Granddad can get his dentures around something else. He clears his throat like heâs summoning up another oyster, but the moment passes. Then he takes one hand off the wheel to fish around in his nose. Heâs got some great personal habits, I tell you. But he doesnât say anything. I look out the window to see if thereâs any thinning on the tree front, but theyâre out in force and tight.
âI might become a chef,â I say.
âA chef?â says Granddad. If you were to judge purely by his tone of voice, youâd think Iâd expressed ambitions in the area of gay porn.
âYeah. Not a lame kitchenhand scraping grease around in some dodgy cafe. A proper chef. With the big white hat.
The sort that shouts, âGive me a rack of lamb with a fennel salad,â at scurrying minions. Has his own TV show. Gets to swear a lot. You know what Iâm talking about.â
âNo,â he says, looking carefully at what heâs mined from his nostril. Itâs clearly nothing nine-carat because he rolls it up and flicks it out the window. âNo. I donât.â
âWell then, I guess Iâll have to show you,â I say. âStrap your tastebuds in tonight, Gramps. Theyâre headed for a roller-coaster ride.â
We lapse into silence. Granddad has probably used up a weekâs worth of words and needs to rest. I turn back to the trees and try to get them to disappear by sheer force of will. Works, too, because they thin and the dirt track becomes scattered with loose stones. Signs we are approaching what passes for civilisation out here. I pay more attention. Iâve got this horrible feeling we are going to end up at some bush shack that sells canned meat, the local newspaper and tractor parts.
But we donât. Granddad sprays up loose gravel as he drifts onto a main road. Well, itâs sealed and itâs got lines in the middle. About twenty minutes later we hit the town and the coast. I canât remember the name of the town. Something Pom-sounding. Thereâs just one street, overlooking the ocean, but it has a supermarket and a bottle shop, so Iâm not complaining. Tassieâs equivalent of a city shopping centre. Thereâs also a couple of cafes, a newsagent, a craft store and a few antique shops that you can tell are going to have junk at stupid prices that some relic in a bow tie will flog to tourists. The place is so picturesque I wanna throw up. I donât, though. Iâve checked the mobile and, wonder of wonders, Iâve got another signal. Only two bars, but hey . . .
Granddad parks up in the supermarket car park. The uteâs engine runs for about thirty seconds after heâs turned it off. Itâs a crack-up. We get out and Granddad doesnât bother to lock the doors, though he does wind up the window. Itâs not just that no one would be likely to steal the pile of junk. I reckon this is the sort of community where one crime is committed every two hundred years and thatâs probably parking in a disabled spot.
We arrange to meet up in an hour. I need to make my call and do some shopping. I find a bench next to a row of memorials to the fallen in various wars and get on the phone. Iâm hoping for a text message or two, but thereâs nothing. Knowing Iâm being so sorely missed gives me a warm glow. I try Krisâs new mobile, but itâs turned off. Probably in maths class and she wouldnât wanna mess with Miss Millner twice on consecutive days. Trust me, itâs not an acceptable risk. Iâll try her again during the school lunch break.
Of course, this leaves me with about fifty-nine minutes to kill, and a quick eyeballing of the main strip doesnât fill me with inspiration. The shopping for tonightâs dinner is probably going to take fifteen minutes, tops, and for the rest of the time I can either check out the antique shops or sit on a bench somewhere and watch random
Annie Seaton
Frank Moorhouse
Mark T. Sullivan
Jennifer Smethurst
J. D. Robb
Ben Bova
Don Coldsmith
Catherine Spangler
Alexandra Brown
Natasza Waters