The Grand Tour

by Olivia Wearne

  ‘Is it just music that you teach?’

  ‘Music? I’m the school nurse.’

  ‘Are you? I must have been misinformed. Can I bring you some soup? I’ve buckets of the stuff in the freezer.’

  Ruby waved the offer away. She could always heat up a tin if need be. Angela’s top lip curled in repugnance; tinned soup didn’t qualify as food. She ordered Ruby to stay put, clip-clopping away on strappy heels and reappearing a minute later with three plastic containers. Ruby was horrified. She couldn’t possibly take so much.

  ‘I insist—soup is mother’s medicine.’

  ‘Is it?’

  While they waited for the microwave to thaw a tub of pea and ham, Angela accounted for her excess of soup. ‘My husband, Patrick, passed away two weeks ago. I’d begun testing out recipes from the Heart Smart diet—he’d just been diagnosed with acute angina.’ She left it to Ruby to join the dots. It would be some months before Angela could speak of how the whump sounded when he collapsed on the bathroom floor from an aneurism, dying instantly. And of the tragicomedy of having his limp body blocking the door so that the paramedics had to unscrew it from its hinges with a portable power drill. How Angela had inanely commented at the time, ‘Isn’t that nifty?’ How Patrick’s sudden death had denied her the opportunity of playing Florence Nightingale and benevolently nursing his feeble heart back into health.

  Ruby offered up a painfully inadequate sorry, the word sounding small and trivial in the face of the other woman’s devastation. Angela flapped a limp wrist: Life goes on. When the soup had defrosted, she removed the container from the microwave and began opening cupboards in search of bowls.

  ‘So you see,’ she continued, perched at the breakfast bar alongside Ruby and stirring languidly at the pale green puree, ‘it’s really Patrick’s soup you’re eating.’

  Something in Angela’s tone enabled Ruby to release the breath of tension she’d been holding, an unforeseen chuckle escaping with the departing air.

  Angela returned the next morning, wanting to know if Ruby felt like escaping her unit for a while. They could have coffee at her place if she didn’t feel up to going out. Ruby accepted the offer. She wasn’t quite ready to go public with her sickness—that is, if Angela didn’t mind her sniffing and coughing. She was in the latter flu stages, her body busy tidying up and expelling the mess. Angela didn’t care, so long as Ruby didn’t mind drinking coffee in the home of the recently deceased.

  Angela hefted her handbag—a diminutive term for an accessory bearing the dimensions of a valise—from the general store’s floor to the table in front of her. She began her ritual forage, pushing her arm elbow deep into the four corners of the bag, then minesweeping the interior, working her way back up to the surface. Ruby applied a similar technique to locating the soap in her bathwater.

  When Angela’s first attempt proved fruitless, she proceeded to extract items one by one and lay them before her. ‘Like bobbing for apples,’ Ruby groaned. Generally, at around the point of the second hairbrush or the empty Tic Tac container, Ruby would capitulate and pay the bill for both of them.

  Angela removed her phone and placed it alongside the Moleskine travel journal, a gift from Ruby, yet to be parted from its cardboard sleeve. She noticed she had a new message and lifted the phone to investigate. She swivelled in her seat. ‘Look at what he sent me.’

  Ruby, on her way back from the register, stepped behind her friend and leant down to the screen.

  ‘What do you make if it?’ Angela asked.

  ‘I’d say he’s calling a truce.’

  ‘You think?’ She raised the screen to eye level and glowered at the peace sign. ‘Or it could just be a trick.’

  ‘Sometimes I’m relieved I’m an only child.’

  ‘You should be. I never understood people who get along with their brothers and sisters …’ Angela paused. Ruby slid back into her seat, genuinely curious. ‘It’s like women who go dress shopping with their mothers,’ Angela continued. ‘It’s so unnatural. You spend so much time together growing up, living in each others’ pockets. Everything they do annoys you. But you learn to put up with it. Then you’re an adult and you think you’ll be free. But you’re not. You still want to trounce them. They were the benchmark for all your childhood competitions and battles. Having a sibling is like having a genetically matched arch nemesis.’

  ‘Surely you’re exaggerating. It’s not like that for everyone.’

  ‘True.’ Angela began packing away her belongings. ‘I think the age gap between Bernard and I was too great—six years.’

  ‘People should still be able to get along, regardless of age.’

  ‘Not in childhood—a year is worth ten when you’re a kid. We could never be friends, only competitors.’ Angela dropped her phone into her handbag and then scooped it out again. ‘I don’t know why I bothered. The fight was rigged right from the start. Our mother thought the sun shone out of him. All that adulation gave him the confidence he needed to do anything. Even though I was older, I was always struggling to catch up.’

  ‘You’ve had a good life.’

  ‘Well, I’m not dead yet.’ Angela was poking at her phone. ‘Don’t start drafting my eulogy.’ She gave a perfunctory nod. ‘That should fix him.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Angela popped a cherry tomato into her mouth, bursting it between her teeth. ‘I sent him a question mark.’

  Before they climbed into the Winnebago, Angela insisted Ruby pose with her in front of the motor home. She wanted Bernard to see what fun they were having. ‘Like one of those drives where you have lots of adventures along the way.’

  ‘A road trip.’ Ruby bobbed to let Angela hook an arm around her shoulders. ‘For someone who can’t stand somebody, you spend a lot of time worrying what he thinks.’

  ‘Precisely. Now do a big smile and make it look like we’re having the time of our lives.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  —They want you to do a read.

  —Meaning?

  —They want you to audition. Tape some stuff of yourself reading so they can hear your voice.

  —I was on television five nights a week. Why didn’t they hear me then?

  —It’s different. That was the news—this is literature.

  —It’s the same voice.

  —They want to hear what sort of colour you have.

  —I’m not doing it.

  —At all?

  —The audition. If they want me, they can take me as I come.

  —Sure, Bernard, I’ll pass it on.

  —Anything else for me?

  Bernard slid a manicured thumb along the sealed edge of an A4 parcel. Inside he found a paperback novel and a sheaf of papers instructing the reader on how best to narrate their novel. He scanned the instructions, tore off the details for his first reading session—to be held in one of the sound studios at the local radio station—and added the other pages to the junk mail.

  —Hugo, they gave me Voss.

  —I know Bernard. I already spoke with them.

  —I wanted A Fortunate Life.

  —Yeah. They thought your voice was more suited to this.

  —I love that book.

  —You should have auditioned.

  —Bugger off. Who got it then?

  —Ah … I think that one went to Lochay.

  —Lochay Knight, the Play School guy?

  —He’s done other stuff as well.

  —What about the Kelly book?

  —Carey’s one? I think one of the women got those.

  —They wouldn’t have given it to a woman. The Stead book was for the women.

  —I don’t know, Bernard. Anyway, what’s wrong with Voss?

  —No one’s ever heard of it.

  —It won the bloody Nobel Prize.

  —No, it didn’t.

  —I swear.

  —White won the Nobel.

  —Yeah, for Voss.

  —The Nobel’s awarded for a body of work.<
br />
  —You sure?

  —I’m sure.

  —Well, Voss is part of that body …

  —I suppose I’ll have a look at it. It’s not like I’ve got any choice. Do I have a choice?

  —Don’t think so. You should be flattered, mate. It’s a very intellectual book. It’s an honour they picked you for it.

  —Why wouldn’t they pick me?

  Mia’s move had come as a complete shock to Bernard. As far as he was concerned she’d taken on the job of renovating an investment property (purchased with their joint savings) in order to foster her interest in interior design (thus capitalising on her exorbitant expenditure on interiors magazines over the years). When she announced her intention to relocate to the refurbished apartment, he was amenable, presuming he’d be moving too. When Mia clarified that she intended moving there alone, Bernard was stunned, so stunned that he neglected to put up much resistance. In hindsight, if he weren’t so pained, he’d have offered his congratulations; the move was a tactical and emotional ambush played to perfection.

  Mia’s new abode spanned the top floor of a double-storey, historically significant, brick shopfront. An Indian restaurant occupied the ground floor. The apartment, Bernard conceded, was magnificent, notwithstanding the pungent odour of curry that permeated the air. While Mia had decorated their home as though making up the cadaver of a musty aunt in the vain hope of restoring her to days of former glory, her new residence exuded a minimal yet eclectic style. The vaulted ceilings gave the two main rooms an improbable sense of space, so that, despite being filled with a catalogue of art and artefacts, which Mia seemed to pick up every time she left the house, the rooms still felt spacious. What amounted to expensive clutter at Bernard’s place (he’d learnt to walk about with both elbows pressed firmly to his sides) was a discerning display here.

  As Bernard approached Mia’s building down a cobbled laneway, he nodded to two Indian men straddling milk crates. The pair were smoking in the airless evening—as oppressive as the restaurant kitchen’s humidity, which they were presumably trying to escape. Bernard envied them their chequered cotton pants and would happily have worn either of their yellow-splattered T-shirts. He felt suffocated by his suit and tie. The fabric cut in under his arms, forcing the material into his pits and creating unsightly crescents. The subsequent embarrassment would cause him to sweat more, creating a cycle of personal mortification that would inevitably ruin his evening.

  Mia’s voice crackled over the buzzer. ‘Yup. Come in.’

  The door clicked, permitting Bernard entry to an impossibly steep staircase. Each Baltic pine tread was worn in exactly the same spot. Bernard imagined the innumerable others who had heaved their bodies up these stairs over time. The place was rumoured to have been a brothel in the early twentieth century—what old place hadn’t? At least in those days the customers had something to look forward to at the end of their ascent.

  He glanced up to see Mia peering down from on high. ‘How many pockets?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Good. I would have sent you home to change.’

  ‘I would have stayed. I’m tempted to go back now, except that I’m already halfway up.’

  ‘Keep going. There’s chilled cider waiting when you get here.’

  ‘I’ll meet you—’

  She was gone; Mia frequently ended conversations by simply disappearing.

  When he reached the summit, Bernard found the top step was more eroded than the others. Had people assembled here for some reason, counted out change to pay the whore? Mia was tossing salad in the kitchen: a massive slab of hardwood running the length of one wall; it was only the presence of stainless steel appliances that distinguished the space as a kitchen. Bernard spied his drink sweating condensation on the farmhouse table that took centre stage. He hoisted a leg over one of the benches and took a large, consoling swallow. Mia was forgiven, particularly when he noted several bottles of white wine and rosé chilling in freshly iced buckets.

  ‘How many did you say you were expecting?’

  ‘I don’t know, six, maybe seven. It depends who shows.’

  Bernard did his calculations: a bottle a head—should suffice.

  Mia carried her drink over and sat down opposite. ‘It’s all cold food tonight. There’s no way I was turning the oven on, the place becomes a sauna.’

  ‘Worse than this?’

  ‘Shut up and take your jacket off.’ She was up again, returning with a bowl of nuts, as poised on her bare feet as a gymnast on a beam. ‘What did you wear a suit for?’

  ‘’Cause you bloody well told me to.’

  ‘All I said was don’t wear the camping gear.’

  ‘It’s not just for camping.’

  ‘I’m not interested.’ She pushed the bowl toward him. ‘Have a nut.’

  The buzzer reverberated. Mia jumped out of her seat, clapping. ‘Guests!’

  While Mia was at the intercom, Bernard took the opportunity to creep off to the bathroom. He flicked on the light then checked to see if there wasn’t another more serious switch beside it. A star-shaped paper lamp, pinholed to let light through, hung over the bulb, giving the room the appearance of a Moroccan bordello.

  He peeled off his jacket and removed his damp shirt, waving it about to dry it. He wet Mia’s facecloth and washed under his arms, then used some of her deodorant—honeysuckle. He sprayed a bit more around his stomach. He flapped his shirt again before slipping it on and rolling up the sleeves. He left the top few buttons undone and fluffed up his chest hair, before modestly flattening it back down again.

  ‘I don’t know where he’s gone,’ Mia carolled as Bernard re-entered the living room. ‘He was here a minute ago.’

  The space now seemed filled with people. Had they travelled in convoy? It was a typical all-male line-up; Mia had a leaning toward gay men that Bernard attributed to the copiousness of their compliments.

  ‘Bingo! I’ve found him. Does that mean I get to keep him?’

  That was Jim, the queerest of the lot. He was long, lean and faded with a face like a camel. He wore nothing but plaid western shirts with pearl press-stud buttons and tight denim jeans. Mia had met him at Pilates, on the first and last time either of them ever deigned to go. Bernard had been surprised at their first meeting to discover he wore sneakers and not cowboy boots. Jim informed him it was for his back, he’d suffered scoliosis as a child: ‘I was born bent.’

  Standing together were Mark and Stewart, a pair of smooth drakes, their balding pates resting in cups of cropped grey hair. The couple always wore madras cotton shorts and Roman sandals. They’d established a herb garden out in the bush somewhere and only ventured into town on the third Sunday of every month for the local farmers market. Bernard presumed they sold their herbaceous wares in other towns on alternate weeks. Ply them with gin and they performed a heart-rending version of ‘Scarborough Fair’.

  The fourth guest, Carl, was already seated at the table. Bernard didn’t think he’d ever seen him upright. Carl was ancient, as old as time. He may well have been the first homosexual born in the last century. Bernard adored him, as did Mia. Carl wore thick tortoiseshell glasses that spanned the top half of his face; when he removed them to wipe his weepy eyes, Bernard was reminded of Norman Lindsay’s magic pudding, Albert. Carl had started in on Bernard’s cider. He tended to drink from any vessel within arm’s reach. Bernard forgave him—Carl could pee on his lap and there’d be no hard feelings. He helped himself to a new goblet.

  ‘I think my upkeep’s more than you can afford, Jim.’

  ‘I’ll manage. I’ll work overtime, I’ll work nights.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Don’t you dare get my hopes up, Bernard. I couldn’t live with the disappointment.’

  Mia regarded Bernard curiously. ‘You’ve changed.’

  ‘Just following orders.’

  ‘Good. Now you have to meet Lucas.’

  On hearing his name mentioned, the fifth member of the party st
uck his head out from around the fridge door. Bernard had noticed him briefly before he disappeared, obviously to cooler climates. ‘Hi, Bernard. Mia, is it okay if I take out some of these platters?’

  ‘Do what you want, darling. Only make sure the wine gets first priority. Stick a bottle in the freezer if you can.’

  Lucas had a whiff of familiarity about him; presumably they’d crossed paths at some point. He looked the type who always came to Bernard’s aid at the electronics store, affably made him feel less useless than he actually was.

  It wasn’t until well into the night, after all the expensive cold cuts had been consumed, that Bernard was made aware of his mistake—actually two mistakes. With a pleasing alcohol emulsion coursing through his veins, he leant over and whispered in Jim’s ear, ‘I like your new fellow.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Lucas. He seems very nice.’

  ‘I wish, darling!’ Jim pounded the table. ‘Everybody, Bernard thinks I’m responsible for, what did you call him? Lovely Lucas. I said, I wish!’

  Lucas grinned. ‘I think you’re lovely too, Bernard.’

  Mia rolled her eyes. ‘Didn’t you hear me earlier? I said I met him at the bookstore.’

  ‘You said nothing of the sort.’

  ‘You were telling us, Mia,’ Mark said, ‘how you met him in the cookery section and got talking about your favourite celebrity chefs.’

  ‘You told him you were having a casual Nigella-style soiree and invited him to come along.’ Stewart completed the picture.

  ‘Except I didn’t end up cooking because it’s too bloody hot.’ Mia lifted the edge of her floaty skirt and fanned herself by whisking the hem to and fro, showing off her shapely calves.

  ‘Quit the can-can, Gigi. We all know you’ve got great pins.’ Jim was miffed, perhaps resentful that Lucas didn’t belong to him after all.

  Two bottles later, when the tea lights had all but vanished and Jim lay stretched out like a starfish on the pine floorboards to elongate the spine, sleeping, Bernard watched Mia and Lucas talking across the table. She was recounting an anecdote involving an argument she’d once had with John Cleese. The flickering light from an exhausted candle danced across her striking features. She habitually scrunched her curls as she spoke, keeping them in check. Bernard badly wanted to reach out and push a stray ringlet into place.