At his side, Carl was musing into the depths of his half-full wineglass. Mia laughed at something Mark and Stewart had said. Bernard glanced up and locked eyes with Lucas.
Lucas grinned. ‘You don’t remember me. We’re sort of related.’
‘You sure? I could count my relatives on the fingers of a one-armed man.’
‘I’m Patrick’s son, Patrick Brackenberg.’ Reading Bernard’s blank expression, he added, ‘Angela’s husband.’
‘Good god, so you are. Lucas—so that would make you …’
‘Nothing much. I mean, if Angela is my stepmother, I guess you’re a step-uncle.’
‘Well, there you go, sorry for the oversight.’ Bernard picked up his glass to take a sip then reconsidered. His head felt as though it could roll off his neck at any moment.
‘It’s easier for me, I was able to watch you every night.’
‘Angela watched me?’
‘No—I don’t know; I lived with my mother. How long have you been off air?’
Bernard swirled his wine. ‘Two years.’
‘Wow. That long?’
Mia intervened. ‘Did you see him at the end?’
Bernard decided to polish off his drink after all.
Lucas smiled at Mia, then Bernard, and then Mia again, as though checking to ensure it was a smiling matter. ‘What happened?’
‘Don’t tell me you missed it? It was fantastic, Bernard’s best work. It was only in the last six months that I’d watch the bloody thing.’
‘You only watched the last six months? Why did we have to listen to you complain for all those years?’ Carl spoke without lifting his eyes from the interior of his glass. Bernard wanted to kiss his spider-veined cheek.
‘I may have watched it a little bit, but it was still best at the end when Bernard was all over the shop. He could barely string two words together. I’ll never forget the story about the CFA firefighter who Bernard said was a CIA fire starter. There were so many, at least one a night. What was the one about the capsicum spray? Bernard? You know? The local police were being given capsicum spray and you said something about cat’s spray …’
Bernard shrugged. At least his dismal career was still grist for her amusement.
Sensing the change in atmosphere, Stewart stepped in to ease the strain. ‘It must be hard having to speak like that every night. I get tongue-tied telling customers which herb is which, and that’s just a few people, not thousands.’
Mark echoed Stewart’s sentiment. ‘We always thought you were very professional, very down to earth.’
‘Friendly.’
‘Personable.’
Stewart and Mark’s banter had the tendency to play out like table tennis.
Jim’s voice rose up from the floor. ‘Bullshit! He was crap. Bernard, you were crap.’
Lucas’s eyes were veneered in sympathy. ‘I think I remember Mum writing a letter to the station scolding them for working you so hard.’
‘She was one of them?’ Mia gave a harsh laugh. ‘The station got hundreds of letters, there was literally a whole Save Bernard campaign.’
‘Tell your mother thank you from me,’ Bernard said, humble in the face of humiliation.
Lucas matched his solemnity. ‘I will.’
CHAPTER SIX
Ruby watched out her window as Angela and the man approached. In the background, Mount Gambier loomed sulkily, bitter that its turbulent volcanic days were behind it. Angela’s laugh penetrated the glass, sounding tinny and unreal, as though pre-recorded. In that moment Ruby despised her lemon-headed friend, the weak mouth and dewdrop nose, the ridiculous chignon she persisted in rolling her hair into each morning, attempting to pass herself off as a cool Hitchcock blonde. The man stole glances at Angela’s freckled cleavage, conveniently boosted for his view by the white spandex top she wore. Even at sixty-four, Angela drew admiring ogles from men half her age: the pot-bellied baldies, the braggarts and the boors, all of whom appreciated her sass and regarded her as a vamp who might bring a little excitement to their days. They were all too full of themselves to realise she was a tease, stroking her own ego, no more a sex kitten than her modest companion.
No doubt the weedy disciple nipping at Angela’s heels had offered to help them get settled in. Ruby was genuinely surprised at the number of tasks Angela could inveigle men to carry out for her. They rarely had to park the Winnebago, despite Ruby having spent hours practising in the driveway of their units. There was always an obliging Igor, the affable bystanders and jolly helping-handers ready to be of use, eager for an opportunity to flex their flaccid muscles. Ruby had never known anything like it. She’d always been invisible to the opposite sex, as inconspicuous as the very young or very aged. It was only since socialising with Angela that men gave her the once-over. Their sly glances passing from the vivacious honey pot to her comely companion. As though, having been chosen by Angela, she was now deemed worthy of consideration.
When the Winnebago had been backed into place and the power connected, Angela’s flunky emerged from around the side of the vehicle. Slapping his hands together, he proceeded to tell them about the park’s facilities. Ruby noticed a smear of mud on the side of her Homyped. She crouched to wipe the navy leather, leaving it to Angela to feign attention. After contemplating the gravel for a moment, she rose slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae, just as her GP had shown her, exercises supposed to stave off the creeping old-age freeze.
At waist height, she heard the man extending an invitation to the nightly Jacuzzi party. ‘Spa’s a whopper, plenty of room for two more.’ Without acknowledging her role as plus one, Ruby stood erect and strode away. She didn’t need to hear about the other riotous members of the hot-tub brigade.
Inside the van, the little grey fridge hummed diligently as it strove to cool its interior. Ruby pulled down the blinds, transforming the space into a shadowy catacomb. The mesh blinds, which filtered rather than blocked the light, enabled her to see as she undressed, folding each item of clothing as she removed it. Angela’s laugh sounded in bursts, eventually petering out altogether as her admirer’s relentless monologue began to exasperate.
Tying the sash on her robe, Ruby opened the door and politely informed the stranger they’d like to use the facilities now.
Something in her manner caused the man to blush. He began backing away, tossing his head like a stallion. ‘Of course, of course, leave you to it …’ He righted himself after tripping on a pothole, before reminding Angela, ‘Don’t you forget now,’ and attempting to saunter away.
Ruby and Angela stood in adjoining shower cubicles. They preferred the campsite washrooms to the little plastic shower compartment inside their Winnebago. (When Angela first stepped out of her wedges and into it to get a feel for the dimensions, she flayed wildly at the air. ‘It’s like a game-show booth—I have to grab as much money as I can in sixty seconds.’) On night one of their journey they discovered the cubicle splashed water across the lino and steamed up their living quarters, leaving the place feeling damp and fusty for hours.
Ruby enjoyed showering at the toilet blocks. She felt like a girl again, back at the convent boarding school, laughing and chatting over the stream of running water, sending echoes bouncing off the concrete walls and ceiling.
After drying off in their respective cells, the women emerged, warm and puffy in terry-towelling robes, to tend to their disappointing visages: the creased, blotchy faces staring back at them from the mirror weren’t the ones they recalled having. Ruby ran a comb through her pageboy bob, the same hairstyle she’d worn all her life: a charming wheat-blonde in childhood, darkening to dreary fawn in later years before lightening again to silvery-grey. She thought the colour suited her, despite Angela’s insistence that a softer caramel would take decades off. What Angela regarded as unflattering, Ruby considered dignified. She’d always felt older than her years and now finally her appearance had caught up with her. And though her mouth was too small and her nose too prominent for her to ever have been te
rmed a beauty, her cheekbones compensated for any other deficiencies, creating two delicate, egg-shaped orbs that rose and fell with each change in her expression. Ruby neatly repacked her beauty bag while she waited for Angela to finish. Her neighbour would rather go without pants than neglect her camouflage.
Back inside the Winnebago, Ruby dusted off their deck-chairs and pitched them in the evening sun. Angela opened the white wine, never quite cold enough from the ineffectual fridge, and dispensed nibbles into plastic bowls. The November evenings lingered long enough for them to lounge outdoors, although they needed to bunny-hop their chairs to stay abreast of the sinking sun, which warmed their skin in spite of the evening breeze. The opening music of the nightly news resonated across the caravan park. As if on cue, the sizzle and scent of frying meat wafted up from the portable Webers surrounding them. Ruby and Angela were an anomaly in that they opted to dine at the later hour of seven. They also availed themselves of the communal cooking area, as it seemed scandalous to splatter cooking fat across the Winnebago’s wood-veneer kitchen.
At seven-fifteen, Ruby’s fingers (the nails coated in Red Vengeance) abraded a rancid barbecue with scrunched newspaper, the iron grille tarred with the grease of a thousand slovenly chefs. Beside her, Angela’s dusky purple fingernails (Aubergine) were threading meat and vegetables onto skewers. Ruby had always considered nail polish vulgar. She hated the sight of tatty nails and had kept a bottle of heady acetate in the medicine cabinet at school to clean off the fingertips of ten-year-old strumpets. But she loved the fortnightly home manicure sessions that Angela had implemented, and had to concede her long fingers did appear more elegant with their striking red turbans.
Ruby was sixty-two when her friendship with Angela began last year. Before Angela, she didn’t consider she’d ever had a real friend. She’d been standoffish as a girl, unwilling to commit, waiting with blind conviction for her one true bosom buddy to appear, afraid of taking up with an inferior substitute. By the time she realised the problem might lie with her, it was too late, everyone else seemed to have partnered off and she’d developed a reputation for being snobby. As an adult, her acquaintances had all been connected to the school in some way. Strangely, none had ever been her peers. When she was younger, older women had taken her under their wing. Mature-aged teachers saw her as a surrogate daughter, a sounding board for complaints, a sponge for wisdom and warning. In later years, Ruby watched the younger women approach her sick bay, silly juvenile madams fresh from teacher’s college and brimming with gripes. They too presumed they were teaching the solitary nurse something of the world (which young and old were convinced revolved around them). Happy for the attention, Ruby listened to their quibbles and dispensed advice, though she doubted it was heeded. There were coffee dates and informal lunches with the mature and the immature, an occasional film or shopping expedition. Yet Ruby was never able to let down her guard, to drop her role as sympathetic listener and develop a mutually intimate, two-way friendship. There was always a barrier. She often had to force a smile or battle for words. She liked it best when they jabbered away, sparing her the need of having to share or amuse.
With Angela, she just clicked, having never before understood the implication behind the phrase. Her tongue became loose and pliant in response to her friend’s loquaciousness. Best of all, they laughed. And Ruby discovered she was funny. She’d always suspected she harboured a keen wit, yet had rarely found an opportunity to apply it. She mainly reserved her humour for her uncomprehending patients, dispensing light-hearted quips and wisecracks as she attempted to play down their concerns for the now missing front tooth or snapped wrist. Ruby was able to make Angela howl and weep black tears as she fumbled for the handkerchief tucked into her bra strap to mop up her mascara. In turn, Ruby discovered a laugh lying dormant inside her, a deep, almost masculine guffaw that required the full benefit of amusement to rumble out from hiding.
Angela pushed a gelatinous pink cube of chicken onto a skewer. ‘I suppose Mary’s back at home, scanning all the newspapers, looking for word we’ve been chopped up … or blown up.’
‘Did our dinner make you think of that?’
‘Bad news is good news, when it comes to Mary.’
‘I wouldn’t mind the dismemberment so much, it’s the horror of having her say “I told them so” that terrifies me.
Angela hooted and dropped the piece of chicken she’d just picked up. Ruby bent to collect the meat from off the concrete. ‘Perhaps we could mail this to her, along with a threat: give us all your superannuation or your neighbours’ heads will be next.’
Angela clasped onto Ruby’s shoulder to steady herself as she laughed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Izzy was weaving across the caravan park grounds, arched over, face to the dirt. Sensing she was being watched, she lifted her head, gazing about like a meerkat until catching sight of Mrs Bronson at the washing line. A billowing sheet buffeted the woman playfully as though it were seeking a cuddle. Mrs Bronson slapped it back into place before bending down to retrieve a pillowcase, snapping it into the wind to whip out any creases. Izzy raised an arm in greeting. Mrs Bronson flapped the pillowcase she was holding, a hearty bon voyage, before clamping its corners firmly to the line and scooping another damp item from the basket at her feet.
Izzy returned to her search, tramping cross-country through the weeds, seeking out objects like a bloodhound sniffing for clues. She was looking for anything suitable to be used for her arts and crafts, like shiny wrappers. At present, she was working on a treasure box just like the one Mister Maker made on TV. So far she’d amassed a handful of bottle caps, a couple of stones and a marble. At the tennis court, Izzy pocketed a five-cent piece and considered a fragment of broken glass. Beneath the rickety wooden bench where spectators could sit and watch hopeless players scuffing across the red gravel, she dismissed an old sock and a hairclip. She glanced into a rubbish bin in passing—someone had emptied it recently and she had to reach right to the bottom to get at the wrappers. After contemplating a Cornetto ice-cream sleeve she let it fall back into the bin and, with a mighty puff, sent the tiny ant that had wandered onto her thumb hurtling into the air.
Izzy sat on a swing using just her ankles to rock backward and forward. The sun was poking its head through the clouds to warm her briefly before withdrawing, leaving her chillier than before. The crows called to one another from the row of nearby pines. A teacher she’d once had said all crows were called Mark. Izzy smiled, listening to Mark call out to Mark from the uppermost branches. She noticed Trent plodding along the path to the office. Her mum teased him about his weight, said he wore a ring of fat around his middle like a life buoy. Izzy told her mum he reminded her of the planet Saturn. Her mum told her not to be bitchy.
Izzy ducked her head, hoping not to be seen. When she lifted her eyes, Trent was heading across the play area toward her, shuffling in his thongs, with those stupid baggy shorts he always wore.
‘Hey, Wizz Fizz, what’s up?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You been banished?’
She shrugged, not knowing what the word meant.
‘I know your mum was pissed off at you the other day. I was with her. She reckoned you might have been kidnapped.’
Izzy squinted up at him. Trent could almost have been cute except that he was chubby, and she didn’t like the way his whiskers sprouted unevenly, leaving patches of white skin in between. Like his mum, he had hardly any chin, so that his face seemed to end too soon. On the plus side, he had a perfect nose, small and upturned. Izzy wished she could swap with him. That nose was wasted on Trent’s face. Her nose was interrupted by a small bump in the middle, making it stand out. She was self-conscious and worried that it looked like a witch’s mask she’d found in the park last Halloween. Her mum said, ‘It’s too soon to tell.’ And, ‘Where did you get that mask?’
‘Mind if I join you?’ Trent asked.
Izzy did mind, but he was an adult and she didn’t get to tell
them where they could and couldn’t sit. She focused on folding a red Kit Kat wrapper as small as it would go. It wasn’t littering if you made it small enough. Trent applied himself to swinging higher and higher, pumping his hairy legs, calling for Izzy to try and match him. Izzy felt the swing’s stand begin to rock and wondered if she should jump off. One of Trent’s thongs tumbled to the ground and Izzy kicked it away from her. Trent swung past, driving himself skyward until it looked as though he might fly. Izzy wanted him to stop. She was scared he’d fall headfirst and she’d have to see his face all mashed up. The chains on his swing buckled, giving Izzy a jolt. Trent used his feet to come to a stop, sending up a cloud of tanbark dust. He was panting. He stretched out his leg to draw on his missing thong, sliding it between his toes. Izzy flicked the itty-bitty red square off her knee.
‘Litterbug.’
‘It was tiny,’ she replied defensively.
‘Like I care.’ They rocked together for a bit. Trent’s clothes smelt smoky like her mother’s. After a while he murmured, ‘Your mum’s kinda moody, you know.’
‘A bit.’
‘So’s mine.’ He squinted up into a woolly bank of clouds. Izzy noted a white-capped pimple lodged in the corner of his nostril. ‘Here’s a hot tip. Don’t be bothered by it. It’s not personal. They’re never actually angry with us. It’s just the stuff going on in their heads that makes ’em mad.’ He dipped his head toward her. ‘Don’t sweat it, yeah? And don’t tell her I said anything.’
Trent sauntered away. Izzy sat swaying a moment longer. A cool breeze shimmied down the neck of her pyjama top. She drew her feet up onto the seat and clasped her knees, making herself as compact as possible.
The Grand Tour Page 4
