feeling too bright myself. Chillies probably. Are you OK to drive, Annie?’
Annie, apart from the usual crashing hangover and a nasty sand rash on her knees and elbows, was feeling fine. ‘No worries! You two just get comfy there in the back and I’ll get us to Angourie in no time,’ she sang, impersonating the jovial leader of a Japanese tour bus. Meredith and Nina vowed to strangle her—when they felt up to it. With a protesting crunch of gears, the RoadMaster lurched onto the highway with Annie at the wheel. For the next leg to Coffs Harbour, Nina and Meredith wobbled up the galleyway and took turns in the stifling, stinking loo.
As she looked for a chemist and a place to park the hulking van, Annie made a cursory tour of Coffs. Her survey of the place confirmed what she had suspected—that there was a direct correlation between the number of old blokes in whites at the lawn bowls club and the amount of rocks dumped on the beach. The locals up and down this part of the coast had spent a lifetime battling the ocean with their earth-moving equipment—building sea walls, marinas, groins, harbours, breakwaters, boat ramps, docks and piers. They apparently considered it their patriotic duty to divert the rivers and thwart the tides. The bowls club was packed this morning and the Coffs Harbour front was a fortress of massive boulders.
A packet of Ural urinary alkaliniser crystals and Panadol capsules for Meredith; a box of Lomotil anti-diarrhoea tablets for Nina; and cigarettes, hot chips and a can of Coke for Annie. Then, suitably medicated, they were soon heading north again, past the Big Banana.
As she cruised the highway in the driver’s seat, Annie was enjoying herself hugely. She was playing her favourite Black Eyed Peas Monkey Business CD and joyfully puffing on her fags—the smoke streaming out the partly open window in satisfying, elegant ribbons. In the back, Nina and Meredith, lulled by the drone of the engine and the gentle rocking of the cabin, were both, mercifully, asleep.
Annie thought back on last night. Was it her heart that was bruised, or her ego? She decided that Matty had rejected her. He could have found a way for them to have sex last night if he’d really wanted to. He could have moved Zoran out of the tent or dragged a sleeping bag out on the grass under the stars. She wasn’t used to getting knocked back and didn’t like it one little bit. There was something about Matty that was way too self-possessed and controlling for her liking.
She had Matty’s phone number in her mobile and the promise of a dinner date back in Melbourne, but was now thinking that she might just pass on the offer. She decided there just wasn’t that spark between them—that ‘certain something’ that would sweep her off her feet. And that, she realised, was what she was hoping for—a king tide of emotion that would wash her up into her future, so that she wouldn’t have to dog paddle anymore.
They were six hundred kilometres north of Sydney now and well into subtropical climes. The Pacific Highway had turned inland and the dense dark-green of sugar cane plantations stretched either side on fertile river flats.
Annie drove into South Grafton and saw that, if she followed the highway, she would bypass Grafton itself. However, the chance to see the mighty Clarence River was not to be passed up. With the Murray River now reduced to muddy puddles in some stretches because of the drought, she longed to see a deep and fast-flowing waterway. This was big river country and the brochures she had been reading promised broad, shiny expanses plied by gaily painted houseboats. She grabbed the map, balanced it on her knees and made the decision that she would drive into Grafton proper.
From there, Annie calculated, she could drive out of town and follow the western side of the Macleay River up to Lawrence. A ferry would take them back across the river and they could head directly to the coast and Angourie. With her travelling companions still dozing, Annie was thankful she was able to make all these decisions without the usual tiresome discussion and negotiation.
The RoadMaster slowed to crawl across the bridge over the Clarence. Annie, entranced with the river’s lazy, serene majesty, ignored the agitated toots of the drivers behind taking in the magnificent vista of the Confederate flag on the wide backside of her vehicle. She