Cold Desert

By Ava Dunn

Daisy Cavill is fighting for her life. She has anorexia, and her world is turned upside down after she is sent to live with her estranged father in Short Point, a small town obsessed with surfing. It is there that Daisy meets Hollie Matheson and begins to see what living is all about: friendship, family, surfing and escapism.

But before Daisy recovers from her anorexia, Hollie goes missing while on a camping trip. Daisy begins to see that things aren't all shiny and laissez-faire in Short Point like she had believed. There is an epidemic taking over the town and Daisy believes it has something to do with Hollie's disappearance.

Daisy is determined to find Hollie, even if it's the last thing she does.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olive Reads
• Release date: Dec 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9780645639353

Book preview

C O L D

D E S E R T

AVA DUNN

COLD DESERT

Australia

Published by Olive Reads in 2023

Published by Olive Reads

Copyright © Ava Dunn 2023

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.

9780645639346 (paperback)

9780645639353 (ebook)

Cover design by Elysia Clapin ©

Typeset in Garamond

C O L D

D E S E R T

Chapter One

The year before Hollie Matheson went missing, I lost my mind. But this story happens mostly before then. A time before she went missing, a time during, a time after.

I have lived here in Short Point for a year now, without her. I moved here to live with my father because my mother didn’t want me anymore. More to the point, she didn’t want to deal with me anymore. The world is a hard place to navigate when you don’t have a compass. The only way I knew how to live was by trying my best not to.

The day my mother told me I was moving to Short Point to live with my father, whom I hadn’t seen in six years, I was crouched over the kitchen table, consumed by the thoughts of the roast dinner she was baking in the oven. All I thought about was food.

How many carrots could I stuff into my sleeve? How many peas could I mash into the plate and make it look like the green leaves of the painted flowers on the edge? Could I swear to my mother I’d turned vegetarian so I wouldn’t have to eat the meat and gravy?

The potatoes were safe. I could eat one. That was it. No more than one. If Mum tries to give me two, I’ll chuck a fit, I thought.

‘Daisy, I have something to tell you. I’m not sure you’ll like it.’

‘I’m not going back to the hospital, Mum,’ I mumbled, gnawing on my fingernails.

She loved sending me to the hospital. All because I wouldn’t eat.

Mum explained, ‘No, it’s not that.’ She paused as she sat at the table opposite me. She waited for me to meet her eyes before she explained, ‘I’ve been seeing a psychologist.’

I blinked. My mum was perfect. She never needed help. The fact she’d go to see a shrink was mind-blowing. Shrinks were for the screw-ups like me.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘To help cope with your illness.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I don’t have an illness. I am fine.’

‘That’s your opinion,’ she said, holding a perfectly manicured hand up to me as if to shut me up. ‘No, the psychologist seemed to think it would be a good idea to try something unorthodox to help both of us.’

I sat quietly and waited. This ought to be interesting – hearing the ideas of someone that had never even met me or the eating disorder that had taken over me.

Mum said, ‘We get you out of this environment...and try somewhere new.’

‘Like...go on a holiday together?’ My nerves fluttered. I did not like the idea of going somewhere with my mother so close in contact (and having her constant supervision). Being alone and isolated from people, especially my mother, was what I needed to cope. I could exercise in private and not eat.

‘No...’ She took a deep breath and blurted out, ‘You live somewhere else.’

My face flushed, and a prickling sensation ricocheted all over my body. I wish I’d known then that the key word was live, as in survive, but all I could focus on at the time was that my own mother was kicking me out. I worked hard at composing my face so I would not burst into tears.

‘A new start for you might get you out of the habits and memories you have here,’ she continued. ‘I can also work on my own mental health.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ I whispered.

She reached out her hand and took mine. Her lip trembled as she looked me in the eye and told me, ‘It’s not about what you want.’

It had never been about what I had wanted. She didn’t get it. My whole life had been about her, and now that I really needed the help, she was kicking me out, still making it about her.

I’d been in and out of hospitals the previous year. Low iron, low potassium, low B-12, anaemia, low blood pressure, I still didn’t have my period...it took a lot of visits before the doctors actually said to my mother that I might have something called anorexia nervosa.

‘No,’ my mother had snorted. ‘She couldn’t possibly; she eats like a pig.’

The doctor had checked my lower jaw and fingers. He had asked me, ‘Do you vomit after you eat?’

I had stared back at him with a defiant glare. You may think you know what I do, mister, but you can’t prove it.

He had printed out referrals and said, ‘She needs to go into hospital immediately. Nip this in the bud, Mrs. Cavill. It’s an insidious disease and it is deadly if it takes hold.’

Shows how much that doctor knew. There I was a year later, still alive, stronger than ever.

‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore,’ I stated in my clearest voice to my mother. I stood up defiantly with my chin up and went to walk away, but everything went black for a second and I lost my breath. She lunged across the table to catch me but I slapped her hand away, steadying myself and my breath with a deep inhale, flaring my nostrils at her the way she had when I had been a petulant little child.

‘I don’t need your help,’ I spat before walking away, carefully placing each foot in front of the other.

I left her alone, leaning across the table, her head down on the surface beside her outstretched hand as though she was a martyr for giving up on me, her only child. I didn’t even ask where I was being sent. I didn’t care anymore. She could send me to a deserted island, a big city, Uluru for all I cared.

––––––––

Mum ended up sending me to New South Wales. A small town at a river mouth that led out to the Pacific Ocean.

She helped me pack a suitcase. I wasn’t sure what I needed to take. How long would I be going for? Was it hot or cold there? Was I going for a week or was I going for a month? I asked Mum and all she could tell me with a thin mouth was, ‘That’s up to you, Daisy.’

‘What do you mean, that’s up to me?’ I held up two different cardigans. One green, one black. ‘I need to know!’

My mum gave me a told-you-so expression and quipped, ‘Don’t you think that I’ve needed to know how long, Daisy? Hm?’

She was impossible! I threw the green cardigan down as hard as I could; it floated down carefully onto my bed and made my anger harder and sharper with its lack of satisfying effect. Mum was always like this. Acted like she was so hard-done by me. Like I was a problem. She kept claiming she was trying to help me and she was putting everything into keeping me alive, but she couldn’t even give me a straight answer.

We were leaving the next morning and she expected me to have everything packed and be okay with the fact I had no idea how long I was going. I may as well come to terms that she was giving up on me for good. It would have been fine with me. I didn’t care about her anymore. Ever since she blamed everything about how I was on me. But I didn’t want to leave Jessie, my golden retriever. As I stood, fuming, at my bedside, Jessie looked up at me from her dog-bed in the corner of my bedroom. Her ears went back and the whites of her eyes showed.

Mum closed the bedroom door on me and walked away, leaving me to cry alone with Jessie. I went to her bed and knelt down. The timber floorboards would leave bruises on my knees but I didn’t care. I wrapped my arms around Jessie and breathed in her pungent scent. I wet her curly neck with my tears and slobber. She patiently sat and let me cry, placing her paw on my thigh.

I would miss her. I couldn’t bear to be around my mother anymore, but I was bereft at having to leave my best friend.

Mum was sending me to live with my father. I hadn’t seen my father in six years. He had left when I was eleven. The day he had left, he had woken me up at five in the morning. It had still been dark. I’d sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes.

‘Daddy? What’s wrong?’

The light coming from the hallway had illuminated the tears streaming down his face. He had kissed me on the cheek with his whiskers brushing against me. ‘I have to go live somewhere else. I’ll still talk on the phone with you every day. I’m sorry, Sprout.’ I hadn’t seen him since. Except, I was about to see him again. I was about to live with him. It was a surreal feeling to be leaving my home because my mother didn’t want me anymore, and going into the house of the man who had left me years ago because he hadn’t wanted me anymore, either.

––––––––

In the morning before my big road trip to New South Wales, I attempted to lift my suitcase into the car, but my muscles shook so much I could barely lift it.

Mum bustled over and shooed me away. ‘Daisy, no. Just leave it. I’ll do it, like I have to do everything else for you.’

I rolled my eyes and got into the car. If I had the energy to argue with her, I would have. As we started driving, I asked, ‘Can we stop for coffee?’

‘No. No more coffee. If you’re hungry, you have to eat.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ I snapped and crossed my arms and legs. If I said it enough, one day I’d believe it myself.

The drive took seven hours. I decided somewhere between Cann River and Eden to give this recovery deal a good go. Maybe I could become normal again. Recovery didn’t have to mean going to the hospital. I could eat healthy foods, stay skinny and be recovered at last. I imagined writing my tell-all book, thanking my mother for being cruel and forcing me to recover by abandoning me with my father whom I barely knew. We’d be on all the talk shows, beautifully dolled up and smiling. I’d flick my luscious hair (mine was so dry and tangled now I’d long given up on it) and promise to all the poor girls and boys, men and women suffering with anorexia nervosa that they too could be like me. Healthy...and deathly thin. Ignoring the juxtaposition of those two words. All it took was a little tough love and dedication. Yes...I’d give this a go.

When we arrived in the beachside town of Short Point, I pressed my forehead to the window so I could look outside, past freckles of rain. The land was flat, tidal lowland, empty green paddocks on either side of the road. A man was cycling up ahead and Mum fitfully hesitated before speeding past him. I couldn’t tell if she was in a hurry to get there so she could stop driving, or get rid of me.

One tall pine tree stood out on the horizon ahead, almost like a gigantic Christmas tree. It towered over the roofs of the bundles of neat houses on the right. Houses with neatly pruned native gardens, and long sloping front yards. Then over the hill, older houses that looked like fibro shacks. Further down the road, it was expensive-looking again with expansive farm properties with white-railed fences and cattle yards.

After the farms, a dark forested area loomed. I sat back, as glum as the weather and the dark trees on either side of the road as we passed through.

‘Are you nervous, Daisy?’ Mum asked, following the road signs and not looking at me.

‘A little bit,’ I admitted. My stomach was actually doing somersaults and I wanted to get out of the car and run away. Sure, this man was my father, but I hadn’t seen him since I was eleven. I’d only had birthday and Christmas cards from him in the past five years. How was I supposed to live with him? I wondered if he knew how ill I was. I wondered if he knew at all. I’d have to wait and see what he said or did. What if he was a creep? Why did he even leave Mum in the first place? All I knew about him was that he was a chippy, which was slang for a carpenter.

We came out of the forest and the river came into view. It looked more like a flat lake. It was almost level with the road. Some birds flew across the road in front of Mum and she braked gently to avoid them.

‘That’s actually very pretty,’ Mum said, nodding at the river.

I nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘The beaches here are meant to be amazing,’ she added. ‘Do you think you’ll like living by the water?’

‘Lived by the water back home, Mum,’ I said. ‘It’s no big deal.’

‘That was a bay, though,’ she said. ‘Not the ocean.’

‘It’s salt water, has fish. It’s the same,’ I said.

‘I’ve always wanted to see whales,’ Mum replied. ‘You’ll let me know if you see them, won’t you.’

‘Sure, whatever,’ I grumbled. I’d never thought about whales. They were just big things in science books and documentaries to me up until that point. I’d never thought much about them and didn’t particularly care if my mother wanted to see them or not.

I cracked my neck and avoided her eyes. I kept expecting to see a town centre, but Mum followed the road to the left and then pulled up at a yellow house perched atop the double-car garage, opposite the flattest, swampiest, murkiest part of the river. The yellow house was gaudy, too bright amongst the dark greys, browns and greens of the neighbouring properties. Of all colours to paint a house, yellow? I grimaced as it glared even in the cloudy light.

‘We’re here.’

I gasped inwardly; this was it. This was my new house. A man came down the narrow path from the side of the house. A short man wearing a baseball cap and Blundstone boots.

‘G’Day,’ he called.

Oh, Dear God. That was my father. There he was. Why did he look so much shorter than I remembered him?

Mum got out of the car and I lingered while Mum handed him my suitcase. A stuffed toy I named Milky was in the boot of the car – it was a dog that was missing a lot of fluff and stuffing. I’d had it since I was four. I cringed at the thought of this man seeing Milky so that urged me to get out of the car and pick it up myself, clutching it tightly at my hip, under the cardigan I was wearing so it wasn’t so obvious I needed a soft toy at almost seventeen years old.

‘What’s this?’ Dad asked, touching it at my hip.

I tried to act like I didn’t need it by scrunching it in my fist. ‘Just something to remind me of my dog back home.’ He didn’t even know Jessie existed, which made me angry. She was a big part of my life and he had no idea. I’d begged Mum for a dog when Dad had left. Now here I was, without my dog but standing with the man whom I replaced with the dog. Surreal.

Dad led Mum and me into the house. There was a staircase with slippery tiled steps to the front door. Inside the house, there were gleaming dark timber floorboards that looked like Dad had buffed them, and cream walls, stained with time.

‘Daisy, I’ll show you your room – it’s just opposite mine.’

We turned left down the hall, and on the right, there was a small bedroom with beige carpet and wooden venetian curtains covering narrow windows. I ran a finger along a blind and rubbed it with my thumb, my finger coated with light grey dust. Despite the exterior of the house being so bright, the interior was dim.

Mum nodded her head at my disgusted expression, and tried to drum up some enthusiasm. ‘Oh yes, it’s lovely. A lovely view to the back garden.’

The back garden was overflowing with unruly palms and very sad flocks of Birds of Paradise. My eye twitched as I took in the sloping back lawn, full of bindi prickles, no doubt.

‘Yeah, but wait until you see the view from the lounge. It’s to die for.’ My dad beckoned us to follow him back into the main part of the house. The lounge was cramped; a blue lounge settee and matching recliners smothered the room. There was a type of wood heater called a coonarra in the centre of the room that made the viewing angle of the small television upon a square lamp table awkward. Atop the coonarra was a school photo of me, when I was in grade five. Right around the time Dad left. Seeing the photo made my back stiffen and my jaw clamp.

Dad took us out the glass sliding door and we stepped out onto the balcony. He had cluttered it with washing, chairs, tools and a discarded mattress. He gestured across the swamp and said, ‘Eh?’ as if we could appreciate an epic view. There was nothing but green scrublands – the river too difficult to see beyond the scrub.

Mum nodded politely.

Dad leant on the steel railing and sighed. ‘I love it. It’s my pride and joy. Never been so happy in a place.’

I was about to ruin all of that for him.

Mum forced a smile and said, ‘Well, I think that’s it, then.’

My heart lurched, and Dad spun around. ‘Already? You only just got here. Stay for a cuppa.’

She nodded and I grabbed her wrist, a silent exchange, pleading, begging, imploring – please do not leave me here.

Dad rubbed at his salt and pepper stubble. ‘Well, I wish you’d stay for a while, Raelene. You’ve had a long drive. We have a lot of catching up to do.’

‘No, that’s fine. That’s everything I need to drop off.’ She patted her hips self-consciously.

My dad walked ahead of my mother as she walked back to the car. He walked with a slight limp. I didn’t remember him having a limp. He was so much older than I remembered. He peered at me from under his cap and winked a blue eye at me. I looked away.

‘You really should stay for a while, Raelene,’ he said to my mother. He seemed like he didn’t want to be alone with me any more than I wanted to be alone with him. It was all just...so...weird.

She backed up to the car. ‘No, I think it’s best that you and Daisy get reconnected just the two of you. I’ve got a motel booked down in Eden. I’ll be fine.’

‘Safe trip then,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she replied. I watched her get into the car, reverse out of the driveway, and drive away. I waited for the taillights to flash red, even for a second, to know that she was hesitant to leave me, but they stayed dull and she left me standing in the front yard with the man I barely knew.

I wished she had hugged me. I found out later that she didn’t hug me goodbye because she could not stand to feel the bumps in my back – that it broke her heart. She bawled her eyes out on the side of the road around the corner for an hour before finally heading to Eden to rest and have the deepest sleep she’d had in months.

Dad looked to me, waiting for me to say something but I bowed my head and crossed my arms.

‘I guess we’ll go in, then,’ he said. Again, he waited for me to speak, but my mouth remained closed. He led the way back up the stairs. I wanted to ask why he limped, but didn’t want to be rude. I wanted to ask him why he left, but didn’t want to start a fight. I wanted to tell him I hated him, but I would be lying. I only hated myself.

Dad escorted me into his little house and gave me the extended tour – where the forks and knives were (unnecessary), where the sugar and tea were (unnecessary), where the Wi-Fi router was (noted) and where some sanitary items were (unnecessary). He grinned at my school photo on the coonara heater. ‘Eh, recognise that rascal, Sprout?’

I nodded and gazed around the room. I noted there were photos of other people too, people I didn’t know. There was only one photo of Dad. He was standing on a rooftop with a toolbelt around his waist, holding up a hammer and looking chuffed with a wide grin.

‘What do you want to do, Sprout?’ he asked.

I forced myself to speak. ‘I just want to have a rest.’

He nodded and took me to my bedroom. There were sheets folded at the end of the empty mattress. A pillow and pillowcase also awaited me to make them. I dropped down onto the bed without even bothering to make it, suddenly exhausted from the trip. Dad swung his hands together for a moment before saying, ‘I’ll let you rest before we get dinner.’

I curled up and closed my eyes, just intending to rest, but I slept like I hadn’t slept in months.

Later, I opened my eyes later to darkness and Dad standing in the doorway saying my name.

‘What?’ I asked groggily, sitting up and falling back onto the pillow immediately, overcome with dizziness.

‘What do you want for dinner?’

This is a very dangerous question to ask a person with anorexia. What did I want? I wanted pizza, pasta, McDonald’s, chocolate, ice cream, tacos, bananas, kebabs, chicken – everything I could mush in my mouth and swallow to feel full. Anorexia, however, wanted to snap nothing – leave me alone, but I was determined to give this a go. Wasn’t I? 

‘There’s a Vietnamese place on the main highway, near the main part of town. Does a bloody mean Singapore noodles.’

Vegetables could be an okay place to start, so I nodded and said, ‘Sure.’

He slapped his thigh with eagerness and said, ‘Let’s go then.’

I followed him to his ute, rubbing my hands over my arms, checking I could still link my fingers around my biceps. I sat in the front seat amongst piles of paperwork and empty energy drink cans.

Dad drove to the town and we parked outside the restaurant.

Inside, staff greeted us.

‘How you?’

‘Great, May. How’s Anh?’ My stomach shrank as I realised my dad knew these waitresses like they were friends. It meant I might see them again. Having to eat in front of people filled me with anxiety, but knowing that I might see these people again made me even more anxious because they’d remember I ate. Then try feed me more. Oh, boy.

They were friendly enough, and they had quick service, flirting with my dad jokingly. I sat with a plate of vegetables and rice noodles in front of me. I remained quiet, but the voice in my head was relentless.

Eat this, it said, and you’ll convince him you’re fine. Maybe he doesn’t know about it. The ugly voice in my head grumbled at me angrily but saw reason. If I ate this, and convinced him I was fine; he’d think I had no problem and then I could get away with not eating other things. There was also a part of me that was embarrassed. How could I be such a screw-up that Mum would have to do this? I guess I kind of wanted to see if I could eat the noodles too. She was making a big deal out of nothing. I was fine.

Dad didn’t watch me closely the way Mum did. He just ate his food, chewing and staring at his plate, probably wondering what the hell he could talk about with me.

After we finished eating in painful silence, we walked out.

‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ he asked.

My tummy was distended and painful, but the voice said Yes, burn off that food. ‘Yes, please,’ I said.

We walked around the block and then returned to the car. Dad said, ‘Your school is nearby. Want to check it out? You’re starting on Monday.’

School? I hadn’t even considered that I’d be going to school. I didn’t even go to school back home. Mum had withdrawn me because it was easier to monitor what I ate when she could see me all the time. The thought of going to school with new people terrified me. New place. New people. No friends. I nodded, trying to appear normal and excited. He drove to the school and we peered out the window at it together in the darkness.

‘Looks good, eh.’

I grimaced. ‘Yeah.’

Mum had pulled me out of school earlier in the year when I’d gone into the hospital the first time. I hadn’t been at school in months, and now he expected me to rock up and attend school? I couldn’t stop my foot from jiggling up and down all the way home and we didn’t speak until we got back to his house and we went inside. I cried into my pillow most of the night. I was going to have to try to work this out. Going to school meant I’d need energy. Going to school meant people would see me. My teeth chattered at the thought of losing control of my eating. Why on earth had my mother thought this ridiculous idea of uprooting my entire life would be a good thing?

––––––––

Dad and I went shopping the next day for school supplies. I managed to get away with just an apple for breakfast. Dad didn’t say anything. But we hit the local department store, then he bought fish and chips for lunch. Nobody could possibly love junk food as much as my father loved it. It seemed to be all that he stuck into his mouth, along with copious amounts of energy drinks.

We sat on the grass by the beach with the white paper spread between us. Silver gulls cawed and squealed, jostling each other for prime position.

Dad picked at the chips. I fed the gulls.

‘I reckon it’s great you’re here,’ he said, mumbling and munching at the same time.

I squinted at him. It was a cool, cloudy day with a dull sky, but the sun kept peeping through the clouds and glaring. I didn’t know what to say so I let him continue.

‘When your mum called me to say she was going away for work – and could you live here for a few months, I reckon I nearly fell through the floor with shock.’ He laughed, covering his mouth and chewed up food.

I let this bogus story my mum fed him sink in. Had she really not told him that I was suffering from anorexia nervosa and needed to go stay with him just to give her a break? Was he really that gullible?

He continued, ‘We’ll have a good time. It’s a great place. I reckon you’re gonna love it once you settle in.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, brushing the salt from the chips off my