The Turning

Raelene, a mother of young daughters, lives in a caravan park. Feeling claustrophobic, overwhelmed by her children, and in pain—her face is bruised—she goes to the laundry block to wash clothes. There she meets a woman she does not know, who seems prim, proper, and middle class, out of keeping with the surroundings. The woman says to Raelene, “That must have hurt,” and Raelene assumes she is commenting on her injury, but she was actually referring to Raelene’s belly button piercing. Surprised by the woman’s consideration, Raelene warms up to her quickly. Her name is Sherry, and she and her husband, Dan, are staying in the caravan park while their house is being painted. They have just moved to White Point, the seaside fishing community where Raelene lives.

Raelene and Sherry rapidly become good friends, and Sherry helps care for Raelene’s daughters, telling them stories. Other residents like Sherry, too: her magnetism changes the mood of the entire caravan park for the better. Her husband, Dan, is handsome and kind, quite unlike Raelene’s husband, Max. Max, a fisherman, drinks excessively, beats Raelene, and is floundering in his career; his younger brother, Frank, is a successful professional football player, which makes Max resentful. Around town, he is known for his aggression and violence. Raelene tries to pretend she still loves Max and reflects on when things went wrong with him, and what is different about Sherry and Dan. She considers if it is class-based; Dan is a  manager, unlike Max. Despite their closeness, Raelene’s friendship with Sherry remains separate from the rest of her social life, including Tuesday darts nights at the bar, which Sherry declines to attend.

When Sherry and Dan’s house is finally ready, Raelene helps them move in. Their neat new home forms a sharp contrast to her own, which Max has left a total mess. Their relationship continues to devolve, as he beats her and spends time at the bar or the Cesspit, a seedy, all-male gathering place.  Despite it all, Raelene still enjoys sex with him, even orgasming, to her surprise. Meanwhile, Raelene starts leaving darts night early to spend time with Sherry and Max. While she enjoys socializing with them, she is consumed by the question of what makes them different from her. She imposes on them, coming by drunk or late, even interrupting them having sex, to her embarrassment. Raelene becomes increasingly dejected about her own life, living in the caravan park with a husband like Max.

Eventually Raelene skips darts night altogether and, arriving at Sherry’s early, finds her and Dan reading the Bible together. She thinks she has finally figured it out: religion is what makes them different. When she voices this to them, she begins to cry, telling them how unhappy she is with herself and her life. They try to comfort her, to no avail, and she goes for a walk along the lagoon. She admits to herself that she does not love Max at all but wonders if she could do any better, or even deserves to. The next day, when Sherry comes to see her, Raelene hides and makes her daughters do the same. Sherry comes again the next day, but their conversation is stilted and awkward. Raelene buys herself a Bible but feels nothing reading it.

When Raelene goes over to Sherry’s next, she is angry and erratic, taking her frustration out on them. In the midst of her rant, asking why they never have anything to drink at home, she finally learns the truth: Dan is a recovering alcoholic, which is why he and Sherry are religious. Raelene continues to go visit them but pretends to be going to darts night instead. She debates religion with them, but abstractly; despite a powerful experience on another solitary nighttime stroll on the beach, she cannot bring herself to believe. Max, in the meantime, is getting worse, getting less work, drinking more, and beating Raelene. Frank quits football, provoking scandal across town.

One day, on a trip to Perth with Raelene and her daughters, Sherry tells her to leave Max. Raelene is shocked and refuses to entertain the thought. When Raelene stops at a religious trinket store, Sherry avoids going in. Raelene goes in alone and buys a snow globe of Jesus walking on water for herself. She then asks Sherry to tell her about when she knew she believed in God. Sherry’s explanation convinces Raelene that she, on the contrary, does not and cannot believe. Comparing Sherry and Dan’s relationship to her own, Raelene finally feels—or admits to herself that she feels—jealousy.

As winter sets in, things between Raelene and Max get worse. The sea is too rough for fishing boats to go out, so Max is home all the time, unless he is at the bar or the Cesspit. When he does have work, the catch is poor, and it is clear that the boats are losing money, not making it. Raelene, on the other hand, goes to see Sherry and Dan less and less after her trip to Perth. Instead, she gets into the habit of nighttime walks on the beach alone. While she still does not feel true belief, she covets her snow globe, even sexually fantasizing about Jesus.

One afternoon Raelene and her daughters are sitting outside when Max returns unexpectedly early. Before she can say a word, he attacks her, pinning her to their van and demanding to know what she has been doing instead of darts night: he assumes that she has been having an affair. Raelene tries to tell him that it is not what he thinks, but as he continues to hurt her, she resolves not to tell him anything, feeling that he does not deserve it. She speaks only in allusions, referring to Jesus, but in language that makes Max think she does indeed have a lover. Max is enraged and brutalizes her in front of their daughters, beating her until she passes out.

After Raelene passes out, the caravan park manager, Harrison, finds her and her daughters. He takes her to a nurse, not the hospital, at her insistence. The nurse is Max’s boss’s sister, and Raelene worries that Max will be fired; she also fears that Harrison will evict them. After getting stitched up, she has the nurse buzz her hair; Max pulled out several clumps. The nurse advises her to leave him, but Raelene rejects her advice. Returning home, she tries to calm her daughters down and put them to bed. As she waits for Max to return, drinking alone and reflecting, she gets a call, which she thinks—and hopes—is Sherry. In fact, it is Bob James, Max’s boss, who tells her to tell Max that he has been fired. Raelene finally drifts off to sleep but awakens to find Max attempting to force himself on her. As he rapes her, she sees her snow globe, and cries out Jesus’s name. She finally believes and feels that nothing Max can do to her can hurt her now.