Worry Warts (2 page)

The trouble with tropical paradises, thought Keith as he ran on along the beach, is that there's too much good weather.

He went back up to the road and crossed it at the spot where the bus from the airport had dropped them four months earlier.

He remembered Mum and Dad's faces, aglow with huge smiles as they saw Orchid Cove for the first time.

All they need is a bit of cheering up again, thought Keith as he sprinted towards the house. Which is exactly what they'll get when they arrive home in two hours and twenty-one minutes.

Keith looked at his watch. Forty-seven minutes left and he'd almost finished.

Not bad going, he thought, considering it's the first time I've ever painted a car.

He crouched down to do a bit he'd missed at the bottom of a wheel arch, and noticed that one of the back tyres was a bit flat.

Stands to reason, he thought. Sitting out here in front of the house for weeks without being driven.

While he did around the numberplate he tried to remember the last Sunday they'd gone for a drive. Was it the time they went down to Mission Beach and Dad dropped his ice cream and they all had a good laugh and then Mum got a migraine? Or was it the day they went to the crocodile farm and Mum insisted on having lunch in the cafe there and Dad spent two hours in the public dunny with the trots?

Keith couldn't remember.

Anyway, he thought as he finished off the exhaust pipe, it was before Mum took up Sunday bushwalking and Dad took up Sunday crosswords. Which hadn't fooled Keith for a moment. He knew exactly why Mum and Dad didn't want to go out for Sunday drives anymore.

They were embarrassed.

Embarrassed to be seen driving around in an off-white 1979 Toyota Corolla with rust spots when Gary Murdoch's dad had a bright red 1990 Mercedes with speed stripes and chrome wheels.

Well you won't have to be embarrassed anymore, thought Keith.

He put a second coat on the dent Mum had made in the passenger door the day she flung it open and hit a steel girder.

Keith shuddered as he remembered that day.

They'd been parked in the drive-in bottle department. Mum and Dad had been arguing about which beer to buy.

The trouble with tropical paradises, thought Keith as he put a third coat on the dent, is that there are too many brands of beer.

‘Jeez.'

Keith turned at the sound of the familiar voice.

Tracy stood there looking at the car.

‘It's a bit bright but,' she said.

That's a good one, thought Keith, coming from a girl with a luminous orange and purple skateboard. And pink patches on her face where the brown was peeling off.

‘It's a wedding anniversary present for my mum and dad,' he said.

‘Hope you got them sunglasses as well,' said Tracy.

A twinge of panic hit Keith under the ribs. Perhaps it was a bit bright. The Tropical Mango Gloss he'd painted the shop in England with had been a bit bright and they hadn't liked that at first.

Relax, he told himself, this is different. Mum and Dad were misery guts then. Now they're cheerful adventurous globetrotters who are just feeling the heat a bit. Don't be a worry wart.

The panic went as he remembered how Dad had stared enviously the first time Mr Murdoch had driven past in his bright red Mercedes.

‘Do they know about it?' asked Tracy.

‘It's a surprise,' he said.

‘It'll be a surprise alright,' said Tracy, ‘when they find they've got the only green car with yellow stripes in the whole of Far North Queensland.'

‘It's not green and yellow,' said Keith, ‘it's Tropical Parrot and Hot Sunflower. And they're speed stripes.'

‘Gary Murdoch's dad'll chuck his guts with envy when he sees that,' said Tracy, grinning at him.

Keith grinned back. Good old Tracy. You could trust a mate to say the right thing.

‘What made you choose green and yellow?' asked Tracy.

‘I wanted it to be Mum and Dad's favourite colours,' said Keith, ‘so I checked out their wardrobe. Mum's got three separate things that are green-and-yellow stripes, and Dad's got a yellow shirt and green socks.'

‘Jeez, you're a clever bugger,' said Tracy.

Keith glowed. When some kids said that they were sending you up, but when Tracy said it you knew she meant it.

‘Is this why you nicked off after school without hanging around for softball?' she asked.

‘Sorry,' said Keith. ‘I was on a tight deadline. I only had the idea in art. Had to make sure I got it finished before Mum and Dad got home from the shop.'

‘They don't get home for another forty minutes,' said Tracy.

‘Thirty-nine,' said Keith, ‘thirty-eight if they walk fast.'

‘Jeez, you're a worry wart,' said Tracy, grinning at him again.

He asked her whether she thought he should do the bumper bars to disguise the dent where Dad had backed into a concrete post in the Cairns car park the day Mum had bought her green-and-yellow striped swimmers.

Tracy said she reckoned he should leave them in case his mum bought some more expensive clothes and his dad backed into something else, which would only chip the paint.

Keith agreed.

‘Gotta go now,' said Tracy, ‘gotta help clean out the chooks. See you down the beach later?'

‘Maybe,' said Keith.

He didn't want to be more definite because there was always the chance that when Mum and Dad saw the paint job they'd want Keith to leap straight into the car with them and drive up to Port Douglas and have a pizza in the outdoor restaurant under the fairy lights where they'd all clink their glasses together, or their metal containers if they were having milkshakes, and toast their happiness together for ever and ever.

One minute to go.

Keith did a final check. Camera. Anniversary card. Ribbon.

He hoped Mum and Dad wouldn't mind about the ribbon. He hadn't been able to find one long enough to go round a car. The clothes line looked OK anyway, even if the bow was a bit floppy.

The anniversary card looked great, standing on the bonnet. Now it was painted you couldn't see it was made from bits of Chiko Roll boxes. The Hot Sunflower
Happy Wedding Anniversary
stood out really well against the Tropical Parrot.

He checked round the car for drips.

Hardly any.

It had really paid off, using quick-drying plastic paint. Much better than the gloss stuff he'd used on the shop in England, which had taken a week to dry just cause there'd been a bit of rain.

Keith glanced at his watch.

Six minutes past six.

Where were they?

Perhaps they were still at the shop arguing and they hadn't noticed the time.

Keith tried to force that awful thought out of his mind.

He still hadn't managed to when Mum and Dad came round the corner.

Keith took a deep breath.

‘Happy wedding anniversary,' he shouted, squinting into the camera.

He wanted to get their faces the moment they broke into huge glowing grins.

Through the viewfinder he could see them moving towards him, eyes wide and mouths open.

Come on, thought Keith, let's have the delighted smiles.

‘Happy wedding anniversary,' he shouted again.

Mum and Dad were very close now, eyes still wide and mouths still open.

Come on, thought Keith, smile or you'll be out of focus.

He pressed the button anyway, just as Mum started to cry.

After Dad had taken Mum into the house, Keith stared at the car for a long while, trying to think.

Why hadn't they said anything about the paint job?

Because they hadn't needed to, probably. Tears from Mum and a mouth drooping almost to the ground from Dad had said it all.

They didn't like it.

Keith felt his eyes getting hot.

Pull yourself together, he thought. Be positive. Why don't they like it?

The colours?

The unpainted bumper bars?

The fact that I only put one ‘n' in ‘anniversary'?

No problem, he said to himself.

If they're worried about my spelling I'll do extra homework.

If they're upset about the bumper bars I'll paint them.

If they don't like Tropical Parrot and Hot Sunflower I'll have the whole car another colour by tomorrow night. Off-white if they want.

Suddenly he felt much better.

Trust Mum and Dad to make a big drama out of such a simple problem, whichever one it was.

Keith went into the house, working out how many kids he'd have to borrow a dollar from to buy two litres of off-white paint.

Mum and Dad were in their bedroom, talking.

Keith didn't mean to listen, but their voices came clearly through the thin wall.

‘We can't carry on like this,' said Mum's voice tearfully.

‘What about Keith?' said Dad's voice.

Keith was shocked. Dad's voice sounded like he'd been crying too.

‘Plenty of kids' parents split up,' said Mum's shaking voice, ‘it's not the end of the world.'

Keith stood in the narrow, hot hallway and the blood pounded in his ears so loudly that he thought for a few seconds another cyclone had hit.

Then he ran out of the house.

Keith didn't stop running till he got to the beach. He threw himself down on the sand under a palm tree and squeezed his eyes shut.

He wished he could open them and find himself back in England—even somewhere boring like Watford or Lancashire—just so long as things were back to normal and there was a fish-and-chip shop with Mum and Dad in it with only slightly miserable faces, together, as usual.

Or France. Or Russia.

Anywhere, he thought bitterly, except this poxy so-called tropical paradise.

He stared up at the sunset. The sky was rippled with pink and orange and purple. It looked like the time Ryan Garner pinched nine packets of lollies and threw up on the monkey bars.

The darkening air was loud with the screech of insects. Cicadas being negative. Mosquitoes being defeatist. Grasshoppers lying to their kids about the state of their marriage.

Keith felt hot tears.

‘Shut up,' he shouted at the grasshoppers.

He took a deep breath. The tropical evening smells made him feel sick. He could smell rotting fruit and squashed cane toads and poisonous flowers that paralysed their victims with squirts of rancid liquid. Probably their kids too.

For the hundredth time since running out of the house he tried to think of something else that Mum could have been saying.

Something other than split up.

He couldn't.

He stared at the ocean. The waves were pink and frothy and looked like toothpaste that had been spat out by someone with a bleeding gum.

He thought about what was probably going on under the water. Stonefish not talking to each other. Pufferfish having arguments and getting migraines. Killer jellyfish splitting up and emotionally neglecting their kids.

The hot tears wouldn't stop.

I wish, thought Keith, I'd never brought Mum and Dad to this poxy, stinking, rat-hole of a dump.

They were OK in England. Misery guts, yes, but a holiday would have fixed that.

Wait a sec.

A holiday.

Suddenly his mind was racing.

He tried to remember the last time Mum and Dad had been on holiday.

Five years ago?

Ten?

Being in this dump didn't count. All they were doing here was what they used to do in England—slaving over a fryer and a bowl of batter and being miserable.

Except here it was worse because they were in a poxy, overheated, so-called tropical paradise.

No wonder they were getting irritable and stressed and imagining they didn't want to be together any more.

A holiday, that's what they needed.

Keith scrambled to his feet, tears gone, heart pounding with excitement.

He needed some holiday details fast and he knew just where to get them.

‘There you go,' said Tracy. ‘Take your pick.'

She dropped the last bundle of brochures onto her bed.

Keith stared.

There were thousands.

He'd seen bits of Tracy's travel brochure collection before, but never the whole lot at once.

‘OK,' said Tracy, ‘this bundle is adventure holidays, this one is mountain ranges, this is old cities, this is modern cities, this is campsites with views, this is campsites without views, this is relics of ancient civilizations, this is cruises, this is traditional villages in remote valleys untouched by the modern world, this is places that are flat but interesting, and this is tropical paradises, except you probably won't want that one.'

Dead right, thought Keith as he dropped to his knees and grabbed the first bundle.

A thought hit him. Probably better to stick to this end of the world. That way Mum and Dad won't feel they've wasted their money coming all the way down here.

He told Tracy this and she explained that the Australia and New Zealand brochures were at the back of each bundle.

He started pulling out brochures.

‘You're sure she said split up?' asked Tracy, kneeling down next to him. ‘Mr Gambaso in the milk bar sold my dad a hamburger once with a bit of bone in it and dad broke a filling and said he'd kill him. I was on the roof chasing cane toads and I freaked and hid his fish-gutting knife. Turned out he'd said he'd bill him.'

‘Mum said it,' replied Keith, ‘but she didn't mean it. She's under stress.'

‘I know what you mean,' said Tracy. ‘I told my mum I was gunna be a nun once just cause she wouldn't let me watch Bugs Bunny.'

Keith moved on to the next bundle.

‘If they do split up,' said Tracy, ‘which one'll you live with?'

Sometimes, thought Keith, even mates say the wrong thing.

‘Or is that why you want the brochures,' continued Tracy, ‘so you can choose the one who's planning to take the most interesting holidays? I'd pick the one who wants to go to Venice. I'd eat bricks to go to Venice. Or Peru. Or Melbourne.'