bunched up under her armpit. A button popped off—typical! They would write that on her headstone, she supposed: Here lies Nina Brown in a coffin two sizes too small. Typical!
It was 2.15 am, Nina saw by her watch, when she was woken by the sound of Annie staggering through the door, falling up the steps, knocking over the ladder and swearing like a drunken sailor. Nina yelped as Annie stood on her hair, clambered over her and into the top bed.
Moments later Nina heard a mosquito buzzing in her ear. She woke to swat at it in the gloom and turned to see the van door wide open. Turning on the light, Nina was appalled to discover that the white ceiling of the van was carpeted with black mozzies. Thousands of them had invaded the RoadMaster, intent on making a feast of it.
‘SHIT!’ Nina hauled herself from her bed, slammed the door shut, grabbed a tea towel and flicked it at the roof, sending the bloodthirsty beasts into a frenzy. Down the back, Meredith’s reading light snapped on.
‘Oh my God, millions of mosquitoes!’ she screeched. A couple of loud smacks against the wall signalled she’d joined the fray. The van rocked on its wheels, and it was soon obvious that a rolled-up copy of Gourmet Traveller and a damp tea towel were not up to the task. They needed chemical weapons.
‘Grab the spray, quick! It’s under the sink,’ Nina called. Meredith found the can, pulled her nightdress over her mouth and carpet-bombed the van with noxious fumes.
‘Go outside! Go outside!’ she shouted muffled instructions and waved frantically at Nina, who dragged the bedclothes with her down the stairs. Moments later they were both standing on the wet grass, wrapped in a doona and shivering under the stars.
‘What about Annie?’ Nina asked.
‘The hell with Annie. I hope she chokes.’
A frog croaked. Meredith picked up a rock from the grass and pitched it into the bush. The love call of the lonely amphibian was silenced.
The next morning Ninety Mile Beach was cloudlessly, endlessly, brilliantly blue—from the top of the frame of Annie’s vision, then down through sky and sea to the bottom of the picture, where her white feet, decorated with red toenails, were striding along beige sand. Way up ahead she could see Meredith, who was apparently power-walking to Byron up the coast; and some way behind Meredith was Nina, head down and arms pumping with exertion.
They hadn’t woken Annie for breakfast and, judging by the silence which had greeted her hearty ‘Good morning’ and the careless slam of the door when they left for their walk, she was in trouble. And all of it over a few drinks! Well, that was probably an understatement. There had been more than a few drinks. She’d lost count after half a bottle of vodka, and that was on top of the champagne and wine she’d had before she made her heroic foray to investigate ‘Camp Yobbo’.
And how wrong had she been about that? The camp of ‘ferals’ had turned out to be two youngish and personable blokes from the western suburbs of Melbourne, both officials from the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union—the LHMWU. Which was fitting, considering that they had been exceedingly hospitable with their liquor. The ‘miscellaneous’ had turned out to be a spirited conversation about ‘social justice’, ‘globalisation’ and, when they discovered Annie was a real estate agent, ‘working families’ and ‘housing affordability’.
They were driving to Darwin—the Top End—on a boys’ own adventure and planned to catch at least one kind of every fish in the sea from Cape Schanck to Cooktown. One of them—was it Zoran or Matty?—had explained that playing the CD of eighties anthems was a time-honoured ritual to celebrate the life of the three-kilogram trevally they’d hooked from their tinnie. Annie remembered slow dancing to Australian Crawl, drinking, and, sometime in the early hours, kissing Matty. She also recalled that it was only the plastic pull-cord of a Mercury outboard motor digging into her shoulderblades that had made her stop and draw breath.
How had they come to be exchanging passionate kisses in that dark corner of a campground in Lakes Entrance? It was always like that on summer holidays, thought Annie. Sand under bare feet, salt on skin and the pulse of the ocean quickened the senses. Hearts and minds were loosed from their usual moorings. The universe was to be found in a tidal pool—the rhythm of life in the rush of water over rocks;