Page 15 of Eva Reddy’s Trip of a Lifetime

Debbie & Doug Go Rogue

I don’t shed any more tears. Not in the car. Not when I reach home. Not when I throw myself on my bed. Not even when a neighbour’s radio launches into a Stevie Wonder medley. I am, as the expression goes, all cried out.

I lie on top of the bed covers, staring at the ceiling as the afternoon turns to dusk.

I try not to obsess about what Jonathan is doing.

But there’s not a meditative technique on the planet that can stop my mind from doing its thing.

I wonder … is it still catastrophising when the worst possible catastrophe has already happened?

All the greatest hits of our relationship play on a loop in my head. Our first date. The school formal. Our wedding. All of Emily’s milestones. Each takes a sledgehammer to my heart. Somehow it keeps beating.

The room is dark when my mobile rings.

I reach into my pants pocket and pull out my phone, not even bothering to lift my head.

I don’t recognise the number, but I answer anyway.

Hopefully, it’s just a cold call or a credit card scam or a Nigerian prince, something I can deal with quickly so I can get back to the more pressing business of feeling sorry for myself.

‘Hello?’

‘Is that Eva Moore?’

‘Yes.’ I lace my voice with impatience, ready to reject whatever it is the caller is selling.

‘It’s Dianne Chen, here, from the Golden Years Travel group.’

I sit bolt upright, my entire body on high alert. It suddenly occurs to me that my mother has been suspiciously silent for the past day and a half. This feels bad. Very bad. Travel agents don’t call to let you know your parents are having the time of their elderly lives.

‘I’m really sorry to contact you out of the blue like this.’ My gut goes into free fall. ‘But your parents have gone missing.’

I wait a beat, letting the information sink in. It isn’t possible.

‘How can they go missing? They’re on a group tour. I’ve read the brochures. This is top-shelf travel for seniors. How do you mislay two customers?’

‘Have you spoken to your parents recently?’

‘My mother texted me on Tuesday morning. Nothing seemed to be wrong.’

‘Your parents have been—how do I put this?—somewhat difficult on the tour.’

‘Difficult?’ I try to sound sceptical, as though my mother is not someone who could ever be described as difficult.

‘According to our staff on the ground, they’ve been impossible to deal with.

They’ve caused some kind of disruption every single day of the trip.

Your father wandered off into the game park in Nepal one night.

It’s dangerous. There are tigers out there.

And not just for him. It was also dangerous for the people who made up the search party.

Then there were all the other incidents.

Your parents would forget meeting spots and times.

They’d dive into the nearest gift shop as soon as the tour bus was ready to leave, causing lengthy delays. I could go on and on, unfortunately.’

I am on my feet now, pacing around the bedroom like one of those Nepalese tigers. How I would like to sink my claws into my mother.

The travel agent continues to list my parents’ many and varied transgressions until she finally makes it to the punchline.

‘The final straw was when they left their passports in the hotel safe in Kathmandu. They missed the plane, as did one of the guides, who had to stay back and look after them. When they finally landed in Delhi, the travel company made the hard decision to ask them to leave the tour. That was two days ago. I’m surprised they haven’t let you know. ’

Two days! The full horror of the situation hits me. My parents have been freewheeling in the developing world for a whole forty-eight hours, without the safety net of an organised tour.

‘We arranged for them to stay in a hotel in Delhi while we sorted out flights to bring them home.’ Dianne is speaking faster now, hurrying to pass on all the relevant information and get off the phone as quickly as possible.

‘They were supposed to get on the plane last night but they didn’t show up. ’

‘You’ve lost my parents in a city of more than thirty million people?’

‘We’ve let the Delhi police know. But as you say, it’s a big city. And local law enforcement doesn’t have the time or the resources to hunt down a couple of Australian retirees who have elected to change their travel plans.’

‘You can’t just leave them wandering around a foreign city by themselves. My father is in the early stages of dementia. He is fine on an arranged tour. But out there on his own … anything could happen to him.’

‘We suspected something wasn’t quite right with your parents.

But to be honest, we thought the issue was with your mother.

That information really should have been disclosed before they travelled.

’ I hear relief in Dianne’s voice. The blame for this debacle now rests with my parents and their failure to self-report their health issues. The travel agency is in the clear.

‘I’ll let you know if we hear anything, but there’s not a lot we can do.

I suggest you try contacting them yourself.

If you’re really worried, you can lodge a missing person’s report with the police here.

If they are concerned, they’ll alert the Department of Foreign Affairs.

From there it goes to the High Commission in Delhi.

But from what I know of your parents, and particularly your mother, they’ll be fine.

She’s a handful but she is also very resourceful.

Now if there’s nothing else I can do …’ Her voice trails away.

‘Well, if you’re not going to help me find them, then no. There isn’t anything else you can do for me, Dianne.’

I end the call abruptly, without saying goodbye. I was so sure my week couldn’t get any worse but my mother has proved me wrong. I should never underestimate her ability to take a flame thrower to my life.

All I want to do is collapse back onto the bed, cover my head with a pillow and wake up sometime in the distant future. But my responsible self keeps me vertical. This is an international crisis in the making.

I need to know exactly what I am up against. I open the Tik-Tok app on my phone and search for my mother’s account. She’s labelled her latest holiday series ‘Reddy, Set, Go’. It’s a cute tagline but under the circumstances, I’m not inclined to appreciate it.

I navigate to her most recent video and read the title. ‘Debbie Does Delhi’. A part of me dies inside.

I hit play, trying to rein in my growing panic.

There is my mother, wearing a sari and breaking out some Bollywood dance moves amid the chaos of a busy commercial district.

A street sign tells me she is in Connaught Place.

I grab some paper and jot down the address while watching her swivel enthusiastically between cars and shoppers.

Her neck moves from side to side in time with her hands and hips.

Even as I am horrified, I can’t help but be impressed.

My mother is extraordinarily limber for a woman well into her seventies.

Then I catch a glimpse of her bare midriff.

Dear Lord. The woman is rocking a navel piercing.

Could my mother be any more embarrassing?

The clip ends with a short advertisement for a Bollywood dance class in Delhi. It seems her TikTok video has a sponsor. The woman is a geriatric Kardashian.

I do my best to put my daughterly horror to one side and work out what might have happened.

My parents haven’t turned up for their flight home.

Maybe my mother dislocated a hip while she was gyrating around Delhi.

Or she was arrested for public indecency.

So, she could be in hospital or jail. Both possibilities seem equally likely and I’ll reluctantly accept either.

The idea that she is cheerfully and voluntarily cavorting about India unconstrained is too terrifying an option to consider.

I need to contact her. I punch out her number, but the call goes straight through to voicemail.

‘Hello, you’ve reached Debbie Reddy. Well, that’s not actually true, is it? You haven’t reached me. And who’s to say if I even want to be reached? But that’s the problem with all this new technology, isn’t it? You can never be entirely unreachable. In fact, you’re always …’

The phone beeps for me to leave a message, interrupting my mother’s stream of consciousness.

I try a second time. Again, my call goes through to voicemail. Again, I hang up.

It always pays to choose words carefully when dealing with my mother. I’m not going to speak off the cuff because she will spin anything to best suit her purposes. So I go back to my notebook and write down what I want to say.

Mum, I have just been speaking with Dianne, your travel agent. She tells me you’ve been kicked off … your trip has ended earlier than expected. You must come home immediately. I can get you on a flight …

I google Delhi-to-Sydney flight options.

… with Air India coming out of Delhi this afternoon.

There are some that leave later tonight but they’re not direct.

This is not open for discussion. You are coming home NOW.

Let me know what flight you want me to book.

I’ll pick you up from the airport. And you can explain to me exactly what the hell happened.

I can’t wait to hear all about your adventures. Eva xx

I call my mother’s number again and leave the message, carefully reading the words I’ve scrawled out, pitching my voice somewhere between worried daughter and school principal. I think I hit exactly the right tone.

A minute later, a text comes in.

Don’t be ridiculous. We are not coming home. There are places that your father and I still want to see. And if these ghastly tour people won’t take us, we’ll find someone who will. Don’t try to call again or I’ll block you. Love Mum.