Meredith had heard this criticism before. ‘Am I supposed to unlearn everything I know, not be who I am, not tell the truth, so that everyone around me can “keep up”?’
Before Nina could find the courage to answer, Meredith stalked off around the side of the restaurant towards the main road.
Annie was standing at the cash register, still tapping her foot furiously, when she powered her BlackBerry. There were eighty emails demanding her attention. Quickly scrolling down the screen she saw that they were mostly work related. One from a dreary country cousin who’d hit Melbourne and was looking for her; one from a boutique owner telling her the coat she’d ordered was in; a couple from male drinking buddies at the conference. As she suspected, her social life wasn’t exactly in full swing.
She tried Corinne’s number. It was, not surprisingly, switched off. She left a message. ‘Hi, honey, it’s Annie from Melbourne. I am so sorry. I can’t believe those bastards! I’m going to be in Sydney tomorrow night. In a bloody campervan, would you believe?! Don’t ask. Long story. Call me and we can catch up.’
She bent to collect her bag and then, out of the corner of her eye, saw the silhouette of a Toyota LandCruiser towing a tinnie drive past the front window. She knew parts of that outboard motor intimately. She fell out the front door onto the street. ‘Quick, quick! Get the keys! Let’s go!’
Meredith and Nina, standing by the kerb, had already spotted the procession. In fact, Zoran had leaned out the window and waved ‘G’day’, and Nina had enthusiastically waved back until Meredith grabbed her arm. As the tail-lights of the trailer disappeared over a rise in the road, Meredith stalled: ‘We’re going already? I was thinking of having another wander around the nursery.’
‘But I just saw them—those two blokes from Lakes Entrance. Didn’t you say they were looking for me?’ Annie tried to remain calm. She could hardly run up the street after them, screeching like some demented banshee. And, in truth, she didn’t know what she would say if she caught up with them. ‘Maybe they’ve found my sunglasses . . . my good ones . . . they cost me—’
‘We know,’ Nina interrupted. She couldn’t stand the suspense. Why had Matty asked after Annie? Maybe he’d found her sunglasses, or maybe she’d been cast in a fairytale romance and this was true love. If this was a fairytale, Nina was the huntsman who had been ordered to take Snow White into the forest and couldn’t find the heart to kill her. ‘Come on,’ she blurted. ‘Let’s go! Except . . .’ she scrabbled in her handbag, ‘I can’t find the keys to the van.’
‘They’re in your hand,’ Meredith pointed out. Nina jiggled the bunch of keys and took off across the road. The chase was on.
After they’d driven up and down the main street of Central Tilba three times, surveying the Dromedary Hotel car park and various side streets, Meredith finally called off the emu parade. ‘They’re not here. And let’s face it, they’re hardly likely to stop off for a string of handcrafted beads or a poster of the Dalai Lama,’ she said as they drove past the Windhorse Buddhist Emporium . . . again.
As much as Annie didn’t want to admit it, Meredith was right. The trail had gone cold. There was nothing for it but to push on. Her fate was fluttering in the breeze like the string of Tibetan prayer flags on the front veranda.
‘Why don’t we spend the night in the Murramarang National Park?’ said Nina casually. She had to smile to herself. She’d kept this secret well. Little did Annie and Meredith know there was a surprise sunset cocktail party in the offing at . . . what was the name of that beach again?
Nina looked at her map and calculated they had roughly a hundred and twenty k’s to drive. As soon as they cleared the town speed limits, she put the foot down.
It was late afternoon by the time the van rocked down the Durras Discovery Trail into the Murramarang National Park. Meredith was really getting into the rhythm of life on the road now. It was simple. You parked, set up camp, ate, slept, woke, ate, took down camp, drove and . . . did it all again. She hadn’t checked her mobile phone for three days and reassured herself that Caroline would cope with the store. She’d have to.