Roadside Sisters

by Roadside Sisters (epub)

  ‘It’s my fault,’ sniffed Meredith.

  Annie elbowed her in the ribs. Nina kicked at her shins with her good leg.

  ‘OK, OK! I know it wasn’t my fault.’ Meredith honked into a tissue. ‘But at least I could have seen it coming. I’m such an idiot—I just assumed that “Charlie” would be, you know, a man!’

  ‘There wasn’t anything that tipped you off when she was growing up, or when she moved out of home?’ asked Nina. Annie was glad for the question. She was dying to ask the same thing, but thought it was too intrusive. She was coming to appreciate Nina’s blithe disregard for social boundaries. Although, if she could just shift her arse over a bit . . .

  ‘No. No. She didn’t bring many boyfriends home as a teenager. But now I look back and wonder whether I just didn’t notice anything unusual because I was always too preoccupied with the store. The last time I was in her place in a flat in Balaclava, she was living with a girlfriend. But I didn’t give it a minute’s thought.’

  ‘And why would you?’ said Nina.

  ‘And what does it matter anyway?’ added Annie.

  ‘Because I could have been there to talk it over with her. To tell her that I loved her, no matter what. She couldn’t trust me. That’s what I keep thinking about. I couldn’t care if she smuggled heroin, she’s still my daughter . . . OK, if she was a heroin smuggler, I might mind. But, truly, I just want her to be happy.’

  ‘And I’m sure she is,’ Nina enthused. ‘She’s decided she wants to get married. Doesn’t that tell you she’s found a great love? And that she believes in it so much that she wants to declare it to the world, even if some narrowminded idiots might disapprove? She’s invited you to be there to witness the occasion, and isn’t that a wonderful thing any mother would be grateful for?’

  ‘That was good, Nina,’ whispered Annie.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Meredith groaned, rolled over and dragged the doona with her. ‘I suppose it’ll be some godawful ceremony. Some white witch in a tie-dyed skirt chucking rose petals into the bloody ocean. Then we’ll all go back to someone’s carport for wholemeal pizza and cheap white wine in plastic cups.’

  Nina, used to sleeping with a man who hogged the bedclothes, hauled the doona back over her hips. ‘It couldn’t be worse than my wedding! I was hugely pregnant. I decided to lace myself into this corset so I didn’t show so much. I flaked out during the vows and then spent the reception hurling in the dunny.’

  Annie laughed. ‘What was your wedding like, Meredith?’

  ‘Registry office and a counter lunch,’ she admitted. ‘Then we got on the Princess of Tasmania, sailed overnight in the worst storm in twenty years and stayed at a pub in Launceston. We didn’t have two beans to our name.’

  ‘If I get married again, I’ll have seventeen bridesmaids and fly to Paris. You can both be matrons-of-honour. I’ll choose the dresses. I’ve always liked teal,’ Annie teased Meredith, who squealed with satisfying disgust.

  ‘Just what I’ve always wanted,’ Nina sighed. ‘To be a matron-of-honour. Can’t they find a better name for it like, lady-in-waiting or . . . something?’

  ‘You’ll be waiting alright—you still reek!’ Annie reminded her. Nina whimpered and pulled the bedcovers over her head.

  ‘Is she doing it to get back at me for working?’ Meredith asked.

  ‘You know something?’ said Annie. ‘For once this isn’t about you. It’s about what Sigrid wants. Did you become some radical feminist comedienne just to get back at your mother? . . . On second thoughts, don’t answer that.’

  ‘I did, I suppose. But it didn’t really work. There were a couple of times when I was onstage and looked down to see Edith sitting in the front row. She pretended she didn’t get any of the jokes. Bless her.’

  ‘Your mother was the best.’ Nina poked her nose over the edge of the doona. ‘I remember her bringing a plate of pikelets to a Sanctified Soul concert. She loved you. She was so proud of you—no matter what.’

  ‘But how would you feel, Nina, if one of your boys was gay?’ Meredith persisted.

  Nina laughed. ‘If Jordy came home and said he was dropping out of footy to go to ballet school, I would be the happiest woman in the world! And that’s not to say I haven’t met plenty of gay footballers.’

  ‘Ooh! Who?’ whispered Annie.

  ‘Oh, there’s this full forward who plays for . . .’ Nina pulled up short at the white chalk mark on the grass. ‘Sworn to secrecy, sorry.’

  ‘So, what do I do when I get to the wedding? What do I say?’

  ‘You just kiss everyone and hand out presents,’ Nina advised. ‘That’s what Oprah does.’

  ‘And think of it, Meredith—when you’re eventually parked in a nursing home, there’ll be two daughters to come and visit, not just one,’ said Annie brightly.

  ‘Oh, great! That’s cheered me up.’

  ‘And we’ll come and see you too,’ added Nina. ‘I’ll pluck the hairs on your chin . . .’

  ‘And I’ll change your incontinence pads.’

  ‘Hah! You two will be sitting right there next to me.’

  ‘No we won’t,’ laughed Annie, ‘we’re younger than you. You might not have cared about us during the past twenty years, but you’re really going to need us over the next twenty!’

  ‘I have enough money. I’ll hire professional care.’

  ‘Do you really think we’ve made a mess of our lives?’ asked Annie.

  ‘Who hasn’t, in one way or another?’ sighed Nina. ‘But that’s what friends are for. It’s just good to have someone who knows you well. Someone who believes in what you’re aiming for, encourages you to go for it, but still loves you even when you miss the mark.’

  ‘Amen to that, sister,’ agreed Annie.

  ‘Ging gang gooley, gooley, gooley whatcha . . .’ sang Meredith.

  ‘No, no! Stop!’ shrieked Annie and Nina.

  ‘I need to wee,’ said Meredith.

  ‘So do I,’ said Nina.

  ‘Let’s all go together and that way we can watch out for feral pigs . . . and crocodiles,’ said Annie.

  The three friends joined hands and tiptoed into what remained of the night.

  Fifteen

  By mid-morning the next day, around a café table in the small town of Maclean, the ‘Long Night of the Mangroves’ was already being shaped into a legendary tale that would be told and retold whenever the three of them were together—although each was desperately trying to edit out the parts that did them no credit.

  ‘You can’t tell anyone about the bit where I skidded down the floor on my bum,’ pleaded Nina.

  ‘Only if you leave out the stuff about the crocodiles.’ Meredith eyed them both.

  ‘Or tell anyone that I missed the turn-off,’ Annie bargained.

  ‘But you did miss it!’ Meredith and Nina accused.

  A pot of tea for three was delivered to the table along with a plate of Danish pastries. They fell on it like scavenging ibis.

  ‘How long until the van will be ready, did they say again?’ asked Meredith through a mouthful of apricot jam and pastry. They had all watched the paralysed RoadMaster being slowly winched onto the back of a massive truck early that morning. They somehow felt they’d let it down and clucked in unison to see it so helpless, its nose caked with mud. Perhaps Nina’s father-in-law was right, it did have a ‘personality’. Even Meredith felt they’d somehow sullied the good name of The King.

  Annie checked her watch. ‘It’s the “electrics”, so they reckon it could take a good few hours. We probably won’t get away till mid-afternoon, and then we’ve got to get the ferry. And it’s about one hundred and sixty k’s to drive after that, so that will get us into Byron . . .’

  ‘At sunset,’ calculated Nina, who had already devoured her apple Danish and was reaching for something with custard. ‘And the wedding will be twenty-four hours later.’

  ‘Well, let’s just get there and not tell anyone we’ve arrived till tomorrow morning.’ M
eredith reached for the teapot.

  ‘Don’t you want Jarvis and Sigrid to meet us at the caravan park tonight?’ Nina was astonished. Monday morning had come into view as she watched the children waiting in school uniform at the local bus stops—she was missing her boys. However, by the time she had reception on her phone, they were at school. Brad was at work—in the Melbourne Magistrates Court with Tabby Hutchinson, she had remembered—and she couldn’t raise any of them.

  ‘No, no! We need time to get ourselves looking presentable,’ Meredith pleaded. ‘For God’s sake, look at us!’

  They turned to study their reflection in the café window, and a more sorry trio would have been hard to find on the entire eastern seaboard. Meredith was a ragbag of stained and crumpled linen. She’d washed her feet by the side of the road, but fancied she still had traces of dried feral pig’s blood between her toes. The thought of it made her feel ill.

  Nina looked equally hellish. She was wearing a blonde haystack on her head which would have happily made do for a waterbird’s nest in the swamp. Her leggings and T-shirt were filthy and she imagined she still smelled of sewage, despite repeatedly dousing herself in disinfectant. She needed a hot shower in the worst way. Mercifully her ankle was moving freely, the injury not as bad as she’d first thought.

  ‘Photo!’ declared Annie, jumping up from the table and pressing her BlackBerry on a passing waitress.

  Meredith and Nina recoiled in horror. Annie jumped behind them, tugging her stained singlet and muddy-edged sarong into place and grinning for the snap. The resulting image had both Meredith and Nina begging Annie to wipe it from existence, but she merely laughed and hid the device behind her back. The thought occurred to her that she might just keep the picture for blackmail purposes.

  If this was Annie being a friend—Meredith and Nina looked at each other and frowned—they could not imagine having her as an enemy.

  ‘So we’ve got about five hours to kill, girls. What’ll we do?’ asked Annie.

  A midday screening of Spiderman 3 at the Maclean cinema helped to pass the time until the van was ready. They were the only patrons in the place.

  ‘I quite fancy Toby Maguire, especially in that lycra suit.’ Annie leaned to whisper in Nina’s ear. ‘Although Kirsten Dunst’s a bit of a spunk too.’

  ‘Shh!’ admonished Nina through a mouthful of Malteesers. ‘Don’t even joke about being a lesbian. Not now. Think of Meredith. And you can’t have filthy thoughts about Spider-man. Just as well you haven’t got any kids, you’re not fit to be a mother!’

  ‘What?’ Meredith leaned and whispered, even though there was no-one in front or behind to disturb.

  ‘Popcorn?’ Annie passed the bucket to her and she and Nina dissolved in giggles.

  They were behaving like bloody silly schoolgirls, the pair of them, thought Meredith as she clenched her buttocks with annoyance.

  By three o’clock that afternoon they were on their way to Byron Bay. They had made the crossing over the Clarence and the RoadMaster Royale, now hosed down and beaming in the sun, was charging up the Pacific Highway.

  The van’s interior had more or less been restored to order. They’d burned incense sticks to clear the stink of disinfectant. The tiny bathroom had been irradiated with Lily of the Valley spray and barricaded against further use. They would have to find a man to empty the sloshing canister of ‘black water’. Meredith had already generously offered the services of her husband, Don.

  ‘You still haven’t told us about your mystery man from the bowling club.’ Annie had taken up her usual position between the front seats.

  ‘Bill?’ Meredith chewed nonchalantly on a wine gum. ‘Best sex of my life! He’s got a huge penis. I had three orgasms in a row, and I had no idea I was capable of such a feat.’

  Nina almost ran the van off the road again.

  ‘He’s going to come to Melbourne, and I am going to have sex with him in every room of the house. I might even ask him to take me in the courtyard.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Annie muttered.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Meredith.

  ‘Is he married?’ asked Nina. She seemed to think that everyone had the same regard for the sanctity of the institution that she did.

  ‘No idea. Didn’t think to ask. Don’t care.’

  ‘Do you think Donald’s got a girlfriend?’ Nina continued.

  ‘I sincerely hope he has,’ Meredith replied. ‘I trust it’s someone with a lot of patience in the bedroom department. You know, I sometimes used to do sudokus in my head while he was going at it for . . . hours, it seemed. I was quite good at it. I get my talent for numbers from Edith. I wonder if she ever played bridge in her mind while she was having sex with Bernie.’

  Meredith’s musing silenced everyone for a good few kilometres.

  ‘My sex life needs a makeover,’ Nina declared as she was overtaking a milk tanker on the highway. ‘I’ve decided that I have to get over being so selfconscious. After three kids, this is my body. Get used to it!’

  ‘Absolutely!’ agreed Meredith. ‘But remember that it’s you who has to get used to it, not Brad. He’s a very attractive man, and he would have had a lot of opportunities around the football club if he wanted to get off with some young thing. But he loves you! And why wouldn’t he? You’re a sexy woman. That Zoran would have raced you off on Saturday night if he’d had the chance.’

  ‘No!’ Nina squealed. ‘He’s young enough to be my—’

  ‘Toy boy?’ interrupted Meredith. ‘You’re not as old and unattractive as you think you are. The first thing you should do is put a lock on your bedroom door, to keep those sons of yours out.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Annie piped up. ‘Let me tell you, Nina, of course they’re repulsed by the idea of you and Brad having sex. They’re teenagers, that’s their job. But that’s no reason to stop doing it. Anyway, they’re probably too busy lusting over pictures of Paris Hilton.’

  ‘Don’t, don’t! Marko’s still got a Spiderman doona!’

  ‘And Spiderman’s shagging Kirsten Dunst, don’t forget!’ laughed Annie.

  ‘La, la, la, doo, doo, doo! Not listening!’ Nina stuck a finger in her ear.

  ‘So, this brings us neatly to the question of Matty.’ Meredith offered Annie a lolly.

  ‘I’ve gone off him a bit.’

  ‘That’s only because he wouldn’t bonk you on the first night!’ charged Nina. ‘You know, Annie, at last you might’ve met a decent old-fashioned guy who wants to romance you.’

  ‘And you’re so suspicious of men who don’t want to fall into bed with you in the first five minutes . . .’ Meredith took Nina’s cue for some plain talk. ‘You should give him a chance. I liked him. He’s not “Mr Excitement”, sure, but there’s something so . . . dependable and kind about him. He’s lovely to look at too. Don’t let that man slip through your fingers so easily.’

  Annie shifted her bottom on her fallow pillow. ‘Maybe . . .’ she mused. ‘Maybe . . .’

  They stopped at Ballina, piled out to have their photo taken in front of the Big Prawn, and headed off again.

  ‘WELCOME TO BYRON BAY’.

  The headlights of the sturdy RoadMaster Royale lit up the road sign and Meredith, Annie and Nina whooped with joy. They’d made it! Two thousand kilometres, nine nights, millions of mosquitoes, one black bream and a dead feral pig later . . . and they had arrived.

  Old Swivel Hips was gyrating under the streetlights as they all sang loudly: ‘Well, it’s one for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, Now go, cat, go!’

  ‘Here, turn here!’ called Annie. ‘First Sun Holiday Park—this is the place you booked, isn’t it, Nina?’

  Nina swung the vehicle off the main street, halted at the park’s boom gates and jumped down from the driver’s seat. This was a ritual she was well used to by now. She handed over the forty-two dollars in cash at the fluoro-lit site office and in return received a pin code for the toilet block and a campsite number.

  Soon the van was cosily pa
rked between two rigs of equal bulk in pole position right in front of Main Beach. The RoadMaster heaved, sighed and settled into the grass. Nina plugged into the electricity grid and the unit hummed with cheery hospitality.

  Nina, Annie and Meredith ran to the wooden railing edging the ocean and leaned over it to breathe in the salty breeze sweeping across Cape Byron. It was dark by now, but the sound of waves crashing on the beach below was exhilarating enough. At the end of the beach, just out of sight, the lighthouse blinked a cautious welcome to the most easterly point of the continent of the Great South Land.

  The first stop was the shower block, and the second the laundry. With spirits restored by washing powder, body gel, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, moisturiser and a change of clothes, the company was in the mood for a celebration.

  Meredith had set the table on the concrete apron of their campsite and laid it with a good Irish linen cloth. Nina had thrown together a platter of tinned vine leaves, salsa dip, jars of pickled asparagus, marinated fetta and a packet of water cracker biscuits she’d unearthed from a cupboard. Annie had fetched the second-last chilled bottle of champagne from the fridge. They stood around the table and raised fine crystal flutes etched with stalks of wheat.

  ‘Well, girls, we did it!’ cheered Nina. ‘Here’s to us. To Byron or Bust!’

  ‘Can anyone join in this celebration?’

  Nina swung her head at the sound of the familiar voice from the shadows.

  ‘BRAD! Ohmigod, Brad!’ she cried and made a leap for his open arms. ‘What are you doing here? How did you know I was here?’

  ‘He rang while you were still in the shower.’ Annie grinned.

  Brad stepped into the light, his arms thrown around Nina and his head bent to kiss her neck. Annie looked at Meredith. Did Nina have any idea of how lucky she was to have such a big handsome husband holding her tight? Meredith laughed and threw her hands up in disbelief. Nina’s long-winded campaign of whingeing and complaining had apparently been vanquished by a cuddle and a kiss.