Wild Fiction

‘The bastard,’ Rebecca said. ‘He told us he never flies because he thinks the plane’s going to crash.’
‘He tell me about you,’ Julius said salivating in Rebecca’s direction. ‘He say I take special care of you. He say I look after you very good. Me think he like you.’
‘Let’s go,’ Conrad said to Julius, pushing the email back at him. ‘Where you take us? I mean, where are you taking us?’
Julius laughed and turned around. ‘You get the speak good man. I teach you speak Belize English.’
‘No thanks,’ Conrad said curtly. He wasn’t sure if he trusted Julius. The author’s lie about his fear of flying had made him suspicious.
Julius led them out to his car. It was a patchwork of colours where bodywork had been painted over with whatever paint was available at the time. The doors were shades of grey with a red roof and a lime green bonnet. It had probably begun life as an Oldsmobile or Chevrolet but was now a melange of whatever parts could be hammered together to fix the damage.
One of Julius’s friends followed the fictionals to the car, pushing their luggage on a trolley with wheels that squeaked and clattered over the uneven surface. Balanced precariously on the trolley, was a large green suitcase (Rebecca’s), a bag holding nine pairs of shoes (Rebecca’s), a red plastic Samsonite medium sized case (Rebecca’s), and two small hold-all’s (James’s and Conrad’s).
Conrad had tried to curb Rebecca’s packing at the author’s house. ‘You don’t need all those shoes. We’re going to be on a yacht and you don’t need footwear on the boat,’ he had said.
‘We might go ashore and I want to be properly prepared,’ she had snapped back at him.
He had stood and watched as she packed her suitcases. ‘We’re going to the Caribbean,’ he had said waving his arms about as if waved arms were sign language for the Caribbean. ‘It’s going to be hot and humid. You don’t need pullovers and multiple pairs of trousers.’
‘You’re going to be so unprepared when a cold front hits us,’ she had looked contemptuously at him and he had dropped the subject.
Now he looked at the pile of luggage careering towards the back of Julius’s car. Seventy or eighty percent Rebecca and the rest James and myself, he thought. ‘Rebecca, do you still want to bring all this stuff?’ Conrad asked.