pitching about crazily as we enter shallower water and I’m not sure if I’m going to make it. I am surprised Kathy hasn’t handed me a seasick bag, in which case she could have the best of both worlds: watch me puke and not have to clean up.
‘How you going, mate?’ she asks, with fake concern.
‘Worse,’ I tell her. This is definitely going to be touch and go.
‘You’re sure you took the right pills?’
What does she take me for, an idiot? ‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Works a charm for everyone else. Which pills did you take?’
‘The ones you told me to take. In the plastic bottle in the first-aid box,’ I reply, getting peeved. She should just leave me alone to die in peace.
‘Show me the bottle,’ she says disbelievingly.
She’s asking for it.
I stumble below and fetch the unmarked plastic bottle, tempted to swallow another pill or two. I emerge and thrust the container at her. ‘Here, take a look for yourself.’ I can taste the vomit in my breath. It’s there, just ready to go.
She takes the bottle out of my hand and studies it incredulously. ‘That’s not the bottle of anti-seasick pills. That’s just aspirin. No wonder you’re feeling awful. Look, there’s no label on this bottle,’ she says slowly, as if speaking to a dimwit. ‘The bottle of seasick pills is clearly marked …’
I lean against the rails and puke, aiming for the surf, but the strong swirling tail wind blows my breakfast back into my face. I smear the remnants of half-digested porridge into my beard like a decidedly unseaworthy version of Roald Dahl’s Mr Twit. Kathy puts a heavy hand on my back to make sure I remain facing the frothy whitecaps.
At least I don’t have a headache.
I disembark from the catamaran with decidedly unsteady legs and a queasy stomach. Despite being in no shape to hitchhike, I am barely onto the road with my thumb tentatively stuck out before a black Holden sedan skids to a halt beside me. I study my thumb with amazement. The Holden has darkened windows, fat low-profile tyres, and what looks vaguely like a gurgling chrome toilet seat sticking out of the bonnet. The jacked-up rear-end of the car growls and sputters outrageously. I cram my pack into the back before climbing into the fleece-covered bucket seat, where I sit as if embraced by a convulsing sheep in its death-throes. The driver is so young he barely has peach-fuzz gracing his upper lip. I doubt if he has ever shaved. This quivering mobile steel contraption is his mechanical steed, his throbbing pride and joy, his proof of rites of passage. A pair of fluffy dice dance from the rear-view mirror as we shudder off the shoulder, kicking up a rooster-tail of gravel. We accelerate down Dee Street a lot faster than the twin-engine Islander airplane had managed at take-off. This time it is the Holden defying the law of gravity by remaining on the ground.
We soon find ourselves behind a police car with flashing lights, following two halves of a house, each dwarfing a low-bed tractor-trailer. The concept of ‘home-delivery’ is given a whole new meaning. We vibrate impatiently behind the house before we finally pass with a squeal of tyres and a rumble like thunder. My stomach is mimicking the furry dice dancing from the mirror and just when I think I am getting used to the Mad Max ride, I puke
violently into my lap. Vomit puddles into the sheepskin under my groin. The driver pulls over to let me off.
Abandoned in the middle of nowhere, I clean up as best I can. A Good Samaritan soon pulls up alongside, dressed in white from head to toe. He opens the boot of his car automatically from the driver’s seat and I hoist my pack inside. When I jump into the front seat he says: ‘Never do that. If I had been a Bad Man, I could have driven off with your pack.’
‘Well, if I had been a Suspicious Man, I could have taken your Car Licence Number as you drove off and then I would have told the Police.’
‘True.’
He relates the
‘How you going, mate?’ she asks, with fake concern.
‘Worse,’ I tell her. This is definitely going to be touch and go.
‘You’re sure you took the right pills?’
What does she take me for, an idiot? ‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Works a charm for everyone else. Which pills did you take?’
‘The ones you told me to take. In the plastic bottle in the first-aid box,’ I reply, getting peeved. She should just leave me alone to die in peace.
‘Show me the bottle,’ she says disbelievingly.
She’s asking for it.
I stumble below and fetch the unmarked plastic bottle, tempted to swallow another pill or two. I emerge and thrust the container at her. ‘Here, take a look for yourself.’ I can taste the vomit in my breath. It’s there, just ready to go.
She takes the bottle out of my hand and studies it incredulously. ‘That’s not the bottle of anti-seasick pills. That’s just aspirin. No wonder you’re feeling awful. Look, there’s no label on this bottle,’ she says slowly, as if speaking to a dimwit. ‘The bottle of seasick pills is clearly marked …’
I lean against the rails and puke, aiming for the surf, but the strong swirling tail wind blows my breakfast back into my face. I smear the remnants of half-digested porridge into my beard like a decidedly unseaworthy version of Roald Dahl’s Mr Twit. Kathy puts a heavy hand on my back to make sure I remain facing the frothy whitecaps.
At least I don’t have a headache.
I disembark from the catamaran with decidedly unsteady legs and a queasy stomach. Despite being in no shape to hitchhike, I am barely onto the road with my thumb tentatively stuck out before a black Holden sedan skids to a halt beside me. I study my thumb with amazement. The Holden has darkened windows, fat low-profile tyres, and what looks vaguely like a gurgling chrome toilet seat sticking out of the bonnet. The jacked-up rear-end of the car growls and sputters outrageously. I cram my pack into the back before climbing into the fleece-covered bucket seat, where I sit as if embraced by a convulsing sheep in its death-throes. The driver is so young he barely has peach-fuzz gracing his upper lip. I doubt if he has ever shaved. This quivering mobile steel contraption is his mechanical steed, his throbbing pride and joy, his proof of rites of passage. A pair of fluffy dice dance from the rear-view mirror as we shudder off the shoulder, kicking up a rooster-tail of gravel. We accelerate down Dee Street a lot faster than the twin-engine Islander airplane had managed at take-off. This time it is the Holden defying the law of gravity by remaining on the ground.
We soon find ourselves behind a police car with flashing lights, following two halves of a house, each dwarfing a low-bed tractor-trailer. The concept of ‘home-delivery’ is given a whole new meaning. We vibrate impatiently behind the house before we finally pass with a squeal of tyres and a rumble like thunder. My stomach is mimicking the furry dice dancing from the mirror and just when I think I am getting used to the Mad Max ride, I puke
violently into my lap. Vomit puddles into the sheepskin under my groin. The driver pulls over to let me off.
Abandoned in the middle of nowhere, I clean up as best I can. A Good Samaritan soon pulls up alongside, dressed in white from head to toe. He opens the boot of his car automatically from the driver’s seat and I hoist my pack inside. When I jump into the front seat he says: ‘Never do that. If I had been a Bad Man, I could have driven off with your pack.’
‘Well, if I had been a Suspicious Man, I could have taken your Car Licence Number as you drove off and then I would have told the Police.’
‘True.’
He relates the
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