A warm, witty and wise debut touching on mental health, guilt and family ties. Perfect for readers of The Other Side of Beautiful by Kim Lock and The Nocturnals by Frances Whiting.
Sally Jenkins can't seem to catch a break...
Widowed with two children, Sally clings to the only thing still connecting her to her late husband: a bankrupt caravan park with a penchant for blocked toilets.
It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't a new resort opening up nearby, luring away the last of the holiday-makers. And if one more person suggests that she reopen the park's mountain-bike tracks, she will impale them with a plunger. It was riding those dangerous tracks that caused her husband's accident, leaving her in this mess. A mess that includes desperately trying to find the money to send her son to a school that offers everything he needs.
Sally needs to find a way to haul the park back into the black and hold on to her sanity. Then, to make matters worse, her husband's childhood friend Jagger arrives back in town, and the fact he is charming and loved by everyone only annoys Sally further. But Jagger holds a secret of his own that - if revealed - could break this already battered family for good.
Yet Sally can't hide forever, and whether she wants it to be or not, the past isn't finished with her yet...
THIS IS AN UNEDITED SAMPLE
one
‘Yes. Yes, thank you for understanding. Of course … I will make a full refund to your account. I do hope you’ll keep us in mind for your next holiday.’ I smiled into the phone, trying to convey excellent customer service and a fine time to be had at the Mount Mirabella Caravan Park. The woman on the other end was being less than understanding about a gastro outbreak in her booked campsite.
‘Probably not,’ she replied. ‘It was my husband’s idea to drive all the way up there and have a biking holiday. If anything, I’m relieved. Now we can go on a cruise.’
I put the phone down and breathed in deeply, hoping to trigger some nerve or other I’d learned about at yoga. I hadn’t really been listening as Rebecca Johnson—local yoga teacher and President of the Primary School Governing Council and Parents and Friends—had invited a room full of middle-aged women to breathe into their vaginas. There was more immature giggling than vaginal breathing as we flopped around on our mats, trying not to make eye contact.
Deep breathing would have to wait, however, as I looked up to see Casey struggling up the ramp to my transportable office with a gastro-ridden mop and bucket. She was all arms and legs like a newborn foal. I shook my head madly at her as I raced to intercept the customers coming up the front stairs. I hustled them into the air-conditioned office.
A man florid in face and clothing slumped on the counter. ‘We’ve just tried to get into the toilets and it’s shut again.’
‘Was it?’ I feigned innocence. How many holidaymakers did I legally have to tell that three campsites had reported gastro symptoms and were leaving early? Including a single mum of four kids who thought she’d give camping a go for the first time. She was now heading home on a four-hour trip with a carload of wet clothes and buckets for anyone who needed them. I’d slipped a bottle of wine into her hands as she’d left, which she’d gagged at the sight of, but I’d mumbled that I was sure she’d bloody well need it later on.
‘Probably just the cleaners doing a routine check of the facilities. They’ll be finished soon.’ I glanced out the window, only to see Casey vomiting in a bush. She had either been hit with gastro or the cleaning itself was all too much. I’d told her to wear full protective gear, including a visor. ‘We have another toilet block on the other side of the park if you’d like to give that a try?’
‘Oh, yeah? How far away is that?’
‘It’s about five hundred metres from here.’ I pulled out a printed map, ready to give him directions around some of the more scenic parts of our rundown caravan park. The mountain range behind us being the most beautiful.
‘Nah.’ He waved his hand at me, the action making him sweat even more. ‘I’ll just piss in a bush. The problem’s gonna be when I need to drop the kids at the pool, if you get my meaning.’ He raised his bushy eyebrows at me.
‘Yes. I believe I do.’ I gulped. ‘How about a walk through the town? The nearest pub is only four hundred metres away.’ I turned back to the paper map.
‘Now that’s more like it.’ He rubbed his hands together. I sent him waddling away and noticed a large family of waddlers joining him. I figured there was a consequence whether I told them about the gastro and they left or I didn’t tell them and they stayed, it was just which consequence I feared more: losing even more money on ever-decreasing bookings or cleaning the toilets after this camper and his family had taken their time in there? I watched one of the children unwrap an ice block. He let the wrapper fall from his sticky fingers without a thought or even a glance for a bin.
Sitting back down at my desk, I tried the deep breathing again, in through the nose and out through the mouth, but it came out shallow, the type of breathing where you would advise someone to put their head between their knees or breathe into a brown paper bag. Instead, I rested my head in my hands and clicked off the air conditioner with the remote.
I felt the sweat prickling on my skin as the claustrophobic heat clawed its way in. Perhaps if I kept the air conditioning off I would save enough money to tell the fat litterers to go home?
‘Muuuum!’
The screen door clanged and I thought, as I did every time, that I needed to put a new spring in it.
‘What’s up, Clem?’ I turned to her with as much brightness as I could muster.
‘Tricky’s gone! She’s gone!’
I took in my nine-year-old daughter’s tear-stained and sweaty face. She had a smear of dirt and something else across her nose and I noted her Elsa costume would need a wash. A process I was not looking forward to as it always involved tears and screams amid promises it would be ready to wear again in the morning. I’ve been planning to buy a second Elsa costume so we could rotate them. Just another item on the to-do list.
‘We’ve talked about this before, sweetheart. Kids come to the park for a holiday and then they go home. It’s nothing personal.’
We’d had several episodes where Clem would meet her kindred spirit in the form of a child staying at the park but would then become bereft when they had to go home. It was the curse of the caravan-park kid: people never stayed. Clem usually got over her loss when a new kindred spirit turned up but holidaymakers and friends for Clem had been scarce the last few years.
‘Tricky isn’t a kid! She’s a gecko and she’s my best friend!’ she wailed, throwing herself dramatically into my lap.
I kissed the top of her matted hair and thought of another battle I would have on my hands. Hair washing. It would have to be the dress or the hair, both in one night was too much trauma—for both of us.
‘Well, perhaps Tricky is just having a nap. It is a hot day, she might be tired.’ Tricky wasn’t the only one.
‘But she’s getting married today! To Gary! She wouldn’t miss her wedding, would she?’
Sweet Jesus. ‘Can you find Gary?’
She shook her head, her golden curls tumbling, then proceeded to wipe the snot from her nose with the back of her wrist. ‘You think she’s with Gary?’
‘Perhaps the pressure got too much and they ran away together?’ I raised my eyebrows at her, not sure what I was insinuating but hoping it was enough for her imagination to catch hold of.
‘Without me?’ Her bottom lip wobbled again as a fresh disaster washed over her.
I pulled a tissue from the box on my desk and wiped her face and then got another for her to blow her nose.
‘Do you know Daddy and me sort of ran away to get married?’
‘You did?’ Her eyes opened wide. ‘But wasn’t Poppa angry? What about Granny Maz?’
I shook my head, choosing my words carefully, because my dad hadn’t been angry at all as Mark and I had stood uncertainly in his tiny living room. I was introducing Mark for the first time and Mark was apologising for not asking Dad’s permission. Dad had roared with laughter. ‘Sally’s never asked permission for anything in her whole life. Don’t start asking on her account now.’ He’d slapped Mark on the back and shimmied us both down to the local pub, announcing to his handful of mates, with whom he normally only discussed what the odds were for the next race, that his daughter was getting married. The three of us and Dad’s cronies had gotten horribly drunk that afternoon, though Dad’s money had run out on the first round and Mark and I had insisted on buying the next one and several after that.
Mark’s mother, Marian, had been a different story.
‘Poppa and Granny Maz were both happy we’d found someone to love, as I’m sure Tricky’s family are too,’ I said to Clem now, smoothing her hair back from her face.
Where Ned looked very much like Mark, with dark hair and more serious features, Clem was a mix of us both. She had the same white blonde hair I’d had as a child and my blue eyes, but she had Mark’s dark eyebrows and golden skin.
‘Perhaps they’ve just gone to share the news with their families?’
A range of emotions crossed her face, tussling between being upset that her reptile friends hadn’t informed her of their whereabouts and being happy they were with their families.
‘I could fix up their house? Make it nice for when they get back?’
‘That sounds like a lovely idea, but aren’t you meant to be sick?’
Clem shrugged and nipped to the other side of the counter. ‘Ice blocks are helping.’ She rummaged deep in the freezer and pulled out a lemonade one. ‘Gotta go!’
She ran out of the office before I could stop her. Not that I had the energy to. What I wouldn’t give for an ounce of the get-up-and-go that Clem had. That I’d had once upon a time.
I looked at the computer in front of me and felt no inspiration nor any rise in my energy levels. Clicking through the booking system to the next month and the one after that confirmed business was still slow. The way we were going, we’d soon be spending more on running the park than the income we received from holidaymakers. And I couldn’t ignore the missed calls from Oliver Davis for much longer. I wasn’t sure if he was ringing as a friend or a bank manager, but I wasn’t prepared to find out just yet. The last time I’d spoken to him, Oliver had been clear that, as a favour to Mark, he’d stretched things as far as he could but there came a point where it was out of his hands. I’d reached that point about three weeks ago, apparently. He’d come out to tell me that if I didn’t contact the bank with some sort of plan to move forward, they would foreclose.
I sat back and looked at the framed photos above the door. The one of Mark and me standing in front of the park. It was the day we got the keys. We’d been so full of hope at what we were stepping into. But we weren’t fools. We knew it would be tough. Mark was adamant that, between my brains and his brawn, we’d be unstoppable.
Take away the brawn, though, and all you had was a tired brain that couldn’t remember to put her deodorant on. I flapped my arms like a chicken, hoping some air flow might help the situation or at least motivate me to get the caravan park back on its feet.
Looking at the photo more closely, I could see that the park was in a much better state back then. The grass was green, for one, and the sign saying, Mount Mirabella Caravan Park. Your Hosts Sally and Mark Jenkins Welcome You! had a fresh coat of paint on it. I looked out the window at the sign now and felt sad at the state it was in. The paint was peeling to the point it said, Mount Mirabella Cara … Par . Your Ho ts … come You! Not exactly enticing.
The photos next to that showed the evolution of that first day: one of me painting the new cabins with nothing but a sense of belief that if we built it, holidaymakers would come; Mark on a digger as he carved out the first bike tracks that would lead from our park all the way up to the top of Mount Mirabella. I was in the background, watching nervously, heavily pregnant with Ned. There were a few pinned shots of tourists and locals on bikes either at the start of the bike trails around the park or coming back, tired, dusty and grinning. There was even one of the four of us on bikes, Mark with Clem strapped into a toddler seat on the front of his bike, Ned next to him, proud but nervous on a new bike, and me behind them on a bike of my own.
I went around the desk and stood on a chair to get a closer look at the photo. Standing behind my bike, one hand on the handlebars, the other on the seat, my hands in fingerless gloves to stop the calluses I often got while riding, I was smiling at whoever was taking the photo. I knew I would have swung my leg over and headed off after the shot was taken, probably bringing up the rear to keep an eye on Ned. This version of myself, this woman looking back at me with bright eyes and a huge smile on her face, ready to ride off for the day, was unrecognisable. I didn’t miss her. She was a fool. A fool who thought that anything was possible.
1st December 2026