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A Caravan Like a Canary

Pantera Presserschienen am01.07.2022
Two road trips. Twenty years apart. Can the memories of a troubled family past finally be put to rest? When Tara Button's mother asks her to drive the bright yellow family caravan from one end of the state to the other, it's her charming but unreliable brother, Zac, who convinces her it's a good idea. Besides, the road trip might keep Zac out of trouble - and that's always been a second job for Tara. Tara doesn't expect Zac's enigmatic friend Danh to come along for the ride. Or the bikies that seem to be following them up the coast ... As they travel along the open road, memories of the Buttons' last trip in the caravan engulf Tara, while a rediscovered love for the wild, glorious ocean chips away at her reserve. When forced to face her past, will Tara find the courage to let go and discover her dreams? Praise for Spring Clean for the Peach Queen: 'This joyous novel truly is a spring clean for the soul' Joanna Nell 'A heart-grabbing Aussie story that doesn't shy away from exploring complex family relationships' Rachael Johns

Sasha Wasley was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. She completed a PhD in feminist literature at Murdoch University in 2006, and went on to work as a copywriter on topics ranging from mine safety to sex therapy. Sasha's debut novel was published in 2015, after which she gave up her copywriting business to pursue her fiction writing career. Sasha is passionate about levelling the playing field for members of the community experiencing disadvantage. She is an Ambassador for the Books in Homes Australia charity which provides books of choice for children in disadvantaged circumstances to keep in their home libraries. Today, she lives and writes in the Perth hills region with her partner and two daughters. A lover of animals, Sasha spends her free time pottering in the garden with her flock of backyard chickens. Sasha is the author of Spring Clean for the Peach Queen (2021) and A Caravan like a Canary (2022).mehr

Produkt

KlappentextTwo road trips. Twenty years apart. Can the memories of a troubled family past finally be put to rest? When Tara Button's mother asks her to drive the bright yellow family caravan from one end of the state to the other, it's her charming but unreliable brother, Zac, who convinces her it's a good idea. Besides, the road trip might keep Zac out of trouble - and that's always been a second job for Tara. Tara doesn't expect Zac's enigmatic friend Danh to come along for the ride. Or the bikies that seem to be following them up the coast ... As they travel along the open road, memories of the Buttons' last trip in the caravan engulf Tara, while a rediscovered love for the wild, glorious ocean chips away at her reserve. When forced to face her past, will Tara find the courage to let go and discover her dreams? Praise for Spring Clean for the Peach Queen: 'This joyous novel truly is a spring clean for the soul' Joanna Nell 'A heart-grabbing Aussie story that doesn't shy away from exploring complex family relationships' Rachael Johns

Sasha Wasley was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. She completed a PhD in feminist literature at Murdoch University in 2006, and went on to work as a copywriter on topics ranging from mine safety to sex therapy. Sasha's debut novel was published in 2015, after which she gave up her copywriting business to pursue her fiction writing career. Sasha is passionate about levelling the playing field for members of the community experiencing disadvantage. She is an Ambassador for the Books in Homes Australia charity which provides books of choice for children in disadvantaged circumstances to keep in their home libraries. Today, she lives and writes in the Perth hills region with her partner and two daughters. A lover of animals, Sasha spends her free time pottering in the garden with her flock of backyard chickens. Sasha is the author of Spring Clean for the Peach Queen (2021) and A Caravan like a Canary (2022).
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9780648987512
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Erscheinungsjahr2022
Erscheinungsdatum01.07.2022
Seiten464 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse2045
Artikel-Nr.11934263
Rubriken
Genre9200

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

CHAPTER 1
Now

It was still there, hidden under a tarpaulin behind the big shed in Nan s sprawling backyard. I dragged off the tarp and pockets of it got caught on metal, tearing clean lines through the plastic weave. By the time I d pulled it away, the tarp was in long blue strips on the ground - shed vestments.

The caravan seemed to loom and wobble before me, almost terrifying in its familiarity - the battered tin of its sides, the rusted tow hook, silver gaffer tape over the broken windows perished and crumbling into glitter on the kikuyu. The paintwork was still yellow but had faded in patches over the years.

The tyres were flat, snails with rubber heads and tails squeezing out on either side of the whorls of the rims. They d have to be replaced if I were to have any chance of towing it up to Elsewhere-

Stop. Never going to happen.

I took a step closer and skipped a heartbeat when something scaly rustled in the grass at my feet. A blue tongue. You want the blue tongues, Nan used to say. If you ve got them in your garden, it means you ve got no snakes. I d thought it was some kind of quantum fact: one cannot exist in the same dimension as the other. This was a male, big-headed and grumpy. He gave me a languorous hiss and waddled away.

Face up against the cracked, taped window, I peered in. The caravan was as yellow inside as out, now: cobwebbed and stained - the kind of filth that can only come from years of mouldering behind a shed, ignored and wilfully forgotten. I bundled up the tarp and tossed it into the shed, then headed back along the side driveway to the front of the house. I prised a key out of a split at the bottom of the timber window frame. Only us Buttons knew about that key.

This house would soon be my home again. I d been managing the tenants for my aunt since she inherited Nan s old place. Aunty Jackie lived in Brisbane and didn t get over to Perth very often. The most recent tenant had vacated two months earlier and there was a glut of rentals in Fosdyke, so it was proving hard to fill at the rate my aunt was asking. No one wanted to live on a barely fenced, sprawling land-parcel with a ramshackle house when they could have a townhouse or apartment this close to the city. Aunty Jackie said she needed the rental money and asked me if I could move in. The lease on my apartment was coming up for renewal, so I gave notice that I d be vacating.

I could never see the front room without picturing Nan s old couch against the wall, lumpy as a body bag, upholstered in brown and orange wool. The adjacent wall, stained with age, was where a low, faux-wood cabinet with sliding glass panels had stood, a classic example of 1970s carpentry. Nan s squat little TV had sat on top, rabbit-ear antennae trying and failing to pick up a good signal for the ABC. I locked the front door behind me and glanced into the kitchen. The tap dripped into the deep sink every six seconds.

In Nan s bedroom, the wall mirror was the only thing of hers that remained - that, and the ancient carpet. It had been a long time since her old dressing table hulked in the dim corner. When Nan was alive, her dressing table had been a clutter of Avon, prescription medications and Fisherman s Friend lozenges for her cough. Zac once stole the packet and ate them all, resulting in a well-deserved bout of diarrhoea.

The mirror showed me my tight expression. I tried to relax the frown off my face and drop my shoulders a notch, then a message pinged through on my phone.


Mum: Tara, is it there?



Me: Yes. It s still here.



Mum: How soon can you bring it up to me?


I lowered myself to the floor, lying back on the carpet, and thought about the yellow caravan.
Age 11

Look at the colour! Yellow like a canary. Our mother was in the frenetic mood of a canary herself - a kind of forced liveliness.

Zac was bouncing around with manic energy, too - but he didn t perform it; he owned it. It s so cool! Where did you get it, Mum? How? What did it cost? He fired questions at her, uninterested in answers. Who brought it over? Who painted it that colour? Does Dad know?

I glanced at our mother. Dad wouldn t know. Dad was in hospital. She didn t meet my eye.

We re taking it on a special journey, she said, hitching Sunny higher on her hip. No school!

Zac gasped in delight - the only things he liked about school were art and sport. I gazed at my mother in alarm.

That s not allowed, I said. Mrs Goerke told us so. You have to go to school or the truant officers come after you.

Not if I give you lessons on the road, she said.

My apprehension deepened. How?

How what, Tara?

How will you give us lessons? You don t know the stuff they teach us.

Mum shot me a little glare, somewhere between offended and not-in-front-of-your-brother. We ll just work through it bit by bit, she said, waving a hand. It s all in your books - Grammar Go and Maths for Fun.

Maths for Life, I corrected.

Anyway, you ll be getting the most amazing education any kid could ask for on the road. We ll stay near beaches and go swimming every day. We ll see sights. You ll be going to the school of life!

When can we go back to real school?

She ignored me and danced Sunny around the outside of the caravan. We re going on the road in a caravan just like a canary, she sang and Sunny burbled, joining in.

Zac wrenched open the door and bounded up the steps. Cool, he called. It s got tiny cupboards everywhere, and little windows like portholes in a ship!

Do you see how the table drops down to make a bed? Mum called back.

There was a thunk, followed by a cranking noise.

What about my friends? I asked.

They ll still be here when we get back.

I wriggled with distress. What about Dad?

Nan will look after Dad and let us know how he s going. There s nothing we can do while he s in this state.

Sunny hates being in the car for a long time, Mum. She ll spew and cry.

She ll be fine.

I stared hard at her, but she ducked through the low doorway after Zac. I heard the sounds of them opening drawers and cupboards, exploring the caravan. The yellow of its sides was so bright I could hardly look at it.

I turned and ran all the way through the front yard, out of our tired little cul-de-sac and across busy Angas Street at its end, to Hyacinth Avenue. Nan s place was number seventeen, and she was in the front yard, watering in her shade house.

I gasped out the words between heaving breaths. Mum s going to take us away in a caravan. For months!

Months? Nan flicked off the hose. When did she say you re coming back?

I don t know. Not for ages. Maybe never. I had no evidence of this but needed Nan to understand the impact of what my mother was doing to me. I don t want to go!

I m sure it s not forever. Nan resumed watering, spraying the hose across the peace lilies. Where d she get the caravan?

I don t know. My breathing was settling but my heart was sinking with Nan s response. It was just there in the driveway when we got home from school. It s bright yellow. She said nothing. Nan. What about school?

Missing a bit of school never harmed an eleven- and an eight-year-old. Life is the greatest teacher of all, they say.

What about Dad?

Her finger wobbled on the trigger of the hose nozzle, making the water dip away momentarily, then resume. A firm shower hit the philodendron with a noise like a tent in a deluge.

Your father s in safe hands. I ll be here to take care of him when he wakes up.

I sank onto the concrete of Nan s front porch. She should have been the first person marching me back home and demanding to know what my mother was thinking, leaving her husband in hospital, taking two schoolchildren and a baby on an unplanned driving holiday. I contemplated a future in a canary-yellow caravan, sleeping on a collapsible table, with my mother attempting to pin Zac down long enough to practise his times tables. I thought about Nikita and Tammy, my two best friends, and how in a few months we were going to be year sevens and rule the school, stepping out of the shadows of our cooler classmates at last. I d been careful not to let anyone at school know about what had happened with Dad. If Tammy and Nikita had somehow found out, from their parents or whatever, they hadn t let on. They were still my friends. It meant everything to me. We already had our posse name: TNT. How could they go into year seven as just TN? How could I go into the world as just T?

Nan was turning the tap off, pipes juddering from the depths of the old house. She gave me a pat on the arm as she came past. Come on, pet. Let s get you...
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