could ever recall being in—apart from that time she had dysentery in Bombay—and Annie was narrating a fascinating nature documentary.
Inspecting the vehicle for damage, Annie was surprised to find none. Not from this accident anyway. There were various scrapes in evidence from Nina’s misadventures. The front of the RoadMaster was lodged solidly in the mud up to its bonnet but seemed to have, like Nina, suffered a mighty indignity more than anything else.
Elvis was still singing. The reflective jewels on his jumpsuit were sparkling in the sunset. However, the light was dimming fast. In another moment it would drop behind the trees and be gone. Annie estimated that in a scarce half-hour all would be pitch-black. There was probably a farm a way back—but how far? It could be ten kilometres. Annie didn’t care to make the walk alone in the dark. Rescue looked to be impossible until morning, but there was not one flat surface inside the van they could sleep on. It was time to accept their fate and set up camp on the road for the night. The first thing they had to do was to get Nina outside and wash the shit off her.
Meredith had been itching to say what was on her mind since she had woken earlier that afternoon and found that Annie was delivering them into a wilderness. As it turned out, the opportunity to savage her pig-headed travelling companion soon presented itself.
Nina had suffered the humiliation of standing out on the roadway nude, on one leg, using Meredith as a crutch. Annie washed her down with cold soapy water from a bucket. She couldn’t remember suffering such mortification since the twins were born and she’d sat in a kiddie playpool in the maternity ward trying to ease her labour pains. Meredith and Annie conducted themselves with quiet professionalism as she moaned and she was grateful for that at least.
They had all worked together by the van’s dim interior lights to throw out the stinking matting and ruined foodstuffs, sluice down the floors of the van with disinfectant and pack away some of the items catapulted in the crash. After that, they’d sat outside on the road on camp chairs, plastered with insect repellent, and shared a candlelit supper of cheese, salami, dry biscuits and a jar of gourmet jalapeno dip. Annie had made a head start on a bottle of Margaret River merlot.
Another round of Nina’s medication had done the trick and her stomach felt easier. Meredith had gulped down enough Ural to catch her cystitis before it travelled to her kidneys and caused any more discomfort. Now, at the rear of the vehicle, work continued by the light of a torch balanced on Nina’s knee. A decision had been made to erect a makeshift tent over assorted bedding in the event of another storm rolling in during the night. They swatted at an infinite cloud of insects attracted by the torch’s piercing blue glow.
‘What’s Brad going to say?’ Nina moaned as she watched Annie and Meredith work up a sweat dragging mattresses out of the front door in the still-humid evening. To Annie, it seemed that Nina had said this a hundred times and now, enough was enough.
‘Who cares what Brad bloody well says?’ she snapped, and then sucked her index finger where the sharp edge of a blue plastic groundsheet had sliced her skin.
Meredith let go of the broom she was balancing and it clattered on the roadway: ‘Well, that’s exactly the comment you would expect from someone who’s single. But some of us have families to think about.’
Annie pointed an accusing bloodied digit at Meredith. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
Nina groaned and dropped her head on her folded arms. A storm was rolling in all right—a nasty female tornado, right in front of her at ground level.
‘It means exactly what you think it means.’ Meredith was defiant, and leaned into the shaft of torchlight to catch Annie’s eye. ‘If you weren’t so damned selfish, you’d be considering someone else’s feelings instead of thinking about yourself all the time. If you did that, you might have a relationship and not be so bloody mean and miserable.’
Annie was stunned by the ferocity of Meredith’s attack, and could only manage: ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It’s too late for manners now.’
Annie hurled the plastic sheeting she was holding to the ground. ‘Yes, and I’ve noticed the joy your marriage has brought you, Meredith. Let’s face it, you’ve spent your entire life doing exactly