The Road Back: A Novel by Di Morrissey

Author:Di Morrissey [Di Morrissey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466852068
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2016-01-12T05:00:00+00:00

As Chris drove Shaun’s courier van, he found his mind continually drifting to other places, events and imagined scenarios. He felt as though he was experiencing a parallel universe; sometimes it was an era that had existed before he was born, a time and place which had come alive through his mother’s Indonesian stories and photos. Other times, Chris felt that he was running up against his own childhood, for as he drove around the district, he realised that little had changed in the Henry Valley and surrounding hills. Even Neverend had hardly altered in the last forty years. Then he would be drawn back to the present as he tried to apply himself to the book he had committed to write. This was at once challenging and daunting, but Chris knew that he had to seize the opportunity that Georgia had given him. This book would be the way forward.

About a week after David’s visit, Chris was nearing the town at the end of his shift when his mobile phone rang. It was Megan.

‘Dad, can you pick me up from Mollie’s, please? She’s been going through some of her old things and she said I could take what I wanted. I can’t carry it all back home on my bike.’

When Chris arrived at Mollie’s farm, he stared at the saddle, boots, bridle and stirrups, what looked to be an oilskin coat, two riding hats and a saddle blanket.

‘Megan, what do you want with all this equipment?’

‘Dad, you never know when this might come in handy. Riding is a serious business,’ Megan told him gravely.

Chris was amazed by his daughter’s enthusiasm for riding, but as Susan had pointed out to him a few days earlier, it was likely to wane when the next trend beckoned.

‘Teenagers tend to move from one craze to another,’ she’d said. ‘Who knows what will be next? Come the Christmas holidays, it could be back to surfing or kayaking along the river.’

Chris helped Megan put the riding gear into the back of the van, but the thought that he and his daughter might still be here next year and maybe the year after that, or even longer, depressed him. It made him feel as though he was going backwards. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being here – for a while now he’d recognised what a pleasant lifestyle Neverend offered – but increasingly he was missing a serious career, a sense of achievement and being someone whose work was recognised and valued. He knew that if he was honest his feelings were partly about his ego and the status his career had given him, but the fact was that he felt he was stagnating. He was over forty years old and had a very hazy future. He tried to push these nagging thoughts to one side. Book, book, book, focus on the book, he told himself.

The research for the book was progressing. Evan and Mark had been very cooperative and Evan had even sent him a few personal notes and letters he had written of his time in Indonesia.

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