How to Grow a Family Tree Page 5

  ‘So. How’s life, Sarah?’ he asks.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Clem gets to his feet and paces around the living room. ‘How can she not know your name? We met in kindergarten!’

  ‘It really doesn’t matter. I don’t care.’

  ‘Well, I do!’ He stops pacing and gazes at me. ‘You’re . . . you’re my . . .’ He reddens a bit and reaches up to his neck, like he does when he’s wearing his tie.

  ‘Jeez, Clem. I’m your what?’

  ‘You’re my Price!’ he says, shaking his hands in the air. ‘You’re my Price and she should know that you’re my Price.’

  I blink and type the name of another video into the search bar. ‘Alright.’

  ‘She just . . . I wish . . .’

  ‘What can you do about it, though?’ I ask, looking up from the screen. ‘Like, would sitting down and talking to them about it help, do you think?’

  ‘No. They wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Is there anything else that would help them understand that you want, like, more from them?’

  ‘No. Not that I can think of.’

  ‘Well, then. Who cares?’

  Clem sighs and scratches the back of his head. ‘You know, all the family drama you’ve got going on? Well, you could move in here,’ he says, watching me. His face twists. ‘I don’t think they’d even notice.’

  ***

  Later, when I’m leaving through the back door, I hear someone clearing their throat and swing around to come face to face with Clem’s mum.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, my voice coming out in a sort of squeak.

  ‘You’re always welcome to visit, but I don’t think you should really be here by yourself.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You’re giving him the wrong idea. It’s not fair to him.’

  ‘Huh?’

  She looks at me impatiently. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘I really, really don’t.’

  She gives me a long look and then disappears back inside.

  I stand there for a moment, wondering if she still thinks I’m Sarah or whether she’s realised I’m Stella. I wonder what she means, but it doesn’t really matter. She doesn’t know Clem or me well enough to be right about anything like that. I slowly walk home to Fairyland, kicking loose stones along the footpath as I go.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next morning it’s raining, and Taylor and I can’t find our umbrellas. I figure Mum or Dad must have tossed them before we moved. The whole cabin feels clammy and too small. It’s a relief to step out into the sharp day, even if we are decked out in plastic ponchos.

  ‘If anyone sees me, I’ll die,’ mutters Taylor, putting her earphones in. She’s in a bad mood because the bar fridge died and her favourite yoghurt went off. I never imagined I’d feel nostalgic about our old kitchen. But as I rummage through boxes of groceries for something that could pass for breakfast, I feel a pang of longing for our crooked kitchen cupboards and our noisy, broken fridge. I gaze at our kitchen set-up. At the electric frypan and oven; at the bucket for dishwashing and the boxes of food. I can’t look at it for long. It hurts too much.

  As we’re struggling to get our backpacks on over our ponchos, I notice someone walking past the front of our cabin and accidentally bang my shin against the barbecue that Dad’s set up. ‘It’s Matthew!’

  Taylor looks at me irritably. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s Matthew Clarke!’

  She glances out the plastic window and tenses. ‘So?’

  I crane my neck as he walks past in his wet school uniform with his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look like someone hurrying through somewhere he’s not meant to be. He looks like he belongs, except Matthew Clarke is the last person I would’ve expected to belong at Fairyland Caravan Park.

  ‘Did you have anything to do with him?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ she says quickly. ‘C’mon. We’ll be late.’

  Richard is waiting for us by the gate, wearing a parka and a purple beanie, even though it’s not that cold. ‘River might flood,’ he says, although it’s only drizzling. ‘You going to come to the garden night on Friday?’

  Taylor turns her Discman up loud and speeds up along the footpath towards the bus stop to catch the bus that goes to Ascott.

  ‘The what?’ I say.

  ‘The garden night. We do it once a month. We all meet in the hall and everyone brings a plate, and then we head out and do some gardening. It’s cool.’

  ‘What kind of gardening?’

  ‘Flowers. Herbs. Vegetables, mostly. We grow a lot of food here.’

  I blink. ‘I’ve noticed those red flowers everywhere. And the pink ones.’

  ‘Geraniums. They’re Mum’s favourite. She’s got about ten plants out the front of our place. But, yeah. The garden night – not everyone comes.’ He leans in a bit closer as we walk. ‘Some of the people here are a bit dodgy, you know? They don’t really want to plant potatoes and prune back rosemary. But they generally don’t stay here that long. They just sort of blow in and out, you know?’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘But most of them are great. The people at Fairyland. Muriel knitted me this, see?’ He points up at his beanie. ‘She might knit you guys one, too. She says it helps her arthritis.’

  ‘Ha.’ I clear my throat. ‘Hey, Richard?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Does . . . Matthew Clarke live here?’

  Richard leans in again as we walk. ‘Matthew Clarke from Year Eleven?’

  ‘Well, yeah. There’s only one Matthew at school.’

  ‘Yeah, he lives here.’ Richard’s tone is hushed, as though he’s worried he’ll be overheard. ‘His dad manages the place.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They live in the manager’s house.’ Richard turns his head slightly and I can see a tired-looking weatherboard at the front of the park. I’d simply assumed it was a neighbour’s place, but I see now that there’s no proper fence separating it from the park, just a narrow strip of star pickets, wire and a crooked gate.

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘He normally goes in early,’ Richard says. ‘He used to walk with me. When I first started school and people were . . .’ He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. ‘It was before I had my growth spurt. I was puny, you know?’

  I wince.

  ‘But seeing me with Matthew . . . people backed off. He’s cool, you know?’

  ‘I guess so,’ I say. I’ve never thought of Matthew as being cool. He sort of seems to exist beyond the student hierarchy. But I don’t think I’ve ever really seen anyone mess with him, and I guess, for pre-growth-spurt Richard, that would’ve been about as cool as things get.

  ‘We don’t really see his dad much, but Matthew’s around a lot,’ Richard says.

  I nod and scuff my shoe on the footpath. The rain’s starting to wet my socks.

  ‘I can smell cookies,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, that’ll be me. I was baking this morning.’

  ‘You bake cookies?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Mum and I love baking. Her name’s Zara. We’ve got a proper oven and everything.’

  ‘What’s your mum like?’ I ask.

  He thinks for a moment, and I notice all the worms and snails on the footpath and the way Richard skirts around them and Taylor just marches on up ahead, as though they’re not there.

  ‘She doesn’t like leaving home that much,’ he says eventually. ‘Her English isn’t that great. She reads a lot. She makes jewellery and sells it online – I drop it to the post office for her. She’s really good.’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘He died before we came to Australia.’ Richard’s walking slows down a bit. He clears his throat. ‘Have you ever bought jewellery online? Mum’s got an online store – she’s got the best reviews. People just love what she makes.’

  ***

  I decide that I’m going to help Richard and his mum. They must still be grieving. I’ve
read five books on grief, so I’m well-equipped. I’m prepared. I touch my letter and wonder about my biological mother. She feels like a stranger. My real mum is the one who raised me, the one who cooks meals at the local nursing home. The one who’s managed to keep the four of us together.

  Except she’s not my real mum. We don’t have the same hair or eyes, or even really like doing the same things. There is nothing physical that is binding us, and with the letter pressed into my pocket or down my bra, this suddenly seems to matter.

  I have to tell Mum about the letter. But what’s there to tell if I haven’t even opened it yet? If I can’t tell her what’s in it? Or what I’ve decided to do?

  I think about this through the talks we have in class on safe sex, safe drinking and more self-care, and it’s like all of the pep talks from next year have been crammed into this one week, the last before our final year of school. I think about what comes after and shiver. It seems impossible. I can’t imagine a life without classes with my friends.

  I fiddle with the corner of the envelope until it becomes soft and damp. I can feel Clem watching me. I can always tell when he does, even if I haven’t seen him. My stomach tightens and I know.

  ‘Knowing is always better than not knowing,’ he says, as we shove our way towards our lockers.

  ‘Is it?’ I murmur, but I don’t think that Clem can hear me.

  ***

  The rain eases a little and I swing by the River Pub on my way back to Fairyland. I don’t see Dad, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there. He’s got a bit of a sixth sense about that type of thing. As I walk through Fairyland, I notice all the fairies – statues and stickers on the sides of caravans and propped on the domed tops of lilting metal chimes. Most of them are chipped and faded and it sort of unsettles me, all of them baking and bleached in the Sutherbend sun.

  As I’m walking into the park, an older woman comes out onto the pavings at the front of her cabin and waves at me.

  ‘Lot twelve,’ she says. ‘Come on in. I’ve just put the kettle on.’

  It’s thirty degrees and humid, and the idea of drinking something hot makes me break out into a sweat. I smile and walk up to her verandah.

  ‘You’re tall!’ she says.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’m tall.’

  ‘Nice to see a tall girl owning her height. You’re Stella, right? Judy and Charlie’s kid?’

  ‘One of them,’ I say. I’m not sure how exactly I’m owning my height, but I suppose it might be my inner golden goddess shining through.

  ‘I’m Trisha.’

  ‘Nice place,’ I say, although it’s filled with dark furniture and stacked boxes and makes me feel even more claustrophobic than our cabin does.

  ‘Oh, it’s not mine. I’m just staying here. With a mate. Reg.’

  I can see the unmade double bed in the room behind her.

  ‘Are you and Reg a couple?’ I ask. If Mum could hear me, she’d shake her head and call me rude and obnoxious and a terrible stickybeak, but sometimes I just can’t help it.

  ‘No. Not really.’ She hands me a can of lemonade from the fridge. ‘Too hot for tea, eh? I’m just staying here for a while. We have an agreement.’

  ‘An agreement,’ I echo.

  ‘Not for everyone, but it keeps a roof over my head.’ She smiles. ‘Anyway. You’re probably too young to hear anything about that. You go to school at Sutherbend?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, not entirely sure I understand.

  ‘You enjoy it?’

  ‘Parts of it.’

  She sits back in her chair. ‘Isn’t that always the way?’

  I drink my lemonade and Trisha tells me about the job she’d once had at a university and how much she loves reading and how much she misses having books.

  ‘Well, you could get a job at a bookshop,’ I say.

  ‘No one will hire me. Not now.’

  ‘So? You could . . . volunteer at a library.’

  ‘Volunteer at a library?’

  ‘You know. To be around books. And once you’ve done that for a while, you could get a job.’

  Trisha smiles at me and she’s beautiful, even though she’s really old. ‘You’re sweet, darl,’ she says. ‘You’re very sweet.’

  ‘You can borrow my books if you want. Mum made me give most of them away, but I kept my special ones. They’re self-help books. I like that sort of thing.’

  ‘You don’t say?’

  Once I’ve finished my drink, I stand up. ‘Anyway, I’d better go. It was lovely to meet you and I’ll let you know if I think of any libraries that might be good for volunteering. Thanks for the drink.’

  ‘No worries,’ she says. ‘Take care, darl.’

  I walk slowly to our cabin, peering at all the other ones along the way. It starts to drizzle again. Each cabin is home to someone like Trisha, Richard and Zara. Someone who’d had lots of challenges and who hadn’t read enough self-help books to help them get through. I’m sure I can help the people at Fairyland while I stay here. Maybe I can help them get back on their feet. I smile to myself as I dodge a small child riding an old bike and unzip the door of our annex.

  Taylor looks up. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘That letter you’ve been carrying around.’

  ‘It’s nothing. School report. I’m scared I failed maths.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. You’re pretty terrible at maths.’

  The annex door flaps open and Dad steps in.

  ‘You’re home early,’ he says, looking at the floor so that I’m not sure who he’s talking to.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I ask, something in my voice making him wince.

  ‘I was helping one of the ladies with a leaking window,’ he says, and I see his toolbox, wet with rain, outside the door. I relax a little.

  ‘Wet out there,’ he says. His toolbox was the only thing he kept from his shed.

  ‘Yeah,’ Taylor mutters without looking up.

  ***

  Fairyland is noisier than home. People are always calling out and moving things and revving their cars. We’re closer to other people here than we’d been at our house. Their voices are louder. But we just turn the volume up, same as we did at home. It’s Taylor’s favourite television show, High Life. She’s so thrilled that she’s forgotten to be mad about having to watch it from our new living room in Fairyland.

  Mum frowns at us and puts her bag on the floor by the door. ‘Taylor, I don’t want you walking around the caravan park in that skirt.’

  ‘What skirt?’

  Mum rolls her eyes. ‘Lord give me strength. The one you’re wearing.’

  Taylor looks down at it. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘It’s tiny.’

  ‘It’s a standard netball skirt!’

  ‘And I want you both home before dark.’

  ‘Our curfew’s ten!’

  ‘Your curfew is whenever I say it is. And from now on, it’s whenever the sun goes down.’

  Taylor swears under her breath and I suppose she’ll probably spend most of the summer wearing her netball skirt around the caravan park after dark just to prove a point. Without her self-defence corkscrew. Sometimes the idea of being Taylor is completely exhausting.

  Mum looks closely at Taylor and me and then disappears into the bunkroom. Taylor turns down the volume a bit on the television.

  ‘Where were you when the girls got home?’ we hear Mum demand in a low voice.

  ‘Helping the lady across the road with a leaking window! You can go ask her if you like!’

  ‘I will.’

  Dad sighs. ‘Judy . . .’

  ‘Don’t Judy me.’

  ‘I’m so sick of this.’

  ‘Me too, Charlie,’ says Mum. ‘I’m sick of this, too.’

  Taylor turns the volume of the television up so loud that it makes me jump. A moment later, Mum disappears out the door and we see her going across the gravel road and knocking on the door of the cabin there, her arms wrappe
d tightly around her chest.

  ***

  Taylor wakes me up. It’s still dark and she’s trying to climb out through the window above the bed.

  ‘Taylor, lie down.’

  ‘We need to start baking the bread before the ants come,’ she says patiently.

  ‘I know. But we need to nap first.’

  ‘No! We have to get started!’

  ‘Taylor?’ Mum comes in and sighs. ‘Oh, Taylor. Don’t do that, love. Hop back into bed, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘No! The ants are coming!’

  ‘Okay,’ Mum says. She reaches up and strokes Taylor’s cheeks. ‘Okay.’

  Taylor settles back in bed and goes to sleep. We peer down at her, wondering if she’s going to stay down. ‘She looks pretty out,’ I say.

  Mum yawns. ‘Get me if she starts walking again.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Night, Stella.’

  ‘Night, Mum.’

  ***

  The next morning, Taylor takes too long in the shower and I hammer on the door. Mum’s already gone to work and Dad’s curled up on the top bunk, valiantly pretending to be asleep.

  ‘Taylor!’ My fists are starting to tingle, but I keep pounding and pounding against the vinyl door. ‘Hurry up!’

  ‘You’re so impatient,’ Taylor says when she at last opens the door.

  ‘Are you seriously calling someone else impatient? You?’

  She pushes past me and I grab her arm and pinch her. For a moment, we stare at each other. It’s been years since I’ve pinched Taylor. Finally, she shrugs me off and goes to our bedroom. I have a quick shower and pile my hair into a messy bun.

  On the way out, I poke Dad until his eyes flutter open. ‘You haven’t been sleeping that well, have you?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I can just tell.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You should go sit outside in the sun when you wake up. It helps your sleep cycles.’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘Are you going?’

  ‘Not just yet, Stell.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon! Go on. You’ll be late.’

  As we’re heading out of the annex, Taylor glances at me. ‘Why are you like that?’