Red Dirt Odyssey: Sometimes you have to leave to find yourself

By Kath Engebretson

The campervan sits in the driveway, waiting for jaded academic Alice and her husband Will to retire and hit the road…any day now.

But when Will suddenly dies, Alice is lost. Unhappy at work and with her future plans thwarted, she rises daily, putting one foot in front of the other; existing, not living. Until one day, when she climbs into the campervan and decides to go alone. Escaping her city life, Alice heads across the Nullabor, taking the odd job as it comes along and meeting a colorful cast of characters who will change the way she views the world.

Red Dirt Odyssey is a reminder that life can change in a moment. An exploration of contemporary Australian life, loss and loneliness, friendship and renewal, risk and adventure, it is a powerful narrative set against the dramatic landscapes of coastal Australia and the Outback.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Feb 2, 2022
• ISBN: 4824112508

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

If you had been in Smith Street, Collingwood during the lunch time rush on a certain wet Friday in May, and if you had glanced through the window of one of the cafés that line that street, you may have seen me at a back table. I was the sixtyish, bookish-looking woman with reading glasses propped on her nose, laptop open and a cold cup of coffee at her elbow. As you dodged prams swathed in plastic and sauntering youths on school excursions, you might have briefly reflected on the incongruity of such a person sitting at the back of a bohemian café called ‘Howl at the Moon.’

The truth is that I was hiding. I was doing a lot of hiding at that time of my life.

I had taken to hiding in cafés for an hour or so in the middle of every working day. I was a professor at a nearby university, specialising in the history and philosophy of religions, but after almost twenty years in that career, I now mostly wanted to hide.

I hid from the university, where education had become a purchasable commodity, resulting is such a sense of entitlement on the part of students that every academic’s time was now public property.

I hid from the relentless need to publish. There had been a time when I seemed to pour out academic papers and books. Words tumbled and fell glistening on to the page. Whole arguments formed in my mind, so I had to type in a frenzy to get them down. Now my academic writing was like tearing out small chunks of hair or being stuck in a mire of squelchy mud.

I hid from the escalation of the workload, from too many doctoral students, from the dissatisfaction and cares of colleagues, and from the horrible annual performance review where every second of one’s academic life was on trial.

On this particular Friday, it was time to pack up my laptop, pay for my coffee, and make the five-minute trip back to my office, but I lingered. In the small, anonymous community of this scruffy café, I felt secluded and safe. I wanted to sit with the hippie couple and their curly-haired little girl who were sharing alfalfa and spinach wraps at a table to my left. I wanted to interrupt the conversation of the gay couple at another table and ask them their plans for the afternoon. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to.

Returning to work, I found the usual twenty or so emails and phone messages more urgently delivered than required. I took part in a teleconference about new ethics guidelines for research and reviewed a paper that had been sent to me for assessment by an academic journal. As I read and made notes about the paper, it occurred to me—not for the first time—that the world would not change, even microscopically, with the publication of this and similar papers. The papers I had written that sat pompously on my CV had not improved anyone’s life even for a second. I longed for someone to read something I had written and to breathe out saying ‘Yes, that’s it. That’s how it is.’ Then they would record my words in a diary and return to them a few days or a week later with the same glint of recognition.

At five p.m., I sent a text to my husband, Will, to tell him I was leaving. I locked my office and, still hiding, made my way to the car park without having to stop for a conversation with a colleague or student. After twenty minutes on the Tullamarine freeway, windscreen wipers losing their battle with the rain, I pulled into our driveway and slumped back against the seat. Another week was over. Will had put the veranda light on and it pierced through the rain, a promise of welcome and warmth.

Locking the car, I stepped up onto the veranda and went into the house, calling out to Will. There was no answer—perhaps he was in the garden, but why, in this rain? I could smell a curry simmering on the stove, and I saw that, as usual, Will had cleaned the kitchen after cooking so it was immaculate. The gas fire made a realistic show of logs in the family room, the blinds were drawn, and the evening news was quietly stirring the silence.

‘Will, where are you?’

He was sprawled across the kitchen floor, corpse-white, eyes staring in death.

I didn’t scream or sob, not then. I sat with Will’s body on the cold floor, holding his hand, stroking his face. Time stopped. Sometimes, I spoke quiet words of love to him, but mostly, I was silent. I wanted this last time alone with him without intrusion. Finally, I rose stiffly and reached for my phone.

We had known about Will’s enlarged heart since it had showed in a routine angiogram upon his retirement, eight years before. We had become complacent, because in every other way, he was healthy and active, mentally and physically. He played golf daily, was a member of a chess club, had a wide circle of friends, and loved to tell improbable stories about his childhood to his wide-eyed grandsons. Now, on that wet Friday, the heart of my beloved husband of almost forty years had stopped.

The events of the next few weeks became a series of half-remembered, ghostly images flitting across my mind, bringing butterfly flutters of nausea. There was the image of paramedics bending over Will’s lifeless body; the shallow stain of blood on the floor from where his head had hit the corner of the kitchen bench; the bulk of the stretcher that carried him to the ambulance; the frightened faces of our adult children when they met me at the hospital; the endless telephone calls, the funeral arrangements, and unanswerable questions from well-meaning family and friends about my future plans.

But plans had to be made, and some order brought to Will’s idiosyncratic accounting. A visit to the bank allowed me to consolidate Will’s accounts and to have his remaining superannuation funds merged with mine. Finally, I rang our solicitor.

‘It’s quite straightforward, Alice. Will’s whole estate goes to you, and after your death, to the children and grandchildren.’

That was it, then. I put down my phone, feeling lost and empty. With a cup of coffee, I wandered out to the veranda to stare at the wet garden. Winter in Melbourne had always depressed me. I was alone. As if to mock me, the sleek new campervan that Will and I had bought with such hope and excitement two months before sat under its cover in the shed. We had planned a trip across the Nullarbor and into Western Australia at the end of the year. People would advise me to sell it now, but like many other decisions, that one could wait.

I didn’t return to work. I took accumulated leave and finally resigned when there was no leave left. With relief, I closed my work email account, donated my academic books to the university library, and, carrying a small box of personal items, closed my office door for the last time.

For the first three months, grief was like a tidal wave. It flooded every moment, bringing its flotsam of memories and regrets. It made me scream and howl and beat my hands against surfaces as if to blame them for my loss. It made me bloated with anger, hating everyone who went on living, talking, laughing, reading, oblivious to my pain. I was amazed that the people I brushed against—the postman, the post office worker, the woman at the check-out at the supermarket—couldn’t see that my heart had been squeezed dry. I stopped answering my phone, throwing it away from me when it rang. I hid again, this time in my home. Food was eaten standing at the open refrigerator door: a stale slice of bread; a piece of cheese; cold, greasy take-away. My freezer was stuffed with gifts of pies and stews, but I couldn’t touch any of it. To sit down and eat would have been to admit that life was going on without him.

Of course, as it does, the grief subsided until it was background noise. Sometimes, when I forgot, it would catch me in the belly with a visceral pain, as if my entrails were being tied in knots. Then the present moment would intrude, and I would be back doing a mundane task, in a conversation with one of our children, or caring for a grandchild.

During the six months after Will’s death, the dismal Melbourne weather turned to spring and then to summer. Light poured into the big family room windows of my home, and the garden, covered now in weeds, cried out for attention. I have always loved summer and the sun seemed to permeate the ache in my bones. I could weep quietly for Will now without howling with pain and rage, wallowing in hurt. I was sixty-four, healthy and energetic, and there were perhaps twenty or even thirty years ahead for me. The campervan still called to me from its place in the shed.

Slowly, people and events began to pull me back. Our son and daughter, both also grieving, needed me, as did our small grandchildren. Some faithful friends kept calling and asking to meet, and although I hated those dinners and coffees without Will, I didn’t want to hurt the people who offered their friendship despite my withdrawal. I made wooden conversation, and when they asked how I was, I didn’t know what to say. I wasn't anything—I was empty. At least I was sitting across a table, my hair was brushed, and I had even begun to wear a little make-up again. I tried to pretend that I cared whether the restaurant was Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, or any of Melbourne’s other ethnic varieties. I tried to show interest in our friends’ lives, work, and travels, and I tried not to cry when they mentioned Will’s name.

I sat through dinner parties where holidays were planned or raked over. I pretended to show interest in caravan versus motorhome, versus tent, train, or overseas travel. I admired the photographs with the appropriate noises, but my heart wasn’t in it. I remembered the plans Will and I had made to travel in our campervan. I supposed I would have to put those plans aside now.

Yet, something in me longed to run away, perhaps to find a new Alice, one who could be comfortable with her aloneness, one who might again find buried dimensions of her interior life. I began thinking about the childhood camping trips with Mum and Dad and my brother and sister. There was the trip around the coast into South Australia, the three of us side by side in a tent, talking softly while Mum and Dad slept in their home-built caravan. There was the winter trip through the Snowy Mountains, where my sister and I discovered the local boys, and where I had my first teenage romance. There were the many trips into the dry Victorian Mallee region, where our parents had family and friends. The images fell through my mind like an old-fashioned slide show.

Soon, my day-dreaming became more focused and I found myself often sitting in the motorhome, admiring its compact design, reading the instruction manual, imagining myself driving it out of my street and neighbourhood onto the highway. We had bought it for the two of us, but really, it was the perfect size for one. As I trawled through websites that advertised camping sites and caravan parks, I imagined myself living in the van. It was shiny, clean, and solid; only six metres long and just high enough to stand in. It had a compact kitchen, a tiny shower and chemical toilet, lots of storage space for such a small vehicle, a collapsible table and chairs, a couch, and a bed that could be used as a single or double. It was a diminutive home, designed with genius.

One day, after a spell of daydreaming from inside the van, I stepped out as my neighbour passed the front gate with his dog. He stopped to talk.

‘Nice unit, love.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Are you thinking of selling it?’

‘No, I’m thinking of going away in it.’

Where did that come from?

He looked at me, surprised.

‘Where to?’

‘Outback somewhere. I haven’t decided.’

‘You’ll want to take your time and be careful. A lady alone. Let me know if there’s anything I can do, you know, to help you with the mechanics and that kind of thing.’

I smiled and thanked him. He didn’t mean to be patronising.

Later that afternoon, I took my campervan for a drive, around the neighbourhood first, then up the Hume Freeway as far as Seymour. It was light and smooth, easy to manoeuvre. I sat high in the driver’s seat and looked out at the world.

Yes, I could do this.

CHAPTER 2

I’ve always been a list-maker, and over the next week I made lists of clothing, kitchenware, linen, towels, non-perishable food, and equipment for cooking and eating outdoors. I bought several books about travelling around Australia. When I thought my lists were complete, I began to fill the van, crossing off items as I packed them. If I remembered an item that wasn’t on one of my lists, I added it anyway, and then crossed it off.

Finally, the drawers were jammed with clothes and toiletries. The kitchen had enough equipment for me to set up a restaurant in the Outback! The pantry was stacked with every possible tin or packet of fruit, vegetables, long-life milk, and soup that any traveller could want. I had an outdoor stove, a small barbeque, two chairs, and a fold-up table squeezed into the enclosure under the floor of the van.

All that was left was to tell my children that soon I would be traveling with no definite route and no timeline. I had decided against disclosing my plans to my siblings and the friends that Will and I had known together. I would send a detailed email from a new address when I was on the road. I didn’t want any curious phone calls before I left.

The first opportunity to break the news to my children came when my son arrived for Sunday lunch. Thirty years ago, when he was born, I had named him Siddhartha. I was intrigued with Buddhism at the time, and perhaps hoped he would be meditative and reflective like his namesake, the Indian prince who reached enlightenment to become the Buddha. As always, Will acquiesced to my whim, but insisted that we shorten the name to Sid.

Sid grew up to be nothing like the great spiritual teacher. He was loud, boisterous, extroverted, and funny, passionate about his friends and family, and scornful of hypocrisy. He read little but talked a lot, and his opinions on current affairs and social issues reflected those of the radio shock jocks whose voices filled his Ute. He’d been a troubled teenager, losing then re-gaining his plumbing apprenticeship a number of times. He’d left home early and lived in filthy share houses with his constantly stoned friends, until one day a new employer must have seen some potential in the untidy boy. Instead of sacking Sid as others had, he told him the rules quietly and without embellishment. To our amazement, Sid responded with respect, and began to change his work habits. The employer became his mentor and the two developed a working relationship that had continued long past those difficult years.

Now Sid had his own plumbing business, and a pregnant wife, Celine, whom he adored. Through those teenage years, Will and I had supported him, finding him places to live, buying him food, and interceding with employers on his behalf. Sid liked to tell people that he would be in jail or dead if it weren’t for us.

Celine, a chef in a busy restaurant in the city, was working all day and Sid was in my kitchen. It was a week before Christmas, the day was steamy, and I had opened the glass doors that led from the adjacent family room on to the veranda. I could see two red wattlebirds foraging in a bottle brush and sparrows splashing in the birdbath. We stood in the kitchen talking, as the memory of Will’s body being carried from there by paramedics haunted the air. Neither of us spoke of it.

Sid propped open the refrigerator door with his hip, his tattooed arm reaching for a beer. ‘What are you going to do with the campervan, Mum? Can Celine and I buy it from you?’

‘No, I don’t want to sell it.’ I concentrated on taking a roast chicken from the oven, trying to pretend I wasn’t nervous about this conversation.

‘Okay, what are you going to do with it?’

‘I’m going on a road trip in it.’

‘What? Can you even drive it?’

‘Of course, I can drive it. I was driving cars before you were born, and this isn’t much bigger than a car.’

‘Well, at least talk to me before you go anywhere in it,’ he demanded.

‘Darling, it’s a bit late for that. I’m going away in it on New Year’s Day.’

Sid was puzzled. ‘Geez, Mum, you’ve never done anything like this before. What’s got into you? Where are you going?’

‘Across the Nullarbor first, then I’ll make plans from there.’

I put the chicken on a tray, covered it with a tea towel, and turned the roast potatoes. I wished Will was here; he could lighten every situation. He would call Sid ‘mate’ and take him out to the veranda with his beer. I missed the