The Grand Tour

by Olivia Wearne

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Lucas was saying.

  She felt a draft of cool air and turned in through the doorway, despite it being one of those cavernous, Irish-themed embarrassments she was so quick to deride. They sat across from one another in a booth of maroon vinyl, lit by a lampshade affixed to the wall, its tawny triangular cast infinitely preferable to the powder-blue glare outside. Angela fixed her attentions on the greasy bar menu. She could do with something salty to go with her white wine. Lucas asked a question and she dragged her mind up from her central preoccupation—the calorific comparison between potato wedges and chicken dippers—to attend to his query.

  ‘Golf?’ she echoed. ‘If I order a bite to eat, will you share it with me?’

  While Lucas was at the bar, Angela surreptitiously appraised the adjacent table’s occupant, comfortably nursing his sagging belly as he waited for his food. She noted the sheen of his suit, the worn-down heels on the mid-priced brogues. Lethargy appeared to have won out, but she could work wonders with a pair of clippers and some decent tailoring.

  Lucas slid back into his seat, pocketing his wallet.

  ‘There’s something to be said for dress for success,’ Angela said, dipping her chin in the stranger’s direction. Lucas looked over his shoulder and laughed maliciously, missing Angela’s implication. She’d been pitching at self-improvement, not disparagement.

  Lucas took a sizable draught of his Guinness and wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand. ‘I can’t believe you never played. Dad was mad about the game.’

  Angela pretended to give the notion some thought, her eyes boring into a knot on the pine table that seemed to eyeball her back. ‘He knew I didn’t care for sports. He tended not to bore me with it … He liked to watch the football,’ she added brightly, as if in consolation for her ignorance on the golfing question.

  A grin of satisfaction parted Lucas’s thin lips. ‘So, he never mentioned our games to you?’

  ‘Games?’

  ‘Golf games—we used to be gone for hours at a time.’

  ‘Did you? Huh! He never said anything to me …’ She reached out to tilt his jaw closed. ‘You’ll catch flies with that open mouth. I suppose he wanted it to be a secret, something the two of you could share.’

  Lucas continued grinning mawkishly like some dim-witted spaniel. ‘You’re not upset are you—that he kept it from you?’

  ‘Why should I be? He was your father.’ She was pleased with the deception. She leant back to allow the waiter ample room to place their food in front of them, thanking him beatifically before scalding her mouth on a bite of potato wedge. ‘Shit! ’Ot! ’Ot!’ She lunged for her drink to douse the burn. Finding her Chardonnay ineffectual, she grabbed Lucas’s stout and took a scorching mouthful, grimacing at the bitter aftertaste.

  Lucas raised a wedge to his lips.

  ‘I’d recommend blowing on it first,’ she warned.

  ‘I’m not five.’

  ‘You’ll do as I say.’

  ‘Not as you do.’

  ‘Not as I did, have done and am likely to do in future.’ Angela rotated the wedge in her fingers as she blew cool air on it. ‘I think I’ll invite Bernard over for Christmas. Have a little family reunion. The poor thing will probably be all alone. What a pair of old outcasts we’ve become.’ She bit the tip off her wedge. ‘You’re welcome too, of course—we can christen my new floors.’

  Lucas plunged his wedge through the sour cream. With no thought for calories, Angela supposed. ‘I’ve been invited to a Christmas party—some friends of Mia’s. I’m pretty sure Bernard is coming.’

  ‘Oh.’ Angela reached for another wedge. ‘Never mind.’

  ‘You should come along.’

  ‘I don’t want to impose.’

  ‘I’ll have Mia call you. It’ll be a good way of breaking the ice.’

  ‘Perfect.’ Angela scooped up a dollop of sour cream.

  The accomplices shared smoking-gun smiles of triumph, as though the impending day was already a fait accompli.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Izzy waded in the shallows searching for unbroken shells, perfect semicircles with crisp ruffled edges like the hem of a tutu. She wiped off a specimen on her T-shirt, its inside pink as watermelon, and popped it into the little plastic handbag slung over her shoulder. Hearing a faraway echo, she tipped back her head, squinting at the tiny aeroplane ploughing its white trail across the ozone sky. At ground level, tepid water sloshed around her ankles, sweeping pale sand across her toes. A gull flew low overhead, screeching toward the shore. Izzy followed its trajectory up the beach and across the top of her grandmother’s rainbow sunshade. She sensed her movements being monitored and lifted her arm in acknowledgement.

  Sitting in a pool of cool shadow inside the rayon teepee, Ruby returned the gesture, unsure if her wave could be seen from the shoreline. She removed her sunglasses to better admire the movements of her granddaughter, so perfectly alone on the stretch of pristine, sun-flecked coast.

  The longing she felt for the child was fluid, shifting within her, refusing to be pinned down. The regret, however, was stagnant. She’d ruined her relationship with her own daughter long before this all happened. She hadn’t the patience or the strength of will to raise Carol properly. She’d been entirely without compassion. Frustrated and unloved, she was unable to give love in return. Now she had it in spades, was bursting with affection for her grandchild. But you don’t get do-overs. Not when it comes to parenting. The practice-makes-perfect mantra doesn’t apply. You blew it, Ruby.

  Except now Carol was doing the same thing. Pushing her daughter away in order to marinate in loneliness and self-pity. Someone had to save her from herself. Someone had to save the child.

  Izzy kicked up a fountain of water. Enjoying the effect, she kicked again, sending a shower of shimmery droplets cascading upon her head. She took care to lay her handbag upon the sand before wading back into the turquoise depths. When the water lapped at her waist she ceased advancing, as she had been instructed to do, bobbing up and down to gather momentum before dunking her body beneath the surface—the delicious burst of cool water across her face. Keeping her shoulders submerged, she brushed the hair from her eyes, happy to see her grandma’s solid form moving across the sand toward the water’s edge—majestic.

  Ruby stopped to adjust the line on her bathing suit before striding into the ocean, her sights set on the small black head resting on the surface like a ship’s buoy. In a burst of enthusiasm, Izzy completed a dolphin’s jubilant leap, vaulting out of the water and crashing down on her side. She enacted the movement twice more for the sheer joy of it and then paddled forward to meet her grandma.

  Ruby had no idea if she and Izzy were still regarded as newsworthy. She’d had one anxious moment, when the campsite’s manager, a short, beetle-eyed woman, appeared in the trailer’s doorway wanting to know if they were enjoying their stay.

  In response to Ruby’s raptures, the woman said, ‘Place might seem idyllic now, but when the school hols kick in there’ll be herds of tourists cluttering up the place.’ She poked her head inside the Winnebago, gauging its dimensions. ‘Where was it you said you were from?’

  ‘Melbourne.’

  The woman gave a perceptive nod as if she’d suspected as much. ‘You the girl’s nan or mum?’

  Ruby hesitated, unnerved by the woman’s probing stare. Could she plausibly lose a decade? Would Izzy back her in the lie? ‘I’m her grandmother. We’re having a bit of a getaway.’

  ‘Thought as much—it’s hard to tell nowadays, what with women leaving it so late.’ She straightened the doormat with her bare toes. ‘Families can be tricky things. I’ve got nine grandkids. Now and then I’ll take one under my wing when there’s trouble at home—helps take the pressure off.’ She cocked her head at Izzy. ‘Take good care of your gran now—see she doesn’t get into mischief.’

  Izzy solemnly surveyed the clusters of liberated children sprawled on their stomachs on the grassy beachfr
ont like she were a diligent seeing-eye dog, only the faintest shadow of longing playing across her face. Sitting across from her, beneath the café umbrella, Ruby hankered to permit her granddaughter to join them. She imagined taking Izzy by the hand and initiating the introductions on her behalf, telling them her granddaughter was here on holiday and keen to make friends. Then she’d make a judicious retreat, order another cappuccino and watch appreciatively as Izzy was accepted into the schoolgirl rank and file.

  Ruby had never made introductions on Carol’s behalf. She’d never had to do anything on her daughter’s behalf. Carol was so brash, so unself-conscious. If she wanted to talk to someone she waltzed right up and started talking. Despite her many flaws, Ruby had to admire her daughter’s fearlessness.

  Izzy gurgled up the remaining puddle of milkshake, leaning over her straw without using her hands. When she was done, she sucked the residual moisture from her straw and began to chew on it ruminatively.

  ‘Will I go to school again?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ruby said, ignoring the vast array of complications this gave rise to. ‘But we’re having a lovely holiday, aren’t we? We don’t have to think about school or anything yet.’

  ‘No,’ Izzy agreed. ‘It’s just, I don’t want to get too far behind and have people laugh at me for being a dumb-head.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You’re clever as clever.’

  ‘When’s it gonna be Christmas?’

  A cold stone dropped to the bottom of Ruby’s soul. ‘In about a week.’

  ‘Mum will be sad all by herself,’ Izzy said, tracking a pair of girls as they ran past laughing. ‘I think I better be home for that.’

  ‘Of course …’ Ruby’s indecision fizzled away. Home. Izzy was asking to go home.

  A grey cloud reached like a gloved hand to smother a faint early moon. Twin gulls screeched in warning before heading out to sea. No matter how close she and her granddaughter became, even with years of bonding between them, Carol would always be home. Carol was Izzy’s mother. No amount of love and nurturing on Ruby’s part could outweigh that. Her daughter had been put through enough.

  Ruby nestled Izzy into the pouch beneath her arm, a perfect, snuggly fit. If only time could be shut down, keeping them locked in this eternal moment, the beach’s distinct brand of silence lapping and gusting and chattering around them.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  With a day of bacchanalian immoderation ahead of him, Bernard considered it best to skip breakfast. Then again, Christmas lunch generally didn’t appear until late into the afternoon, by which time he would have passed out (or picked a fight) as a result of hunger or intoxication (or a combination of both). He recalled emptying his muesli packet the previous morning. And the remaining bread was piebald with blue spores. He found an opened box of cornflakes at the back of the pantry, which he’d bought some months ago in a moment of nostalgia—the product hadn’t met with expectations, had been as bland as crunching on crisp autumn leaves. Necessity, and an aversion to waste, caused him to take down the box.

  The plastic cereal packet had been impatiently opened, causing golden flakes to spill across the bench. Bernard swept the cereal into the bowl with the side of his hand. He stared down at the flakes on the floor, debating whether it was worth the effort of stooping to collect them. One flake in particular caught his eye and Bernard’s bones cracked like popping candy as he crouched to the floorboards. He held the cornflake delicately aloft between finger and thumb. He set the specimen aside, thought for a moment, and then rummaged through the odds-and-ends drawer for a box of matches.

  Bernard emptied the matches onto the counter in order to lay the cornflake inside.

  Back behind the wheel of his Audi, Bernard had the impression he’d been reunited with an old flame. They were shy with one another; she smelt different. As he drove past a grim bluestone church, he observed a crowd of people struggling to make their exodus from morning mass They looked anything but joyous at the birth of their saviour; the day tended toward obligation over jubilation.

  The roads were busy in spite of the holiday, one had to be vigilant as cars laden with presents reversed simultaneously out of driveways, everyone working to the same schedule. Putting the town behind him, he drove in peaceable isolation, just the sound of bitumen rolling beneath his tyres. He knew better than to turn on the radio. Christmas morning offered three choices: children’s choirs; repressed middle-aged choirs; or morbidly close-to-death choirs all intoning the same torturous carols. On the FM stations the choice was worse: smarmy pop singers who hijacked customary carols (or, god forbid, composed Christmas songs of their own) in an endeavour to get rich quick before New Year’s.

  Mark and Stewart’s house was exactly as Bernard recalled, brown—decidedly brown. The building was a seventies rectangle, featuring neither the modernist sophistication of a sixties rectangle nor the cheeky juxtaposition of an eighties abode. It was, as Mia described it, Seventies Turd. The suffocating brownness was compounded by the scrubby landscape reflected in the one-way glass windows—brown on brown. Inside, the sepia theme was carried through to the décor. Bernard was quite partial to it; it was like living inside a cigar box.

  He left his presents in the car. He hated arriving on people’s doorsteps laden with gifts, inciting expectations his presents could never live up to. He’d smuggle them in later and intersperse them among the better-thought-through offerings of others.

  The doorbell consisted of a heavy cast-iron bell that necessitated guests hail their presence like a town crier. He could have done without the dramatic overtures.

  Mark responded to his tolling wearing a cheap plastic apron from which a pair of women’s breasts protruded. ‘Bernard,’ he exclaimed, pressing him against his rubber teats. ‘Thank god, now we can really get this party started.’

  Judging by the acrid white-wine smell on his host’s breath, Bernard assumed it already had. He crossed the threshold into the living room. ‘Holy hell.’

  Pumpkin masks and bunny faces graced the walls, fake bats bobbed from the ceiling, fluffy chicks, cackling witches and melancholy ghosts—they must have been stocking up all year. A series of banners fringed the windows: one in pink (CONGRATULATIONS IT’S A GIRL!) and a complementary boy version in pale blue, a HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, and BEST WISHES FOR YOUR ENGAGEMENT, as well as a series of HAPPY BIRTHDAY banners with a variety of ages inscribed between HAPPY and BIRTHDAY. (Later in the day, on a bladder-relieving exercise, Bernard would find the toilet bedecked with Valentine’s Day cards.) His hosts had even managed to locate a Chinese New Year dragon and some Hanukkah paraphernalia. The centrepiece was a wedding dress on a dressmaker’s dummy, which, Bernard assumed, given the parcels nestled at its tulle base, was serving as a Christmas tree.

  Having recovered from the sensory overload, he nodded to the other guests—a series of heads poking up over the top of the sunken lounge. Mia complained that the in-built suite was as subtle as a Bond villain’s hide-out; Bernard coveted it for this very reason. Three teak stairs led to a parquetry floor around which the mustard-upholstered sofa was set. A polished ledge bordered the circumference along the headrest, engineered for setting drinks upon. Jim was laughing with a bald man whose paunch pressed against his Hawaiian shirt, a patch of hairy flesh winking between buttonholes. Next to them was Carl. Then—

  ‘Angela!’

  ‘A cry of delight, I’m hoping.’ She inclined her head to meet his kiss. The citrus scent of her overwhelmed him, like mandarin pith caught beneath the fingernails. ‘Lucas invited me.’

  ‘Excellent. I’m glad you came.’ He was relieved that politeness dictated he move on and introduce himself to a middle-aged male in navy polyester, Cherise’s date.

  Lucas trotted down the steps and performed a slapstick rendition of man losing his balance on the waxed floor. ‘Whoa, that thing’s a deathtrap.’

  ‘Adds to the excitement,’ Bernard said.

  ‘Mia sent me to help you bring in your presents.’


  ‘She doesn’t miss a trick. Where’s the White Witch lurking?’

  ‘In the kitchen,’ Jim said. ‘Micromanaging Mark and Stewart.’

  The paunch grunted in amusement.

  As Bernard stepped off the shag carpeting and onto the kitchen’s slate he heard Mark gasp, ‘My god, I forgot your drink, didn’t I? Don’t tell me I forgot your drink!’

  ‘I’m not saying you forgot, I was just wondering what the ETA might be.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Mia huffed. ‘Go tend to your guests.’ She was perched on a stool alongside the breakfast bar, one bare leg hooked over the other. Bernard slid a hand beneath her thigh and uncrossed the upper limb. ‘Hips straight at all times.’

  ‘Spare me the lecture. I’ve been crossing my legs for fifty years, my hips are practically fused that way.’

  Mark returned and inserted a champagne flute into Bernard’s hand. Bernard held the glass up to the light to better scrutinise the apricot-hued liquid bejewelled with floaty gobbets. ‘I think I’ll go with option B.’

  ‘You sure?’

  He took a sip. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Did you see the living room?’ Mia curled her lip. ‘It looks like a calendar vomited in there.’

  ‘And now we can add family reunion to the mix.’ Mia flinched. ‘You mind?’

  ‘No. I’m just surprised she would deign to be in the same room with me.’ He lifted Mia down from her stool. ‘Come on, I think the boys would work more efficiently without you monitoring their every move.’ He collected her cane from beside the counter and wrapped her palm around it.

  Out in the hallway, Mia tapped his shin with her stick, gesturing for him to sidestep into the den. ‘Lucas and I are fighting,’ she whispered. ‘He wanted me to go with him to his mother’s later today, after the party.’