Caravan Story Read online

  We’re in the storeroom. She stuffs an old pair of tracksuit pants in the crack under the door and turns the light on. It’s a bare forty watt bulb, and against the hard fluorescent light of the dinner room the light of this forty watt bulb is warm and almost romantic. There’s not much room to move: there are acrobatic mats, pieces of gym equipment, big string bags full of balls. She stands with her back to the door; I’m squeezed up between the pile of mats and the parallel bars. She looks at me; I look at her. What is this look? What happened to your face? she says. She takes a step forward, reaches out and touches my face. You’re a mess, she says. In what way does she mean ‘mess’? I got selected, I say. She withdraws her hand. I thought I’d never see you again, she says. They thought my story had something in it, I say, so now I’m working—and you, it’s all worked out for you too. We look at each other—we know we’re talking like fugitives in the storeroom of a school gymnasium: she knows, I know, we know. Sit down, she says. I sit down on one of the mats. I saw you out on the basketball court today, she says, we were pushing back the chairs, getting ready for tomorrow. We’re going to take what you have written and put life into it, so Judd says anyway. (Judd?) He’s going to run the workshop, she continues, tell us what to do, make out like he knows what he’s doing. I watch her talking, pacing back and forth, all fire and passion and spontaneous voice. The other teacher will watch, she is saying, he’ll nod and smile and everyone will applaud. Then they’ll send us away. It’s a job, Wayne, and for it we’ll get dinner, a mattress on the floor and breakfast in the morning before we go. Look at me, she says, do you hear what I’m saying?

  I do, sort of. But the trouble is I’ve not heard much since she mentioned Judd’s name. A teacher? I thought he was just the factotum, the errand boy, the canteen lady. So he’s been elevated to the role of teacher, he who I’d decided was my underling? And then, of course, like a twisted mind-fucking tornado-driven avalanche it hits me. Judd wasn’t sent along for the ride, he’s not here to serve us, he was selected as special too, selected by Polly, selected above me. And why was he selected? For the same reason I was selected. For the same reason all these special writers here were selected. Because we gave Polly pleasure. I look at her, still talking, her eyes alight, her face aglow. How could I? I listen to her words—it takes me a while to chase them down and catch the thread then let them pour down over me like a monsoon rain.

  And so is this what we wanted? she is saying: you at school learning what you don’t need to know from people unqualified to teach it; me, getting back in the Transit van tomorrow to do another corporate video, stumble my way through another humiliating audition? We don’t make art, Wayne, we make money—no, we don’t even do that, we live and work according to a regime invented by Andrew and those who have mentored him, a regime that says we should make money—submissions, proposals, tenders, budgets—but in fact we make no money, we live hand-to-mouth, use up all our energy running a so-called business and then end up coming here and doing this just so we can get a bowl of pasta. You know what we’re doing tomorrow, after we’ve all filled up on two helpings of breakfast? We’ll drive a hundred and seventy kilometres to another country town to do a used car yard ad—we’re a funny circus troupe, we’ll all wear funny costumes, I’ll be juggling wads of money which the voice-over will tell us is the money you’ll save if you take advantage of their September sale. Then back in the bus. Next day a video for the local shire about water conservation—I’m a mermaid, chroma-keyed into one of the buckets of water we’re wasting. Next day a pioneer festival—everywhere a festival!—crinoline dresses and wet kisses from fat real estate agents and farm machinery salesmen.

  I’m still sitting on the mat, her pacing above me, letting myself drown in her words and the shame, the utter humiliation of it all. From the moment we stepped up into the caravan, from the moment the red-lipsticked Polly ticked us off her list, we have sold it all away. What is a product anyway, what is production, productivity? Who in God’s name first put the words ‘arts’ and ‘industry’ together? Who let all these bureaucrats and critics and ill-qualified pedagogues loose on the world, who gave them the right to pardon or punish? Who said we should listen? Who said we should learn, grow up? I’m off now, I can’t help myself: I watch her talking, hear myself thinking, see where I am, know what I’ve done, feel where I want to get back to. And as I think these things, hive them off me, all this black filth, as I feel the smacks and thumps and blows, something happens—something extraordinary happens. Right before my eyes my partner changes from her thirty-something self into a thirteen-year-old other. It’s like I’d set it all up. Here we are, look at us, we’re back at school, we’re in the storeroom at the back of the gym, the rest of the class has left for lunch; I was putting the equipment away, she’s walked in and closed the door. She’s in her sports uniform, a checked cotton dress. This is not some dirty fantasy, this is my partner—there she is, right there in front of me—and all the grown-up careerism has fallen from us. We are young again, both actually young, we are in the storeroom of the old school gymnasium and she has just locked the door. I stand up and move towards her. I’ve never felt like this before. I am pure innocence, naivety, and so is she. We hug, we kiss—did we ever hug or kiss like this? I move her to the pile of mats, a regal bed, and we fall together onto it. With lithe movements she unzips the dress and peels it from her. With fumbling fingers I unhook her bra. Her breasts, smooth undulations. No, they do not fall aside. I reach out a finger and touch the nipple. It does not sink, hardly gives at my touch. She is not old. What was I thinking? We are only at the threshold. We have barely even begun. She takes my hand, I come down on her. I let her arms envelop me.

  four

  We do not sleep, we just doze and drift for a long time in the warmth of each other’s arms. When I open my eyes and look at her it feels like we’ve been there forever. She opens her eyes too. Let’s go, I say.

  It’s brighter now outside, the clouds have cleared and the moon is high in the sky. It’s cold, yes, but we are still basking in each other’s warmth. We have no idea how long we were in there; it’s all quiet, though, no-one has come looking for us; when we reach the school entrance we can see the Transit van still parked there and high up on the trees in the back corner of the schoolyard the glow from the dinner room lights. Shh, she says. We listen, and can just hear the sound of muffled voices talking, carried to us on the breeze. No-one knows we’ve left, no-one will miss us when we’re gone: we’re just another two who have fallen through the cracks. Come on, she says, I think I know where the highway is.

  It must be late, because now, out on the street—a quiet suburban street of the type that you would find on the edge of any big country town—there are only one or two lights on in the houses. The sky is big, the world seems suddenly to have folded its edges back and opened itself up for us. It’s very quiet. I want to giggle. I can’t help myself. Shh, she says, trying not to laugh: listen. It’s the sound of a truck passing, still a long way off, but clearly coming from the direction we are walking in. This way, she says. I follow her, I want always now to follow her.

  There are no footpaths here, just wide grassy nature strips—there are no cars either, so we walk down the middle of the road. We pass a few streetlights before she stops again to listen. We go a little further, then turn down another street. A laundromat, a small smash repairs, a dentist’s: we are getting closer to the centre of town. I feel this incredible sense of relief, of exhilaration; I don’t have to work out any more what I’m supposed to do, whether what I’ve done is any good, whether any of it will get me anywhere or not. I come up alongside her and hold her hand. She smiles. We walk together like that, down the middle of the street, unembarrassed teenage lovers—we don’t care, we’ll do what we like, we’ll answer to no-one, we’ll tell them all to go to hell.

  Another turn and we are in the main street. We walk down the footpath, past the shop windows. I wonder if anyone sees us: lovers, hand in hand. Everything
is quiet, deserted. The occasional car or truck drives past, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in the other. Which way is home? I ask. She raises her finger and points in the direction we are walking. We walk to the end of town where the bright white light from an open service station makes us hold our hands up to our eyes. A couple of trucks are parked on the verge. I don’t want to do it, I am a man and it will shame me, but she is full of the bravado that only actors and lunatics possess. I watch her walk inside the bright-lit restaurant. She stops and talks to a big man at one of the tables: she points outside, he looks around, first at me, then at his truck. He nods. She looks at me and gives me two thumbs up. The driver turns around again—I see him throw back his head and laugh.

  Artists, says the truck driver, you don’t look like artists, if I’d known that I would have left you there. We both smile, he smiles too—there is something very comforting in the knowledge that to this truck driver we don’t look like artists, that we’ve taken him by surprise somehow, ambushed him with our ordinariness. What’s wrong with artists? I ask. My partner looks sideways at me and gives me a kind of tut-tut glance.

  We drive. She drifts off to sleep. I look out through the windscreen, the side window, the three-quarter moon sinking low. My eyes droop and close, when I open them we are on the outskirts of the city. The truck has pulled into a siding; a pink dawn is spreading across the sky in the east; there are rough scarred paddocks and factories around us, big half-built warehouses and machinery yards. I’ve got to turn here, says the truck driver, I’ve got to drop this load at Epping. I nudge her awake. We’re here, I say. She lifts her head and rubs her eyes. You could hitch another ride, says the truck driver, or there might be a train. We’ll walk, she says. We get down out of the cabin. It’s cold outside and an involuntary shiver runs through me. Thanks, she says. The driver nods. Thanks, I say. I swing the door hard till it shuts. The driver revs the engine, the gears crunch, the truck drives away. We watch it slow down at the next set of lights and turn left in a slow searching arc.

  We walk. We pass car yards, wrecking yards, factory outlets, warehouses. The blocks start getting smaller: retail outlets, showrooms. Now there are trees, front fences, nature strips, double-fronted houses. The sun is up, people are driving to work, listening to the serious or funny talk on the radio. The sun hits our faces, we hold our hands up and squint—it’s like it’s smiling at us in greeting, saying welcome home, welcome back.

  We don’t recognise the house at first, there’s a cream and dark green picket fence out the front that was not there before. Tacked to the fence is a To Let sign. The house has been painted—cream and green. I thought they were going to demolish it? she says. Maybe just the back half, I say. We cross the front yard and step up onto the porch and with our hands cupped to the window we peer inside. The lounge room is empty. The old carpet has been ripped up and the floorboards polished. We step off the porch and walk down the driveway to the back. The shed is gone, there’s a green Colourbond garage there now, at the door of which the fresh new concrete driveway ends. The plum tree, I say. It’s gone. In its place a weeping cherry. The concrete yard has been dug up and relaid with a carpet of tough, almost plastic-looking grass.

  All the old back half of the house is gone and has been replaced by a new extension. Big bright sunny windows and French doors open out onto the yard. We look in through the windows. Big, she says. We can see the new stove, the new benchtops, the downlights, the overhead fan. Is that the bathroom there? she asks, pointing. She pushes down on the brass-plated handle. It opens. I’m dying for a piss, she says. We go inside. Very light, very spacious. She crosses to the bathroom; I hear her pissing, a long stream.

  I walk to the door that leads back into the main part of the house. It’s been replastered and painted, the floors have been polished, but otherwise it’s the same as before: the spare room (my ‘study’) first on the right, then next on the right our bedroom, opposite that the lounge room, then the front door. They just took off the back half, I think: simple, cheap.

  I walk back outside. Yes, I think, it’s all a façade, really; underneath it all we are still here. We never really left. I’m still sitting on the old vinyl chair out on the concrete, drinking a coffee and having my morning smoke. She’s in the toilet, shouting: There’s no toilet paper! Can you get me some? In this daydream I drag heavily on my cigarette and let the smoke out slowly, steadily, in a stream. I hear a plane way up, way up high in the blue: it banks towards the airport, shedding silver from its wings. The jasmine is out, and I can smell it. Wayne? she shouts. Are you there? I butt my cigarette out on the concrete, drink the last of my coffee. Soon I’ll go inside to work. My work will owe nothing to no-one, except her. Then suddenly she’s behind me. I used a tissue, she says.