Nina eased her foot off the accelerator. Brad wouldn’t be happy if she copped a fine.
She was even more spooked that Meredith was staring resolutely out the window and wouldn’t meet her eye, despite her earlier tearful apology for the smashed wedding gift and the offer of a cheque to cover the cost. Mercifully, k.d. lang was crooning from the CD player, doing her best to soothe frayed nerves.
They’d hit the Sapphire Coast. A wonderland of natural beauty featuring pristine beaches, forests, mountains and waterways, according to the pile of pamphlets Annie thumbed through at a service station just over the border.
Nina paid for the petrol, and then retreated to the shabby ladies’ room and tried Brad’s phone again. It was switched off. She was blinking back tears as she rang Jordan’s phone, and tried to sound cheery as she left a message: ‘Hello, darling. It’s Mumma. Have Marko and Anton got their bags packed for Canberra? Tell Marko not to forget his asthma pump. And they need sunscreen. Tell your father to call me so I can make sure they have everything. Did you remember to hand in your assignment? Did you feed the dog? Don’t forget to when you get home tonight. Bye, Jordy. I miss you. I’ll call you later.’
Then she was scrabbling for rough paper towelling from the dispenser and scraping at her eyes. Nina peered at herself in the mirror splattered with dried soap and dead insects. ‘You are pathetic!’ she sniffed at her reflection. ‘Just stop it! You’re the one who wanted to take this trip. Grow up! Get a grip!’ She splashed her face with water, retied her flyaway hair and returned to the van.
Catching the eye of Meredith sitting in the passenger seat, Nina saw her quickly look away. Nina’s shoulders slumped. She wasn’t good with conflict, never had been. She would just avoid talking to Meredith until she was in the mood to forgive.
In another hour they were approaching the sprawling coastal town of Eden. Annie attempted to thaw the ice between Nina and Meredith by sitting up front and parroting every fact she could from the tourist pamphlets on the history of whaling in Twofold Bay: ‘“One of the most bizarre aspects of the local whaling trade was the role played by pods of killer whales. From 1843 until 1930 they returned every year to Leatherjacket Bay and, after herding migrating whales into the bay, the killer whales cooperated with the whalers in their boats to attack blue, fin, minke and sperm whales. The killers harassed and snapped at their prey and threw themselves over the whales’ blowholes.”’
‘Can you believe any creature could be so inhumane?’ said Nina.
‘They’re animals, not humans,’ snapped Meredith. ‘“Nature, red in tooth and claw”. Ever heard that saying? Alfred, Lord Tennyson, I think you’ll find.’
Annie poked her tongue out at the back of Meredith’s head and continued reading: ‘“They were even known to alert the whalers to their quarry’s presence by breaching and splashing in the bay in front of the whaling station. They were rewarded for their treachery with the lips and tongue after the whalers had killed the prey.”’
‘Isn’t that awful?’ Annie was genuinely appalled.
‘When you think about it,’ Meredith said, without turning her face from the passing undulating hills, ‘it’s not so different to what Corinne did to us.’ Annie threw her pamphlets on the floor and retreated to a seat in the back.
The towns of Eden, Pambula, Merimbula and Wolumla were driven through in utter silence. No-one could even bring themselves to argue about what music to play. By the time the van topped the rise overlooking the little town of Tathra—the waves in the bay cresting into whitecaps blown by a stiff breeze, and the dusky timbers of the old steamer wharf warmed to orange by the autumn sun—Annie had had a gutful.
‘This is fucking ridiculous!’ she stormed as Nina parked the vehicle. ‘I am going to make us all lunch and you two are going to sit here and work this out. Or else I’m getting off and hitching back to Melbourne.’
‘I don’t know why you have to swear all the time,’ Meredith said primly. ‘I really don’t like it.’
Annie leaned forward into the cabin. ‘Listen, Meredith. You swore as much as anyone in the old days. I’m sorry if it offends the new you,’ she said in a tone that was anything but apologetic. ‘It’s the way I express myself and it’s not because I’m an uneducated idiot