Roadside Sisters (37 page)

Meredith nodded. It was all that mattered—she had to keep that in view.

‘How did you get to be so smart?’ she asked him.

‘And good-looking?’ he added.

‘And full of yourself!’ Meredith swatted at him with a napkin.

‘It was just a matter of choosing the right parents. After that, everything was simple.’

Meredith reached her arms out to her son. He shifted to the next seat so she could hold him. Meredith breathed him in. Every memory of their lives together was in that smell. From
the day he was born and she first cradled him; when he had fallen and she had set him on his feet again; every time she had sneaked an illicit teenage cuddle. Her heart was full, she wanted nothing more than to hold him like this forever.

‘Hey, don’t get all soppy on me now.’ He laughed and unwrapped her hands from his neck. ‘Save all your tears for tomorrow.’

Jarvis held his mother’s hands and looked into her eyes.

‘Mum, there’s something else you should know. Dad’s brought his new girlfriend with him.’

‘Oh?’ Meredith gulped. It stung a little bit, but not as much as she might have expected.

‘Her name’s Tania, she writes for a TV magazine and her pearls are fake.’

Meredith had to laugh. Jarvis was her son, no doubt about it.

The sun came up on Main Beach at Byron Bay on a late April morning that was almost unnaturally still. A steady parade of surfers had stood on the cliff, murmured their insults to the ocean and turned away in disgust.

For Annie, now measuring the length of the broad beach in long strides, the temper of the water was perfect. The peaceful wash and delicate transparent curl of sea onto sand was utterly calming. The rhythmic ‘plip, plop’ of the tiny waves was a relief after the battering from the natural elements and the emotional tsunami she had experienced all the way up the coast. It was a fine day for a wedding.

Annie stopped to shrug off her T-shirt and shorts, down to her bikini, and dived into the water. It was, as Nina had promised—it seemed a lifetime ago now—deliciously warm. She crested the surface and turned back to see the sweep of the town above the low dunes, and was surprised at how low-key it all was. Here and there the tops of roofs peeked above a scrub of ti-tree, melaleuca and native palms. There was nothing much to see and, after the profusion of ugly edifices in towns strung all the way up the coast behind them, that was a blessing.

It was the drama of the mountain range behind that drew Annie’s eye. The highest peak was Mt Warning, an extinct volcano named by Captain Cook. Annie had read up on the place last night and loved its Aboriginal name—Wollumbin, the Fighting Chief of the Mountains. The cover of lush subtropical rainforest painted a dark-green silhouette that held the promise of a verdant valley and a rushing creek. Maybe that’s where she could find Annie’s Farm.

Walking back to the van she saw that Meredith was up and about, pacing the grass by the railing.

‘They’re coming to get me in a minute. Wish me luck, Annie. Christ, I’m so nervous!’

Annie put her arm around Meredith’s shoulder. ‘You’ll be fine. Remember what Nina said—just smile and give presents.’

‘Oh, that reminds me, I must get that painting. A mermaid! Sigrid will think her mother’s gone mad.’

With the painting by her feet, Meredith adjusted her pearl earrings and tugged at the jersey skirt she was wearing. Annie
noted with some amusement that it was one of her own purchases from Toorak Road.

‘I hope you don’t mind—it’s one of yours. You’ve got so many beautiful things. Everything of mine’s crushed beyond recognition,’ Meredith twittered. ‘In fact, would you mind if I borrowed a dress for the wedding as well? I was thinking of that long jersey one you wore at Scotts Head—I’ve got a black lace cardigan that would look lovely with it.’

‘It’s yours,’ said Annie, pleased that Meredith could now see the sense of her emergency shopping expedition.

‘How do I look?’

Annie appraised Meredith and didn’t hesitate with her compliments. She always presented well, but this morning, smiling broadly from under her cherry-trimmed straw hat, she looked tanned, relaxed and especially vibrant. ‘Gorgeous! You look just gorgeous. Too young to be the mother of the bride.’

‘Two brides today!’ grimaced Meredith. ‘Can you believe it?’

‘Now—’

‘I know, I know. I’m getting an extra daughter. That’s how I’m going to think of it.’

At that moment the bride and bride peeked around the side of the van.

‘Fucking hell!’ exclaimed a young woman who surely must be Sigrid, thought Annie. She remembered telling Nina that she wouldn’t recognise Sigrid if she fell over her, but the truth was that she was a Skidmore. There was no doubt about it. She was blessed with the same long, lean limbs as her brother and the
quizzical deep furrow at the top of a long, straight patrician nose was pure Meredith.

Annie’s nostalgic appraisal of Sigrid halted at the jewelled piercing in her left nostril. Annie had to smile to herself—and wait until Meredith saw it! Sigrid was holding hands with someone who actually
did
look like k.d. lang with curly blonde hair.

‘Muuum! What’s with the daggy Elvis-mobile? Typical! I knew you wouldn’t come by plane. You’ve always had a crazy streak in you. I told Charlie she better watch out, I take after my mum.’

And that, Meredith reflected as she leaned forward for a kiss, had made the whole journey with The King worthwhile. She wished her mother, Edith, could have been here with them both. She might have brought a plate of pikelets along for the wedding reception.

It was early afternoon and the main street of Byron Bay was buzzing. Nina now understood, as she trawled through shady arcades and under low verandas, why everyone wanted to visit the town. Its hippie origins were still in evidence. The tang of patchouli-scented incense wafted from doorways of shops offering organic food, herbal remedies, fruit juice, Balinese knick-knacks and original artworks.

In the shade of giant Norfolk pines, holiday-makers and locals sat at tables on the footpath. Barefoot surfers—glumly commiserating with each other on the lack of swell—stood,
arms folded, leaning against walls and scowling at the parade of backpacking blow-ins carting dreaded boogie boards.

Nina—fresh from the spa with glossy pink fingernails, and sleek blow-dried hair—poked through the racks of clothes in one shop after another with increasing desperation. She had barely an hour and a half before they had agreed to meet back at the van to frock up for the wedding. Brad trailed after her, patiently holding her handbag.

Nina smiled wanly at him, not wanting to ruin the day. She stopped at the window of one particularly upmarket boutique. Did she dare go in? She always imagined that the shop assistants in these kinds of places were secretly laughing at the delusions of a dumpy mother-of-three who imagined she might find anything to fit her.

‘Go on, go in!’ Brad urged. Nina stepped inside onto cream carpet and almost immediately saw The Dress—a long, floaty sky-blue confection of loveliness. Its three-quarter length sleeves were edged with tiny silver beads, and the same beads decorated the low, scooped neckline. Nina checked the label and her shoulders sagged—a size 16.

‘Just try it on,’ said Brad. Nina gathered up the dress and stepped behind the curtains, willing it to fit her. She slipped the fabric over her head and, for once, found that she didn’t have to drag it down over her hips. It slid and fell in a sensuous silky puddle around her pink toenails.

Nina looked in the mirror and couldn’t believe it. She’d lost weight. Quite a lot of weight, in fact—maybe three or four
kilos. She wiped a tear from her eye, and offered a silent thanks to Zoran’s Spanish mackerel curry.

Annie was standing at the foot of the Cape Byron lighthouse, staring up at the white expanse of tower, when Matty called her name.

‘Annie! I knew you’d be here.’ He looked up and shaded his eyes from the afternoon sun to share her view. ‘It’s a pilgrimage. You can’t leave Byron Bay without visiting the lighthouse.’

‘I thought you were heading north to Cooktown, chasing red emperor.’

‘I am. But I realised that I had bigger fish to fry here in Byron first.’

‘That’s an awful joke.’

‘I know. I’ve been telling myself not to say it to you for two whole days.’ Matty stood next to her and took her hand. ‘Let’s walk out to the point,’ he said.

Their eyes were at the same height, Annie noticed, as they strolled along the path to the lookout. She wondered if that might mean they shared the same view of life.

At the bottom of the cliffs on either side the ocean stretched forever. On a wild and windy day they might have been blown to the heavens, but the morning’s calm had lasted into the afternoon and all was peaceful and still. The waves traced even, graceful arcs on the surface of the water—as if the gods had dropped a pebble into a pond a thousand miles away.

‘It’s beyond beautiful. I’ll bet most people who come to Byron think about staying forever,’ said Matty.

‘You don’t?’

‘I’m a boy from down south. I couldn’t leave everything behind to live here. I’ll come up for a holiday, but it’s not home. I’ll go back.’

‘Where will you go back to?’

‘Mum and Dad live in Daylesford in Victoria, just near the lake. Mum hasn’t been well and my brother lives in New York, so . . . it’s just me. “You have to cut your coat according to your cloth,” as my grandmother used to say.’

‘My mum says “bloom where you are planted”,’ said Annie.

‘See your aphorism and raise you one: “let the sun shine on your face and the shadows fall behind you”.’

‘Shit happens.’

‘We should stop this now, it’s getting silly,’ said Matty.

‘Que sera, sera.’

‘A mystic hangs a fig leaf on a eunuch.’

‘What does that mean?’ she asked.

‘Fucked if I know.’

Annie laughed and turned to look at him. She searched his eyes for . . . something. Was it clues to a painful past, a needy present or a troubled future? Annie could see nothing. Just a calm, simple kindness there. His eyes were the same soft, dusty brown as the earth she knew so well, and a silent declaration came to her, unbidden, from somewhere she couldn’t name:
I’m home
, was what Annie Bailey thought.