Beneath the Wild Fig Tree, page 10
‘I’d better watch out then, with you two around.’ And his hand whipped out and grabbed my ankle.
~
Stumpy’s Bay had a wild grandeur, but it was the sea-arch backed by Stumpy’s Stack at the southern headland that awed us. It was a massive outcrop that looked like a gigantic head with a beaten-up nose and a small secluded cove had formed there, protected by cliffs on three sides, into which the sea had hacked a cave. It’s got a dark, wet breath that smells of underwater life forms. At high tide the ocean would wash you in there and swallow you whole.
The sea made sucking noises that echoed around the cave’s interior. There were barnacles, soft, slimy sea squirts and red waratah anemones, and it was tranquil until Dad knelt on a boulder, his hand on his chest, and facing Mum recited a love poem by Neruda from the book he’d been carrying in his pocket.
Parents! So mortifying! I implored him to stop, but he laughed, then chucked the book at me and told me to read the rest. I hastily followed Mum, her hands in her pockets and a strange smile on her face. Dad walked behind us whistling ‘Love Letters in the Sand’, just to irritate me even more.
She gave my hair a gentle tug as we waited for him to catch up, then they waltzed together on the sand, Dad singing and Mum laughing at me. In that dorky moment I felt happy because everything was going to be all right.
I let them go ahead of me with Kes, wanting to look at the sea arch again. From that tiny cove, when I looked back along the beach, I discovered it was no longer empty. A boy was walking along the swash about two hundred metres away. When he saw me, he stopped. We stared at each other, and then he turned, and walked back towards Beagle Bay.
I ran after my parents. ‘I just saw a boy!’
‘What did he look like?’ asked Mum.
‘Tall, but not all that much older than me. Tanned. Dark hair. He wasn’t friendly.’
‘Not such a lonely island after all, eh Nicky?’ said Dad.
‘But we’re the only people allowed to be here!’
Mum laughed. ‘We’re hardly the owners!’
We walked home through afternoon sunlight that came and went behind a cavalcade of cumulus clouds. Kes had ripped his paws on barnacles and they were tired and sore. Mum spotted the remains of past feasts in a dune, layers of white shells, and by the time we reached Restless the sun was low and the lighthouse was suffused with a pale pink glow. Mum decided to jog ahead.
As Dad and I reached the top of Mount Aeolian, we stopped. He laughed, deep and low. Light was streaming through a sudden break in the clouds, illuminating small areas of ocean as well as the hill. I felt disembodied, my mind unbound, because everything seemed part of this luminous light, sharing an awareness, settling and yet not settling, still and yet not still, touching the ground and us like no touch at all, dissolving everything into itself.
The gulls flying through the light disintegrated, their colour and movement washed out by the radiance. It felt as if the island had decided to accept us, but I realised that words wring the magic out of things too profound to be described.
Later, a southerly came through and it rained glassy streamers that shattered on the window. I lay in bed, thinking about that boy. I hoped I’d get to meet him. My parents were downstairs, and I could hear my dad singing. Behind the rain and his voice, the sea was crashing on boulders. Across the island birds were huddling and marsupials were making night tracks. And in Alaska, the moonbirds were preparing for their journey.
I put out my bedroom light. I thought about the extraordinary light we walked through. Weirdly, it was like love. And maybe I found a word for it. It’s numinous.
19
Peramangk and Kaurna Country (Adelaide Hills) 2000
Bass Strait (Verloren Island) 1984
Sails, Wings and Dreams
Freya’s chemotherapy has been leaving her tired and nauseated, but when I visit, she’s keen for me to get to know Steve in more relaxed circumstances, and so, with the breeze around ten knots and a kindly sun in the sky, we head out to sea on their classic Swan 36, after a tour of the yacht that isn’t just about safety, but an opportunity for me to admire its nautical magnificence. We put on some music and idly chat, and while I occasionally trim the sails, Steve tells me about the yacht’s history.
When Freya and I are organising lunch in the galley, I mention that I’m shapeshifting my journals into a memoir.
‘I love that idea.’ She looks down, bites her lip. ‘Our relationship. Please don’t be too harsh.’
Best to move away from that. ‘I wonder what you remember about Dorothy Brisa and the island?’ I ask her.
She laughs. ‘You could say she was our Hermes, delivering visitors and mail.’
‘I have a few pages here about that. I’ll read them to you later.’
‘I would love that.’
We heave to for lunch. There are jellyfish below the surface, light waves dancing up the hull, and occasionally seabirds fly by. A pod of dolphins heads south. The land is low-lying, Norfolk Pines prominent, and the sun is high in the sky, as we make idle conversation beneath the bimini. It couldn’t be more peaceful.
We’re making way at about four knots when Freya and I retreat below deck to wash up. She’s desperate for me to remember the happy times. While she puts away the plates, I start reading my narrative, from where we heard the drone of a small plane growing louder and saw the glint of metal in the sky as it descended towards us, circling Mount Aeolian, heading south before banking into the light northerly.
‘It’s going to land on Emita,’ said Mum excitedly as Dad ran down the lighthouse steps. By the time we reached the beach the plane was taxiing along the sand. Dorothy was delivering vegies, mail, and some other stuff Dad had ordered.
While he dragged the cart back, the three of us put together a picnic to take to the gulch, where we spread it out on Whale Rock.
Dorothy told us that she’s been flying for seven years, that she likes to be alone with the drama of the sky, that it’s the ultimate freedom. She likes looping and twisting, dropping the plane’s nose and plummeting, feeling for the perfect moment to strike the joystick so that it rears and shudders on its tail. She likes flying at mountains and rolling aside at the last minute. I can’t imagine having no fear.
What she especially loves about Verloren is Mount Naturaliste, only she calls it the Sleeping Buddha because she says that’s what it looks like from the southeast and that her friend, Yolla, loves Greek mythology and calls it Mount Morpheus because she thinks it’s a dream spinner. She stuck those cow horns up at our front door. She’d found them on the mountain, near a cave, which explains why I’ve never had so many dreams in my life as I’ve had here.
‘I have to scrape them off my eyelids in the morning.’
‘There you go,’ said Dorothy.
‘We’re all being plagued by dreams,’ said Mum, and she excused herself to go and help Dad.
Dorothy told me she has a PhD. It’s in psychology. Jung is her hero and she loves collecting dreams.
‘What’s the best one you’ve got?’
She thought a moment. ‘Well, Yolla had a dream that changed her life.’
And she told me how, before her friend had changed her name, they’d rowed the little distance from Flinders Island to tiny Fisher Island, to catch up with the moonbird researchers staying there. Yolla felt queasy. She went into the hut to nap while everyone chatted outside and she dreamed she was in the Mount Naturaliste cave. On an altar, candlelit, was a luminous egg and a camera. As she reached for the camera, a snake reared up behind it.
The large egg cracked.
She took the camera, put it to her eye and clicked. Lightening flashed in the snake’s eyes. The last vestiges of shell fell away and the moonbird shook out its damp wings.
‘Takes much longer than that to hatch,’ said Dorothy, assessing the tide. ‘But the minute she woke she knew what she was meant to be.’
‘A photographer called Yolla?’
Dorothy looked at me thoughtfully. ‘We stood beside the hut door discussing the dream. Yolla tapped the sign above the lintel. She said, “from now on, call me Yolla.”’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a sign. A hand-painted one. That’s what it says: Yolla.’
‘And when was this?’
‘About seven years ago.’
‘We heard she was crazy.’
‘My dream is to fly all the way to the Arctic with the yolla.’
‘That’s amazing.’
Dorothy shrugged. ‘They probably call me crazy too.’
I told her about the dreams I’d been having, and about the weight that pushes down on me.
‘That’s anxiety. Nicky, would you like to talk about it?’
I shrugged, and quickly told her about Sally, who says she wants to be a singer, like Patti Smith, and how she can throw back her head and let loose an undulating trail of semi-quavers and how sometimes she sings with The Crazed Desert Gophers, but only when they’re practising.
Then Dorothy told me about her friend Len, and how he dreams he can stop the damage we, the barbarian hordes, are doing to Tasmania. ‘You might meet him here too,’ she said.
The boy, I thought to myself.
Dorothy said she’s interested in the impact of nature on the mind, and I should make notes about my dreams for her, and then she observed that the tide had turned and it was time to head off.
‘Dreams,’ I said, as we neared the top of the path below the lighthouse. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether we dream them or they dream us?’
‘We are the dream,’ said Dorothy.
‘But if we are the dream then who is dreaming us?’ I wondered. I looked across at Mount Naturaliste, snoozing innocently in the sun. Are you the culprit? I wondered to myself.
‘One day,’ said Dorothy. ‘You’ll meet Yolla. Of that I am sure.’
I didn’t much care. I’d rather meet that boy. But I did like Dorothy and out here even a conversation about a stranger’s dreams is a change from talking to parents.
20
Gadigal Country (Sydney) 2000
Peramangk and Kaurna Country (Adelaide Hills) 2000
Bass Strait (Verloren Island) 1984
Uncomfortable Recognition
Summer slides north. Autumn foliage glows on the deciduous trees, but all I notice are the spent leaves falling. Temperatures drop. I long for night and the descent into sleep, but when night comes insomnia strikes. My mind is tight and heavy, yet thought is too ephemeral to support the weight of a decision. I’ve lost my enthusiasm for cafes, movies, and shopping, and although I still walk and swim, it’s not pleasurable. Keeping in touch with friends isn’t worth the effort. There’s no single misery I can isolate – it isn’t just Freya, nor Arno either.
When I least expect it, he visits, bringing the gear I’ve never bothered collecting.
‘This place is so untidy! That’s not like you!’ He makes me walk with him along the Maroubra to Bondi coastline and wants to know why I’m still feeling so stuck. He teases me by calling me a ‘cautious investor’ and jokes that for our relationship to have worked I needed to be more bullish. He’s moved on, it’s clear. I still love his warmth, less so the banality of his language. He talks about a job opportunity in Rome.
‘What do you think about that?’
I give a small shrug. I’m feeling nihilistic.
‘I’m worried about you,’ he says. ‘I’ll stay in touch.’
Shunning company, I find my calls and visits to Freya are growing more frequent. The peacefulness of their Adelaide lifestyle begins to work a certain magic on me. She’s stopped mentioning the cellar. She’s more interested in my future and occasionally suggests that I contact Sally. There never seems to be sufficient time.
She has secondaries cropping up everywhere. They’re subtle. Their stealth dismays us. She says she feels ambushed, as though she needs to keep renegotiating her contract with reality. And for all her reassurances to the contrary, I must be right in believing chemo and radiation have not been successful; that time is running out.
On one of her better days, on a wine-tasting drive through the Barossa Valley, just the two of us, we reminisce about Verloren.
‘Remember when Rob arrived?’ I ask as we sit amongst others on the patio of a small winery. There’s dappled shade, birdcalls, and the sound of a sprinkler.
‘Awkward,’ she says.
Rob’s visit had begun innocuously enough. I was reading, and I’d lifted my head to have the sea surprise me. There, suddenly, was the Rosy Wrasse, giving a lift to the day.
Bert wasn’t alone. A tall, energetic man stood at the bow, ready with a line as they entered the gulch. Kes was whipping up and down the jetty and the stranger wasn’t impressed.
Bert indicated with his chin and said, ‘You’ve got yourself a scientist here. Name’s Rob,’ and when I got in the way as he passed boxes down, he said, ‘What are you skylarking about for?’
I looked at Rob’s fieldwork-dirty army surplus shorts and his slim legs and later, when I told Mum that he reminded me of an emu she said, ‘You’re shocking; I think he’s good looking,’ but laughed anyway.
As soon as Rob was on the jetty, Kes’s nose gravitated to his groin. ‘Get off!’ he snapped, flapping his arms.
Dad reached out to shake his hand. ‘What brings you here?’
He said he’d just finished monitoring geese on Flinders Island. ‘I’ve got other islands to cover before heading back to Hobart. I’ll be here a few days, depending on the boat,’ and he gave an almost indiscernible nod in Bert’s direction.
‘Up to the weather, cobber.’ Bert reached for a craypot. ‘This do, Wheeler?’
‘Aye, Bert. She’s a beauty.’
Bert surveyed the southern sky and said he might be here longer than he’d planned because ‘that front looks like she’s comin’ through pretty darn smart.’
‘I’ll second that,’ said Dad.
I hopped onto the cart and started opening boxes. I liked the look of those vegies, but when I told Bert that I was sick of dehydrated potato, Rob suggested we try to establish a vegie patch.
Bert cleared his throat. ‘Got a cold one in the esky for me, cobber?’
‘There’s always a beer for you, Bert.’ Dad pointed his chin at Rob. ‘You coming up to the house?’
‘Best be on my way, guys.’ He wiped his salty glasses on a handkerchief and said he might call in on his way back, then pulled out a map, as thin on detail as ours before we started scrawling names all over it, and told us he was heading for the farm.
‘You’ll only see one pair with their chicks on North Verloren,’ I said as he hoiked his rucksack onto his back.
‘Good to know. Well, catch you all later,’ and he started up the track, flapping shorts and heavy boots, an old canvas hat pulled down over his ears. His hair was tied back in a ponytail.
‘You might learn some useful stuff from him, Nicky,’ said Dad.
Bert made a sound in the back of his throat. ‘Bloody academics and those National Parks types. Bunch of shiny arses, the lot of them. With a bit of bad luck you might have a few more arriving later in the season too.’ He looked cautiously at Mum as though he thought she was a shiny arse too, but she was staring at an oystercatcher on a nearby boulder as though she hadn’t heard a word.
Dad said, ‘Well, mate. It’s good for business,’ and Bert said, ‘Yeah, mate. But not for the ticker, mate. The crap a bloke has gotta listen to. Tells me the climate is changing, ever heard such nonsense? All they know is bookwork. That fella’s lucky he didn’t find himself paddling in the great blue yonder without his mum to hold his hand.’
Almost imperceptibly, Mum’s jaw clenched.
‘Use those muscles, women!’ yelled Dad, as we all began pushing the cart. Above us, Philip and Elizabeth circled Mount Aeolian, honking.
~
Bert was sitting in an indecisive patch of sunlight on the lighthouse steps when I flopped down beside him with my notebook. I had questions, and because I like the way he speaks, I wanted to get his words down properly.
He shifted uneasily and took a cigarette from the pocket of his shirt, squinting at me through one eye because of the sudden glare.
‘Fire away then, sweetheart.’ And he lit up. I told him my questions were for a goose essay. ‘Will you tell me everything you know about Cape Barren geese, please?’
He grinned. ‘They make good cray bait, love.’
My face dropped.
He patted my knee. ‘Stick a bit of gannet in the pot and the crays are fighting each other to be first in.’
It couldn’t be true.
He inhaled slowly, rolling his cigarette between his fingers. ‘Geese, though. Like flies on Flinders.’
‘Do the locals eat them?’
‘My word, darling. The young ones make a good plate. They breed on the smaller islands like Verloren, see? Then the juveniles come over to Flinders and have themselves a party in the paddocks. I don’t care what any of those scientists says. A cow hardly has a place to plant her dainty hooves when those fat fellas arrive.’
‘Do they shoot them?’
‘Got to keep the numbers down, love. Two hundred, sometimes more of them sitting on a paddock.’ He tapped his cigarette against the steps. ‘Shoo them off and they just hop into the next one. That professor – that Rob fella – full of fancy notions. Never been over here in his life before. Fed tall stories in the university then thinks he knows everything. I’ve been around a while now, love. I know the place.’ He shook his head. ‘Let’s go and have a cuppa before my ticker chucks it in.’
‘He could have been more friendly.’
Bert gave me an approving smile. And even though he talks so slowly, I didn’t get down everything he said.
~
