Caravan Story Read online

  PRAISE FOR CARAVAN STORY

  ‘Wayne Macauley’s first novel, Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe, showed that a real talent had arrived and his second confirms the promise.’

  Age

  ‘Mixing elegy and whimsy, satire and black humour, language becomes pliant under Macauley’s command.’

  Australian Book Review

  ‘Part satire, part Orwellian fable, Caravan Story is compulsively readable.’

  The Monthly

  Wayne Macauley has published three novels, most recently The Cook, and the short fiction collection Other Stories. He lives in Melbourne.

  waynemacauley.com

  Caravan Story

  Wayne Macauley

  textpublishing.com.au

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © Wayne Macauley 2007

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published by Black Pepper, Melbourne Australia, 2007

  This edition published by The Text Publishing Company, 2012

  Cover design by WH Chong

  Page design by Text

  Epigraph from The Harz Journey by Heinrich Heine, translated by Frederic T. Wood and adapted by Robert C. Holub and Martha Humphreys. Published in Heinrich Heine: Poetry and Prose, Continuum, New York, 1982.

  Some of the ideas in Pt. II, Ch. 2 of Caravan Story were drawn from Syd Field’s Screenplay, published by Dell Publishing, New York, 1984.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Author: Macauley, Wayne.

  Title: Caravan story / Wayne Macauley.

  ISBN: 9781922079121 (pbk.)

  ISBN: 9781921961359 (ebook : epub)

  Subjects: Trailer camps—Fiction.

  Dewey Number: A823.3

  For D

  Caravan Story is a work of fiction. The characters in it are not real. Any resemblance to any person or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  …I no longer know where irony ceases and heaven begins…

  Heinrich Heine, The Harz Journey

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Praise

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Epigraph

  PART ONE

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  PART TWO

  one

  two

  three

  four

  PART ONE

  one

  It is seven o’clock, I just heard the click as the clock hit the hour, and the bulldozer has started up outside. We’re both in bed, her leg curled over my thigh, her warm breath on my neck. We woke early, around six, smiled a sad smile then rolled over and slept again. The noise alone is already shaking the windows, the glass of water beside the clock is vibrating gently. They’ll start with the laundry, then take the bathroom, so we’d best make our way there now.

  I stand on the edge of the toilet seat while she pisses and look out through the louvres onto the backyard. They must still be warming up the bulldozer and having their smoke in the driveway down the side because the backyard is deserted, bathed in morning sunlight. The only tree, a plum, is showing its first blossom and a wave of genuine sadness passes over me when I realise it will be the first thing to go. She kicks me off the toilet seat and stands up on tiptoe to look herself. I piss in the basin. The plum tree, she says. Yes, I say, and turn on the tap. We climb back into bed just as the bulldozer revs and moves and a shuddering sound can be heard as it turns from the driveway into the backyard, taking the plum tree in its path, backing up, revving, then moving forward again, manoeuvring the laundry into its sights.

  We lie in bed on our backs, I put my hands behind my head and she nestles her head in the crook of my elbow. We lie like that for a long time, lost in our own thoughts, then I get up again to make tea and toast. Why not? I say, when she looks at me strangely.

  Cracks have already appeared in the kitchen and the stove is covered with a thin layer of white dust. The bulldozer passes back and forth close to the kitchen window. I can see the driver from the chest down, his left foot working the clutch. A voice shouts instructions—Back a bit! Forward!—and I can hear the timber and plaster cracking and breaking. I stand at the kitchen sink waiting for the kettle to boil and watch the big black wheel pass before me, so close that I can see the scars in the rubber and tiny bits of debris embedded in the tread. The kettle doesn’t boil; I check the switch, put my hands around it. I turn on the light switch but there is no light. I go back to the bedroom and tell her—she’s half asleep and doesn’t really understand—then go out the back door and pick up some pieces of wood. A man leans on a shovel—why a shovel?—and I nod to him. He just stares, doesn’t know what to say, then disappears around the corner where the bulldozer is working. I bring the old heat-bead barbecue back in from the shed, set it up in the kitchen, arrange some paper and wood and light a fire. When the flames have died down I toast some bread on a carving fork and soon have a saucepan of water boiled. She smiles, having smelled the smoke, then laughs, seeing the blackened toast; we laugh together, so loud that we can no longer hear the dozer or the cracking of timber in the kitchen. We eat our toast and drink our cups of tea.

  It’s going to be hot. The sun is already on the window and we can feel the new day’s warmth seeping through the blanket into the room. On these days we’d already be up, drinking our tea in the backyard in the sun. The planes flying in to land at the airport are shedding silver from their wings as they bank towards the runway. Next door’s cat is stretched out on the warm concrete, purring lightly with every breath. The first cigarette is hot and bitter, the smoke hanging in thin clouds above our heads, and the light already so intense that you have to squint to form a shape: the shed, the back fence, the neighbours’ roof. These are the days when we are happy, thankful for what we have. Small black ants march purposefully beneath us, sweet air drifts to us from the jasmine on the shed.

  A man is standing in the bedroom doorway. For some reason I think it’s her father, though her father looks nothing like that, then perhaps the lawyer I’d jokingly said we should ask for, then a workman, which it is. He looks so awkward and fidgety that I almost invite him to bed. He stands there fidgeting for some time. She’s not conscious of him so it doesn’t matter, she’s dozing again; it’s obvious he wants to speak but something very firm and persistent has got his tongue. I explain the situation to him as clearly as possible: the house was unoccupied, we’ve lived here undisturbed for over three years, we’ve painted the hallway and the two front rooms, fixed up the front garden, kept the lawn down, replaced three windows, cleaned out the back shed, pruned the plum tree, made a vegetable patch, planted a passionfruit vine along the back fence. He’s lit a cigarette and I realise he’s not looking at me any more and probably not listening either. He’s looking at her. I look at her too; the blanket has slipped down just enough to reveal a breast and a nipple. It’s the strangest thing then, for a minute or so, as he looks from his angle and I from mine at the shoulder, the flank, the breast and the nipple, her hair on the pillow, a streak of morning light on the wall beside her head. The bulldozer starts up—I hadn’t noticed the silence—a
nd the moment is broken. I look at the clock—quarter past ten. That was smoko—he turns from the doorway and goes back to work. I sit there looking, first at the empty doorway, then at her flesh. It’s all going to pieces, I say to myself: I know what I mean and I don’t feel false at all.

  I make love to her quietly. She hardly wakes, neither at the sound of my soft moaning nor the shuddering outside. I kiss the nipple that the man has seen but it’s no longer mine, it moves away from me, sinks softly into her breast at my lips’ touch and doesn’t rise again. She’s getting old, I think—how old?—within what seems like an instant her flesh has lost its spring. She rolls away from me, perhaps sensing my thoughts, and I roll away from her. The clock is bouncing on the bedside table and the glass of water is gone. Nothing lasts, nothing lasts; neither this nor anything that comes after. Days dance on a pinhead, months fly up to the moon; already the laundry’s gone. We lie back to back for a very long time.

  I must be dozing, daydreaming, because now we’re somewhere else. She’s wearing her old cotton dress with the hole under the arm, I’ve pulled on a pair of jeans and am carrying a t-shirt. A park opens up before us, a park I remember from long ago: we sit by the pond and throw crusts to the ducks. One comes up close and almost pecks her bare foot; she grabs me tight and buries her head in my chest and I laugh. We can still hear the noise of the bulldozer though it now sounds more like a plane flying low overhead and all of a sudden we’re surrounded by a cluster of gnats. She tells me they’re attracted to the heat of our bodies, that she heard this on the radio and that it’s all perfectly true, so we wade out into the pond until we are up to our necks and stay there like that kissing for a while until the gnats have gone. Then we’re dozing again, I mean dozing inside the dream, because for a long time all I know is that our eyes are closed and nothing at all is happening and when I open my eyes she has just opened hers too and I say: Were you dozing? And she says: Yes, I just opened my eyes then. We laugh, and the dream is broken, the dream or the memory, I’m still not sure, and a veil of white plaster dust has covered our lids.

  You’ll have to go now, says a voice. It’s the workman again. I push her gently, whisper in her ear: We have to go. It’s already afternoon. Out the front they have a caravan waiting for us, fixed to the back of a four-wheel drive. A woman is standing with the door open, a clipboard tucked under her arm. She’s very well dressed, her hair is shiny and she gives off a faint scent of green apples. All the neighbours are standing around, restraining their children and dogs; I smile at them as we walk towards the van. Please don’t move around too much inside, the woman says, and she closes the door behind us.

  It’s not a particularly new caravan, nor is it particularly clean. I run a finger across the fold-down table and pick up a smudge of black grime. We sit ourselves down opposite each other at the table and the van begins to move; I pull back the curtains a little with my hand and look out; the neighbours are now standing on the footpath in a line, watching us go. My partner reaches into the cupboard above us and finds a can of tuna, I reach into the drawer beside me and take out a can opener and two forks. We eat the tuna, spearing a small chunk each with our forks, first she, then me, in turns, like a tea party; occasionally the tin slides across the table, first towards her, then towards me; we push it back into the middle each time and smile. The tuna lasts a while, there’s nothing else to do, neither of us wants to get up and move about because of the woman’s instructions. We’re very tired, but nor do we want to sleep; we’re both very anxious in a way to see what happens next.

  We travel for some time; through the parted curtains I see factories, car yards, paddocks of dead grass, all bathed in rusty twilight. Huge steel pylons march away to the horizon, the powerlines slung between them. On and on, on and on. She looks out her side, I look out mine. I close my eyes and remember the story of a ride in a troika through the vast Russian wastes; thatched huts outside the window, the driver’s greatcoat dusted with snow, the horses’ heads tossing, white breath from their nostrils. I spend some time remembering this story in all its detail before opening my eyes again. The caravan has stopped. Everything is quiet. The woman opens the door. Sleep now, she says, and she closes the door again. We hear a clunk as the caravan is unhooked from the towbar; I part the curtains and peer outside but everything is dark. We let down the table and make up a bed but neither of us can sleep.

  I hear voices outside and go to the window at the far end of the van. I can just make out a toilet block with a flickering fluorescent light and people going in and coming out with towels slung over their shoulders. We’re in a caravan park, I say. She joins me at the window and we watch the people coming and going from the toilet block and the woman with the folder scurrying here and there. Will they let us have a shower? she says. I doubt it, I say. We close the curtains again and lie in bed. Take off your top, I say. She does. I cup one breast in my hand and gaze at the nipple. It’s all going to pieces, I say, then say it again. But her eyes are closed, she doesn’t or doesn’t want to hear or hears but doesn’t want to answer and I pull the blanket up over her to the neck and sit on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands listening to the murmuring voices outside. This is our new life, she says, it’s all beginning again. I feel very close to her then but instead of speaking or touching her I remain on the edge of the bed and say nothing. A new life, I think, she’s probably right. Very probably, very probably. She puts a hand on the small of my back.

  Then there’s a clunk and the caravan shakes—we’re being hooked up again. She sits up in bed, I look out the window; cars are starting up and headlights are coming on. The first van pulls away and the others follow. I go to the front window. A different car is towing us now, an early model sedan. The van jerks and moves, I hurry back to the other window, steadying myself on the stove, the sink, and cheek to cheek we look out at the convoy moving off into the night.

  We watch the dark, our heads start to loll, our eyelids droop, it’s been a big day, cheek to cheek the murmur of the road lulls us into sleep. I don’t dream, I don’t think she dreams either; when the morning light through the curtains wakes us we find we’ve slept top to tail. I stare at her toes and stroke the curve of her arch. We’re still on the road, occasionally we feel a bump and shudder, at other times a gentle swaying from side to side. It’s very beautiful inside the caravan, the glow at the window and the seeping warmth, the gentle swaying, the hum of the road. If this is our new home then I’m happy with it, happy for her, happy for me. From where I lie on my back I purse my lips, blow the curtain back a little away from the window and catch glimpses of blue cloudless sky. Yesterday is already a lifetime away, and the memory of it frayed: a bulldozer came, we slept in a while, then we got up, and the journey began. Brief shadows of branches overhanging the road flicker across my face; a warm draft from somewhere, perhaps under the door, caresses my half-open eyes.

  I’m hungry, she says. She’s sitting up. I look at her framed by the window opposite, soft down around the rims of her ears. She’s taken her hair and bunched it up into a mound on top of her head. I love her too much to say anything; she reads my eyes and smiles. There might be more tuna, I say. She screws up her face. Perhaps we should wait till we’ve stopped. We might never stop, she says, and she gets out of bed. The idea hadn’t occurred to me and I lie there wondering about it for a while. She looks through the cupboards, the small gas fridge, on the shelves and under the beds. We’ll starve, she says. She crawls over me and looks out the back. Look, she says. I look too; behind us into the distance a convoy of caravans follows, between each caravan a cluster of cars, waiting for the chance to pass. We close the curtains again. To the slaughter, I think, not quite sure where the thought has come from: uncomplaining, like lambs to the slaughter.

  Suddenly we’re on a bumpy road, the curtains quiver, one cupboard handle rattles, through the side window we see a couple of houses flash past, one with a small boy standing at the gate. I pull on my pants, she fixes her skirt, a grea
t feeling of excitement has now overtaken us. The caravan shakes, changes direction, then changes direction again; the surface beneath us is now hard corrugated ground, then gravel, a moment of asphalt, gravel again, we turn sharply, then something soft, perhaps grass. The caravan stops, we hear the door of the car in front slam, other cars pulling up behind. We each put a hand on the wall, trying to adjust ourselves to the sudden stillness. We’ve stopped, she says. Just then the door opens and the woman pokes her head inside. You can come out now, she says. Have we been hiding? I think. The woman’s face disappears again.

  We step down out of the caravan and look around. We’re on a football oval, surrounded by paddocks; in the far distance I can see a farmhouse, in the foreground the footballers’ brick changing shed. The caravans have formed a circle, like wagons arrayed against an attack. The drivers are all getting out of their vehicles and gathering over at the changing shed; some slip inside to use the toilets, the others form a close-knit group and start handing around their cigarettes. The woman strides around the circle, the clipboard under her arm, knocking on each caravan door and poking her head inside. The people start stepping out, dazed and confused like us: some old, some young, some with children who immediately start running around together madly on the grass.

  Gather round, the woman says, gather round, don’t be shy. She is standing in the centre of the oval on the concrete cricket pitch; she throws out an arm then brings it towards her, as if gathering air to her bosom. Gather round, she says, gather round. We all take a few steps forward. I can see a couple of the drivers chuckling, leaning on the boundary fence. Gather round, she says, as step by step the circle closes in. In an arc, she says, and we somehow manage to arrange ourselves in an arc. A little closer, she says, don’t be shy—and as a group we shuffle forward.