. She grabbed the map, balanced it on her knees and made the decision that she would drive into Grafton proper.

  From there, Annie calculated, she could drive out of town and follow the western side of the Macleay River up to Lawrence. A ferry would take them back across the river and they could head directly to the coast and Angourie. With her travelling companions still dozing, Annie was thankful she was able to make all these decisions without the usual tiresome discussion and negotiation.

  The RoadMaster slowed to crawl across the bridge over the Clarence. Annie, entranced with the river’s lazy, serene majesty, ignored the agitated toots of the drivers behind taking in the magnificent vista of the Confederate flag on the wide backside of her vehicle. She drove slowly through the gracious city of Grafton and admired the generous plantings of its famous jacaranda trees, its handsome Victorian buildings and spacious streets. Then she headed out of town along the road that hugged the western bank of the river.

  The land here was a sodden, sandy sponge all year round and through it the water surfaced in a thousand random puddles. The early afternoon sky was overcast and everywhere Annie looked, mirrors were glinting with a grey sheen. She wished that her father could see this place. That he could feel the moisture seep into his bones and be restored. Annie wiped at her damp forehead. The warmth and humidity melted the boundary between skin and air, making it hard to tell where her skin ended and the air began. She was dissolving into the landscape.

  Reluctantly leaving the close embrace of the Clarence behind, Annie steered the van some way inland towards the settlement of Lawrence. She would find the meandering river there again and load the van onto the ferry for the crossing. Clouds were now hanging low on the horizon and Annie drove her sleeping cargo into a sensuous autumn mist. A flurry of moisture smeared the windscreen. For the first time since the RoadMaster had left Melbourne, the wipers were put to good use.

  The road ahead was a beaten belt of pewter through the fabric of soft grey fog. Jewels of flashing red and blue lights pierced the gloom. Annie slowed and could make out the word ‘Detour’ on a bright yellow sign.

  The rain was really coming down now. Drops, fattened on the peaks of the mountains to the west, exploded on the glass in front of her face. Peering through the deluge, Annie could vaguely see a shiny tangle of wet metal and the ghostly forms of people wading through ankle-deep water. She leaned out of the window to speak to a police officer in a see-through plastic shroud.

  ‘Truck crash!’ He cupped his hands to shout against the wind. ‘Where you headed?’

  ‘Angourie,’ Annie shouted back. A gust tore her voice away. The rain was driving almost horizontally through the open window and soaking her shirt-front.

  ‘Could take hours to clear. You’ll have to take the detour up through the Summerland Highway, and then double back down through Casino.’

  ‘Casino?’ Annie was sceptical. She knew the lay of the land by now. ‘That’ll take all day!’

  ‘You could probably camp here overnight in this thing.’ His index finger stabbed a hole through the fog. ‘As long as you get right off the road and don’t become a traffic hazard. Otherwise, if you want to get to the coast tonight, Casino’s your best bet.’

  Annie gave a thumbs-up and wound the window tight. According to the map, there was another way to go. She could skirt The Broadwater, go up through Tullymorgan, and then rejoin the Pacific Highway somewhere between Jacky Bulbin Flat and Mororo Road. They should make Angourie in time for a walk on the beach at sunset. She waved her thanks to the plastic-wrapped form of the man in blue and moved off.

  Staring through the pelting rain, Annie drove slowly and found the signs she was looking for. She congratulated herself that she was doing well in handling the big machine. And why not? After all, she’d been driving the tractor on the farm since she was ten. The roads were flat, shining panes of water; in the rear-vision mirror she saw the van was leaving a fair wake in its path. She could, she reflected, be steering an old-time paddle-steamer up a river in the Congo.

  ‘Where in God’s name are we?’ Meredith climbed into the front seat, rubbing her eyes and pulling at her rumpled clothes. She wiped a patch of moisture from her window and squinted through it. ‘I can’t see a damned thing, and it’s absolutely bucketing down.’

  ‘There was a truck crash back a bit, so I’m negotiating my way around it.’ Annie threw the map to Meredith and pointed. ‘It’s that bit there.’

  Meredith found her reading glasses and stared at the damp square in front of her, turning it this way and then that, as if she was trying to decipher the runic symbols on an ancient scroll.

  ‘Annie, we’re in the middle of nowhere! The Pacific Highway’s miles away.
How did we get here?’

  ‘Just help me, alright?’ Annie was in no mood for one of Meredith’s lectures. The van’s air-conditioning was still at full bore and Annie, in her damp shirt, was now feeling chilled to the bone. ‘We’re on the Lawrence–Tullymorgan Road, and so I’m thinking this left here is the Tullymorgan–Jacky Bulbin Road.’

  Annie slowed and swung the van into the track on the left and headed north again.

  ‘Hang on!’ Meredith shouted, her face pressed against the foggy window. ‘That sign said Mangrove Creek Road.’

  ‘Shit! Did it?’

  ‘You’ve missed the turn-off. The map says it was back a bit.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, just let me get a handle on this.’ Meredith peered at the map again. ‘Yes. I’m right. We’re headed the wrong way. You’ll have to stop and turn back.’

  ‘I’ll find a place to pull over.’

  The rain intensified. The wipers were slashing at the water triple-time, but it was making no difference. Annie could barely see the road in front of her. What she could see was that either side was hemmed in by dense vegetation. ‘Jesus! We’re in the mangroves!’

  ‘That would explain why it’s called Mangrove Creek Road.’

  Annie drove another few kilometres. ‘There’s nowhere to turn!’ She was feeling panicky and claustrophobic. The impenetrable dark green walls were as high as the roof. From her perch in the driver’s seat she couldn’t see through them or over them although sometimes, through the driving rain, she could make out tortured black tangled roots emerging from brackish water.

  ‘The sides of the road are just swamp. I don’t want to put this thing into a ditch. Maybe if I just keep going a bit further, there’ll be a right turn so we can get back onto the other road.’