The Grand Tour Read online

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then don’t you think you should maybe get a job or something?’

  ‘No. Fuck off.’ Carol jumped up from the table and flung herself onto the couch. She hugged a cushion.

  Trent rolled his lips in and out like a chimpanzee. In the end he crossed the room and put a hand on her hip.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he swore, clutching hold of the bone. ‘There’s room here to build a bookcase.’

  Izzy’s mum kicked out at him, cuffing his shin with her heel.

  ‘Goddamn! You’re like a brumby. Never been touched by human hands.’ Trent picked at a nostril, speaking from behind forefinger and thumb. ‘We could always set up a camera—have you play solitaire in the nude. It’s every girl’s dream to be a model—isn’t that right, Wizz Fizz?’

  Izzy looked over at them. Did Trent think her mum could be a model? She was definitely as thin as a model, but she had orangish hair and most models were blonde. Also, she had bad skin, lots of tiny sandy bumps across her forehead and chin. You had to be perfect to be a model and wear fancy clothes. Her mum only ever wore leggings that sagged at the bum, and big woolly jumpers because she was always cold. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘The thinking man’s centrefold.’ He tucked his pinkie in his mouth and wrapped his arm across his chest, fluttering his eyelids. Carol muttered a filthy word under her breath—she obviously didn’t think she had what it took to be a model. Izzy felt sorry for her.

  Izzy privately aspired to be a singing sensation. You had to be pretty for that as well. There was still a chance Izzy could grow into her face, at least that’s what her grandma Ruby had said. Her mum was too old now—she was over thirty. Plus, she seemed to be shrinking around her skull, not growing into it like Izzy.

  Carol caught Izzy studying her. ‘Quit eavesdropping, big ears, and finish your beans.’

  Izzy brought the birthday card up to her face and resumed cutting out the rose. It required great concentration to get the scissors around all the little ripples edging the petals.

  While her mum was in the bathroom, Trent came over to see what Izzy was working on, leaning on the rickety table and making it tilt like a capsizing battleship. Paper scraps slid to the floor.

  ‘Goddamn!’ Izzy scolded. ‘That’ll take ages to clean up—it’s all bitsy.’

  Trent apologised, backing away with his hands in the air. ‘Geez, the women in this family … Talk about tough nuts.’

  Izzy scowled and tried to focus on her craft.

  Trent said, ‘Let me make it up to you.’

  Izzy thought for a second. She didn’t want to waste the opportunity. Any moment her mum might come out and tell Trent not to bother. She thought of the scrapbooks she’d seen at the newsagent. She’d give anything to have a new book to stick pictures in. She told this to Trent, assuring him they weren’t too expensive.

  He held out his palm. ‘Deal.’

  ‘I want the one with the rag doll on the cover, not the horses or the spaceship. Do you want me to write it down for you?’

  ‘Nah—it’s all good.’

  Izzy was worried. Her mum never remembered anything. Even when Izzy wrote things on her mum’s palm she forgot to look at her hand.

  ‘You sure?’

  Trent put two fingers to his forehead. ‘Scout’s honour.’

  Izzy didn’t know what that meant or whether it could be trusted.

  Her mum came out from the bathroom, preparing to assert herself over the sound of the flush that seemed to last forever. Her face fell when she saw the mess on the floor. ‘What the hell?’

  Izzy informed her Trent had done it. Carol cuffed Trent across the back of the head, and then said, ‘So clean it up, Miss Tattletale.’

  While Izzy was on her hands and knees, her mum and Trent argued about where to go for dinner. Her mum hated people dithering—which seemed unfair because she could never make up her own mind. When Trent suggested the same place twice, trying to trick her, she threw the remote control at him. It scuffed the wall and tumbled to the carpet, spilling its batteries across the floor. Trent plodded over to inspect the damage.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ Izzy asked, her heart palpitating. Trent attempted to return the batteries to the remote’s plastic casing.

  Carol stood over him. ‘Why are you taking so long?’

  He tried to explain about the plus and minus symbols. He was having trouble seeing the tiny markings, particularly with his eyes half-closed. When he was finished he changed the channel a few times to check that it was working.

  ‘Hurry up. I need to get out of this cabin.’

  Izzy knew she really meant she wanted to escape the rugrat—which was what her mum called her, even when she was right there to hear it.

  After they were gone, Izzy hid her beans at the bottom of the bin. She tried to return to her arts and craft but felt too cranky to concentrate. In the end, she sat and watched a silly show with lots of adults making deep sighs and complaining to one another about everything. All the other channels had people running around with guns. Izzy was afraid to watch them on her own—she didn’t feel up to seeing anyone get killed this evening.

  Izzy finished washing the dishes. She wrung out the dishcloth, a few resolute fibres holding it together. Her mum had run out of cigarettes. Izzy intended buying the scrapbook with the leftover change. Trent had forgotten about the scrapbook. The cabin’s front step singed her bare feet with coldness. She sensibly rejected her thongs, lying on the dirt beside the rubber mat, and returned indoors for socks and shoes. The morning light was the same smudged colour as the dirty window through which it seeped. Finding her drawer empty, Izzy ransacked the pile of damp laundry that had been festering in the basket for two days—lemony fresh detergent overridden by mildewy pong.

  Her mum coughed from where she lay sleeping on the couch. Izzy noticed her fuzzy red hiking socks poking out from beneath the throw rug. She contemplated the wet star-spangled pair she was holding—

  A patch on the ceiling caught her eye and Izzy recoiled in alarm. The horrible spider was sitting spread-eagle right above the laundry basket. She yipped and tossed her socks over the electric bar heater to dry, before thrusting her bare feet into her boots, mindful not to slam the door as she dashed off.

  Izzy loved the newsagency with its inky smell and wall-to-wall racks of magazines and greeting cards. She wandered past the tiers of businesslike stationery—pens, pencils and receipt books—to her favourite section, which a glittery sign demarcated as BACK TO SCHOOL. Here all the odds and ends required for a joyously productive school day were lumped together: glossy vinyl pencil cases, colourful scissors and staplers, pots of glue, and piles of exercise books with practical plain orange covers. The scrapbooks were in easy reach on the lower shelves, intended to draw the eye of smaller children. She gave a sigh of relief to see there was still a stack of rag doll covers. She went through the pile one by one, endeavouring to select the most pristine copy.

  Izzy paused for a moment in front of the fashion magazines, appraising the beautiful women on the covers—their flawless skin and pouty lips, bright-eyed and messy haired, those impossibly straight white teeth—she wasn’t stupid, she knew these women had hairdressers and make-up people to make them look gorgeous, but even still, she didn’t think her mum would scrub up. Izzy leant in for a closer inspection. Not one of these models had any marks on their faces. That settled it. Both Izzy and her mum had freckles sifted across the bridges of their noses and foreheads. She would go home and tell her mother not to bother. If Trent asked about taking photographs again, Izzy would explain to him about the freckles.

  As Izzy approached the caravan park a faint waft tickled her nostrils and sent a shiver down her spine. There was something about the smell—not greasy and meaty like the scent of barbecue, or burning papery eucalypt-like leaves, this smell had a sinister sour twitch about it. This was serious smoke.

  There were two fire engines parked further down, blocking the driveway right where Izz
y was headed. She couldn’t see for the body of people clustered around, appraising the scene. ‘Not ours, not ours, not ours,’ she chanted. But she knew. Even before the faces turned and frowned at her in pity, she knew. The smoky smell was overwhelming now—it felt chalky as you breathed it in, sick-making. Firemen stomped all around, looking much too big to fit inside the little cabin.

  An ambulance was parked in front of the fire engine, its doors open, the drivers attending to a person in the back.

  A voice shouted, ‘Isabelle McPherson, you stupid idiot! I could have died!’

  And Izzy fainted.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Bernard carried a Force FM mug of steaming Nescafé out in front of him as he followed Neil, the sound recordist, down a series of corridors. Neil also carried a mug, lending the journey the appearance of an egg and spoon race. Neil wore an expensive barbershop haircut that the military used to carry out free of charge. The back of his threadbare T-shirt listed the concert dates of a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tour. During their introduction, Bernard had been unable to tear his eyes away from the thick ginger moustache bristling against Neil’s stonewashed complexion. He was relieved to follow at two paces and be spared the incongruous distraction.

  Bernard had dispensed with his plan to pre-read Voss; all attempts to familiarise himself with the arduous text served only to infuriate and depress. He was remided of forced religious visitations every Sunday as a child, pulling his hair out in despair at the wasted school-free morning: ‘Do I have to?’

  Neil abandoned him in an isolation booth, the walls and ceiling clad in fuzzy black insulation. He materialised soon after on the opposite side of a glass window. ‘Just need to do a sound check.’

  Bernard nodded and began to recite the days of the week in his smooth anchorman timbre. He was no stranger to the process, having on occasion lent his vocal cords to charity: he’d been the voice of numerous regional and national campaigns, in the first instance boisterously proclaiming the enjoyment to be had partaking in an upcoming fun run or charity doorknock. The second instance called for a more serious approach; these awareness campaigns required that he reel off a list of complaints and statistics associated with some incurable disease and then ask listeners to dig deep in the effort to help find a cure as though it were hidden somewhere beneath the ground.

  Neil interrupted him on ‘Friday’ from the overhead speaker: ‘Could you read something from the book for me?’

  Bernard opened the book to the middle and began to read. After a few sentences he stopped and looked at Neil. ‘Is that enough?’

  ‘Could you read a paragraph?’

  He read a paragraph.

  ‘Again,’ Neil said.

  Bernard read the paragraph over.

  ‘And again.’

  Bernard read the next paragraph.

  ‘One more thanks, Bernard.’

  Bernard read the following paragraph.

  ‘Okay, that should do it.’

  Bernard stopped reading. ‘Is that a touch of Irish I detect?’

  ‘Me?’ Neil asked. ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps the moustache threw me. How long should I read for?’

  ‘Studio’s booked for a couple of hours.’

  Bernard opened the book to its first page, unsure how to begin; he regretted the moment of cocky bastardom that had incited him to toss away the sheet of instructions.

  Neil observed him morosely from the other side of the glass.

  Bernard bowed toward the microphone. ‘The title of this novel is Voss by Patrick White … Bernard Barkley reading.’

  He wiped the corner of his mouth with the tip of his index finger and began.

  Bernard read for twenty-five minutes until his throat felt sandblasted. He inserted his marker (a receipt for a coffee and a muffin) and closed the book. ‘End of page twelve,’ he announced into the microphone. ‘Over and out.’ He slid off the stool, his bottom screaming in white-hot relief that sent pins and needles shooting down his thighs.

  —What can I do you for, Bernard?

  —I’ve started reading.

  —Great, start writing and you’re almost literate.

  —It’s not going too well.

  —What’s wrong? I thought you’d be finished by now.

  —I finished page forty-six yesterday afternoon.

  —Right, not great.

  —Any idea when it’s due?

  —Wednesday week.

  —Bullshit! Tell them I need an extension.

  —It’s not a school assignment.

  —I won’t be finished by then … my throat’s going on me.

  —You did voice training, didn’t you? It’s all about the breathing: use your diaphragm to project your voice …

  —I’m reading a novel not playing Hamlet in the gardens.

  —My hands are tied.

  —I don’t suppose there’s any other work on the horizon?

  —You can’t even finish this job.

  —I’m serious.

  —I can get you all the bloody work in the world if you’ll agree to do advertising.

  —I won’t sell things.

  —Why don’t you think of something you like, something you’d be happy to endorse?

  —I like drinking Grange, why don’t you give Penfolds a call?

  —Anything else?

  —No.

  —Good luck with the reading.

  Bernard was at page fifty-three; it had just been discovered that Rose, the Bonners’ harelipped servant, had been made pregnant by the insolent odd-job man, Jack Slipper. It occurred to him he’d just read the same line twice over—then again he might not have. He glanced up to see if Neil had noticed. The sound recordist was staring at the mixing desk in a state of transcendental oblivion. When Bernard looked back at the page he realised he’d lost his place. ‘Blast!’ he said, knowing he’d have to backtrack.

  Neil looked up. ‘Problem?’

  ‘I think I’m starting to repeat myself.’

  ‘It’s possible. I haven’t been paying attention.’ He turned to the clock on the wall. ‘We might have to start over, forget the last twenty minutes.’

  ‘Twenty minutes? Christ, I thought I’d been reading for hours.’ He looked down at the open novel, the page made him feel queasy, as though he were reading in a moving vehicle. ‘I think I’m done for today. I used to be a prolific reader. Now I can’t make it through a newspaper article—I barely make it past the first three sentences. The only thing I’ve read in its entirety in the last year is a menu.’

  ‘Birthday card?’

  ‘I skip the sentiment. You can take my place if you want.’

  ‘I’d rather read the phone book.’

  ‘It’s an Australian classic.’

  ‘The phone book?’

  ‘No, Voss.’

  ‘So’s Dame Nellie Melba, and I wouldn’t want to get between her covers either.’ Neil flicked a series of switches, working quickly lest Bernard suffer a change of heart.

  —I spoke with Penfolds; they’re not in the market for a celebrity spokesperson at present.

  —You cheeky bastard.

  —One of the smaller wineries out your way would like to meet with you.

  —Why?

  —To discuss some possible marketing strategies.

  —Interesting.

  —Of course, you would be flogging stuff.

  —I’d be endorsing it.

  —They’ll send you out a mixed dozen.

  —I’m not saying I’ll do it.

  —No, why would you?

  —But set it up, I should at least sample the product.

  —Naturally. Now hang up—save your voice for the reading.

  Bernard started the engine and hiked up the air-conditioner. A blast of warm metallic air blew into his face; it was like being held to ransom with a hair dryer. Forty minutes later he turned off the deserted highway for an even more deserted country road. He drove for another twelve minutes through post-apocalypt
ic countryside before Tenterfield Estate came into view.

  The villa required the benefit of distance to apprehend its horizontal grandeur and was slightly less breathtaking up close. A pair of conifers set in wine barrels stood either side of the doorway, their top halves swooning in the breeze as though happily sucking up the barrel’s contents through their roots.

  Two eager Dalmatians greeted Bernard in the hall, snuffing in quick little bursts at his legs and crotch. A stout middle-aged woman followed the dogs. She wore a purple T-shirt announcing she’d been fortunate enough to visit Ayers Rock in 1987. Greetings were exchanged then Lil Mallory escorted Bernard through to the tasting room in the cellar to meet husband John and, better yet, become acquainted with the wine.

  The cellar defied its appellation by being bright and warm. A tawny slash of jarrah served as a counter behind which a man in a checked flannel shirt conversed with two customers. The couple were perched on chrome stools and, despite having their backs to Bernard, he read them immediately as income rich and sophistication poor: crouched like toads with their knees splayed yet shod in expensive designer thongs.

  Lil announced his arrival with what Bernard perceived to be great sweeping gestures, based on the air that fanned the back of his head. The barman responded with a whistle and an underarm swoop. Lil gave Bernard a push from behind lest there be any uncertainty. He slid his palm into John’s callused hand and they shook in the manner of earthy rural men.

  ‘Thrilled to meet you in the flesh,’ John declared.

  As he continued pumping water from Bernard’s arm, John introduced him to his other guests, Shaun and Kylie, down from Queensland taking in the sights—as bland front-on as from behind. Bernard swapped smiles and hoped to have nothing more to do with them.

  Finally, John released Bernard’s hand in order to rub his own together in glee. ‘So what are we having—red or white?’

  ‘Either’s fine.’

  ‘Rubbish. Pick a side. You wouldn’t vote for two parties.’

  ‘I do, actually.’

  ‘You’re a swinger.’

  ‘I’m open-minded.’