Friday, February 7

I found myself on the road early this morning.  Nera's nephew, Brendan is studying in Tasmania at the moment and part of the course is to get practical experience in the field.  Currently, he has a placement at Westbury.  Jamie drops him off there in the morning and collects him again in the afternoon.  This morning he had something else to do so I volunteered to help out.

Brendan is a very pleasant young man but I'm not great with teenagers and have trouble making conversation with them.  Luckily, I could blame the road noise for my 'inabilty' to hear so the trip passed in relative silence.

I'm now back at home, breakfast is finished, and we're waiting for Sandra, the cleaning lady, to arrive.

BETWEEN THE CRACKS                                                              NOVEMBER 4, 2022

‘Are we there yet?’ The plaintive cry came from the back seat where my 8-year-old twins huddled together.  I was starting to worry that they were losing faith in their Dad.  After all, I had promised them a quick trip to the beach where we would pitch our tent and have an idyllic few days enjoying the fresh air, the sun and the sand.  Instead, we were on some remote mountain road, in the dark, groping our way towards our destination.  The weather was appalling: heavy rain and gusty winds threatening to blow the car off to the side of the road.

We had been held up when I had a flat tyre and it seemed to take hours for the RACT man to arrive.  Then the storm came, out of nowhere, it seemed.  We had seen no place on this road where we might sit it out so I had no option but to press on, hoping that there would be no more hitches and that we would eventually reach somewhere inhabited where we could find some shelter.

Through the driving rain, I spotted a sign ahead. As we came closer, I could see that it said ‘Rest Area’ with an arrow pointing to the left.  Without too much thought, I swung the wheel over and tentatively followed the track to a small clearing. I didn’t know what I hoped to find but I suppose the words Rest Area sparked a little glimmer of hope that it might offer some respite from the relentless, howling wind and pouring rain.

I could see the shape of a building ahead and, as we came closer, I could see that it was a simple hut. The rain seemed to ease for a moment and the wind was calmer too so, telling the twins to stay where they were, I stepped out of the car to investigate.  The door of the hut was unlocked and, using my phone to light my way, I stepped inside.  It was clearly a place where travellers might stop to have a picnic, with a fireplace at one end and benches around the walls for seating.  There was a rustic table in the centre of the room and a strong smell of dust and mildew.

It was certainly not luxurious but it was dry and would offer protection from the storm so I thought that it might be sensible to break our journey here, try to get some sleep and hope the weather improved so that we could drive on in the morning.  We had sleeping bags with us, of course, and enough snack food to keep us going. 

Getting our stuff from the car into the hut didn’t take long but I was soaked through before I had finished. However, we were soon safely inside and rolling out our sleeping bags.  I tried to light the fire but the previous occupants had left no twigs nor kindling so I had no success.  No matter, snuggling into our bags would soon warm us up and, no doubt, everything would look better in the morning.

I don’t know what woke me.  Maybe it was a surprising cold draft which came out of nowhere or, perhaps, it was the moaning sound of the wind through the cracks in the walls.  I think I woke first but it wasn’t long afterwards that both of the twins were wide awake too.

“What’s that noise?” Jack asked, grabbing on to his sister for comfort. 

“It’s only the wind,” I said, “Go back to sleep.”

But I worried that it wasn’t just the wind.  The moaning sounds seemed to form words. I could have sworn that I could make out intelligible meaning.

“Who are you?” I thought I could hear. “What are you doing here?”

Jack and Linda were wide awake now and demanding that I tell them what was happening.

“I don’t know,” I said, “But there’s nothing to be afraid of.” 

I didn’t think the children believed me; I must confess I didn’t believe myself.

“We’re just travellers sheltering from the storm,” I said out loud. “We need to rest for a couple of hours and we’ll be gone in the morning.”

I realised that the children would think their father was going mad: talking to a phantom voice, but it seemed to reassure them that I was taking their fears seriously.  They both settled down into their sleeping bags and, before long, they were asleep.  During the night, the storm seemed to abate and I slept too.

The morning dawned bright and calm.  We packed our belongings back into the car and set off to finish our journey.  But, just before I climbed into the driver’s seat, I turned to the front door of the hut and said, “Thank you.”