They’re staying in a caravan, for a bit: She and He. A bed at one end and a built-in air con that’s been fighting a losing battle since the eighties. The old caravan opens onto a tin-roofed annex: shade cloth wrapped around the supporting posts for walls, a flyscreen door and paving stone floor. An offcut of carpet designates lounge from kitchen. An armchair, once beige, is rust-coloured from the dust – so are their 5 sneakers, and the sheets, and the washing on the line. You learn to live with it, same as the flies. [...] Beyond the caravan park the desert reaches into forever. Facing west Kata Tjuta and Uluru1 rise like breaching whales on a red ocean. They say this whole place was once an inland sea, which is hard to imagine now because it’s summer and even the Mutitjulu2 waterhole is a pan of cracked earth. He came here a few months ago, for a job: “outback resort seeks night security officer, no experience 10 necessary”. He liked the idea of something different, easy. He liked the idea of being alone. He wanted to try out the world without her. To see. He’d told her it was an opportunity to save. For a house, maybe. For the two of them. For three months she stayed in their half-empty flat. She did girls’ nights and detox diets. But the smell of him was still in the cupboard and she found herself standing in there sometimes with his winter clothes 15 and the door closed. She doesn’t have time to start all over again. She wants a baby, and soon. And so she arrived unannounced on an afternoon right before Christmas. For a “holiday”, or at least that’s what she told her friends. This was (absolutely) the most wild and romantic thing she had ever done. On the flight, she’d imagined exactly how it would go. The way she would stand. The words she would say. The casual, cool tone of it all. From there she had imagined his unmistakable look, and a whole spectrum of 20 sex positions. It would be a story to tell, one day. “You were made in a caravan, in the middle of nowhere...” In reality, however, a wasp had ruined everything. A wasp like a huge airborne mouse – like nothing she had ever seen before. He opened the flyscreen to her cowering on the doormat with her hands covering her head. “Get away from me”. These were not the words she had practiced. 25 “What are you doing here?” This was not the tone she’d imagined. His bare torso, rounder than it used to be, told the story of a life without her. Of toast and beer. All day he sleeps. All night he works. There is no going outside for outside is like a vast, intolerable sauna and so in daylight hours they lie naked between the air con and the fan. Cabin fever3 is setting in and her 30 restlessness makes him crazy. He needs to sleep but he can’t sleep for the extra heat in the bed, and the hands that wander across his skin. Between her fingers and the bugs, he is always swatting at something. It has been four days since her arrival and they have made love only once. This is not because she has not been trying but because her trying is unattractive. “If you’d stop pushing me,” he says, “you’re always pushing me.” He can sense what she’s doing. He knows what she wants. But the truth is he never thought 35 she would come here, and he already has two children to his last girlfriend and all he knows of them is that they cost him a hundred and fifty dollars a week. That’s an entire shift right there. He gets up and gets dressed for work. She gets up and boils him two eggs with white bread toast cut into soldiers4. The sunset makes the whole world orange. There is so much beauty in this place. She can see it but she can’t feel or understand it. There is a list of emergency numbers pinned to the rusty fridge by a 40 magnet that has a picture of space on it. Millions of tiny white stars and a pointer to one of them that says, 1 Kata Tjuta and Uluru: large rock formations in the desert near Alice Springs, Central Australia 2 an Australian Aboriginal settlement near Uluru and Kata Tjuta 3 cabin fever: a claustrophobic reaction to isolation in a confined space 4 toast soldiers: thin strips of toast 1 “YOU ARE HERE”. This, she feels and understands. She is a speck. A fleck of sand in an endless desert. So close to nothing. When he leaves for work he reminds her to take a torch if she goes out. She takes it as a sign of his love. But she’s afraid to go out alone. The caravan is enclosed and off the ground, and last night she sprayed 45 around the windows and the door. She takes a box of Just Right5 and eats it in bed, dry. In her imagination, she redecorates: a rug, new sheets (those linen ones), and an Aboriginal painting above the bed. At midnight she wakes, drenched in sweat and needing the toilet. The block is only twenty metres down the row but she dreads leaving the caravan. She takes the torch from next to the bed and shines a light on each step before taking it. She approaches the flyscreen door knowing that just beyond, out in the world

De opholder sig i en campingvogn, for lidt: Hun og han. En seng i den ene ende og en indbygget aircondition, der har kæmpet en tabt kamp siden firserne. Den gamle campingvogn åbner ud til et anneks med bliktag: skyggeklud viklet rundt om bærestolperne til vægge, en flueskærmsdør og belægningsstensgulv. Et afskæring af tæppe angiver stue fra køkken. En lænestol, engang beige, er rustfarvet af støvet - det er deres også 5 sneakers, og lagner, og vask på linjen. Du lærer at leve med det, det samme som fluerne. [...] Ud over campingvognen rækker ørkenen ind i evigheden. Mod vest stiger Kata Tjuta og Uluru1 ligesom bryde hvaler på et rødt hav. De siger, at hele dette sted engang var et indre hav, hvilket er svært at forestille sig nu, fordi det er sommer, og selv Mutitjulu2-vandhullet er en gryde af revnet jord. Han kom her for et par måneder siden for et job: "outback resort søger nat sikkerhedsofficer, ingen erfaring 10 nødvendig". Han kunne godt lide tanken om noget anderledes, nemt. Han kunne godt lide tanken om at være alene. Det ville han prøv verden uden hende. At se. Han havde fortalt hende, at det var en mulighed for at redde. For et hus, måske. For dem to. I tre måneder boede hun i deres halvtomme lejlighed. Hun lavede pigeaftener og detox-diæter.Men lugten af ​​ham var stadig i skabet, og hun fandt sig selv stå derinde nogle gange med hans vintertøj 15 og døren lukkede. Hun har ikke tid til at starte forfra. Hun vil have en baby, og det snart. Og så ankom hun uanmeldt en eftermiddag lige før jul. Til en "ferie", eller i det mindste det fortalte hun sine venner. Dette var (absolut) det mest vilde og romantiske, hun nogensinde havde gjort. På flyveturen havde hun forestillet sig præcis, hvordan det ville gå. Måden hun ville stå på. Ordene hun ville sige. Den afslappede, kølige tone af det hele. Derfra havde hun forestillet sig hans umiskendelige udseende, og et helt spektrum af 20 sexstillinger. Det ville være en historie at fortælle en dag. "Du blev lavet i en campingvogn, midt i ingenting..." I virkeligheden havde en hveps dog ødelagt alt. En hveps som en enorm luftbåren mus - som intet hun nogensinde havde set før. Han åbnede myggenet for hende, der sad sammen på dørmåtten med hendes hænder, der dækkede hendes hoved. "Gå væk fra mig". Det var ikke de ord, hun havde øvet sig på. 25 "Hvad laver du her?" Det var ikke den tone, hun havde forestillet sig. Hans bare torso, rundere end den plejede at være, fortalte historien om et liv uden hende. Af toast og øl. Hele dagen sover han. Han arbejder hele natten.Der er ingen gå udenfor, for udenfor er som en stor, utålelig sauna og så i dagslyset ligger de nøgne mellem aircondition og ventilator. Kabinefeber3 sætter ind, og hendes rastløshed gør ham skør. Han skal sove, men han kan ikke sove for den ekstra varme i sengen, og den hænder, der vandrer hen over hans hud. Mellem hendes fingre og insekterne smadder han altid på noget. Der er gået fire dage siden hendes ankomst, og de har kun elsket én gang. Det er ikke fordi hun har ikke prøvet, men fordi hendes forsøg er uattraktivt. "Hvis du holder op med at presse mig," siger han, "er du altid presser mig." Han kan mærke, hvad hun laver. Han ved, hvad hun vil have. Men sandheden er, at han aldrig troede, hun ville komme hertil, og han har allerede to børn til sin sidste kæreste, og alt han ved om dem er, at de kostede ham hundrede og halvtreds dollars om ugen. Det er et helt skift lige der. Han rejser sig og klæder sig på til arbejde. Hun rejser sig og koger ham to æg med hvidt brød toast skåret i soldater4. Solnedgangen gør hele verden orange. Der er så meget skønhed på dette sted. Hun kan se det, men hun kan ikke mærke eller forstå det. Der er en liste over nødnumre fastgjort til det rustne køleskab af en 40 magnet, der har et billede af plads på.Millioner af små hvide stjerner og en pegepind til en af ​​dem, der siger: 1 Kata Tjuta og Uluru: store klippeformationer i ørkenen nær Alice Springs, Central Australia 2 en australsk aboriginal bosættelse nær Uluru og Kata Tjuta 3 hyttefeber: en klaustrofobisk reaktion på isolation i et begrænset rum 4 toast soldater: tynde strimler af toast 1 "DU ER HER". Dette mærker og forstår hun. Hun er en plet. En flok sand i en endeløs ørken. Så tæt på ingenting. Da han tager på arbejde, minder han hende om at tage en fakkel, hvis hun går ud. Hun tager det som et tegn på hans kærlighed. Men hun er bange for at gå ud alene. Karavanen er indelukket og væk fra jorden, og i nat sprøjtede hun 45 omkring vinduerne og døren. Hun tager en æske Just Right5 og spiser den tør i sengen. I sin fantasi dekorerer hun: et tæppe, nye lagner (disse linned) og et aboriginalmaleri over sengen. Ved midnat vågner hun, drivvåd af sved og trænger til toilettet. Blokken er kun tyve meter nede i rækken, men hun frygter at forlade campingvognen. Hun tager faklen fra ved siden af ​​sengen og kaster lys på hvert trin, før hun tager den. Hun nærmer sig flueskærmsdøren vel vidende, at det lige hinsides, ude i verden