Chapter 3: the holiday house

When we reached the lake, we stopped at the little village located there. It wasn't much: a few houses, a general store and a camping/caravan reserve along the foreshore.

We all got out and walked into the store. Mrs Keaton said to me, "Lynden, our holiday house is on the other side of the lake and we have an arrangement with the people who own this store. We let them know a couple of weeks before we are coming and they go out to our house and get it ready for us; you know, clean it, make sure everything is in working order and so on, and they stock it with the provisions we will need for our stay."

I held back as there were greetings and chat. Mr Keaton handed over an envelope presumably the payment for the service, and then we were on our way again.

We had to drive for nearly an hour along these rough dirt trails through the forest to get to the house. We emerged from the trees into a large open area and I was surprised to see that the place didn't look to be much better than an oversized beach shack.

In front of the house, the lake formed a small cove with a flat sandy beach. The ground then sloped upwards away from the water. The house was built back up on the slope, maybe fifty or sixty metres from the lake edge. I had to admit that it was an attractive scene.

Mr Keaton explained, "All this area is national park. This house was here before the park was declared and we have a lifetime right of tenancy, but we are not allowed to extend or remodel the place externally in any way."

It was quite nice inside, three bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and living/dining area.

Mr Keaton continued his explanation, "There are no services out here - no water, electricity or phone coverage. We have solar panels, batteries and a small generator, though we still have to be careful about power usage; and we've got rainwater tanks and a pump. It's a pretty good set-up."

Mrs Keaton added, "We have gas for cooking and a gas-fired hot water system, but we don't have any internal heating. We have to rely on a log fire when the weather is cold, and I fear that we are going to have a few cold nights to begin with."

We had lunch straight away. Randolph and I had to do the clearing up and the washing of the dishes - there wasn't much. When we finished, he took me off to show me around. The damn place was isolated, all right, we were completely surrounded by bush except for the lake side.

"Where's your nearest neighbour, Randolph?"

"That'd be over at the village. There is no one else over this side of the lake at all."

"Geez."

I was feeling a bit strange. This was the first proper holiday I'd ever been on. I'd gone on a couple of weekend school camps before, but that was all.

I should tell you something about my family. I'm the middle one of five kids. I have two elder brothers, Ian, aged sixteen and Matt aged fifteen; they used to get on okay, but the relationship had become strained recently. Now, while Ian and I weren't exactly friends, Matt and I were the worst of enemies - we were always trying to get at each other.

My younger twin sisters, Cassie and Leah, aged nine, behaved like a couple of spoilt brats in my opinion, and I tried to avoid them as much as I could.

Dad was a gardener; he worked for himself, and normally worked six days a week, sometimes seven. Mum did some casual work at the local takeaway, but she had her hands full looking after the family and the household.

Now I don't think you'd say that we were hard up, but we weren't far off, and we certainly didn't have enough money to go away on holidays. The closest we got was the occasional day's outing to the beach.

I attended the local high school as did Randolph. I sometimes wondered why his parents didn't send him to a private school, they could obviously afford it (I found out sometime later that Mr Keaton had gone to a private boys school and held them in very low esteem).