fragment 4

It was a twenty-two foot long Viscount caravan, with an annex and a portable toilet. There were two bedrooms, mine at the front with four bunk beds, and my parents’ at the other end with a double bed and narrow wardrobe. In the middle was the kitchen, with a small fridge (everything was small, scaled-down) and a stove, and a u-shaped seating area with a laminated table in the middle.

We lived in this metal home on the Gold Coast in the late 1970s. The caravan park at Broadbeach had an invasion of large moths in the ablution block, and I was scared of them. Having a shower was not so bad, because they didn’t like the rushing water, but in the toilets they just sat around, waiting for you.

Those grey and white winged creatures seemed like malevolent things that would do me harm. Beating their wings against me, leaving their scrufulous dust on my skin. I would let out a little scream if I managed to get into the toilet and sit down, only to be set upon by a group of them. Not a recipe for good bowel health.

I had a bicycle, and I rode around the ‘streets’ of the park, sometimes for hours. The other residents were a mixture of longtimers, like us, and holidayers. There were other kids, but I didn’t make many friends. Two other younger girls went tadpoling with me one day, but their father found us and turned red with anger. He didn’t say anything to me, just shouted at his daughters.

Two young women once walked through the caravan park wearing only tiny bikinis with g-string bottoms, and high-heeled shoes. I watched them through the front window of our van, and watched the expressions of the other people who passed them. The men turned back to stare, the old women shook their heads.

My mother must have been mortified to be living in a caravan. She was ashamed to live in the old house at Wynnum North, the one at the crossroads between the monastery, the rubbish dump, the oil refinery at Fisherman’s Island, and Nazareth House. But it was a palace compared to the van.

And I remember her speaking of it with affection. Both my parents often spoke of vehicles and other big inanimate objects with love and sympathy, as if they were living. Sometimes I think they found them easier to deal with, less likely to contradict than humans. They once owned a large motor boat called Cressida, and sailed around the English Channel. There were dozens of cars. Strangely though my mother did not drive once we settled in Australia. She said she found it too busy, too dangerous.

My school was across the road from the caravan park, but I would often ride my bicycle anyway. I loved that school, at Palm Beach. The principal was a gentle old man who treated kids with humour and kindness. I fell in love with a boy in my class, which made grade seven my favourite year. He knew I existed, and was very tolerant.

One of our teachers had long red hair and milky white skin. She took the girls for a regular talk about how to respect yourself and keep yourself looking neat and tidy. We always expected that the next talk would be about ‘it’, but it was a long time coming. I can’t even remember whether ‘it’ ever did come, so the talk could have been a disappointment.

There was a boy in our class, a little older than the rest of us, who had long white hair like a rockstar and a chunky body. He was suspended from the school after assaulting a girl in the school grounds. He supposedly pulled her pants down, but I really wasn’t sure what else he did. Someone said he tried to rape her, but what did that mean? I barely knew what any of that meant. I didn’t know who the girl was, and she left the school. The boy came back eventually, and nothing more was said. I could have done with that talk from the teacher, I was so naive.

The milky white skinned teacher then had her hair cut to a bob, and we saw her crying in the classroom one morning, before we were all let in.

Is she crying because her hair is short? someone asked.

Don’t be stupid. It doesn’t hurt to have your hair cut.

We all peered in, wondering.