They shook their heads.
‘Right. Well, here’s the first rule of this trip: if anyone swears or speaks rudely, there’ll be consequences.’ She eyeballed Lachie. ‘For every rude word spoken, you’ll run ahead of the car for fifty metres. Understand?’
They all nodded in unison, even her father.
‘Not you, Dad.’
‘Rules are rules,’ he said.
Paula turned the key in the ignition and adjusted the rear-view mirror. The caravan obscured everything behind her; she’d have to rely on the side mirrors.
She looked once more at their family home, the centre of her life over the past fifteen years. They’d bought it at auction just before Catie was born, an unusual sloping block with a steep driveway rising up to a large, flat backyard. Double garage, laundry and under-house storage on the ground floor. Three bedrooms upstairs, a bathroom, a kitchen, dining and lounge room opening up to a rear balcony, plus a funny little nook they’d christened the ‘TV room’ for the kids. Nothing fancy, they’d renovated it not long after Lachie’s arrival. After almost a year’s worth of labour and laughter and petty bickering about fittings and finishes, they’d finally brought it to fruition together. Every tile, recess and floorboard now represented some piece of shared history.
Paula’s eyes stung.
‘And another thing, Lachie,’ she added, putting the ute into first gear. ‘I don’t believe in omens.’
Their driveway was steep at the best of times, never mind while towing a caravan in slippery conditions. Paula had never towed anything larger than a box trailer filled with garden clippings bound for the tip.
She tentatively released the brake.
‘Sure you don’t want me to drive, m’girl?’ her father asked brightly. ‘A few cars parked in tricky spots down there. It’s going to be a tight turn.’ He nodded at the road beyond the driveway.
‘No thanks.’ She inched the caravan forward.
‘You’re doing well. Want me to get out and wave you down?’
‘Okay.’
He climbed out of the car and stood at the bottom of the driveway, gesticulating in the rain. She wound down her window so she could hear him.
She’d just moved past the letterbox when her father pointed at a van parked flush against their driveway.
‘Watch that van, Paula. Take the ute right out onto the road and do a big wide loop.’
She’d crossed one lane and nosed out into the next, when she realised she might not clear a red sedan parked on the other side.
‘Whoa,’ called her father, waving his hands. ‘You’re running out of turning room.’
She braked hard. And then, panicking at obstructing both lanes, she thrust the ute into reverse.
‘No, Paula—’
A crunching sound stopped her.
‘Oh, shit.’ She peered out her window at the angle she’d reversed the ute into, almost ninety degrees to the caravan, then thumped her hands against the wheel. ‘That was so bloody stupid.’
‘You’ve jackknifed it, Mum,’ said Lachie.
Her father inspected the L-shaped position of the caravan and ute. ‘It’s a beauty too, with the gradient on the road. We’ll have to call for help.’
‘Oh, God. I’m sorry.’ Paula felt like crying. ‘Out of the car, kids.’
They stood huddled on the nature strip, sheltering under the golf umbrella, their vehicle blocking the entire road.
She opened the passenger-side door and found her phone in the glove box. She’d only packed it in case of emergency, and hadn’t expected to use it so quickly. She scrolled through her contact list, her hands shaking, until she found the number for roadside assistance.
‘Want me to talk to them?’ her father asked.
She nodded, passing him the telephone.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘There’s a silver lining for every cloud. It’s seven o’clock in the morning, not quite peak hour yet. They’ll be here in no time.’
She sent the children back inside to wait.
What a prize idiot, she thought as she stood beneath the umbrella. Jackknifing the caravan before we’ve even left our street. She watched the water gushing past in the gutter. Maybe Lachie’s right, this trip might just be jinxed from the beginning.
As her father had predicted, a bright yellow assistance truck appeared within thirty minutes, its hazard lights flashing.
‘That’s a doozy, mate,’ called the driver to her father, assessing the caravan through his open window.
‘It was me.’ Paula called back.
‘Ah.’ The driver smirked. Sheilas, she could almost hear him thinking.
‘Well, let’s disconnect you, eh? You’ll need a new brake light, too.’
Paula looked towards the house, where the children were standing at the lounge-room window.
‘Uh, do you need me to help?’ she asked the man.
‘The standard call-out fee’s a hundred bucks, love. If you try to help, it’s two hundred.’ He chuckled at his own gag.
‘Can you stay here, Dad?’
‘Sure, love.’
No skerrick of I told you so. She should have accepted his offer of assistance in the first place.
Paula could only imagine what Hamish would have said if he’d witnessed the debacle. But it was a moot point, she realised: he never would have let her get behind the wheel in the first place.
She joined the children at the lounge-room window and watched as the ute and caravan were manoeuvred back into position, the right brake bulb replaced, the crack in the covering taped. Then she marshalled the children out of the house, relocked the front door and placed the spare keys under the potted cactus.
‘Okay, take two,’ she said as they walked down the driveway. ‘I’m really sorry about that.’
She sat down behind the steering wheel and turned the key in the ignition.
‘Excuse me, Mum,’ Lachie piped up from the rear. ‘You’ve got a hundred metres of running to do.’
‘What?’ She checked the side mirrors, then pulled slowly away from the kerb.
‘First rule of the trip. For every rude word spoken, you’ll run ahead of the car for fifty metres. You said “shit” and “bloody” before, Mum.’
Paula noticed her father had covered his mouth and was gazing out of the window. She had a strong suspicion he was laughing behind his hand.
‘I heard it too, Mum,’ Caitlin volunteered. ‘And you said “God”. Does that count?’
‘Let’s leave God out of it.’ She pulled over in a deserted bus stop a little further down the road. ‘Okay, Dad, you drive. Lachie, give me my raincoat, you little bugger.’
‘That’s a hundred and fifty metres,’ he said. ‘Meet you at Woolies, Mum.’
He pointed at the near-empty car park of a supermarket ahead.
She slammed the car door shut and slipped on her hooded raincoat. Then she began to jog, bending her head against the rain.
Her breathing became irregular within moments; how long had it been since she’d gone for a jog? Ten years at least. Her calves felt gelatinous, incapable of carrying her to the big green W ahead.
It’s not even a couple of hundred metres. Just keep going.
Her father beeped the horn as he edged the ute and caravan past her. Lachie pressed his face to the window and puffed out his cheeks like a blowfish, while Caitlin waved from behind.
The rain suddenly intensified; splinters became sheets. She picked up her pace, bolting through the deluge, hardly able to see and hearing only herself panting. In the end, she almost ran past the ute and caravan; her father had to sound the horn again to attract her attention.
Paula wrenched open the passenger door, puffing.
‘Right, Lachie, I’ve paid my debt. I just need to change.’
The children sniggered; her jeans and sneakers were soaked.
As she towelled off in the caravan, Paula caught sight of herself in the small square mirror fixed to the pantry cupboard. Skin pink from the exe
rtion, fringe dripping, more fresh-faced than usual.
But still resolutely almost-forty, she thought.
‘You keep driving, Dad,’ she said, collapsing into the passenger seat. ‘I’m buggered already.’
‘That’s another fifty metres, Mum,’ said Lachie.
‘Zip it, mister,’ she said. ‘Now for goodness’ sake, let’s get out of Glen Waverley.’
Her father saluted and drove on.
5
‘Hillary needs some petrol. We’re almost empty.’
They were barrelling down the M1 on the southern side of Werribee, en route to Geelong.
‘Hillary?’ Paula repeated.
‘Hillary the Hi-Lux. Our trusty chariot’s name.’
‘You’re such a bogan, Gramps,’ said Lachie.
Paula turned to reprimand him, but stopped short. Lachie was smiling affectionately at his grandfather from the rear seat. She hadn’t heard the word ‘bogan’ used as a term of endearment before; she still had a lot to learn about teenagers. Too much, she reflected; the Facebook scandal had taught her that.
‘Why Hillary, Gramps?’ Caitlin asked.
‘Well, she’s resilient,’ Sid replied. ‘She’s got loads of energy, and she’s easy on the eye. She’s a fuel hybrid, taking both petrol and gas, so she’s all about smart power. Just like the former US Secretary of State.’
Paula laughed. ‘You’re a fan of Hillary Clinton?’
Her father nodded.
‘Well, that’s something else I didn’t know about you.’
‘Didn’t know it myself, either.’ Her father chuckled. ‘Picked up a second-hand copy of a book called Hillary’s Choice about six months ago. Been a fan of hers ever since. Did you know she sent a letter to NASA as a kid asking how to become an astronaut, and you know what they wrote back? Girls can’t be astronauts. The silly buggers. She really stuck it to them, didn’t she?’
‘You’re quite the feminist, Dad.’
‘Call me whatever you like.’ He eased on the brakes, preparing for a turn-off to a petrol station. ‘I just don’t think genitals influence talent.’
Lachie snickered in the back. They rolled to a stop next to a diesel bowser.
‘Come on, Mr Thirteen,’ said Paula. ‘Let’s buy some lollies while Gramps fills up, er . . . Hillary.’
‘I’m coming too,’ said Caitlin. ‘Or Lachie will buy those feral spearmint leaves.’
‘Too right,’ Sid called from behind the pump. ‘Get us some Chicos instead, Catie. And a bottle of water, please.’
‘Can’t we have a Coke, Mum?’ Lachie asked, tugging at her arm.
‘No, Lachie. Water will do.’
‘Aw, Mum, we want bubbles,’ complained Catie.
‘Get soda water, then.’
Paula smiled to herself as they trooped into the convenience store and began perusing the sweets aisle. She had the same feeling now that she’d had as a child on Boxing Day, when her family of four would pile into the car and set off on their annual road trip to Albury, the home of their farming cousins. On those summertime trips, Paula had never tired of the road and its secrets: the petrol stations manned by friendly country folk, the sugary treasures hidden in milk bars, the deserted public toilets attached to grassy picnic areas in quiet, shady gullies. Meat pies and cream buns, Big Ms and barley sugar. Her father’s tuneless whistling accompanying Bing Crosby cassettes, the relaxed look on her mother’s face, Jamie’s endless backseat tournaments of I-Spy, Twenty Questions and Thumb Wars. The back aches, the bursting bladders, the bush wees. The exquisite limbo of transit, the mysteries of dirt roads in indeterminate locations. The feelings of optimism and anticipation on departure, rivalled only by the tedium of the return trip. All those long-gone pleasures of childhood when she was still Paula Jones, daughter and sister. Not yet Paula McInnes, wife and mother.
She paid for the lollies and went to find the toilet; a foul-smelling unisex cubicle tucked in a rear corner of the store.
What is it about blokes and toilets, she wondered, that makes them smell this bad? From the fluid across the seat and on the floor, she could hazard a guess: they didn’t aim straight. Which indicated, in her view, either a gross malfunction of motor skills—why can’t healthy adult males just urinate into a bowl?—or gross thoughtlessness on their part. A kind of egomania that prevented them from imagining as far as the next female user, having to sit down on a wet, rancid seat. Paula pinched her nose between her fingers as she hovered over the toilet. Her thighs cried out for help before she’d finished, but she managed to hold the position long enough to relieve herself.
On her way back to the ute, she remembered to pick up a newspaper for her father. The sports section was dominated by Melbourne Cup coverage already, carrying detailed descriptions of horses and jockeys, despite the fact that the race was more than a week away. They’d be somewhere in South Australia by Cup Day, Paula guessed.
As she approached the ute, she noticed Lachie and Catie seated in the rear cab, chewing lollies and listening to their iPods.
She opened Caitlin’s door and stood looking at them.
‘What?’ Caitlin yelled, overly loud.
Paula leaned over and pulled out their earbuds.
‘Mum . . .’ Lachie whined.
‘Okay, you two, here’s the second rule of the trip,’ she said. ‘No private technology. If you want to listen to music, we can listen to it all together, as a family.’
Caitlin and Lachie groaned.
Paula turned to her father for support. ‘Remember those Bing Crosby cassettes you used to play on our trips to Albury, Dad? They were great.’
Her father chuckled. ‘That’s not what you said at the time, Paula.’
‘Well, anyway.’ She turned back to the children. ‘You two sort out whose music gets played first. I don’t care. But we’re not going to bury ourselves in our own electronic cocoons. Got it?’
Caitlin looked miffed. ‘I hate his music.’
Lachie grinned. ‘C’mon, you like some of it. Let’s flip a coin and see who goes first. Your call, Catie.’ He pulled a dollar coin out of his pocket and flipped it.
‘Heads,’ said Caitlin.
They watched the coin spin in the air.
Lachie caught it, then showed her the back of his hand, victorious. ‘Tails. Pass me that cable, Gramps.’
Lachie began fiddling around with the iPod connection on the dashboard.
Paula laid a hand on her father’s shoulder. ‘Is it my turn to drive? I won’t jackknife us again, I promise.’ Her father chortled and shimmied across to the passenger seat. Lachie passed his iPod to his grandfather. ‘Press play, Gramps.’ Paula took the wheel and they set off from the petrol station, back on the M1.
‘Chico?’ Her father waved an open packet under Paula’s nose.
‘Thanks.’
She had just wiggled her fingers into the packet, when music blared out of the speakers.
‘Shit.’ The Chicos spilled everywhere.
‘You’re up to one hundred metres of jogging, Mum,’ said Lachie.
Paula wondered if it was too late to retract rule number one.
So far, she was the biggest offender of the trip.
They’d been on the road for less than three hours when they arrived at the seaside town of Lorne. Where are all these people travelling to on a Thursday? Paula wondered, as they puttered around the civic centre. It was just before eleven o’clock, and the township was already bustling with visitors in cars and buses. Groups of them congregated on the foreshore, spilling out of cafés and across picnic rugs.
Scanning both sides of the road for a parking spot, Paula snapped off Lachie’s music—an American R&B song with flagrant lyrics about drugs and sex and, Paula was appalled to note, suggestions of rape. She looked into the rear-view mirror, eyeing Caitlin anxiously.
Dirty hos who want it nasty? How can kids develop a healthy sexual identity when they’re listening to songs like that?
‘Hey,’ objected Lachie. �
��Why’d you kill it?’
‘I’m not sure that can be classified as music,’ Paula chided. ‘I had no idea you had that on your iPod, Lachie.’
What else didn’t she know about Lachie?
‘But some of your favourite songs are like that, Mum,’ Caitlin piped up. ‘Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and that Elton John song, “Rocket Man”. That’s totally about drugs.’
Paula shook her head. ‘When “Rocket Man” came out, the world was fascinated by the idea of man walking on the moon. My mum used to sing it to me while we made cardboard rockets.’ She wondered if her father remembered that too. ‘It may well be about drugs, but it’s not overt. Why are lyrics so vulgar these days? You can’t compare what we just heard with “Like a Virgin”, either. Did you hear that song, Dad?’
‘Not really, love,’ he said, opening his window. ‘I’m too busy trying to find a park that won’t end with a jackknife.’
‘You didn’t hear the reference to dirty hos?’
He chuckled. ‘The only dirty hoes I know are the ones I use in the garden.’ He craned his neck to see down a side street. ‘In a small town like this, it’s a helluva lot harder trying to park Hillary and Clinton.’
‘And Clinton?’ Paula raised an eyebrow.
‘Yep. Hillary the Hi-Lux and Clinton the caravan.’
‘Aw, Gramps . . .’ said Lachie.
‘You’re such a bogan,’ said Caitlin.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ her father sniffed. ‘Let’s check out the Lorne caravan park, shall we?’
A large green sign with an arrow pointed down a nearby street.
Paula turned right and soon they found themselves outside the Lorne Bay Caravan Park, in a prime position on the Erskine River and overlooking the glittering ocean.
‘No doubt about it,’ murmured her father. ‘Caravan parks and Catholic churches always get the best real estate.’
They pulled into a waiting bay and climbed out of the ute, grateful to stretch their limbs. Paula walked a short distance to a demountable bungalow, the park’s administration building. She paused at the doormat—woven with the faded word Welcome—and peered through the flyscreen door.
Wife on the Run Page 9
