Ghost Child – Sample Chapter
Extract from Ghost Child by Caroline Overington
When a young woman lives by herself, it’s assumed she must be lonely. I’d say the opposite is true. In fact, if anybody had asked me what it was like when I first started living on my own, I would have said, ‘It was perfect.’ I was completely alone – I had no close friends, and nobody I called family – and that was precisely what I wanted.
The place I moved into was basically a shed, and it was built on a battle-axe block behind somebody else’s house. The property itself was on Sydney’s northern beaches. There was a family living in the main house, the one that fronted the beach. They owned the block and, like many Sydneysiders who had beachside prop- erty in the 1980s, they decided to make the most of it by carving a driveway down the side, building a granny flat out the back and renting it to me.
After the first meeting, when they gave me the keys and we talked about the rent, I had nothing whatsoever to do with them. They were a family – a mum, a dad and two teenage kids – living in the main house, and I was the boarder. I could get to my place without both- ering them. I just walked down the driveway, opened my door and I was home. I had my own toilet, shower and enough of a kitchen, so there was no reason to go knocking.
Before I moved in, I bought four things. The most expensive was a queen-size sheet set in a leopard-skin print, with two pillowcases. I bought a box of black crockery, with dinner plates shaped like hexagons. I had this idea, then, that I might one day have close friends who could come over for dinner. I also bought a new steam iron and ironing-board, these last things because it was a condition of my employment that my uniform be straight and clean.
Download the sample chapter here – Sample chapter Ghost Child
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