Caravan Story Read online

  I keep staring at the mural, the sun burning my neck, but now around me everyone has started to move away. The dirty brushes are dropped into a bucket; they all take off their over-shirts and overalls and put them into a big khaki canvas bag. The lids of the paint tins are tapped down tight and carried two by two to the henna-headed woman’s old HiAce, parked a little way off with its back door raised. There’s a strong sense of camaraderie, a jokey rapport, between all the painters; they’re like happy workers in an old-fashioned movie. Jane Austen and I can only watch. Are you coming in to help now? she says.

  It only strikes me once I’m inside the kitchen-cum-storage area, with its concrete floor and grey metal shelves and stacks of tables and chairs, how this part of the building actually fits into the whole. Essentially, the changing shed is divided into three parts: the home team’s changing room at one end, the opposition’s at the other, and a storage area in the middle. I’ve entered the storage area through a door in the back wall on which the mural is being painted; now, to my right, on the other side of the brick wall, is the men’s (home team’s) showers and toilets and to my left the women’s (opposition’s). At the far end of the storage area I can see the door to the little kiosk out the front from where pies, tea, coffee and sweets would be served during the season.

  The lunch detail has already started; there are about a dozen people inside. The trestle tables and plastic chairs are being carried out; from the grey metal shelves big boxes marked CUTLERY, CROCKERY, CONDIMENTS, TABLECLOTHS are being handed down and carried outside. I join the workers at the far end of the room and alongside Jane Austen take the loaves of white bread from the racks in the corner and at a trestle table near the fridge start buttering slices of it. I’m feeling useful. Others join us at the table—a musician and two painters—we’re all wearing surgical gloves and soon we have a system going: I butter the bread and hand it to the musician who adds a slice of cheese, the first painter then adds two slices of tomato and hands it on to his fellow painter who then sprinkles it with salt and pepper before handing it to Jane Austen who puts a buttered piece of bread on top, slices the sandwich diagonally and stacks it onto a tray. When the tray is full another artist takes it away and puts an empty one in its place. Other artists are getting large jugs of orange cordial from the fridge and carrying long tubes of white plastic cups outside. With a tray of sandwiches I move outside too. The tables have been set up in the centre of the oval, under a blazing sun. I sit beside Jane Austen who sits next to the painter Trish with the henna-headed woman alongside her. Some of the other painters come over and take their seats, then the writers and musicians start drifting over and take what seats are left.

  Now Polly appears—from out of nowhere it seems. She starts chatting to someone, idly picking up and eating a sandwich as she does. I watch her, I can’t help it. She catches my eye, then turns away—but then she looks back at me again. Now I turn away, pretending to look elsewhere—but I can’t turn away for long. I look back—now she is looking away. Then she glances back to see if I am looking. I feel sick, nauseous, right down in the pit of my stomach. I look down at my white-bread cheese and tomato sandwich and everything turns vivid white. I can feel Jane Austen looking at me but I can’t look back at her. I push my chair back and stand up. I try to catch my breath. I need to take some lunch back to Gwen, I say. But my voice has barely gone above a whisper. I pick up the plate with the sandwich on it, the plastic cup of cordial, and push my way past the chairs.

  Everything is white, blazing white, there is nothing but white: the white ground, the white sky, the white plate, the white cup, the white sandwich. I can actually see a dry crust forming on the bread—all the way across the oval I hold the plate out in front of me, conscious of the eyes of all the others, watching my back, watching my progress.

  Back inside the caravan, Elizabeth Jolley is asleep. She’s pushed her notebook down to the end of the bed and is curled up facing the wall with the sheet drawn up to her chin. I don’t know how she does it; you can feel the heat radiating down through the ceiling so strongly that, standing up, it almost burns the top of your head. I put the plate and cup on the table and lie down on the floor. It’s cool down there on the lino; I lie on my back with my knees up and close my eyes. I don’t know what I’ve done, I should have gone with the actors, now I’m stuck in a caravan with an old woman sleeping. Where my body touches the floor—my shoulder blades, my upper back, my buttocks, the soles of my feet—I let the cool seep into my skin. I want to eat the sandwich but I can’t get up; thoughts, images, and sometimes thoughts and images together, float across my mind. I hear the flywire door and see a shape above me. It’s Polly. She’s come to see if I’m okay. I have trouble getting up. Yes, I tell her, I am; it’s probably just the heat. I’ve just been lying down, I say, I’m feeling better now. Her face is red, there’s a thin film of sweat on her brow, her upper lip, her neck. I offer her the cup of cordial. You look thirsty, I say. I tell myself I must be careful, I must be very careful now how I look at her, but as she takes the cup from me there is something so awkward and fleshy about her that I don’t know why but all of a sudden I am running one hand up her back while the other dives down the front of her dress. The table is up, we have nowhere else to go; we fuck on the floor, me steering my cock past her knickers which give way with a slight tearing sound, her lapping at my tongue, my lips, my ear. I don’t even think about Elizabeth Jolley, asleep in the bunk bed above, all I am conscious of is that smell of green apples, sour-sweet and overpowering. Polly keeps lapping at me for some time after I’ve come, then, sensing the distance I have put between us, she pulls herself out from under me and stands up. She has a red rash around her neck and a wisp of hair across one eye. I should go now, she says. There’s nothing to say. She washes her face in the sink and goes.

  This encounter enlivens me, all the nausea is gone, I feel like a new man: all afternoon while Elizabeth Jolley sleeps I apply myself with renewed vigour to my story. Perhaps my decision to stay here was not such a bad one after all; perhaps something is happening now, just when I was sure it wouldn’t? All the curtains are drawn, I’m in my own world; even though I know it’s still hot out there I in fact feel strangely comfortable and cool. I work all afternoon: occasionally thoughts of the encounter with Polly come unbidden to my mind—the hot sweat under her breasts, the dramatic quivering of her bottom lip, the pattern of creases on the back of her dress as she goes. It’s terrible, I can’t help it, I shouldn’t think it, I’m working hard, for myself, but every time I see these things in my mind’s eye I also get the feeling that what I’m doing now, what I’m writing, is for her, for Polly, that our fuck was some kind of contract we have entered into, and that the onus is now on me to deliver. I want to think I’m free—even now, now—but I’m not. Perhaps everything I do is for Polly—she’s given me my topic, a place to work, the warm comfort of her loins. And once thinking these things I find it hard to think anything else: that we make our art here, for example, in the spirit of independence, that we are somehow ungoverned, that our lives and our works are our own. No, from the moment we stepped up into our caravans, we have all been paying off a debt.

  At some point midway through the afternoon I run out of paper—I go to the end of Elizabeth Jolley’s bunk and steal a few sheets from her notepad. She has written almost nothing, the scratching of her pen was the sound of her doodling, crude amateurish drawings for a story she still hasn’t written. I look at her sleeping, her shallow breathing—how long has she been sleeping now?

  It’s late in the day when I look up from my work and see the new commotion outside. The tents have arrived. Workers I’ve not seen before are unloading them off the back of a tray truck and dumping them on the gravel near the changing shed. Under Polly’s supervision a band of volunteers is carting them out through the players’ gate onto the oval. They start going up, some easier than others, all different shapes and sizes—small silver two-man dome tents, big green canvas ones. Is it dinner?
asks Gwen. I tell her no, it’s still afternoon, but the tents have arrived, they’re going up now. Soon you’ll be rid of me, she says. She sinks back into the pillows. Are you all right? I ask. It’s my stomach, she says, I’m getting these terrible pains. Can I get you something? I ask. No, she says, it will pass. I look out the window again. Half a dozen tents have gone up now; they’re lining them up in an arc, with the flaps facing in towards the centre of the oval. One of the painters—the swarthy one with dreadlocks who put the cheese on the sandwiches—stands jokingly in front of one of them like a proud home-owner, arms akimbo, while another painter pretends to take his picture. They’re having fun. I look down at my papers spread out on the table—but in July when the ground was sodden and the raindrops fell like heavy jewels from the trees there was little they could do but retreat inside the single-room hut and sit by a smouldering fire—then out the window again. Even from this distance I can feel Polly’s frenetic energy: the tents have arrived, life is chaos, there is so much to do.

  The tray truck drops the last of the tent rolls and moves away—at the same time I see the Transit van returning: the two vehicles pass each other going in opposite directions and now the old HiAce starts up and follows the tray truck out. I see the actors getting out of the Transit van, in particular the actor called Marti—she is wearing a lurid pink skirt and yellow socks and is jumping around gesticulating madly. Now a dark blue late-model Ford sedan appears—the procession is endless—it turns onto the gravel track and drives slowly around to the changing shed which I now see has been hung with bunting and flanked by colourful silk flags on the end of bamboo poles. I see the painters, adding the finishing touches, and the actors milling around. I see Polly come flapping towards them and put them to work—two by two the actors pick up a tent and cart it out onto the oval. The dark blue Ford sedan stops beside the changing shed and a woman gets out of the passenger seat. Shouldn’t you go out there and help them? asks Gwen, peeking out the top bunk window. They’re nearly finished, I say, are you still in pain? A little, she says. Stupid situation. I start counting the tents but have only got to eighteen when she, my partner, is at the door. Thirty tents, she says, how many more people is that, do you think? I’ve only begun to think through my answer when she changes the subject again: Did you know the Arts Minister is here? She’s standing above me now. No, I say. She holds my head in her hands and kisses it, as if I were a little child. So how was your day? she asks. What can I say?—I fucked Polly, like an animal, on the floor here—but before I’ve had a chance to speak she is speaking to Elizabeth Jolley: And what about you, Gwen? Gwen says she’s not feeling well. My partner moves up closer to her and they start talking in hushed voices: Gwen is telling her her problems, my partner listens seriously; I hear the words ‘reflux’ and ‘tension’ but then they both lower their voices even further and I hear nothing but a monotonous murmur.

  I put away my papers. How many more days like this? I get fed, yes, but really, in the end, is it all worth it? In my mind’s eye I see the tray truck driving away, the two workers in the front seat: the radio is on, one of them has left half a doughnut in a white paper bag on the dashboard and he now takes it out and eats it. On the passenger side floor there’s an empty Coke can, a scuffed copy of this morning’s paper and a silver thermos flask that keeps rolling from side to side. They look out the windscreen through the two clean arcs the wipers have made. For hours this morning they drove all over the city, stopping late at a milk bar to get some sausage rolls and doughnuts, picking up the tents—two here, five there, some from houses, some from second-hand dealers, some from a warehouse that a man in blue jeans and a black t-shirt opened for them—then, after a lunch of pies and chocolate bars at a roadside takeaway just before the freeway, they took the road to H——.

  Are you coming out? she says: I’m on dinner duty, we’re doing a performance later. I tell her I’ll be there soon. I watch the light outside slowly change. Another day. Are you all right? asks Elizabeth Jolley. Yes, I say. Then: Do you think this is right, all this? There’s a long silence from up on the bunk. Is there somewhere else you’d rather be? she asks. Obviously, I answer. There’s another pause. But then the pause goes on. No, she’s not going to reply. I get up from the table and go outside.

  five

  Dinner is cold chicken and salad, and the usual casks of red and white wine. I pick at my meal, seated between Jane Austen and an older male painter who keeps talking to me about horizon lines and the overwhelming sky. When most people have finished their meals and are looking around for dessert, Polly stands up at the end of the table. She has changed from the clothes she was wearing earlier in the day (Does she shower with the other women?) and is now wearing a close-fitting black dress and big silver earrings. Beside her at the head of the table is the woman who got out of the dark blue sedan. Someone holds up a candlestick, lighting them both, and there is a spontaneous round of applause. Polly holds up two flattened palms and pushes them out in short shoving movements as if pushing the praise away from her. The applause dwindles. Polly smiles. Thank you, she says. She’s got that red rash on her neck again. Goodness me, she says. The old painter next to me leans over and whispers, so close I can smell the red wine on his breath: She’s a bit of a spunk, really, isn’t she? I smile like I’m grimacing and nod my head like a horse.

  Polly is speaking. A couple of things first, she says. She tells us about the hot water, which has been running out. Please restrict your showers to three minutes, she says. Now she’s talking about the tents. You may have noticed, she says, that today our artists’ camp has expanded substantially, with the addition of thirty new dwellings of various sizes. Some of us look around; the tents have formed a small camp now within the larger settlement, arrayed in a crescent from the players’ gate to just past the half-forward flank at the main road end. They all stand solemnly, their flaps zipped shut. Things are beginning to happen, says Polly, glowing, and I’d like to take this opportunity now to thank you all for your patience. Some really wonderful work is being done, work of which we can all, collectively, be very proud. There will be some quite major changes taking place within the coming days but the first thing I should say is that we will soon be taking delivery of a substantial quantity of new arrivals, writers mostly—arrangements for their receival I will outline in a moment. Also—could you hold that light a little higher? Yes—as I have already mentioned to some of you we are this evening honoured by a visit from the State Minister for the Arts, who also has an important announcement to make. Some people applaud, but many don’t, unsure whether or not this is cause for celebration. I think you would agree, Polly continues, perhaps to clarify the situation for us, that this visit from such an important government representative indicates to a very great degree the high cultural and economic value placed on this project (Project?) at the very senior levels of government. The Minister nods and smiles. Everyone goes quiet. Polly’s face flickers on and off. Now, everyone, please, she says—suddenly, as if prodded—raise your cups! I want to toast the actors! Everyone raises their cups. Andrew gets up and walks to the end of the table next to Polly. To the actors! says Polly. To the actors! says everyone. Polly steps back, looks at her notes and takes a long sip of wine. The candlestick is moved in front of Andrew—he tightens his cheekbones and steels his jaw. Thanks Polly, he says.

  I feel like I’m going to be sick. I nudge the old painter next to me and point to the cask of red wine. He hands it down the table to me; I fill my cup and drink. The stars are out, it’s a hot summer’s evening, beneath our feet an orchestra of crickets; someone’s left the light on in their caravan and an eerie drift of yellow light falls out onto the grass. It’s such a big universe, and we are so embarrassingly small. As you’d probably be aware, Andrew is saying, if you’ve seen the flyers in the toilets, we’ll soon be giving you a short performance of a work-in-progress. But, and this is what Polly’s talking about, behind the scenes our troupe has also been working very hard to secure our fin
ancial and artistic independence. He grins. Well, I’m happy to say that things have moved surprisingly quickly. With Polly’s help and with a bit of good old-fashioned hard work we have been able to secure for the troupe a tour that will involve playing up to two shows a day in schools and community centres in towns throughout the region. In this way, we have ensured our financial independence—and, as I’m sure everyone here knows, without financial independence you cannot have artistic independence: the two are inextricably linked. So, says Andrew, with the body language of a man whose future is assured: that’s all for now, but stay tuned for further developments! Everyone laughs, and gives Andrew a big round of applause. Polly steps back into the light—there’s more good news to come and we listen to her detailing of it. She is happy to announce that after long negotiations with the shire council our visual arts coordinator has secured permission for our painters to paint a large mural—the largest mural in the Southern Hemisphere, she says—on one of the wheat silos in town, celebrating the working life of the local farming community. This is a major project, says Polly, a major, major project, and one that has secured the full backing of the local community: the shire believes this mural has the potential to become a major tourist attraction and ultimately to provide significant economic input into the town. Congratulations, Liz, congratulations, painters! All the cups are raised again. It’s getting tedious. The string quartet has got work playing lunchtime concerts at old people’s homes. The writers, she is saying—but I’m not listening—the writers, unfortunately she is saying—I’m undressing her, from the shoulders first, then the zip at the back, peeling it down, her red lace bra, the rib cage and stomach—are proving to be a problem and we as yet, she is saying, have no solution in the short to medium term. I’ve got the dress down to her ankles now, she stands feet together, red bra and knickers—but then all of a sudden everyone is clapping, Polly has stopped speaking, people are filling their cups, everyone is talking, the actors are all getting up from their seats and moving away. The red wine is going straight to my head. I look around: across the table Oscar Wilde and Sylvia Plath are quietly talking, down the table a little way Trish has her arm draped around the neck of the painter with dreadlocks, out over on the edge of the dull yellow circle of candlelight a small dog is crunching a chicken bone that a young child is trying to pull from its mouth. Is that my place, my only place, back there at the drop-down table with Elizabeth Jolley up on the bunk?