Debra Adelaide - The Household Guide to Dying

For all the years I caught their first scent each spring, I experienced a small stab deep within. A distinct physical ache, and one that always made me feel momentarily emotional, though whether on the verge of tears or shouts or laughter, I could never say. This seasonal feeling was so common I had always registered it unthinkingly. Until now. For I would no longer smell these flowers, and it seemed important to define accurately what the scent meant. And it wasn’t only the freesias. All the spring flowers taunted me in their postcard perfection, as unwelcome as the memory and desire that now encroached on the day. They all seemed to have come out of the dead land, the garden that I once revelled in.

On the desk beside me the phone rang.

Hello?

There was no one at the other end but I sensed a presence. I suspected it was the same person who also hung up after a few rings, before I could answer it.

Hello? I repeated more loudly, but the presence was not to be provoked by shouting. I slammed the phone down. I had no idea who it was. The caller ID function told me it was a private number.

I closed Mr Eliot, more carefully than I otherwise might, adding him to the collection of books on the bedside table. They probably wouldn’t make their way back to the bookshelves in the hall.

Dear Delia

Don has been very good to me, and my husband has neglected me for years for his work. You still didn’t advise if I should bleach my lace tablecloth or not. And as well as the red wine it is smeared with green stains where Don knocked over his avocado and prawn entrée.

Uncertain.

Dear Uncertain

Don, Don, Don. It’s all about Don, isn’t it? And why is it that you are attracted to such clumsy men? I advise you to sever relations with Don and concentrate on your husband. Maybe he works too hard because you are the sort of person who uses lace cloths and makes avocado and prawn cocktails. What were you thinking? It’s not 1975 any more. Of course soaking an antique lace cloth in bleach would be crazy. Try lots of salt, cold water, then hang it out in the sun for a day. Let me know how you go.

By the time it was nearly dark and the families had come and gone in the late afternoon rush with their Happy Meals and movie-deal specials, I felt ready to drive off again.

I’d see if I could find Mitchell. If he was still around he would be at one of three places. The first was the café on the way back to Amethyst. It had a new name, and when I pulled up and saw the sign I assumed it was a facetious one. But when the waiter, dreadlocks flying, rollerbladed to my table with the menu, I understood it really was the Roadkill Café. She explained that they were out of wallaby.

We’ve got python instead, chargrilled. And the specials are rabbit casserole – or rat, if you like. In one movement she yawned slightly and shifted her chewing gum across to the other side of her mouth.

Rat?

Both types. Native and rattus rattus.

Oh.

I wondered if there was a difference. Only in price, she told me, scanning the rest of the room and chewing her gum. The native rat, antechinus, was five dollars more, and it wasn’t written down because Parks and Wildlife might be alerted and even though it was genuine roadkill, guaranteed one hundred per cent fresh…

Look, could you come back in a few minutes?

It had been a long day’s drive, and I had barely eaten, and should have been hungry. But the whole place and menu had changed. It used to be called Mitchell’s café, just like his place in town was Mitchell’s bar, though neither had a sign to explain that. People just knew. But it didn’t surprise me to find a marginal sort of dining experience here, this strange diner that fed its patrons off the very road that brought them to its doors. Amethyst had always been like that. Nothing ever conformed. It was one reason why I chose to stay all those years back.

I studied the menu again, hoping to spot a salad or soup. Apart from the thought of eating any rat, the threat of the Parks and Wildlife department was off-putting. Would they raid the café and confiscate my meal between mouthfuls, prosecute me for eating a national or state emblem? Or worse, a sports mascot? I thought about taking out my mobile phone and turning it on. It had been four days and I expected the message I’d written for Archie and the girls was by now insufficient. I took the phone out of my bag, stared at the blank unlit screen for a few moments, then replaced it. Not yet. Not until I was really there.

The waiter was getting annoyed.

Is Mitchell around? I asked. A foolish question. She was probably two years old when I was last here.

Mitchell? Never heard of him. Steve might know, he’s in charge.

Could you ask him?

Sure. Steve! She yelled so loudly I thought the gum would shoot from her mouth.

A man appeared through the fly strip curtain, wiping what looked like fresh blood from his hands onto a tea towel.

Hi. I was wondering if Mitchell was still around. I used to work for him.

I took over the place from him, Steve said. But that was over ten years ago. Not sure where he is now. I’m from Garnet, back down the highway. But he could still be in that bar in town.

Sure, I said. Thanks.

Are you ready to order yet? the waiter said.

No thanks, I said, getting up. Sorry, I’ve changed my mind.

I passed Lazarus’s Vehicles again. It had barely changed. The same collection of shabby trailers and caravans sitting at angles, having been left by their previous owners without the bricks to prop them up. Peeling reminders of holiday aspirations, plans and dreams that were never realised.

When the bus had dropped me off some twenty years ago, it wasn’t a scheduled stop. The driver had said he couldn’t take me any farther, but that I could get to where I wanted to go if I waited here by the side of the road. Someone would soon drive past and give me a lift for the final few kilometres into town. He’d seemed very confident of that.

I waited for an hour, then, hot and thirsty, started to walk. I eventually came to Lazarus’s yard. He agreed to take me into town when he shut up shop at five. He dropped me at the Kingfisher Boarding House, a block from the main shops and just shabby enough for someone of limited means.

Early the next morning I started looking for Van. Three days later I checked out and returned to Lazarus’s. This time I had a proper look, walking around the whole site, investigating cluttered corners of the yard and peering into vans and trailers I doubt he remembered he had. I spotted the most endearing caravan I had ever seen. A comic book caravan. Curved, aluminium, a dull sky blue. It was perched on tufts of grass amid the graveyard of vehicles, most of them decrepit. This was old, but it looked sound enough.

How much? I asked him.

That? Not much use to you, he said. It won’t travel, not far anyway.

What about into town?

Well. He scratched under his bandanna. There is a caravan and camping park, a few people live there. Some holiday units, a couple of old-timers in vans. A guy called Mitchell runs it.

I’m staying on for a while, I said. I’ll need a place to live.

He looked from me to the caravan, then back to me again.

He’s a decent guy, he said, I reckon he wouldn’t charge you too much to rent a site.

I gazed at the van. The modest curves, the unrelieved shabbiness, the air of simple hope. I asked him again how much, and it was a matter of moments before he told me I could have it for one hundred dollars. I’d be doing him a favour.

I could tow it in for you, he said.

So, that very evening, I had become a caravan owner. For one hundred dollars it was empty, apart from a thin mattress on the bed, but I made do without a blanket or towel until the next day. Inside it was not nearly as dirty as I’d expected, having been shut up tightly for years. The stale air vanished soon after I opened the door and prised apart the doll’s house windows on each side. Over the following weekend I walked into the centre of town and back, gradually stocking up on the essentials, which, I discovered, were few when you stripped life down to the most important things. What I needed, more than anything, were books, and by the time I was ready to have the baby, the second-hand bookshops had supplied enough to line the caravan. It was like living inside a cubby house. Surrounded by books, I felt safe, secure.