Beneath the Wild Fig Tree, page 22
Silence at noon, sun trembling above
earth burning beneath the casuarina trees.
There off the boulders of Honeymoon Cove
I cast my gold net in the silver seas.
Fresh abalone and warrener
and fish that dazzle in the azure blue.
All that I want is the freedom to be
out there on the island, white sand, silver sea.
‘What’s that song called?’
She shrugs. ‘It’s by an a cappella group.’
She has the cassette with her, and back inside I peruse the tracks and the group members. ‘We have to put it on!’
‘I don’t think …’ says Steve.
‘Listen to the lyrics,’ I beg Freya. ‘Sally wrote those words. It says so – here!’
She smiles, but doesn’t open her eyes.
‘It’s my friend, Sally, Anneke. She’s singing about Verloren Island!’
‘That’s called synchronicity, Nicky. It happens to me all the time.’
In the living room I give in to a moment of overwhelm.
‘She’s going to die.’ My whisper is shaky. ‘There are so many things I need to talk to her about and I’ve left it too late.’
Anneke passes me a tissue, her face softening.
‘You know, Anneke, when we were kids, Sally said she’d always be my sister, but I let that friendship go. We drifted apart during the years I spent with Nan.’
‘If ever you needed a sister, it’s now. Have you got her number?’
I don’t, but we find the Joneses’ details in Freya’s address book.
‘Marti’s daughter,’ she marvels. ‘My first boyfriend. So, he ended up being Freya’s friend? It was ever thus.’
‘We rented a house from them in Hobart.’
‘I see.’ She taps her lips with her finger, a Nan gesture, and I go into the garden while she phones him. When she comes out, waving a piece of paper, there is triumph spread across her face. ‘I have her number for you, and I just got to speak to Marti for the first time in decades. Lots to reminisce about!’
Not only is Sally here, but when I phone her – immediately, because Anneke is insistent – she’s eager to meet up and shocked to hear about Freya.
By the time Anneke leaves, there are still so many questions unanswered. ‘When all this is over,’ she says, ‘We’re going to meet up, you and I. We will not lose touch.’ And she passes me an address on Flinders Island. ‘Now you have two places you can contact me, if I don’t get in touch with you first.’
‘Flinders? Really?’
She nods. ‘I love the islands, and you and I, we have mutual friends.’
‘We do?’
She kisses Freya goodbye tremulously, thanks Steve, and as we hug at the gate, she whispers light and fast, ‘I met you once, Nicky, on a day long ago …’
I laugh. ‘Beneath a wild fig tree, beside a creek, in the pouring rain. I know.’
And I stand there waving as the taxi carries her away, wishing I’d asked her the most important question of all.
‘Did she tell you who my father was?’ I ask Freya.
She shakes her head.
‘Must feel frustrating,’ says Steve.
‘You have no idea. She is so enigmatic.’
41
Peramangk and Kaurna Country (Adelaide Hills) 2000
The Gadfly
The doctor came with Carla today. She said Freya is to have no more visitors and, after an emotional discussion, she agreed to increase the morphine one last time. Freya’s finding breathing too painful. She’s utterly exhausted.
There’s a hushed atmosphere. A painful countdown.
Which is why Sally makes her visit short. We sit on the bench and the intensity of the situation dissolves the distance I’d allowed to develop.
‘Give your relationship with Anneke time,’ she urges, once I’ve blurted out my confusion, which hasn’t been helped by the fact that in this family stories seem wildly off-kilter, depending on the teller. I want crisp layers of shared experience. What I get is a fuzzy focus.
She writes down her address. ‘I’m around for you.’ She’s wearing silver Hopi earrings and her clothes remind me of Freya’s a long time ago.
‘You know, those shorts and bare feet – much more you than the Ms Corporate Lawyer look.’
‘Thanks a lot!’
‘I’m your sister, remember? I’m allowed to be honest.’
We laugh, but I’m desperate to get back to Freya. ‘I’ll let you know how things go, I promise.’ I walk with her to her van. ‘My love to Mr and Mrs Jones.’
She hugs me, climbs into her dilapidated Kombi, starts to drive away, then brakes. ‘By the way, you were lucky to catch me – I’m moving back to Hobart next month.’
‘Might see you there.’ I stand for a moment watching her go, her hand out the window waving, and then I walk inside to be with Freya.
~
Death comes visiting.
Eyes closed, Freya lies sunk in her bed, very still. She looks asleep but she and Death are sizing each other up. Occasionally Death – dark, divine and diabolical, wildly capricious yet gentle – makes her intentions known, then drifts away, leaving behind a presence – a colour, a temperature, an odour in the air.
I kiss her brow and we gaze into each other’s eyes.
‘Love you, Mum.’ Saying that is like walking barefoot over barnacles.
‘Love you too, Nicky.’
I pass her water and support her while she drinks.
Steve is standing in the lounge staring out over the garden to the hills. A Beethoven concerto is playing quietly in the background, tender notes that fall like a quiet rain. When he turns I notice that his eyes are damp.
‘Freya wants you.’ I walk over and hug him and am startled by the relief with which he returns this impulsive embrace.
~
Later, in a brief interlude away from her bedside, he sits in the worn leather chair in the corner of the study, and I sit on the Chesterfield that she will not reach again. The shelves sag with archaeological texts. He leans forward and talks about the painfully slow recognition of traditional ownership, the rich sophistication of culturally held knowledge, and a concept called the Anthropocene he’d come across that day.
He evidently doesn’t want to talk about Freya.
‘Fire management and climate change,’ he says. ‘We need to listen to Indigenous people if we aren’t to head in a perilous direction.’ I wonder what Len would make of what he’s saying.
‘We gave ourselves the wrong moniker when we labelled ourselves “sapiens”. Wise we are not. Hubris we have in full measure. The colonial project – disastrous.’
The telephone rings. We don’t move. The answering machine captures a call from a friend, enquiring after Freya, as we cradle our drinks and listen to Gregorian chants flowing from the speakers. I steal a glance at him, pleased that at the end of her life she has someone so caring. Small touches, like the way he brings her a single bloom first thing in the morning.
We both smile carefully as he gets up to select another recording.
He puts on Shostakovich’s The Gadfly, the volume just loud enough for Freya to hear. ‘One of our favourites,’ he says.
He doesn’t realise the connotation Shostakovich has for me, a less than subtle semaphore. For once, I stay put. And this time it makes me want to cry.
42
Bass Strait (Verloren Island) 1984
Fat Turkey Cove
Searching through my journal for Christmas 1984, memories of our bleary-eyed breakfast, of opening our presents under a melaleuca branch Freya had decorated for the occasion, the mobile Wheeler made me from shells, feathers, and driftwood, and the carvings he’d made for Nan and Freya flood back.
Freya gave me a fountain pen and, still angry, I gave them nothing. Nan gave me my Parisian journals and I gave her a tiny nautilus shell, one of several that had recently washed in on the tide. Wheeler cracked open a bottle of champagne and made a toast to the following year, declaring it would be our best yet. He smiled warmly at Freya, but she stared down at the table, a little frown lodged between her eyebrows.
Fat Turkey Cove, our picnic spot, was a tiny pocket of sand north of Squally Cove. It only emerged on a spring low tide so it didn’t have a name – Wheeler made it up for the occasion, even though we didn’t have a turkey with us. ‘We are the turkeys,’ he said.
It was probably the truest announcement he’d ever made.
Nan found a shady spot and proceeded to paint. Freya read and Wheeler and I dived for abalone. Suspended upside-down in a timeless limbo, I stared at the delicate finery of tubeworm feelers and zebra fish half-hidden by the slow sway of seaweed, and watched a colourful nudibranch graze. And what I discovered was that you could cry in the water without anyone knowing. We weren’t a family anymore and this didn’t feel like Christmas.
Lunch was seafood.
‘This is the life!’ Wheeler munched a cray leg, the juice dribbling down his chin. ‘A small Christmas on a small island.’
‘Wipe your face, Wheeler,’ said Freya.
Nan was drinking her third glass of champagne.
‘I’m going to have a swim and I’ll have dessert after that,’ she said, and ran unsteadily into the little waves.
‘Not bad for an old turkey,’ said Wheeler. ‘Come to think of it,’ he added, turning to Freya, ‘you haven’t been in yet! Come on Nicky! Let’s sacrifice this beautiful goddess to Neptune!’
I rolled my eyes. She ran into the poa and over the ridge, and the sound of her laughter drifted back to us on the breeze.
‘Well, time for some more diving. Come on, you.’
Later, Nan and Wheeler both fell asleep in the shade, and I took Kes for a walk. There was a yacht off Honeymoon Cove, but no sign of Freya. Once I’d have worried. That day I didn’t give a damn.
Wheeler woke when the wind turned to the south and the waves got up. ‘If we want to use the boat we’re going to have to get cracking,’ he said. He was annoyed with Freya, which wasn’t fair, given his habit of disappearing.
Nan took one look at the developing chop and said she’d walk, thank you very much, and she set off at once. But Kes and I went with Wheeler and we all got drenched by the slop on the way home.
Friday, 28 December 1984
… On Christmas Day I behaved despicably, even though, opening gifts, I’d looked at Nicky and Wheeler and felt heartsore. I longed for the simplicity of those days when he was my everything and she was our delight.
We idled a couple of hours away over a picnic but when Wheeler decided to dump me into the sea (a rather annoying habit of his), I escaped, and approaching Honeymoon I spotted a familiar yacht.
Although I’d been longing for this, I was thrown by the timing. So was Tracey. She said we were fools – that she and Mark didn’t like being involved in our duplicity. Mark tried to excuse her by saying she was uptight because he’d nearly installed the yacht on The Dagger and whatever we did was our business; all he wanted was some Christmas celebrating. Meanwhile Steve was overly apologetic (‘I’m crazy, but I couldn’t stop myself,’ that sort of thing.)
They’d chosen to anchor off Honeymoon because they didn’t want to approach the lighthouse, although they’d apparently sailed close in, hoping to attract my attention. Tracey kept asking where ‘they’ were and was I sure this was safe because she certainly didn’t want to meet Wheeler, so we decided to cruise towards Lone Egg Island. Honestly, while there were moments of that afternoon that felt quite blissful, each time I visualised my family sitting on that tiny beach wondering where I was, I loathed myself.
Short sail. We returned to Honeymoon ahead of the southerly and I had to run home, arriving well after everyone had eaten tea, and receiving – quite justifiably – a stony welcome. I said I’d found a new site and would work down the coast the following day. All this they believed. I’m torn between relief and self-hatred.
43
Bass Strait (Verloren Island) 1985
Arrivals and Departures
There was already an atmosphere of arrival and departure when Dorothy buzzed us. Carrying bits of luggage, we headed down to Emita Beach and sat among the correa and pigface as the plane headed straight towards us and taxied to a halt.
Sally leapt out, ‘overexcited’ according to Nan, and I was so busy catching up on all the gossip that I didn’t notice Len until he climbed out and looked across at me.
I followed him around to the other side of the plane to find out how long he’d be staying, but all he said was, ‘Gunna camp down south,’ and our hands touched briefly, then flew apart as Dorothy came over and hugged him goodbye.
He hoisted his pack on to his shoulders. ‘Be going then,’ he mumbled, and he glanced at me briefly with his amazing eyes and walked away.
Wheeler yelled, ‘Len! My man! Come and have some tucker up at the house first,’ but Len raised his arm in the air and kept right on walking.
‘Weird boy,’ said Sally.
But Dorothy, manoeuvring Nan’s luggage into the plane’s hold, told her he was smart, independent and resourceful, and that he knew Verloren better than anyone else in the Furneaux. ‘I’ve got a lot of time for young Leonard,’ she said.
~
Dorothy wanted a quick swim before leaving, so we left Freya and Nan in deep conversation on the beach and Sally and I went to the gulch with her while Wheeler carted gear to the house.
We sat on Whale Rock and Dorothy said, ‘I hear Arthur Mahoney’s some kind of relative of yours,’ and she laughed when Sally rolled her eyes.
‘Once when Yolla was here, he came to check up on the place, and caught her meditating here on this rock, in her birthday suit. Bert reckons your uncle was calling forth fire and brimstone and before they’d even made fast to the jetty, he was shaking his fist and accusing her of satanic acts, claiming that he wouldn’t have “no pagans” on his island.’
‘Sounds like my uncle.’
‘What happened then?’ I asked.
‘She stood on the boulder and sang ‘I Shall Not Be Moved’ before jumping down to give Bert a hand. She’s got a beautiful voice. You should hear her sing the blues. Your uncle was blessed.’
I hoped she’d put her clothes on by then. ‘Did she tell you we met?’ I asked.
‘She raved about you, Nicky. It was hard to shut her up.’
‘Why?’
Sally laughed. ‘Yes, why? She’s my best friend – you are, Nicky – but I’m not going to rave about you!’
‘Well!’ Dorothy shrugged. ‘I know she wished she’d had more time with you. It seems you had a good conversation.’
‘I suppose.’
‘You can always get in touch through me.’
But why would I? It was just one conversation. The water sloshed around us. The boulder radiated heat. We were silent, watching terns work the damp sand with their feet, then when they’d flown away Sally and Dorothy jumped in, but I stayed on the boulder, thinking about Yolla. She seemed to spend a lot of time wandering around in the nude.
~
Sadness lumped in my throat as we said goodbye to Nan. The engine started up, the propellor turned, and we waved as Dorothy brought the plane around into the breeze. We watched it gather itself, change stride to a gallop, leap lightly into the air and begin its climb, heading out over the ocean, over the deeps and the seagrass meadows and the shifting sands of the ancient Bassian Plain. And we saw its shadow racing after it over the surface of the water, and then Nan was gone.
After she left, Wheeler and Freya appeared more relaxed, but they were dissembling, so her letters and Wheeler’s ledger were pivotal to helping me understand exactly how things unfolded. She’d written:
… Since Sally arrived Wheeler doesn’t disappear as much. Sometimes I look at him fooling with his guitar or scaling fish, apparently oblivious to the guillotine poised above his head, and I can see exactly why I loved him.
Sally is a helpful buffer between Nicky and me. She’s also interested in plants and learns names quickly. As we all sat on the dunes watching raindrops falling, listening to the frogs starting up, she noticed a small seedling bending under the weight of tiny splashes and remarked how much like people they are, in that they can be destroyed by lots of little blows. Indeed, and relationships too. I hurriedly changed the subject because she’s such a perceptive girl and I don’t know how much she may have heard from Janet. Still, since she arrived, it’s rare to find that clenched-up look on Nicky’s face. For that, I’m grateful, and grateful too because before she left, my mother agreed that Nicky and I can move in with her. She made it clear that this is for Nicky’s sake. I don’t feel I’ve been entirely forgiven …
Right on cue at the start of January, the moonbird chicks tumbled out of their eggs in the sandy burrows. The breadwinner parents spent their days skimming the ocean hunting for krill while their partners bunkered down to preen and coddle their plump offspring. We all agreed the moulting penguins looked scruffy. They were the ones that either hadn’t bred, or their babies had already taken to the sea, so they were fasting.
With Sally here, I didn’t watch the birds as much, except when she and Wheeler were jamming. That’s when I went to the rookeries, hoping Len would find me there, but he never did. Mostly we’d go to Sunlit, Sal and I, to read and talk in the shade of the boulders.
Once, Freya and Wheeler wandered by, Kes sniffing along the wrack ahead of them. Wheeler reached for Freya and waltzed her towards the waves. She broke away when they were ankle-deep, and started to jog, looking back at him over her shoulder; they were both laughing, and he chased her, but she was too quick for him.
Sally said, ‘Mr and Mrs Jones are never romantic.’
Hope caught in my throat. ‘They often do things like that.’ I wished saying it could make it true. I hadn’t even told Sally I was adopted. Whenever I tried to, my throat tightened. That’s what happened then. I opened my mouth and my throat clamped shut.
