The Grand Tour

by Olivia Wearne

  ‘A bit of greasepaint never hurt anyone, she can leave it on through lunch.’

  Izzy escorted them to her secret place, the bank of pine trees just beyond the playground. They spread their picnic rug out on a carpet of brown pine needles to the chagrin of the crows, who harked their disapproval in the branches high above. Izzy dithered over the choice of sandwiches on offer, until Ruby obliged her by pitching the cheese and ham from one, leaving Izzy with plain buttered bread and mollifying the crows in the process.

  Izzy chatted away to the ladies as though she were a contemporary, telling them all the thoughts and ideas that a lack of listeners had prevented her from sharing: ‘I think the Queen should move out of her palace and give it to the homeless—she must have hundreds of bedrooms.’ Forgetting her mask, she took a bite of bread and wiped her hand across her lips to remove a trace of butter, smudging pink lipstick from nostril to chin. Ruby gave Angela a what-did-I-tell-you look.

  Izzy rambled on obliviously. ‘She could move into, like, a little cottage or something.’

  When they had eaten, Izzy showed the women how accomplished she was on the monkey bars. Ruby and Angela sat side-saddle on the seesaw and teetered unevenly, as if engaged in a subtle battle of wills. They clapped thunderously when Izzy was done, jumping down from the bars and throwing her hands in the air to signal completion like a clown-faced acrobat. Angela performed an equally efficient dismount, causing Ruby to crash to the ground and Izzy to laugh uproariously.

  On the way back to the Winnebago, holding hands and performing a raggedy Mexican wave, Angela—in the middle—proposed, ‘Why don’t we pop by the cabin and say hello to Carol?’

  Ruby extracted her palm and placed it to her temple. ‘Maybe tomorrow—I’ve got a soft headache coming on.’

  ‘Yes. Definitely,’ Izzy chipped in. ‘Tomorrow’s better.’ She settled the issue by launching herself out of their grip, calling loudly, almost threateningly, ‘See you later!’

  Watching Izzy scarper away, Angela murmured, as though it were no fault of her own, ‘I hope her mother’s got a decent cleanser on hand—she looks like she’s been in a road accident.’

  Angela and Ruby were having their pre-dinner drink when Ingrid Bronson knocked and entered.

  ‘Hello again …’ Her pupils grazed over the wine and nibbles. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting your dinner.’

  Angela haughtily pointed out it wasn’t yet five-thirty and they didn’t run to nursing home hours. Ruby invited Mrs Bronson to join them for a drink. Angela rolled her eyes to the low ceiling.

  Mrs Bronson waved the offer away. ‘Can’t stop. I just wanted to check that my grey nomads had settled in all right.’

  Ruby assured her everything was perfect, regardless of Angela’s earlier complaint that the grounds were terribly unkempt.

  ‘Truth be told, I’m flattered you opted to stay with us, I would have thought, given your …’ she made a rainbow of her hands, ‘… motor home, you might have chosen the Goldfields Retreat. It’s written up as a premier destination park.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ Angela asked.

  ‘Then again, their site fees are absolutely exorbitant,’ Mrs Bronson backpedalled. ‘And I don’t know about you, but I’m not partial to mini golf or saunas. Some folk prefer the simpler things in life, don’t you think?’

  ‘And where is it exactly?’ Angela repeated.

  ‘Impossible to get in at short notice, booked solid even in the winter months. So, is this your prime-of-life tour of duty? How far have you gotten?’

  ‘Not far,’ Ruby admitted, with a glance to Angela to unite them in their vow of silence.

  ‘I saw you playing with little Izzy. I hope she wasn’t pestering you. The poor poppet’s a sad case.’

  Ruby frowned. ‘How so?’

  Mrs Bronson forgot she couldn’t linger and wedged herself into the dinette alongside Ruby. Angela winced at the intrusion. Or possibly the visitor’s spider veins; it wouldn’t take more than a spot of foundation to even out that complexion.

  ‘The mother’s a complete disgrace.’ Mrs Bronson’s voice was sharp with scandalous urgency. ‘You need a licence to own a dog, but what’s stopping any old person from having a child?’ She recited the cliché as though the notion had just occurred to her. ‘The little girl doesn’t even go to school.’

  Ruby gave a yelp of consternation.

  Mrs Bronson nodded astutely. ‘Dreadful, isn’t it, to think how it must be holding the youngster back.’

  ‘Why are they staying here?’ Angela asked, better qualified than Ruby at pumping people for information.

  Mrs Bronson helped herself to a handful of cashews. ‘I’m from the west originally.’ She chomped on the nuts, working their sweet flesh out of her dentures. ‘I came to Victoria after marrying my second husband, Don. He was Ballarat born and bred. It was his idea to buy the caravan park. Then Donald was called back to God, leaving me to shoulder all the work.’

  Angela had a dead spouse of her own and wasn’t interested in swapping sympathies, so she interrupted, ‘I asked why the mother and daughter were here.’

  ‘I was coming to that.’

  Ruby jumped—Angela may have met her match.

  ‘It’s because of my son that Carol’s here. The two of them were at uni together. From what little I can squeeze out of Trent, I think she was living in Sydney before coming back. They kept in contact on that Facebook thingamajig. At first I thought how lovely, Trent having an old friend come to stay. It didn’t take long for me to change my tune. She’s a bad egg …’

  Angela clicked her tongue, insinuating disapproval. Mrs Bronson allowed the third handful of nuts she was taking to drop back into the bowl, assuming Angela’s reproach was aimed at her. She brushed the salt from her fingertips. ‘I really must stop eating them—so fattening.’

  ‘What makes you say she’s a bad egg?’ Ruby asked.

  Mrs Bronson fondled the loose skin around her neck. ‘Well, there’s the terrible way she treats the girl.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Neglect—’ a pause for emphasis, ‘—a bit of discipline I can understand, but it’s the neglect that makes them go wild. I’d call in social services, but to what end? I’ve heard of cases where the foster carers were worse than the homes the kiddies had been removed from. I mean,’ Mrs Bronson narrowed her eyes dramatically, ‘would you be inclined to take the risk?’

  Ruby and Angela remained silent, presuming the question to be rhetorical.

  Accepting silence to mean acquiescence, Mrs Bronson concluded with a sanctimonious flourish by striking the tabletop. ‘She’ll have her comeuppance—what comes around goes around.’ She shuffled her ample rayon-clad thighs out from under the table. ‘And we mustn’t blame the child for the sins of the mother.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Bernard sat in the recording booth waiting for Neil to complete his levels. ‘Seeing as we have all this studio time booked, maybe I should tell my life story?’ he proposed.

  ‘You don’t think it might be as dull as Voss?’

  ‘I’d have to embellish.’

  ‘We could record an album.’

  Bernard laughed. ‘Excellent idea. “Bernard Barkley sings the Blues”.’

  ‘I see you more as a country man.’

  ‘“Bernard Barkley on Comb and Spoons”?’

  ‘And jug.’

  Bernard chuckled. ‘What about “Bernard Barkley Skats Your All-time Favourite Hymns”?’

  Through the speaker came the sound of sniggering.

  Bernard grinned. ‘“Sing-along to Bernard Barkley”, “Bernard Barkley Duets”, “Bernard Barkley: Killing You Softly”.’

  ‘“The Bernard Barkley Cabaret”,’ Neil offered. ‘You could take it on the road.’

  ‘Can we think of a title that doesn’t have Bernard Barkley in it?’

  ‘I can’t actually,’ Neil conceded. ‘You’re nothing but an empty name.’

  ‘Im-tee.’ Bernard clapped and pointed
at the booth. ‘South African.’

  ‘No.’

  The session lasted twenty minutes. Bernard asked whether Neil thought there was any chance of them finishing by next week. Not unless Bernard learnt to read in his sleep, Neil admitted. They waited for the receptionist to leave her desk before sneaking out of the station.

  Mia was in the lounge room inspecting the bookcase. Bernard stalked over and inserted himself between the shelves of paperbacks and her questing eyes. ‘No you don’t—no more books.’

  ‘They’re my books too.’

  ‘Not anymore, if you haven’t claimed them by now they’re mine by default.’

  She cocked her head to try and take a look at the titles either side of him.

  ‘I mean it, Mia.’

  ‘I wanted something to take my mind off things, something nice, I was thinking of Kundera.’

  ‘I like the bookcase how it is, I don’t want any more gaps.’

  ‘I’ll return it,’ she offered meekly, her tone acknowledging the unlikelihood of such an event.

  He let his arms drop and stepped aside. Mia put her hand to a Moravia and looked across to see if her selection met with his approval. Bernard shrugged in resignation. Mia slipped out his copy of Contempt. She took a moment to rearrange the books so that the gap left by Contempt dissolved. She turned to Bernard with a raised eyebrow. A woman’s touch, the arch informed him.

  In the kitchen, Bernard filled the kettle and Mia gazed into the depths of the pantry.

  ‘I think it’s over between me and Lucas.’

  Bernard took the milk from the fridge and shook the carton doubtfully, wondering if it would stretch.

  Mia dolefully regarded an opened packet of Monte Carlos. ‘I’m sixty-two.’

  ‘You look fantastic.’ The kettle’s whistle spared him from further elaboration. He fixed their coffees, emptying the milk into Mia’s mug.

  ‘Do you have anything chocolate?’ Her love for the brown confection ran deep; she savoured every morsel. Bernard often used Mia’s chocolate fixation against her in arguments to illustrate her capriciousness. He was baffled that she, who was incapable of restraining herself in matters of trinket buying or critical-opinion giving, had an unlimited capacity for willpower when it came to a single square of Lindt.

  ‘I could pop to the shops.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’ She retrieved the biscuits she’d shelved and drifted out through the French doors. Bernard followed bearing coffee.

  ‘I think I disgust him,’ she said.

  Bernard gasped. ‘Shit!’ He’d taken a mouthful, forgetting the absence of milk, and scalded his mouth.

  ‘You need to let it cool down.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip.’

  ‘I have a very nasty ulcer, one of those ones that burrows into your gum—you know, instead of bubbling out, it feels like it tunnels in.’ She pulled out her lower lip and leant forward.

  Bernard bent down for a closer inspection. A nasty white blister had lodged itself in the webbing between her lip and bottom gum. ‘Looks sore,’ he sympathised.

  ‘It is. It hurts like the devil.’ She lifted a biscuit from the packet in her lap and bit gently to illustrate her discomfort.

  ‘What’s this got to do with Lucas?’

  Mia took a sip of coffee. ‘Bit milky. You know how when you show your wounds to people it makes them hurt less?’

  Bernard nodded, although he was fairly certain the remedy had little basis in medical fact.

  ‘When I pulled out my lip to show Lucas, he recoiled. And when I told him it would make me feel better, he still refused. I felt so silly. I wanted him to see how bad it was to emphasise my point. I followed him round the house with my lip outstretched, begging him to take a look. Finally I resorted to yelling at him because I was so humiliated. So he stopped and turned to look at me. It was then that I caught it, the look of revulsion …’

  ‘Maybe it was the sight of the ulcer?’ Bernard offered.

  ‘I’d already let go of my lip by then.’

  He helped himself to a biscuit. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t revulsion.’

  ‘It was either that or something like it: “What the hell am I doing with this old bag?”’ She kicked off her sandals and rubbed her feet together. ‘I mean, I am an old bag, that’s what makes it so painful. First you, now Lucas … I should stay away from younger men.’

  ‘There’s only four years between us.’

  ‘Still, I should be with a centaurian.’

  ‘Part man, part horse?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘A centenarian.’

  ‘Whatever. I seem to have lost all my confidence.’

  ‘Have you tried talking to him?’

  Mia gave him a look. ‘Have I tried talking? I do nothing but talk. Lucas says the age thing is all in my head and doesn’t bother him at all.’ She took a second biscuit from the pack and twisted it in half. ‘Mind if I just eat the middle?’ Bernard held out his hand for the unwanted ends. Mia licked the creamy centre. ‘I wish Jim was around.’ She brushed the crumbs from her shirtfront. ‘He’s on retreat.’

  ‘What the hell does Jim need to retreat from?’

  ‘He’s looking to pick up sad men.’

  ‘Jim is just the thing for reminding you how fabulous you are.’

  ‘It’s not that so much. It’s more that Jim’s just the thing for reminding me how awful Lucas is.’ She sailed her fingers through her hair and Bernard noticed her bracelet, a string of hand-painted marbles, one of her early designs.

  ‘You’re wearing one of your pieces.’

  Mia studied her wrist. ‘I dug it out from hiding. Lucas found one of my works on eBay—the bidding was over seven hundred dollars.’

  ‘You’re kidding! Which one?’

  ‘A necklace made out of doll’s eyes. I’ve got a similar pair of earrings somewhere.’ She twisted her lobe, as though her ear might recall where she’d left them. ‘I read a write-up of myself online; apparently I’ve become quite collectable.’

  ‘Let’s go drink to your success.’

  ‘I’ve already made plans with Cherise.’ Cherise was Mia’s hairdresser, a pinheaded fortyish woman whose hair was a sequence of alternating colour combinations. After Cherise split with her husband, Mia drew her into the fold, claiming she needed a female friend with whom to man-bash. Gay men appeared to relish the practice, but Mia could tell their hearts weren’t in it.

  Bernard’s carefree afternoon was threatening to convert to tedium; he proposed Mia dump the obtuse Cherise for his far superior company. Mia glowered as though he’d requested a second dip into the lolly jar, having explicitly been told he could have just one. ‘I won’t simply “dump the obtuse Cherise”, as you so affectionately label her. I could use the female support right now.’

  Bernard was offended. Even his support wasn’t good enough, and support was all he had to offer.

  The young woman on the veranda quickly stepped away from his window and back to the doorstep; Bernard had the impression of a teacher interrupting a smoking student and half expected the roses to start smouldering. The lack of clipboard and name badge threw him.

  She presented an outstretched hand. ‘I’m Jessica Madden from the Regional Times.’

  Bernard took the skinny palm and squeezed it briefly. ‘Right.’

  ‘The local paper.’

  ‘I’m familiar.’

  ‘Is now a good time to talk?’

  ‘Is this to do with the vineyard? I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to give interviews, I’d have to check with the Mallorys.’

  ‘It’s not about the winery, it’s to do with the car accident.’

  For all of three seconds Bernard was stumped, fleetingly wondering if a nearby crash had occurred on which he should have an opinion; then it dawned on him the accident to which she was referring was his accident. A bolt of cold fear streaked down his spine. He feigned a quizzical expression.

  ‘The accident you were involved in.�
� Jessica addressed him patiently, like an English-as-a-second-language teacher. ‘The one where you ran your car into a tree then fled the scene of the accident.’

  It sounded so sordid. ‘I didn’t flee.’

  ‘Had you been drinking, Mr Barkley?’

  Bernard closed the door. He listened to the girl on the other side. After a moment he heard her shuffle and thump down off the veranda.

  Bernard lay awake anxiously pre-empting the article he was sure to find in the next edition of the Regional Times. Closing the door in the reporter’s face, while satisfying at the time, was sure to have spiteful repercussions. He lamented having not played the jovial good sport: invited Jessica in and plied her with coffee and buns and regaled her with amusing anecdotes.

  He scanned the morning’s paper from cover to cover, then went back and did it again. By lunchtime he was well versed in all the break-ins, council roadworks, planning permits and regional court cases, local business events and charitable call outs. No reference was made of Bernard Barkley or his car crash.

  —Bernard, this is Margot Manningham from Eucalypt Press. I was just calling to see how the reading is coming along?

  —It’s coming along quite well, Margot.

  —That’s great to hear, Bernard. See, the thing is, everyone else is finished already.

  —Right.

  —And I think we were quite generous with the deadline, and in your case the extensions.

  —Tell me, Margot, have you ever read Voss?

  —I have.

  —Did you find it tedious?

  —I found it challenging, certainly. I think that’s what makes it so rewarding. I think the description of our landscape is second to none.

  —Mmm.

  —I love the colonial texture.

  —Mmm.

  —What about you, Bernard?

  —I’m afraid I just find it dull.

  —I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you haven’t let that colour your reading of it.