The huge, unwieldy vehicle rocked alarmingly from side to side. In the back, Annie cursed and dived like an Arsenal goalie as books, sunglasses, mobile phones, bottles of suntan cream—and anything else that wasn’t nailed down—slid off counters and crashed to the floor.
After a good twenty minutes of tortuous driving—during which Meredith and Annie both begged her to ‘Stop! Here’s fine!’—Nina turned the last corner and there it was: a deserted, picture-perfect spot on the lake’s shore. Nina jumped from her seat and her expert survey revealed a wooden camp table, fireplace and a tidy pile of chopped wood. Even a well-maintained drop dunny. It was just as she had imagined. She gave the girls the ‘thumbs-up’ of approval and they climbed from the van with relief. They were treated to a raucous welcome by a tribe of kookaburras.
‘Look, look! Wallabies!’ Annie pointed to a thicket of scrub where they were being regarded in turn by inquisitive large brown eyes. She stepped forward and three grey furry heads ducked for cover, thumping through the crackling undergrowth to a safe distance.
‘This is a wonderful spot. Gorgeous!’ called Meredith from the sliver of pebbly beach just beyond a fringe of she-oak. Before her a still expanse of water reflected the afternoon sky and the hills of thick grey-blue bush off in the distance. There was not a sign of human habitation anywhere except, she smiled, for the giant, three-bed apartment-on-wheels that Nina was now reversing into a level parking place.
‘Right! I’m going fishing. Who’s coming?’ Annie clapped her hands purposefully and started to load her basket with supplies. Cold chardonnay and a copy of the English edition of Harper’s Bazaar went in first. She pulled on a pair of shorts and a singlet and slipped her feet into blue rubber thongs.
‘Go for it, Annie! I didn’t know you were a fisherwoman.’ Nina opened the outside locker of the van and rummaged for her father-in-law’s fishing rod.
‘My dad used to take me out on the Goulburn River when I was a kid,’ said Annie. ‘It wasn’t far from the farm at Tongala. You could still catch redfin, yellow-belly, all the native fish. But it’s mostly just European carp now. Bastards of things!’
She kicked at the grass and jammed her fists into her jeans pockets. She was overdue for a visit to the farm, but knew what that would mean—more nagging from her mother about why she hadn’t found a new husband, hadn’t had kids. Still, Annie would have to face another round of it soon. Brian hadn’t been well with his ‘nerves’, Jean had whispered down the phone the last time they spoke.
‘The Worst Drought in 100 Years’ was the headline in the Kyabram Free Press but it wasn’t just the parched soil Annie had seen on her last visit home. It was as if her parents’ youth and vitality were also evaporating before her eyes. They were in their mid-sixties, but seemed a decade older. Jean had refused to accept the envelope of cash Annie tried to press upon her, but she had been relieved to see that the $200 a week she later transferred electronically into the farm account hadn’t been returned—although the simple reason for that might have been that Jean had no idea how to send it back.
Meredith slathered herself with sunblock, perched an improbable straw hat trimmed with cherries on her head, and traipsed off to join Annie by the water to chance her luck with the rod.
Nina turned the van’s power supply to ‘battery’ and then spent some time sweeping the floor, straightening beds and restowing all the items that had come loose on the drive down the bush trail. Now what? She turned her attention to the campsite, fossicked for kindling and built a fire in the fireplace ready to be lit. She arranged the camp chairs, threw a tablecloth over the rough wooden picnic table and . . . now bloody what?
Nina realised that she had no idea what to do with herself. She should be settling back in a chair with her book and a glass of wine, enjoying the afternoon sun in this idyllic spot, but instead she found herself itching for some menial task to perform. She’d be stacking gum leaves into neat piles next.
She could hear Brad’s voice: ‘Christ, woman! Sit down! Relax!’ But she was like a machine in perpetual motion—folding, wiping, washing, fetching, carrying. Fifteen years after the kids were born and she still rocked on her feet as