Pat and Ray were arguing about their names.
‘It stands to reason,’ said Ray, his hands firmly at ten to two, high up in the cab of the Willebago Esperance, ‘we’ll be meeting a lot of folk on the road and it’s confusing.’
He was imagining the introductions around the evening barbeque with retired real-estate developers and superannuated stock traders, and the ambiguity of their genderless first names.
‘All I’m asking,’ he said, ‘is that for the next three months you become Trisha.’
Ray decided he liked looking down on the other vehicles from the comfort of his padded throne. As they edged north out of Sydney a youth in the rear of the Nissan Skyline in front was removing his socks. Ray looked away.
‘I knew a Trisha once,’ said Pat, ‘in my aqua aerobics class at Arncliffe Aquatic Centre. Couldn’t stand her. I’d swear she did botox. Lips were what kept her afloat.’
‘You don’t “do” botox,’ said Ray. ‘It’s not illegal.’
‘She was so into herself,’ said Pat, one foot on the dashboard as she touched up her nail polish. Not an easy task given the stop–start motion of the Willebago. Vixen was her new colour: a pink-purple compromise.
‘Careful where you put that stuff.’ Ray eyed the pristine interior, leather seats, twelve-stacker sound system with iPod accessories and the bottle of Vixen.
He checked the mirror, saw the sumptuous living space behind and ran a hand through his still-abundant salt and pepper hair. More pepper than salt these days, thanks to his new hairdresser. The tag of ‘grey nomads’ seriously rankled. He wore his new short-sleeved Nautilus shirt, cream knee-length shorts by Blazer and deck shoes by Colorado. Sockless, of course. Felt good.
‘Why can’t I stay as Pat and you become Raymondo?’ she giggled, replacing the lid. The cab now stank of sickly acetate so Ray increased the fan speed on the light-touch climate control. Diesel fumes from the semitrailer two metres in front belched into the vehicle.
*
Ray had stuck the Australian Geographic ‘Map for Explorers and Adventurers’ on the kitchen wall six months ago. Two years’ worth of issues still in their plastic jackets were stowed under a seat in the rear. Dick Smith was his hero. Not that his knowledge of Mr Smith extended past a face on the peanut-butter jar and a vague notion about ballooning, but he felt fellow explorers and adventurers would share his admiration.
Pat was busying herself trying to find the music folder on the iPod. They’d met a year ago when she arrived as a temporary receptionist at McLeod and McLeod, Distributors of Distinction. Plump and fifty, her husband had left her for his personal trainer, as men of that age seemed to do. She was the worst temp they’d ever employed and on her first day Ray showed her how to use the fax. Eight months later she’d moved in. Needs must.
‘How’d you fancy the Bee Gees?’ she said. ‘Stayin’ Alive’ was her favourite track of all time.
They’d meticulously packed the motorhome (‘Motorhome, Pat. Not van.’) over many weeks and affixed stickers to the rear.
‘Home is where you take it!’ was hers. ‘Spending the kids’ inheritance!’ was his. The fact that Pat had no children (‘women’s problems’) and his only daughter was a corporate lawyer earning three times his salary didn’t seem to spoil the joke.
Pat settled on Fleetwood Mac and sang along to ‘Don’t Stop Thinkin’ ’bout Tomorrow’ while Ray worked the clutch brake cycle in the traffic morass.
‘Thing is,’ said Pat, ‘you don’t really think about tomorrow until something really bad happens, like when they told me about the warning cells on my pap smear.’
‘Too much information, Pat,’ said Ray.
His last visit to the doctor had been to have the papers signed so he could access his superannuation early. And now here he was driving it around Australia!
He’d found Dr Vitenko in a 24-hour medical centre at Bondi Junction. A certificate from the University of Kiev hung on the wall. Ray had purposely worn jeans and sneakers but kept his Rolex on. He wanted to create the impression of a senior exec who had succumbed to ill health. Not that it was a real Rolex, of course, but who was going to take it off his wrist to check?
Ray explained about his debilitating reflux, his intolerance to rich foods and how it had impacted on his ability to function as a top-level middle manager.
Dr Vitenko ticked the box ‘Unable to work in gainful employment now or in the foreseeable future.’ Underneath he wrote, ‘Severe ulcerating reflux oesophagitis.’ No fools, these Bulgarian doctors.
‘Nice watch,’ Dr Vitenko had said. ‘I buy three the same last year in the market at Sevastopol.’
*
At six p.m. they finally turned off the Pacific Highway at Nambucca Heads. Not as far as planned, true, but hey, they were free agents.
It was a humid late November evening and a banner in the main street welcomed schoolies week with the puzzling message, ‘Have fun! Don’t become a statistic!’
They eventually found a park without an illuminated ‘No Vacancy’ sign and turned into the Bali-Hi Van Park and Resort.
‘Jesus. Enough tents here to house the Russian army,’ said Ray.
‘I just think it’s lovely to see so many young people having a good time,’ said Pat.
The owner, with a complexion of weathered hardwood, directed them through a maze of tents to a piece of worn turf at the back of the ground.
Perhaps it was a blessing he hadn’t been able to run to the eight-metre Esperance, settling instead for the slightly inferior 7.2-metre. Still, it featured the toothbrush and toilet-roll holders Ray envisaged showing fellow travellers at a more salubrious location.
Pat unfolded two chairs and a table.
‘Bickies, dip and wine time. Best part of the day!’ she said like the seasoned camper she wasn’t.
Ray headed off to find the barbeque. He had just finished scraping some unidentifiable goo from the hotplate when a man of similar age ambled over carrying sausages. This was more like it.
‘Been far today?’ said Ray. ‘Mine’s the Willebago Esperance up the back.’
‘No, mate. Shirl and I live ’ere. In the donga, down the front.’
Ray didn’t stop to talk about Dick Smith. He carried the steaks and lamb-with-thyme gourmet sausages back to the site, noting with irritation the grease marks on his shorts.
Pat was inside tossing a salad – out of a packet into a Tupperware container. Pages of her Hello! magazine flapped in the breeze that had suddenly come up.
‘Trisha!’ he called too loudly. ‘Bon appétit!’
*
Ray awoke at one a.m., his body bombarded with a cacophony of sound. Rain was drumming on the metal roof of the cab about eight inches from his pillow. The motorhome chassis was vibrating to the sounds of dance music.
‘What the hell?’ he thought, climbing down from the bunk to find his clothes. Pat lay on her back, fast asleep, snoring gently.
When he opened the door, rain was coming down in oversized sheets. Nobody else in the whole campsite apart from Pat appeared to be asleep. Music thudded; there were lecherous screams; torch beams scanned across the night sky. Somewhere a glass broke, followed by laughter, and from a nearby tent the unmentionable sounds of two young people getting to know each other.
‘It’s like bloody Woodstock,’ he muttered as he trudged off, mud caking his Colorados, to find the owner.
At nine a.m. two pimply youths helped tow the Willebago from where it had become stuck in the mud using their P-plated bomb and the towrope he had been keeping for the croc-infested waters of Far North Queensland.
‘I could drive,’ said Pat.
More chance of her being allowed to cook steak on the barbie than sitting behind the wheel. Ray said nothing and swung out of the campground at a pace some may have considered reckless.
And as he did the corner of a tile overhanging the roof of reception caught the side of the Willebago, ripping along its length like an old-fashioned can opener.
*
The owner said he’d seen it happen before.
‘Young couple from South Australia. Same thing exactly. Apparently insurance wouldn’t pay as it happened off-road.’
Pat and Ray didn’t speak until they were back in Rockdale. Ray seethed in apoplectic rage while Pat stared out the window. He dropped the Willebago off at the panel beaters and they took a cab home. He’d be damned if he was going to let the neighbours gloat. He’d tell them they’d returned early because his mother had been taken ill and hope they wouldn’t remember she’d died in her sleep three years ago.
The map was stuck back on the kitchen wall and new lines in red-tip marker were drawn.
‘We’ll head south,’ said Ray. ‘Maybe meet some Melburnians in Merimbula. But, Pat, this time let me choose the campground.’
Pat stopped stirring her Tony Ferguson milkshake and looked up.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t mind “Patsy”. You know, like that singer Patsy Cline.’