A Caravan Like a Canary Read online

  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?

  Also by Sasha Wasley

  Spring Clean for the Peach Queen

  Love Song

  True Blue

  Dear Banjo

  And as S.D. Wasley

  The Seventh Series

  The Incorruptibles Series

  For Nanna,

  Your house has appeared in so many of my books because it was

  an anchor of my childhood.

  I have vivid nostalgia for the trembling mirrored wardrobe,

  lumpy fold-out bed mattress, extra minty toothpaste, your

  packets of Quickeze, brown velvet recliner, the expired Vegemite

  jar in the pantry and apricot yoghurt desserts. Thank you for that

  place of security, love and care.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Two Months Later

  Acknowledgements

  Book Club Questions

  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 mot
her 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 home.’

  Now

  The sound of breaking glass woke me. I scrambled to my feet too fast and wobbled while my head span, pinpricks of light appearing in my vision. When they cleared the room was dim. There was a thud, then footsteps.

  Barely breathing, every muscle tense in preparation to defend myself, I crept over to the bedroom door and closed it as softly as possible. The latch shot home, making a loud click. I turned the old key and waited.

  The steps came closer. I snatched up my phone, fumbling to unlock it. The door rattled behind me.

  ‘Police – open up! This is private property.’

  I stopped before entering the third zero on my keypad. ‘Zac?’

  Silence, then a sputter of laughter. ‘Tarz?’

  ‘Christ on a stick.’ I unlocked the door. ‘You dickhead. Did you break a window?’

  My brother was grinning as always. ‘The key was missing. I thought you must be a squatter. Where’s your car?’

  ‘I walked here.’ I pushed past him. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack.’

  ‘What were you doing in Nan’s bedroom?’ Zac followed me. ‘You got a bloke over?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Dumb-arse. And you’re paying for that window.’

  Grinning again, Zac dug in his pocket and pulled out smokes and a lighter.

  ‘Not inside,’ I said. ‘I thought you’d quit?’

  ‘It’s my one vice.’

  Zac went out the front door and lit his cigarette on the verandah, rubbing his thatch of sandy hair. I followed.

  There was still a little daylight outside, the sun dropping off the precipice of the horizon. Zac smoked, watching the sky. His skin had become so tanned over the years that you could hardly tell he’d once had a rash of freckles. He still had the snub nose, though, and a couple of scars – one high on his forehead from a melanoma removal and others from surfing accidents. Or possibly fights.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  He shot me a sidelong glance. ‘Yeah, fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he countered.

  ‘I fell asleep. Knackered from work.’

  ‘No, but why are you at Nan’s place?’ he pressed.

  ‘I’m moving in here,’ I said; then, because he was still waiting, I relented. ‘Mum emailed me.’

  ‘About the caravan?’

  I nodded. ‘You, too?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Zac said. ‘It’s still here, did you know that? Behind the shed.’

  ‘Yes. She wouldn’t let anyone get rid of it but I hoped someone had anyway. I haven’t checked for years.’

  ‘Have you still got your four-wheel drive?’

  I caught my breath. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting I should take it up to her, are you?’

  Zac tucked in his chin in surprise. ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s a clapped-out piece of crap, Zac. And what’s she going to do with it?’

  He chuckled. ‘Maybe she wants to go on a holiday.’

  ‘She can barely leave her bed.’

  ‘Bullshit. She’s much better now.’

  Was this denial or his obstinate idealism? Zac gazed into the dying light, unaware of my stare. A breeze puffed the hair back from his forehead. I softened – he’d hardly changed from when we were kids.

  He met my eyes. ‘Why don’t we go together? Road trip!’

  I shot him a wry smile. ‘Again?’

  Zac granted me a small chuckle. ‘It’ll be good, Tarz. You working at the moment?’

  I didn’t dignify that with a response. I had been working ever since I graduated university at twenty-one. ‘Are you working?’

  ‘In between jobs.’ Zac shot me the grin that always prompted my exasperation. ‘And you’ve always got heaps of leave because you never take a holiday, so it’s perfect timing, huh? It’s meant to be.’

  ‘Meant to be?’ I laughed. ‘More like inconvenient, stressful and probably expensive.’

  But a little part of me fired up at the thought of driving along endless roads lined with wind-blasted coastal scrub and bent ti-trees, with Zac in the passenger seat telling me about the surf. Such an opportunity. Hours and hours of uninterrupted driving time to dig into my brother’s head. I could find out what was really happening in his life – see if any signs of stability or maturity were emerging. A steady girlfriend; an interest in a career; or even a fixed address. I could talk to him properly and work out what he needed to turn things around.

  ‘She’s asked us to do her a favour,’ he said.

  ‘It’s pointless,’ I said. ‘Even if we get it to Elsewhere, what then? Do we leave it at the hospice for Mum? Try to sell it? We’d have to pay someone to take it away!’

  ‘If Mum doesn’t have a plan for it, we’ll take it out the back of Elsewhere and torch it. Bonfire.’ His teeth shone in the low light.

  ‘Not a chance.’ But I calculated my annual leave. I had plenty – certainly enough to drive from the bottom to the top of the country and back again.

  ‘It’ll be fun,’ Zac said. It wasn’t clear if he meant the road trip or torching the caravan.

  I crossed my arms. ‘I don’t want to get done for towing an unsafe load. I’ll go if you can get it roadworthy.’

  Zac’s expression faltered for a moment, then his confidence was back. ‘Easy.’

  ‘I’ve got a friend at work who can tell us what needs doing.’

  ‘A cop friend?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  He didn’t hide his dismay. ‘Cops only look for problems, Tarz.’

  ‘That’s what we need him for.’

  Zac blew smoke away from me and the wind blew it back. Same brand – same smell – as our mother’s cigarettes.

  ‘When y’getting this pig friend over?’ he asked.

  ‘Jesus, Zac. Paul. His name is Paul, and I’ll get him around after work one day this week.’

  ‘Which day?’

  ‘I don’t know. Wednesday, maybe.’

  He nodded and shot me a furtive look which made me wonder why he was probing. Did he want to be there when Paul came over? Maybe he didn’t he trust me to pass on Paul’s honest opinion. Or – Christ – was Zac thinking about bribing Paul? He probably knew there was no way we could get this thing back on the road and figured he could smooth out the registration process …

  ‘You’re not allowed to be here when I bring Paul over,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you what he says afterwards.’