The Days of In Between

by Peter Valentine Fenton

  After Nan went too, those words stayed. But Tara felt torn between doing what she thought was right by her mum, what was right according to her dad, and what was right for her.

  These seemed to be, at times, very different things.

  A tall wall of green bush scrub and piercing light separated the road from the beach, and Toby peered through the car window at the small trails that led onto the sand. Turning onto the unsealed road of the caravan park, the gravel crunching under the wheels, Dad edged the car into the small parking space next to their van. He let out a long breath. ‘Well, here we are.’

  Toby excitedly prised his bare legs from where they had stuck to the hot car seat.

  His stepmum slowly lifted her head off the side window, having rolled up her woollen poncho as an impromptu pillow.

  ‘Hey, Jude. Did you have a nice sleep?’

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Well, we are here,’ his dad replied, gesturing proudly at the van beside them.

  Toby was unbuckling his seatbelt and gathering his puzzle books when he noticed that Judy was staring straight ahead, not moving beyond a small shake of her head.

  Finally she said, ‘We are really staying in a caravan?’

  Dad had taken the keys from the ignition and was in the throes of pulling on the door handle to get out of the car but this stopped him. He and Judy looked at each other for a moment.

  ‘Yeeesss,’ he said slowly. ‘Where did you think we were staying?’

  Judy made a sound that could possibly be described as a small unusual laugh. ‘I ... I thought you were Joking!’

  His dad glanced behind him to the back seat, and raised his eyebrows. ‘Toby ... you want to move the boat and open up the van for us?’ he asked, passing over the keys. ‘We’ll be in ... ah ... in a tic.’

  Toby leapt to his dad’s aid, eager to escape the awkward moment. ‘Yep, sure thing, Skipper,’ he said, in the most upbeat way he could.

  He was thankful to be out of the car even in normal circumstances, but this made his exit all the more welcome. He moved the small aluminium boat they called ‘the tinny’ aside, and unzipped the plastic door of the striped vinyl annex attached to the side of the van and began rolling it up.

  He made his way through a curtain of coloured plastic ribbons, unlocking the door to the caravan itself, pulling it back and latching it open. He then repeated the unzipping process with the three windows of dark nylon mesh.

  He could hear Dad and Judy’s voices getting louder.

  ‘But you said you loved the coast.’

  ‘The coast, yes, but a caravan? You said you had a holiday house and boat down here.’

  ‘A “place” I said.’

  ‘Some place, Brian!’ Judy protested. ‘It’s a hole.’

  Toby felt his eyes narrow at that. This spot was his favourite place and his family had been coming down here for as long as he could remember. He didn’t understand how you could not like it. He looked around him. A dog-eared map sat atop their trusty picnic basket that had served their family on countless occasions. The fishing rods, a small outboard boat motor and surf mats ready by the door spoke immediately of all the times when Dad couldn’t wait to take Toby and his siblings to the beach to show them how best to catch a wave, and of Danny’s over-eager proposals for early morning fishing trips.

  There were other families that had vans there permanently, and familiar faces that always said hello when he would make his way through the park. Sure, the locals mostly stuck to themselves and that’s the way it had always been, but on the whole Toby loved nearly everything about it. He wondered that if maybe Judy gave the little place a chance, then soon she would see just how magical it was.

  Toby turned to see his dad carrying his bag into the annex. He slowly placed it beside the bunk bed, looking at Toby.

  ‘Mate, small hiccup ... I’m just taking Jude down to the club for a quick bite.’ His face was red. He took out his wallet and handed Toby a two-dollar note, clearing his throat. ‘Won’t be long. Grab something to eat and we’ll catch up in a bit? Sorry, mate.’

  Toby looked at his dad, unsure of how he felt. He’d been looking forward to getting here, but now there was trouble before they had even got out of the car.

  He decided to make the best of it. After all, he had some money, he was finally where he wanted to be, and there was still a half a day in front of him. In an instant, he knew exactly where he was heading.

  Toby pushed through the battered flyscreen door of Frankie’s fish and chip shop. An attached bell announced his arrival, its clear ding bouncing off the faded yellow lino floor. Toby could feel a thin layer of sand under his feet, brought in during the lunchtime rush of surfers, fishermen and hungry holidaymakers.

  A boy in cotton shorts and worn singlet played the pinball machine, his carton of flavoured milk shaking as he pounded the flipper buttons, mumbling under his breath as he occasionally jolted into the game with his hips. He turned and looked at Toby, lifting his head slightly with the now familiar askance look that local kids gave to those arrived for the holidays. As his eyes made their way up and down Toby’s magpie towel, he gave him a small, snarling, smile.

  In the corner, opposite the drink fridge, sat an arcade game that Toby had never seen before. A spaceship, he thought, disguised as a table. But before he could look further, the shop owner, Frankie, appeared – an energetic and friendly man with Elvis Presley styled hair. He was carrying a crate of tall soft drink bottles, his arms straining, the bottles jangling against his once white t-shirt.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, noticing Toby as he lowered the wooden crate to the ground. ‘My young friend is back! Good afternoon to you.’ His accent was sing-song, and exotic, from another place across the seas. Toby had always liked the way it sounded musical.

  Toby grinned. ‘Hi.’

  Frankie beamed back. ‘Just a moment, I will get someone to serve you. Spiros! Angela?’

  He gestured to the spaceship-shaped table. ‘Here, did you see the new game? Space Invaders. You can sit-ta down to play and now somewhere even for the young gentleman’s milkshake! I will let-ta you play for free! First day special for you, for making you wait.’

  He opened the machine’s coin slot with a key selected from a large array that he pulled from his pocket, and hit a small lever twice.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Toby, eager to start playing.

  No one had yet appeared at the counter. ‘It looks like I will serv-a you myself,’ Frank said. ‘What can I get you?’

  Toby looked up at the menu, the prices in chalk on a large blackboard. ‘Can I get three potato scallops and a pineapple fritter, please?’

  Toby sat on the orange plastic stool, the shape of an hourglass, and hit the start button, slowly working out the controls, a knob to shift left and right, and a firing button.

  He was easily immersed in the game and its strange new electronic sounds. He picked up his skills pretty quickly, firing at the lowering wall of aliens moving together as a wall of invaders. The game grew faster as the aliens came closer; it made his tummy tight to fight. A rumble of bass sounds increased in both volume and pace in time as the marching gremlin army descended upon his laser cannon. He became so engrossed he forgot to breathe as he tried to hide, zig-zagging back and forth behind the small safe fortresses and then, as quickly as he could, moving out into the open to fire off his available and rapidly dwindling ammunition. It seemed like no time at all had passed until he had used up his available lives and the words GAME OVER appeared on the screen.

  He felt someone close by and looked up to see Angela’s smiling face. She was holding a delicious-smelling parcel wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper.

  ‘Oh,’ he laughed, ‘I almost forgot.’

  ‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘You were enjoying yourself.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, nodding excitedly.

  ‘That’s one dollar thirty, thank you, darling.’

  Toby reached into his pocket
and carefully unfolded the note his dad had given him as he left the caravan, and passed it to her. ‘Oh, and I might get a can of Fanta too, please.’

  With the warm parcel in one hand, and a cold can in the other, Toby headed back out the screen door and across the unmarked, roughly tarred road towards the beach, the ding of the shop bell fading somewhere between the clouds and the sun.

  Standing at the water’s edge, Toby fixed his eyes on the horizon, trying to locate the exact place that generated the waves that rolled towards the shore, as if the ocean had a big blue heart.

  He recalled that his dad had taken great care to teach him how to read the beach and spot the fast-moving channels that signalled the presence of a rip with the potential to carry you out beyond the breakers.

  A wave crashed around him, then slowed and reversed with a power that sucked his feet into the sand. He watched, hypnotised, as the water rushed about his ankles in a whirl of sand and froth. He kept his eyes open for bluebottles with their ominous tentacles that floated, small and electric blue among the crash and watery tumble of every wave. He was all too aware of the sting they could inflict, although it was Danny who always seemed to attract their silent yet painful kisses.

  Toby turned once more to protect his sandcastle. It had taken him most of the afternoon to build it, and he had been intrigued by how the sand became wetter and darker, the deeper he dug. Its elaborate towers and moat had caught the admiring eye of all who strolled past; an older man had said as he went by, ‘If you keep digging, son, you might end up in China!’

  He had thought a long time about that. Was there some truth to what the old man said? He had traced the curious shape of the Australian mainland, which he had always thought looked like a giant clawless crab, in the sand. He tried to picture the globe that his father had given him, and what could possibly be on the other side of the sphere. It couldn’t be China ... but where was it? Was it North America? His mind had drawn a blank and that made him blush with a tinge of embarrassment.

  Suddenly he was startled by swarming water from an encroaching wave. He dug into the sand to ward off the invading sea, clenching down with all his might. He held. And he held.

  The water drew back from underneath him and he watched with wide eyes as families jumped to their feet dragging their half-soaked towels, with children racing to rescue their inflatable mats and foam surfboards that the ocean was claiming as its own.

  Nearby, another child was on her feet, furious at the destruction of her castles, which had been reduced to mere mounds. Toby watched as she eventually dropped to her knees in sandy defeat.

  Now the waves, in what seemed to Toby to be an apparent display of frustration of not being able to reach the heart of the land, were returning with even more force. He kicked at the running tide as the surging water shrunk into tiny fragments, exploding on the underside of his feet.

  He became aware of even more water flying around him. The girl had joined in, kicking alongside him, and spray and mist filled the air until finally, the sea receded.

  ‘Now stay back!’ Toby shouted at the sea.

  ‘Or sharks will eat your foamy head!’ the girl shouted to the abruptly tamed water. The two of them laughed, their skin covered with a thousand grains of sand, as old as time itself.

  She stamped her feet, sending a liquid spear in his direction, her damp, bright copper hair, flailing around her extremely pale skin. After his initial surprise, Toby returned the watery fire, pumping his legs in a mad summer dance.

  He turned and leapt towards his sandcastle, landing feet first into his freshly dug hole, where he crouched in its protective hug. He caught his breath and tried to calm himself to get the strategic edge. His fingers dug beside his water-wrinkled feet to the bottom of the hole and he scooped up two firm handfuls of beach mud pie. He counted down, three, two, one and grinning, launched himself up ready to propel these soft grenades. Poised, his eyes darted among the colour of the fluttering flags and beach umbrellas, searching for their target.

  Eventually his shoulders fell and his arms slowly dropped as it dawned on him.

  She had gone.

  As Tara hurried towards home, her eyes sailed over the tiny collection of streets and buildings nestled between the trees and the smiling arc of the golden sandy beach, and across from the lookout on top of the mountain to the mouth of the nearby river.

  If she could have, she would have slowed down to enjoy the view longer, but she knew she had to reach home before her dad did.

  Tara wasn’t sure if her dad and her brother felt trapped in the small town. Her dad had left here once before, as soon as he finished school, but for Tara, this was where her future lay. The main street, its small strip of shops, had all she could wish for. A bakery, the newsagency, a small supermarket and a magnificent milk bar.

  She had ducked in to Frankie’s on the way back from the beach, to collect some fish and chips to place in the oven, which would both justify her unauthorised absence from the house and pacify her father and brother upon their hungry, and often sullen, return home.

  She couldn’t understand the way her father, or her brother, had changed since they had come here. She had watched as they became closer – in temperament, though not in affection. They were now almost identical in nature, like the same person but at different ages.

  Dad had become angrier and was quick to point out how things had gone against him. She noticed that he always looked downwards, his jaw clenched like he was biting down hard on something, avoiding the gaze of anyone who might pass.

  Tara was the opposite. She needed to see the eyes of people as they went about their business, their quiet looks of kindness as they nodded a hello. She liked to be present and engaged in what was going on around her.

  At other times, though, this wasn’t true. Her brother would break free of his usual silence to tease her for being a daydreamer. ‘Lost in the la la,’ he would jibe. ‘Just like your mother,’ her dad would say under his breath, his tone accusing and regretful.

  Sometimes at school Tara would look out the window, her classmates giggling as her teacher called her name over and over, while Tara got lost in what lay beyond, or in her memories.

  She longed so much to talk of her mum, but these thoughts remained trapped in an unspoken world of her own. Every time she tried to share a reminiscence with her father and brother, her words were met with the type of strained anger and silence that she grew to dread, if only for its predictable and distressing familiarity.

  She’d learnt to keep her recollections to herself: how Mum taught her how to make the bed and sail as high as the sky on a swing; the sketches she’d drawn of Tara and their garden; how they had found a cocoon and waited impatiently together for its shy resident to slowly and amazingly emerge; and, most of all, how she and Mum had loved to wander. ‘What shall we do?’ Mum would ask. ‘I reckon we just follow our noses?’ Tara would answer and they would walk together, along the beach, and up the nearby hills to pick some berries, or they’d just sit and stare and talk or lie together in silence watching the sky through the leaves of the trees.

  One day as they walked up the mountain, rain had appeared from virtually nowhere, and they’d danced through it, happily shouting, ‘sun showers are the best!’ Then, when the rain grew stronger, they’d sheltered with shining eyes and hair so wet it clung to their faces, in their own secret cave, hidden right underneath the mountain top.

  Remembering these simple, joy-filled episodes made Tara smile yet it made her heart do a little cough too. She knew it was the sadness that she kept shut tight in a little locket inside her. But sometimes her heart coughed so much she thought it might erupt.

  Toby arrived back at the caravan late in the afternoon, past the still vacant vans and campsites that would slowly fill over the next few days leading up to New Year’s Eve. He was looking forward to both new faces and the familiar ones trickling in.

  Pushing through the plastic ribbons, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, h
e could see the door to the van was open so, kicking off his thongs, he tentatively headed up. Feeling the sand that had stuck to his feet rub off on the corrugated fold-out steps, he looked down to see that he had already left a sandy trail. Guessing that was something that was sure to annoy Judy, he retreated back down the steps and deftly brushed the sand with one hand into his other cupped and waiting hand and released it onto the grass outside.

  Inside his dad was reading a newspaper and slowly sipping on a beer as Judy played solitaire at the table. The table could fold down into a bed, and was where Emily always slept. Overhead was a cupboard with a sliding opaque glass door of rich orange that housed various rainy day favourite games like Monopoly, Scrabble, Barrel of Monkeys, pick-up sticks and the small plastic knuckles that Mum loved showing them how to play with.

  He noticed that Judy had not moved her overnight bag into the master bedroom at the end of the van and their silence told Toby that things remained icy. Toby remembered how, whenever things got strained between his parents, his dad would retreat to his workshop shed until Mum ‘came around’, as he put it. Though, Toby wondered, wouldn’t Judy know this about him, being a counsellor? Dad had once been her patient, after all. Toby wondered if her urgent shuffling and dealing of the playing cards was her way of ‘smoking him out’ of his tumbleweed exile.

  His dad remained almost motionless, his stillness punctuated by the sound of the newspaper page turning and the occasional clearing of his throat. It was as if they had conjured a magic fortress out of the cool air between them. Toby felt he was draped in a seemingly invisible cloak, as neither his dad, nor Judy, had yet acknowledged his entrance into the van.

  Toby decided to break the spell.