Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [40]
She stares back at me blankly. My heart sinks. We're not going back.
'He's my bear!' I shout at her. I want to throw myself on the floor, because all I have in the world is Albert Bear, my dad's old t-shirt and a stupid pinch pot. I stand up fast and the chair falls down behind me.
As I'm heading out the door I hear Will yell out, 'Go, you bastard!'
The gate to the stables is open and I walk through it. Nobody stops me. There's a long shed with alcoves in it. The horses stand there cross-tied. Waiting. Some of them stamp and shake their heads, or nicker, but mostly they just stand there. They're tied there like slaves.
A truck drives along the alleyway and two young men load the horses from the bays into the trucks. The horses are transferred from one little box to another little box.
No wonder they run so fast when the gate opens. They think they're going somewhere.
Bryce Cole knows a caravan park we can stay at for seventy dollars a week. We go over the Anzac Bridge. He can drive us there, but then, he explains, he has 'things to do'.
'Are you dancing tonight?' Will asks, grinning.
Mum doesn't get it.
'Don't ask,' I warn her.
We're heading west. It's common knowledge in my part of the world that the more east and north you live, the better a person you are. That is, until you get to Pittwater. Anywhere north of that and you're a bogan again.
We stop at a supermarket on the way and buy some home-brand canned soup, two-minute noodles, eight apples and a packet of cigarettes. If Mum decides not to take up smoking after all, and we can live on one packet of two-minute noodles a day between us, I'm guessing we can probably stay at the caravan park for about six weeks.
We drive along a winding road that runs through the middle of the park. There are little side roads off it like spokes. They have cheery names such as 'Sunshine Lane' and 'River View Crescent', although there's no river, just a stormwater drain filled with battered shopping trolleys and potential gang violence.
There are some tourists with their own vans, and a few on-site vans similar to the one we're given, but most of the caravans don't look like caravans. They don't have wheels, for starters. They're little boxes with windows. The biggest one is about the same size as the master bedroom in our house. They're called 'relocatable homes' in the brochure from the rotating stand in reception. The brochure also says they have cyclone anchors. Good to know, Toto.
There are no roof spaces. There's not even the possibility of treasure. I can't believe people actually live here. It must be, like, their summer place. Although I don't know why you would want to spend your summers here. Surely you'd want to be near the coast?
We put our stuff in the van. It looks like a shipping container with windows. There's a double bunk up one end, and then the dining table folds away and you can pull out a bed from the seat. It's all upholstered in cheap plasticky fabric as if it's going to be hosed after you've gone. It smells like a car with leather seats that has been in the sun all day.
Will and I go for a walk. Mum sits under the awning and smokes. Nice. Classy.
At least the landscaping is attractive. There are palm trees and hibiscus hedges between each of the cabins. Many of the vans have potted plants and ferns in hangers. Little kids run around in singlets and undies. Old men sit motionless and alone on their verandahs, watching us with suspicious and cloudy eyes. Their televisions roar in the rooms behind them.
This is how Bryce Cole will end up. He'll be in a place like this when he's old, because he didn't have a family and he doesn't save.
There's a pool. It's not much bigger than our pool, and it's way smaller than Jasmina Fitzgibbon's pool, which has this whole cool undercover lap section actually inside the house.
I'm thinking we should camp in her ballroom. They probably wouldn't even notice for a week or so.
We find a laundry with coin-operated washing machines and dryers opposite each other. Next to it there's a games room.