Exclusive extract from the Great Read in the June issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly: Family Baggage by Monica McInerney, published by Penguin/Viking.

It was all coming back to her, Harriet Turner realised. The key to being a successful tour guide was to think of herself as a duck. A mother duck, to be precise. A thirty-two year old mother duck in charge of twelve elderly excited ducklings.

She glanced back over her shoulder, doing a quick headcount of her tour group. Good, all twelve were still in sight, obviously tired but upright, at least. They’d follow her obediently as she led the way off the plane, through passport control and here into the baggage collection area of Bristol Airport. Ten grey-haired women, two balding men, none of them under sixty-five years of age, all in comfortable clothes and sensible shoes. Each sported a large ‘Travel Turner: Tours Tailored Just for You’ nametag on one shoulder and a homemade ‘I’m on the Willoughby Tour!’ badge on the other. Some looked bedraggled from the long journey, but more than half were still smiling. The excitement of arriving in England had obviously lifted their spirits. Harriet was glad to see it.

Her protective feelings towards them had grown with each step of the journey. She’d arrived at Melbourne with each step of the journey. She’d arrived at Melbourne Airport two hours early so she could greet each of them personally. On the plane she’d regularly checked whether they were too warm or too cool and if they needed anything to eat or drink. During their overnight stopover in Malaysia, she’d kept a close eye when they crossed roads, walked across bridges or ate anything that might have bones in it. All the simple rules of being in charge of a group had come flooding back. Of course she could do this, she told herself for the hundredth time since her brother’s surprise phone call. The tour would be a success. She’d do everything she could to make it a success.

They were among the first passengers from their flight to arrive at the baggage carousel. Harriet found a prime position, near the start of the conveyor belt and close to the exit. She was taken aback when the group clustered in a circle around her, looking up with big smiles and expectant expressions. It took her a moment to realise what they were waiting for. The customary Turner Travel welcome speech. James, her eldest brother, had begun the tradition, marking the start of each group tour with a little poem or funny speech beside the baggage carousel. He was usually so organised he had copies printed to hand out to the group members as souvenirs. Harriet’s mind went blank. She had been brought on to this tour at such short notice she’d hardly had time to learn the itinerary let alone write a funny ditty.

She look around at them again. They needed much more than that. She could see it in their eager expressions. She tried to ignore the curious looks from the other passengers coming into the baggage area and racked her brains. A rhyming game she ued to play as a child with James and her other brother Austin sprang to mind. She’d have to give that a try. She threw out her arms again, hoping she looked confident and theatrical rather than weird and scarecrow-ish, and said the first lines she could think of:

“Here we all are on the Willoughby tour

Through Devon and Cornwall, across several moors

I hope you’ll all have a wonderful time

And quickly forget this very bad rhyme!”

She cringed inside even as they rewarded her with a burst of laughter and applause. “She’s definitely Jamie’s sister,” she heard one of them whisper. She was saved from attempting an even worse second verse by the sound of the conveyor belt starting up with a metallic groan. Everyone sprang to attention, their eyes fixed on the emerging luggage.

As the first bags trundled past, Harriet felt a tug at her sleeve. She looked down. It was Miss Talbot. At seventy-three, she was the oldest member of the tour party. At four foot eleven, she was also the tiniest.

Her soft wrinkled face was all smiles. “That was a lovely poem, Harriet. You hit the nail right on the head.”

“Oh, thank you, Miss Talbot,” Harriet said, smiling back. She had known Miss Talbot for as long as she could remember and was very fond of her. The little white-haired woman not only ran the Country Women’s Association craft shop in Harriet’s home town of Merryn Bay but also knitted most of the contents. She specialised in yellow matinee jackets and small knitted penguins with crocheted orange beaks. She was also well-known in town for buying her clothes from children’s wear shops. Harriet glanced again at Miss Talbot’s travelling outfit of pink tracksuit and matching shoes, trying not to look too obviously at the groovy Chick logo embroidered on the front.”How are you feeling? Not too tired, I hope?”

“Oh no, Harriet. I snoozed like a bug in a rug the whole flight. And those little meals on trays were just delicious, thank you so much.”

“You’re very welcome, I’m glad you liked them.” No matter how many times she’d tried to explain, Miss Talbot remained convinced that Harriet was responsible for every single thing that happened on the trip, the meals included.

Miss Talbot gave another happy sigh. “I just can’t believe we’re here at last. All these years of seeing Willoughby on TV and tomorrow we’re actually going to meet him. I know I’m old enough to be his grandmother, but it really is so exciting. He’s such a dreamboat.”

Harriet grinned at the old-fashioned term, fighting an urge to pick up Miss Talbot and give her a cuddle. She wasn’t actually sure whether Willoughby was a dreamboat or not. She could never admit it to Miss Talbot – or any of the others in the group – but she only had a dim recollection of the Willoughby TV series on which their entire trip-of-a-lifetime was based. All she knew was it featured a dark-haired detective disguised as a postman solving crimes in beautiful seaside villages in Cornwall.

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