***
The pub isn’t a bad place, really. It smells of grease and beer and old carpets, but it looks out over the river, and from the windows you can’t see the shopping trolleys and old mattresses that are littered along the waterline.
‘Is the manager in?’ I ask the woman behind the bar.
‘Stu!’ she calls, and the manager Taylor had yelled at appears from the kitchen. He’s short and stocky and wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt that makes me blink.
He balks when he sees me. ‘I promise, your dad hasn’t been in here.’
‘No . . . it’s . . .’ I can feel blood flooding to my cheeks. I clear my throat. ‘It’s just that I need a job. Matthew said to ask you about . . . a job.’ I hold out my resumé and don’t look at him.
‘A job, eh?’
‘I’m sorry my sister yelled at you.’
‘No, I get it.’ He takes my resumé and rubs a hand over his chin as he reads it. ‘You haven’t done much.’
‘No.’
‘You any good at washing dishes?’
‘Yes. Extremely.’
‘Good – I need a new dish pig.’
‘A dish pig?’
‘Someone to wash all the dishes. It’s hard, boring work and the chef will probably yell at you.’
‘That’s okay. My sister yells at me. I can deal with yelling.’
He smiles. ‘You can start now if you like? Just a two-hour shift to get familiar with everything. I’ll pay you cash and we’ll take it from there.’
‘Thank you.’
‘That’s alright – Stella, right?’
‘Yes. I’m Stella.’
***
On my way back from the pub, I pause outside Richard’s place. There’s a crowd of people inside and, for a moment, I’m terrified that something has gone wrong. But then I hear a laugh. I move closer, around the pots of geraniums, so that I can see in through the window.
Zara is in the tiny space with a chopping board, a pile of zucchinis and some eggs from the chickens that Cassie keeps out the back of her cabin. She’s showing the group of people how to cook. Richard sees me and slips out the door.
‘You want to come in?’ he asks.
‘What is it?’
‘Oh, Mum.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘She realised that it’s all well and good to have the food around, but it’s not going to help anyone if they don’t know how to cook it. She finds simple recipes in the magazines and stuff – it’s been good for her English, I think. Working them out. And then she shows people how to cook basic meals. It’s zucchini slice today.’
‘Your mum’s pretty special.’
‘Yeah. I know.’
‘Did I miss it?’ a girl who’d left Sutherbend a few years ago asks. She’s got tattoos winding up one arm and dreadlocks knotted away from her face. She bats at a fly and looks hopefully at Richard.
‘Yeah, she’s about to put the tray in.’
The girl swears. She glances at me. ‘You’re Stella, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m Ginny. I hear you bashed up Joshua at Lee’s place the other night?’
Richard raises his eyebrows. ‘She what?’
I roll my eyes. ‘I didn’t bash him.’
‘Heard you got arrested and made out with Matty Clarke.’
‘What? No!’
‘How have I not heard about this?’ Richard asks. ‘Seriously.’
‘I’m going,’ I say. ‘It’s not true and I’m going.’
When I get back to the annex, Taylor is talking to one of her friends in the bedroom and Dad’s sitting in one of the camp chairs. Depressed, I think. I don’t know what to do about Dad being depressed. Gambling is something you just stop doing, but how do you stop being something?
Dad’s hands are shaking. Is he anxious because Taylor’s been following him around? It can’t be great for him, having someone there because they’re scared of what you’re going to do. I think of all the self-help books I’ve read and straighten my back.
Picking up one of the notebooks and pens Mum’s been using to do our household budgets, I turn to a new page, not looking at him.
‘Right,’ I say, my voice uncertain. ‘You must be getting pretty sick of Taylor following you around everywhere.’
‘It’s nice spending time with her,’ he says tonelessly.
‘That’s crap. Anyway, I want to help you. What are your goals?’
He blinks at me with red-rimmed eyes. ‘What?’
‘Your goals.’
‘I don’t know, Stella.’
‘Give up gambling,’ I say, writing down the words on the paper in front of me. ‘You look tired. Are you tired?’
‘Stella . . .’
‘Get more sleep.’ I write down the words. ‘And that’ll help with having more energy.’
He looks at me.
‘Cut down on drinking? You’ve been drinking a lot.’
‘I have one beer a night, Stell.’
‘Still, you can become addicted if you have a drink really regularly like that. I swear I read it in an article once.’ I tap the notebook. ‘So, give up gambling. And find a hobby. Something you love. Something that you love more than the pokies, okay? And maybe if you take on some of the housework? And that’s your thing that you have to do.’
I keep talking, coming up with goals for him and breaking them down into little pieces. Until finally, finally, I run out of words. And Dad and I sit in silence and we don’t look at each other and I know – already, I know – that there is nothing on this list that he will do. That there is nothing, maybe, that he’s capable of.
‘Just pick one thing,’ I say, my voice cracking. ‘Dad? Just pick one thing, okay?’
He closes his eyes and doesn’t speak, and I toss the notebook at him and go down to the river, where it takes a very long time to calm down.
Furious. Helpless. Love.
Because I love my dad. I hate him and I love him and I hadn’t realised until now that those two things could fit so perfectly together.
***
Later that night Taylor wakes me up. She’s moving furniture around in the annex and when I go in there, she tries to shoo me away. ‘It’s all just right! Don’t ruin it before they get here, Stella!’
‘I won’t,’ I say. ‘I promise. Come back to bed, okay? It’s night-time. You need to rest before they get here.’
‘My geese, though.’
‘Oh, I know,’ I say. I tug her towards the bedroom. ‘I know. Your geese.’
I wake up later to the sound of someone drunk and loud and then everything goes quiet again. I think about Fairyland. I think about all the jagged edges of it. How it’s both what I expected and also completely different. How there is sorrow here and desperation. How there is poverty and loneliness and wanting. But there is also community. There is sweetness and compassion and beauty, even if it all needs a bit more direction and action planning.
When I talked to Muriel about other parks she’s lived in, she said that they’re all different; all their own little communities with their own darknesses and their own brightness. She likes Fairyland. She likes the bright parts of it and can live with the dark.