"He worked in construction and the sprawling transient accommodation for the hundreds of families who'd relocated to build an aluminium plant became our home. I was going on 16 and sulking about having to change schools, again. Then I met Paul. Back in those days people made their own fun. We often had huge parties at the caravan park, and Paul, an apprentice electrician, would volunteer to rig up the lighting."
"Despite the age difference (he'd just turned 21), we became friendly. My parents and I were sharing a 15ft caravan, and while they adored Paul, he was never allowed inside. For two years we'd spend hours under the awning chatting away. He'd pick me up from my ballet classes, and on Friday night we'd get fish and chips with my parents and sit on a little hill overlooking the beach drinking cheap white wine."
The narrator's family moved in the mid-1960s to a Gladstone caravan park while the father worked on construction for an aluminium plant. At sixteen, the narrator met Paul, a twenty-one-year-old apprentice electrician who rigged lighting for caravan parties and became part of the family's routine despite not being allowed inside the 15ft caravan. They spent hours under the awning, shared ballet pickups, and had fish and chips on a hill overlooking the beach. Paul gave a friendship ring that the narrator still kept. After families separated, the narrator sent perfumed letters from Darwin, traveled through the Americas, and later learned Paul arrived in Darwin to look for her and planned to meet in Miami.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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