The Best Australian Stories 2011 Read online

  Ha ha ha.

  I join in and then the kids join in too. All except for Scott, who is wondering where he is going to find seven bucks fifty because this is no joke.

  Scott is a stoic boy who knows he should be above the juvenile pleasures of Kid Planet, the gaudy plastic jungle gyms with tube slides entwined DNA-style, the jumping castles, the crash mats and the endless white nets, enough to trap a hundred baby animals. But he isn’t. I can see the ticking muscles under his skin, the eagerness to walk quickly across the mopped lino floor and be lost in childhood again.

  Later I will lend him the money. I like things to be sweet.

  *

  Kid Planet takes its commitment to international peace and harmony very seriously. In the Kid Planet brochure – which I once found under an empty lunch box on the footpath – it says that Kid Planet is ‘serious about creating a positive learning environment which promotes a respect for the earth and all the peoples who live on it, regardless of their colour or beliefs.’

  I guess it’s intended as some kind of a pitch to middle-class parents who take their kids there so they – the parents, not the kids – can tune out over a magazine and a muggacino. They’re encouraged to believe this place is educational. Better than TV, at any rate, which it certainly is.

  On the walls are words like ‘Happiness,’ ‘Joy’ and ‘Peace’ in a variety of languages.

  Szép napot!

  Which is Hungarian for ‘Have a nice day!’ That’s the benefit of a half-finished university education for you.

  There are a few thin brown sticks that make a rough fence, which is supposed to be an African village. And there’s a section of castle wall in giant primary-colour bricks that hints at the Great Wall of China.

  Inside one of the jungle gyms there are six ‘people of the world’ as life-size plush cushions. You can stand them up or lie them down. Or run into them and knock them down. I did this once.

  One is Chinese. Or maybe Japanese. One is German with lederhosen. Another is Mexican with a wide sombrero, even wider than its outstretched arms, always looking for a hug. One is African. The other two are random Southern Europeans. Maybe Italian, maybe Spanish or Greek. It’s unclear whether they’re men or women, all so much sexless velour.

  Dad is annoyed that none of them is ‘Australian’ or ‘even white, really, except for the Kraut.’ I don’t think Dad has much of a commitment to respecting the earth and the peoples that live on it. I could go on but I don’t like to make a fuss.

  *

  I’m smooth. I’m so smooth I don’t need to wear socks on the big slide.

  To go on the big slide you need to either be a kid or have a kid on your lap. Or maybe be demonstrating to a kid that he or she won’t break any limbs. Anyway, you need to have a kid nearby otherwise you’re being a bad grown-up or worse, in my view, a sneering teenager who is ruining the fun for everyone. So if I use the slide without good reason – say, being able to show Scott that he has nothing to fear – I’m kind of midway between both kinds of undesirable.

  Dad, I think, could be a very bad grown-up if he were at all inclined to use the equipment, but he’s not.

  Scott is too old to feel physical fear in Kid Planet and too old even to use the slide except as a nostalgic gesture at the end of any visit. So I almost never get the excuse to use it and show off my smoothness.

  But sometimes, just sometimes, I’ve seen my chance and dashed up there to beat Scott to a place at the top of the slide.

  ‘Look, Scott, there’s nothing to worry about,’ I’ve said to him patiently. ‘It can’t hurt you. Just keep your legs straight and your arms tucked at your sides, like this.’ And then I’ve slipped down, so smooth, demonstrating beautifully.

  Sometimes Scott has ignored me and gone down a different slide and sometimes he has stalked away in disgust, walking back down the stairs, going past all the little kids climbing in the opposite direction. But this is OK, preferable even.

  Hey, I’ve shrugged, to anyone watching me at the bottom of the slide. Hey, I tried, but the kid was just too scared. Even though he’s nearly ten!

  This is what he has sometimes hissed at me at the top of the slide. Cut it out! I’m nearly ten!

  Well, hell, I’m twenty and what’s more I’m paying your entry fee. This is what I will say to him if I get a chance on the slide today. Or maybe I’ll just think it as I slip on down.

  So smooth.

  *

  You can tell that Scott never learns anything because he begs my father for two bucks to play Everybody Wins.

  One, my Dad is thinking, you already owe me seven bucks fifty. Why would I give you another two dollars? And two, Everybody Wins is the worst rip-off ever. Everybody loses but the house, as my Dad calls it.

  It’s a large glass box with two claws manipulated by a single joystick. One side is soft toys, the other side is sweets. It’s called Everybody Wins because if your claw comes up empty from the crawling heap of velour creatures, then you get a chance (or six chances!) with the other claw in the sweets. You’re pretty well guaranteed to get some lollies but they’re cheap no-names from some Asian sweatshop with more sweat than sugar.

  Dad tried once to get a purple gorilla for me. He had two tries but each time the steel hooks just slipped out from under the gorilla’s toy bulk. Dad banged the glass with an open palm. What the fuck!

  He’s been contemptuous of Everybody Wins ever since. If he walks past it, he can’t help but sneer at it and maybe give it a discreet kick on his way through.

  ‘Let me give you a lesson for free,’ he says to me and Scott. ‘Nobody wins. Ever. Full stop. And that’s the most you’ll ever get in life for nothing.’

  Scott and I nod when he says this. It sounds like the kind of world-weary adult wisdom that should be nodded at, about the only thing the next generation can learn from an adult like my father.

  *

  Scott is not a big kid, short for his age but wiry. He can’t quite reach the flying fox that passes over the little valley where the six plush people of the world reside.

  It’s sad and funny to see him trying to jump up to catch the handle. Dad encourages him to tip over the plush Chinese person and stand on its face to give him a bit of extra height.

  ‘Go on, stand on chinky, you won’t hurt him.’

  There’s a young Asian mother searching for two small children temporarily lost in a sea of coloured balls. I think she’s Korean because she’s wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Korea!!’ like it’s a swear word. She stares hard at my father until she is distracted by a hand that suddenly thrusts up out of the spheres.

  The Korean mother pulls her child gasping from the plastic ocean as Scott careens off the supine Chinaman and through the valley, knocking down the plush Spaniard on the way.

  ‘Huh,’ my dad says with satisfaction. Job well done. Uncle duties accomplished, he turns away and heads back to his cooling flat white. In a moment of madness, he elected to have skim milk and is still paying the price. I see him grimace when he sips.

  *

  Dad is still grimacing later when he comes back from the toilet. The two Korean kids, now on dry land again, are staring at the mound of toys in Everybody Wins, their noses pressed against the glass, nostrils vast and cavernous.

  Eventually their mother is prevailed upon to feed coins into its steel belly and wrestle with the joystick. Twice she tries and twice she fails. My dad is lounging against a pillar with his arms crossed, taking in the action. His face has transformed from a scowl to a knowing smirk.

  He shakes his head in mock disgust as the mother hauls her kids away, one of whom, the youngest, has begun to cry. They’ve set their little hearts on a seven-legged green octopus wearing a white sailor’s cap.

  Dad looks at me as if to say: You see?

  *

 
; When Dad is down the other end of Kid Planet with his newspaper and a fresh coffee – and he says he is not an optimist – I take my chance at glory. The twenty dollars I was going to make last the whole weekend I convert into tiny golden two-dollar coins. It seems a generous exchange, a piece of paper for all that weight and solidity.

  I walk over to the machine and begin. One dollar for one go. Two dollars for two goes. Value!

  Coins come and coins go. Again and again, the steel claws grasp at the velour mollusc only to slip away at the last moment. It would be easier, I think, to catch a real green octopus from the real green ocean.

  A small crowd forms around me, kids and parents admiring my pluck, groaning in disappointment at each fresh failure or grinning discreetly as another coin is lost. My father is happily still engaged in his paper but I am worried to see, between claw manipulations, that the Korean family is packing up.

  I’m doing this for you, I think, and you won’t even be here! But luckily they’re taking their sweet time and the kids are diving back into the equipment, requiring a new recovery mission every few minutes.

  And then I’m down to my last two dollars. I knew it would come to this. Winning the prize at the last minute, as all hope seems lost. I wipe my brow and blink my eyes to clear them.

  ‘OK,’ I say out loud. ‘OK, this time.’ I have learnt much in my previous attempts. The joystick is like an old friend’s hand in mine and I guide the claw sweetly to the octopus’s garden. It drops sharply on the toy’s body in just the spot I was aiming for, its three prongs arranged neatly on key pressure points. I press the button and it draws in, locking on the green abdomen and raising the octopus into the air.

  The octopus rises, further and higher than ever before, up out of the sea of its mates and towards the steel bin and freedom. I am holding my breath. The crowd is holding its breath.

  And then it slips. The creature slips back to the mound. There is a collective gasp of horror. Or it could have been just me. I can’t tell.

  I have my final turn but my hands are shaking now and the joystick is laughing at me. This time, the drop is not even close. I am finished.

  My father is still reading the paper and I am so glad he is not here to see this, his spectacular vindication. The little crowd is beginning to drift away and I can see the Korean family finally making progress towards this end of the hall. My father looks up from his newspaper, sensing some kind of electrical charge around him. He sniffs the air like a wild animal.

  The dream, the beautiful dream, is over. But then there is a voice in my ear.

  ‘Here you go, son, try again.’ A strange man, older than my father, grey and thin, wearing a black tracksuit, is at my side and pressing a two-dollar coin into my hand. Before he can change his mind, I have slipped it into the machine and I flash him a quick smile of ‘Thank you’ before again taking the joystick.

  This time, everything is different. It’s like I’m not even running things, simply that something has changed inside the machine and it now wants to divulge its treasures. The octopus practically leaps into the claw, gluing itself there with nothing but hope and static electricity.

  The creature drops into the steel bin and I whip it out just as the Korean family is passing.

  ‘Wait!’ I say, loudly so that they stop, so that my father looks up again. ‘Wait. You might want this.’ The parents look at me strangely but the youngest child lights up and grabs the octopus from me, squirming with joy.

  I nod at the parents. No need to thank me. They don’t and walk away but the child stares back at me the whole time.

  And then my father is by my side, looking at me weirdly, taking in the Korean kid, the octopus, my cocky stance next to the machine, taking it all in. Scott is there too, grinning madly. In your face, Uncle.

  ‘So, Scott,’ my Dad says, ‘how are you going to pay me the seven-fifty you owe me to get in here?’

  ‘I – I, um. He was going to lend me the money,’ Scott says, pointing at me.

  Dad turns to me, holds out one palm.

  ‘Seven-fifty.’

  I put my hand in my pocket before realising that I have nothing left. ‘You see, son, even when you win, you lose. Now,’ he says, turning back to Scott and placing one hand on his shoulder, ‘now, let’s talk about interest.’

  fourW

  The Road to Nowhere

  Russell King

  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.

&
nbsp; ‘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.