The Grand Tour

by Olivia Wearne

  ‘You ever regret it?’ she asked, dealing out the next hand.

  ‘About as much as I regret not having bought shares in Apple when they were floated.’ He picked up his cards. ‘I can’t reasonably answer the question. Do I regret not having owned a Porsche or lived in France, probably, but I never have and I never did so I can’t say for sure.’ He tossed out a card. ‘And you, do you regret having them?’

  She was momentarily affronted. ‘Of course not.’

  Studying her hand, she took a moment to consider the question. ‘I regret not being a better parent: kinder, stricter, sterner, fairer …’ She threw down two cards. ‘More patient, more generous, more loving …’

  ‘Sounds dreadful.’ He picked up the card she dealt. ‘What sort of a mother were you—the normal kind?’

  ‘God, no.’ She skimmed two cards off for herself. ‘I was far better than most.’

  Gary Von Dieter was older than Bernard and ran his own lawn-mowing business. People often remarked how much he sounded like Bernard Barkley. (Bernard considered his voice unremarkable.) Even so, Gary hadn’t thought to phone in until his wife urged him to do it: ‘She wanted something or other of the prizes they were giving away. I think it was the movie passes; there’s that new Judy Dench picture just come out.’

  So Gary dialled the number that Ben and Sim repeated compulsively at the end of every sentence. The moment his call was put through, Ben and Sim burst out laughing. Sim had assured listeners it wasn’t a practical joke. ‘I swear to you, Bernard’s lips did not move—he’s sitting right across from me.’

  The DJs asked Gary to say a few lines pretending to be Bernard reading the news. Gary, quick off the mark, followed up with the announcement, ‘The Prime Minister has just been assassinated,’ setting Ben and Sim into fresh bouts of hilarity.

  ‘Not true folks, not true,’ Ben tittered. ‘The PM is alive and well.’

  Neil had obtained Gary’s number from the show’s producer and called him to offer a Force FM tour as part of his prize package. When Bernard entered the recording booth, Gary was stunned, then chuffed.

  ‘Bloody hell, isn’t this a turn up for the books? Bernard Barkley, no one told me you’d be here.’

  ‘I wanted to meet you.’

  ‘Did you? Bloody hell. It’s nothing really, just my voice, I don’t do it on purpose or anything, I don’t try to sound like you, it’s just the way I speak.’

  ‘I can’t say I hear it myself. What do you think, Neil?’

  Neil nodded. ‘It’s bang on.’

  Gary’s smile was beginning to show signs of strain.

  Bernard took a humbling minute to bring the competition winner up to speed. When he was finished, he laid an arm across Neil’s shoulders. ‘This is the bright spark who thought of using an impersonator.’

  Gary was bewildered. ‘You want to record me reading a book?’

  ‘I’d do it myself if it wasn’t for these migraines,’ Bernard lied. ‘The publishers don’t care, they’re only interested in making their Christmas deadline.’

  Gary took a second to consider the situation.

  Bernard crossed his arms, bracing himself for the refusal.

  ‘I’d be happy to help,’ Gary said, appraising them through calm, Delft-blue eyes. ‘When do you need this done by?’

  Neil managed to get studio time for Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening, fifteen hours in all; no easy feat in the lead-up to Christmas when so many businesses wanted to record ads for their Christmas and post-Christmas sales. Together they broached Gary on the matter of terms. The lawn mower, or mower of lawns, was disinclined to accept any sort of payment but Neil was adamant: Gary was providing a service and required adequate remuneration.

  ‘Well, I earn thirty dollars an hour, depending on the length of the grass—would you be happy to pay my hourly rate?’

  Neil smilingly informed Gary what voice-over artists normally charged.

  ‘You’re shitting me?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Sometimes more, depends on the voice—there’s also royalties to be considered.’

  Bernard thought Neil would be better keeping this information to himself.

  ‘Yeah, but they’re professionals,’ Gary reflected, ‘probably had all that voice coaching and whatnot.’ He looked to Bernard for confirmation.

  ‘Some of them are trained,’ Bernard said, hoping to undo some of Neil’s expensive damage. ‘It’s more the experience that counts.’

  Neil brayed at the thought.

  They settled on Gary accepting half of Bernard’s fee from Eucalypt Press on the proviso that he keep it under wraps. Gary seemed disappointed, his hopes of a first-rate yarn now fading. Bernard attempted to buck his spirits by reminding him of the ten-thousand-dollar windfall. Gary massaged the arthritis out of his palms.

  ‘I suppose you’re right, the kids could do with it—put it toward their mortgages.’

  ‘And you’d be doing me a huge favour.’

  Gary looked up from his hands. ‘It’s not much though, is it? Reading a bloody book.’

  After a sweeping inspection of his front yard to ensure Jessica Madden wasn’t lurking in any bushes, Bernard collected his afternoon mail. Nestled between the bills was another thick yellow envelope. Bernard opened the letter carefully as though it might be laced with sarin. He wasn’t far from the mark, another poison pen letter from Skelter and Jones. Bernard would have preferred a death threat, even a maddening chain letter from an aunt’s second cousin. The four pages (apparently four was the amount it took to inform someone they were about to be screwed over) of heavy print was as unintelligible as its predecessor, it may as well have been written in Elvish. Bernard assumed it was notifying him his deadline had expired: YOUR TIME IS UP BUDDY! WE’RE COMING TO GET YOU. He kept an eye out for any mention of legs being broken.

  Before going to bed, Bernard retrieved the Skelter and Jones letter out of the bin—probably best not to act too rashly given the circumstances.

  ‘So, when’s this whole hiding-out thing of yours going to come to an end?’ Mia asked, licking pesto off her front tooth. ‘I can’t be bringing you Meals on Wheels every day.’

  ‘Did you see this morning’s paper? Madden interviewed a policeman who’s considering reviewing the case. The Herald Sun interpreted that as the police pressing charges.’

  Mia shrugged. ‘And are they?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘And what did The Age say?’

  ‘They didn’t report on me today.’

  ‘There you go, you’re already passé.’

  ‘Tell that to the rake-toting locals baying for my blood.’

  Mia lifted the lid on her sandwich and peered inside. ‘Did I mention I’m going back into business?’

  ‘Really?’ He was genuinely surprised.

  ‘There’s a girl, a woman, who runs a boutique in town. I pop my head in now and then to see what’s new. I buy a bit.’ Mia held up the edge of her linen smock.

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘She told me she loved my work. I asked if she owned anything and she said she hadn’t been able to afford it—it was ridiculously overpriced by the end. Anyway, the next time I went in, I gave her a bracelet I had lying around, one from the oceanic range.’

  ‘Very generous of you.’

  ‘I thought so. Anyway, she took me for a coffee and we got talking. I told her about some new designs I’ve been playing with. She said she’d be happy to stock anything I produced.’ She took a bite of sandwich. ‘So, there you have it, I’m going to be a businesswoman again.’

  ‘I thought you were an artist?’

  ‘Everyone’s an artist nowadays—I want to be an entrepreneur. God, I almost forgot, you have to ring Mark and Stewart and RSVP for Christmas. They’ve started burning effigies of you on their front lawn.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell them I was coming?’

  ‘They want to hear it from you.’

  ‘If they’re so socially rigorous, why didn’t th
ey ask me themselves?’

  ‘Out of respect for me … I wanted to let you down gently about not doing it myself this year.’

  ‘What on earth made you think I’d care?’

  Mia appraised him sceptically. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve done any Christmas shopping?’

  ‘I was hoping to sign my name to your cards. I’m currently under house arrest, remember?’

  ‘Of your choosing, remember? And I’ve already got Lucas as cosignatory; it would look particularly cheap to have three.’ She brushed the breadcrumbs from her smock. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of Amazon?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Ruby stood in the children’s section of a declining department store. She wondered at the styles, adult clothing in miniature, and all of it smelling minty mass-produced. She was watching Angela pick over the racks of tween girls’ clothing. Izzy was across the aisle in the toy department, mouth-breathing in awe as she stared covetously at the dolls entombed in plastic-windowed boxes. When Angela had made her selection, she marshalled Izzy inside a set of peek-a-boo-curtained change rooms, with the carolled instruction, ‘Holler if you need me.’

  As Izzy changed, Angela stalked the store collecting underwear, socks, pyjamas and a quilted pink dressing gown. An amphibious-eyed man behind the counter watched her expectantly, unable to believe his good fortune: commission crawler, Ruby figured. She left Angela with her credit card and PIN (she wasn’t getting out of this spree for less than a hundred dollars) and told her she was off to look for an umbrella—their last one having been thrust inside out while she and Angela were optimistically attempting a coastal stroll in tornadic conditions. ‘I’ll meet you at the restaurant.’

  It took two circuits of the department store before Ruby stumbled across a rack of overpriced brollies printed with Impressionist scenes (Monet or Van Gogh) in the book department, of all places. As Ruby was trying to decide without actually opening the umbrella and bringing on a bout of misfortune, she happened to lock eyes with another customer, and exchanged smiles.

  Ruby spotted the woman again as she was paying. The stranger gave a head jerk of recognition. Ruby raised her newly acquired umbrella to indicate that her visit had been a success. Out on the footpath, Ruby slung the brolly over her wrist and set off to meet Angela and Izzy for lunch.

  The woman followed her outside. ‘This might sound terribly strange, but didn’t you used to be a school nurse?’

  ‘That’s right. Did you have a child at Ballarat East?’

  ‘Oh no, I remember you from St Peter’s.’

  ‘Really? But that’s over thirty years ago.’

  The woman prodded Ruby’s shoulder with her fingertips. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, honestly. You’ve got the same haircut … those lovely eyes.’

  Ruby was frequently recognised by parents and students alike. The accidents and illnesses that befell her pupils, as with any traumatic occasion, tended to stand out in people’s memories. Come Christmas, she’d been inundated with toiletry gift packs and tins of biscuits from parents thankful for her kind and competent ministrations.

  Ruby was at a loss. ‘I’m so sorry …’

  ‘Nonsense. I haven’t aged as well as you—I’m big as a house, and I used to be so petite. It’s Lynne Bishop, though I was Thompson back then. I was the arts teacher at St Peter’s.’

  ‘Oh, Lynne! Of course I remember.’

  ‘I married David. You remember David,’ she coaxed. ‘He taught maths and science. We moved to Melbourne, gracious—almost seventeen years ago. But our eldest son married a local lass, so we’re always coming and going.’

  Ruby didn’t recall any David either; her first nursing position remained cordoned off behind heavy mental drapes.

  ‘Tell me, do you ever see anything of Graham?’ Lynne rattled on.

  Ruby blanched. She’d met one or two Grahams since her time at St Peter’s and prickled upon being introduced. To hear mention of the real Graham was completely unnerving, even after so many years. A glimpse of the lanky PE teacher flashed through her mind: white shorty-shorts and knee-high socks, high forehead and outdoorsy, cricketer’s complexion, the charismatic sheen of a local sporting hero. Their first introduction came in the form of a howling ten-year-old who’d just sprained his ankle playing basketball in the quadrangle.

  Graham had grinned. ‘Don’t be taken in by his uproar, there’s not too much the matter with Andrew here.’ He leant in the doorway, watching Ruby as she applied an ice pack to the ankle, the better part of her skills required for calming the child.

  ‘Andrew, I’ll give you something for the pain when you stop crying and I can be sure you won’t choke.’

  The boy seemed to accept the nurse’s logic, and downgraded his cries to whimpers. ‘I’m not Andrew,’ he sniffled. ‘I’m Danny.’

  Ruby glanced at Graham, who shrugged indifferently. ‘It’s all one and the same to me.’

  Ruby looked back at her patient, gasping and wincing theatrically every time he moved. ‘You’d do well to lie still if it pains you so.’ She lifted the ice pack to monitor the swelling. She looked wryly at Graham. ‘Thank you, Mr Bentley, I’ll take care of Laurence Olivier from here. Make sure you do a head count, find out how many other students have injured themselves in your absence.’

  The next time they met, less than a week later, it was the teacher who was the injured party. A young boy led Graham, clutching his head, into her sick bay. He’d been hit in the face with a rounders bat, which the pupil, in his excitement at hitting a sixer, had jettisoned in order to skirt the bases. Mr Bentley addressed the boy from beneath his hand. ‘You can go, just don’t be so bloody reckless in future.’

  The student tried his luck. ‘Does my six still count?’

  ‘No. You’re out. Consider your PE teacher’s noggin a wicket in future and steer bloody clear of it.’

  The boy scarpered off down the corridor. Ruby thought she heard him give a little whoop in aid of his reprieve. He surely must have considered his school career over for having struck a teacher in the face with a bat.

  Graham lowered himself onto the nearest bed. ‘Can I have something for the pain? Something grown-up, I’ve a splitting headache.’

  He released his face to swallow his pills and Ruby beheld the red welt across his cheek and eye. ‘You’re going to have quite the shiner in the coming days.’

  Graham made himself at home, stretching out on the bed.

  Ruby took in the fine russet hairs gracing his calves and quickly averted her gaze. ‘Should I notify the principal that you’re gone?’

  ‘Nah. The kids can run free for a bit, let the Lords of the Flies assert themselves.’

  Ruby laughed.

  He whistled. ‘Bloody hell, that’s a helluva smile. Just the thing to perk your patients up.’

  ‘And they’re the longest legs I’ve ever seen. I suppose that comes in handy for sports.’

  ‘No. Quite the opposite. I’ve got all the co-ordination of a baby giraffe. Anyone with half an ounce of grace would have dodged an incoming bat pitched at their head.’ Then he made her swear not to let on, he’d lose his job if they knew how ill-equipped he was.

  Graham stopped by the sick bay each day to let Ruby monitor the progress of his black eye. After that, a routine was established. Ruby listened with sweet anticipation to the sound of Graham’s whistle approaching down the hall, his body all but filling the narrow doorframe. ‘Any invalids?’ If a child should happen to be occupying a camp bed, he’d enquire as to the degree of contagion, and join her for morning tea regardless. Now and then he brought her a student injured in one of his classes. ‘I appear to have broken another one.’ Two months later he invited her to see a film. Ruby knew he was married and opted to ignore the fact. Why let an unhappy marriage (at least Ruby hoped it was unhappy) interfere with their friendship?

  It wasn’t long before people began to sniff at their chumminess. Graham was easily the most desirable candidate among the male teachers. It was impossible
to capture his attention, always coming and going from the sick bay and fawning after its mistress. Surely he should be available for all the staff, male and female alike, to flirt shamelessly with? Why should the mousy school nurse with the bumpy nose be the only one to toy with him? Eventually, someone took their spite so far as to write the wife.

  At first, Ruby mistook Graham’s spouse for a harried mother she’d rubbed the wrong way. Which she frequently did, pulling women from their homes or workplaces and rebuking them for bringing their child to school: ‘Surely those measles were obvious to you this morning?’ The wife possessed an unflattering curtain of thin auburn hair commencing from a stark centre part and running the length of her royal blue skivvy. She stared venomously at Ruby, hugging her arms around her ribcage and announcing in a voice as highly strung as her demeanour, ‘Stay the fuck away from my husband!’

  Those were the days when a person might still reasonably reel from the F word. Ruby found she had no other option but to nod demurely. ‘Okay.’

  The wife spun in her orange boots and stalked from the room. She might have done better hanging around long enough to determine whether Ruby was genuine. For the nurse was not as meekly good-natured and compliant as her manner denoted.

  Ruby and Graham continued seeing one another, though the visit had the effect of leaching the magic out of the relationship. Ruby became flustered by the romance, as though Graham was an overdue library book and she was rushing to finish the story in the face of mounting fines. Finally, an official letter from the school, informing Ruby she would not be seeing out the term, dismissed on the grounds of Inappropriate Conduct, put a mortifying end to the affair. She was too poor and too humiliated to pursue the matter.

  She had hoped Graham would drop everything and follow her through those ignominious woods. He didn’t. She received another letter, this time from Graham, urging her to keep her chin up:

  Not to worry, the school’s an antiquated backwater full of washed-up old has-beens. You should be glad to be free of the place. As for me, I’ve been put on a short leash by the Trouble and Strife and probably won’t be able to get away to see you much anymore …