Beneath the Wild Fig Tree, page 23
That night a huge, luminous moon edged into view and Albinoni’s ‘Adagio in G Minor’ was playing in the lounge. Outside, the beaches were pale, cold reaches of dream. On Emita the gastropods and crabs would be creating tiny crisscrossing paths and flounder would be vacating their resting places, leaving hollows in the sand.
‘Let’s all go midnight walking,’ I suggested. So we did. And somewhere on the island was Len, but his somewhere wasn’t the same as ours because even though I looked, I didn’t see his footprints.
~
I find the moment everything was torn asunder in Wheeler’s ledger entry for 31 January 1985 and here it is in his own words:
Freya cornered me at Honeymoon Cove in the late afternoon. Had a line out; didn’t hear her coming. She was suddenly there, and I could tell from the look of her that I was in for a battering.
Time to talk, she said, sitting on a boulder some distance away. Looked at the sand clinging to her feet. She has broad feet – not her best feature.
Reeled in, playing for time. Was feeling subdued, a battle the last thing I felt like. And then the line hooked on a submerged boulder. Tried coaxing it, manoeuvring it this way and that. The thing was so snared I couldn’t work it free.
Just break it, she said irritably.
Yanked the line and as it snapped something oppressive lifted. Head felt clear at last. I’d had enough. If she wanted out, she could damn well have out.
Turned to face her. Looked at those large brown eyes, that beautiful face, and was not moved. The curve of her cheekbone and her mouth, once so generous in every respect, were ordinary beyond measure. Looked at that body I’d always found magnificent and discovered that I was impervious to its attractions. This was the woman who had lain down beside me night after night – I looked, and in that moment I did not care anymore for what I saw.
She said my name, but even her voice got lost in the sound of the surf. She sat there grappling for words, so I said it for her. There’s bugger all left, is that it?
Yes, she said. Just, yes.
I told her she was free to leave. She did not move. I bent down and fiddled with some sinkers and when she asked what I planned to do, I told her it wasn’t her business any longer.
She had the gall to tell me she still cared. Don’t give me that crap, I said.
The bond between us had snapped. We didn’t know the new rules. I stood up, faced the sea, the clarity gone. She quietly picked her way through the casuarinas and left me alone.
The meaninglessness. That word repeated in my head on the long walk home. This relationship had been my life, had been more than the sum of us. Buggered if I understand how it could have ended so pathetically.
Sitting here in the darkness, barely seeing the words I’m writing, barely holding the glass steady, wishing today had never happened. Just want to lie down spread-eagled on Mr Napper’s cold stone floor.
I reread this entry several times. There’s a lump in my throat. It takes a while before I wonder where Sally and I were at this moment when my life irreparably fell apart. It doesn’t take me long to find this entry from Freya:
The conversation has been had. When I got home I lay down, wondering how we’ll keep up appearances until we leave. There was a shell beside our bed, one Nicky had given me when we first arrived. I held it up to the light, turning it over slowly. I’d considered it ordinary, but when I looked at it closely, exquisite details emerged. There was dignity in its weathering. The tiny creases of its hinge entranced me. It had been washed by the sea, touched by fish, covered by sand, and tumbled by waves. And yet it had endured.
I held it in my hands, and in that moment felt peace settle on me.
That day, according to my journal, Sally and I were hatching a plan to circumnavigate the island. Wheeler could carry our gear in the Cosmopolitan Leatherjacket. We’d camp somewhere overnight. Great plan. She wanted to see the island. I wanted to see Len.
So, two days later, just before sunrise, with the night chill still emanating off the beach, we set off along Restless with Kes, walking barefoot down the sand, while hooded plovers on their flimsy little legs ran before the breeze, and when the sun rose the beaches stretched away from us in hues of silver and blue, across the isthmus and around Mount Naturaliste. The mountain and the islands were sharply defined against the morning light. The sky was mirrored in the swash.
We loped overland. Wheeler was on the water, and Freya was back at the house, writing this letter:
Dear Anneke,
I wasn’t going to write again, but you need to know that this family you in effect created is over. I had imagined I’d feel free and elated, but I sat at the gulch and wept – for Wheeler, Nicky, and Kes; for Alison Blair, the Dead Lady of the Gulch; and those in the graves marked and unmarked, the First People and us, the latest. I wept because with the best of intentions things sometimes fall apart and because we had something so special once, and in breaking my promise to provide Nicky with love and security, I feel I’ve failed you, even though you, too, failed me.
I’m dreading telling Nicky. Wheeler is chaperoning the girls around the island while I pack up and steel myself.
Can’t wait to get back to Hobart.
With love,
Freya
44
Bass Strait (Verloren Island) 1985
Circumnavigation
We walked along Emita and over Alveolar Ridge to Sam’s Soak and then we took the Squally Cove route. I was looking out for Len, loitering on boulders and checking tidal pools.
‘They’re boring,’ said Sally.
But by now I’d learned that everything on Verloren shimmers with beauty. I showed her some Neptune’s necklace and explained how you often find warreners grazing on it and how their shells are everywhere in what Freya calls middens, but Len says are the places where the Old People loved gathering to eat.
We looked around for an easy route through the tussocks to Squally Cove. It was hot. We’d already had to wait for two tiger snakes to slither off our path.
At the cove we encountered a pair of seals. They lumbered into the water the moment they saw us, and on the high headland on the far side of Squally we sat down to regain our breath after the steep climb. The Rising Moon out of Whitemark cut her engine beneath the headland and the men started setting their pots. Sometimes they’d shout something jokey up at us, and we’d try to be witty back. A small white dog ran along the deck barking at Kes.
Wheeler was a small dot south off the isthmus. We rolled over to eat our apples while the gulls hung on the breeze and the sea eagles soared on the morning thermals. ‘I’m coming back as an eagle,’ said Sally.
‘Freya wants to be a swallow.’ After a moment’s reflection I added, ‘I’m coming back as the wind.’
‘You’re a strange girl, but I like you,’ said Sally. ‘You can be my sister.’
‘Really?’
‘Why not? We both need one.’
‘Sisters forever,’ we vowed, and immediately the atmosphere shifted. Sally said quietly, ‘If you’re my sister you have to tell me what’s upsetting you.’
I stared fixedly at the fishing boat, which had long ago started up its engine and was moving slowly down the coast.
‘Nothing.’ My throat tightened.
She gave my arm a little shake. ‘There is though. You’re moody and keep disappearing. Wheeler’s not his usual happy self and Freya is over-friendly. You’ve been calling them by their first names. I feel like an intruder. It’s uncomfortable.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I rubbed my throat.
She took a deep breath. ‘Nicky, what’s going on?’
A tear slid down my face.
‘Remember how I said there were lots of reasons why you were coming to Verloren?’
I nodded.
‘Your folks were having one last stab at getting things together again. Everyone knows that. It’s all to do with Freya and her supervisor. You had to have known.’
I wanted to block my ears, squeeze my eyes shut. I saw Freya down on Sunlit again, smiling at him. I pressed my hands against my eyes, but it didn’t stop me from crying.
She hugged me. ‘Things will get better.’ But the gulping noises I was making wouldn’t stop.
‘It’s not just Freya,’ she said. I turned to look at her. She was nibbling her lips. ‘Wheeler flirts too much. He’s fun, but he does.’
She saw my look of horror and hurriedly started joking about Kes, who was giving anxious little whines. He’d make as though he was getting up and then he’d sit down again and look at me, his head on one side. And she joked about Wheeler, who didn’t seem to be getting any closer, probably because he was checking every metre of the coastline for potential diving spots.
‘Parents are the pits,’ said Sally. ‘Even if you’re not adopted. But who needs parents if they’ve got a sister? Cheer up, Nicky. Let’s have some fun.’
‘Who told you I’m adopted?’ I said slowly.
‘Freya,’ said Sally. ‘That day I went learning about plants with her because you weren’t in the mood to do anything. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me yourself but apparently you were never going to. Freya only told me because she’s so worried about you and thought I needed to know.’
‘I hate her!’
‘Well, at least she’s got a brain,’ said Sally. ‘Not like Mrs Jones.’
Sally always knows more about my business than I do. And as I stomped off ahead of her, what I thought was, Freya’s betrayed me again. Parents should never be trusted.
~
Wheeler caught up with us as we came over the dunes at Beagle Bay. Sally, not at all concerned about trespassing, had taken a good look at the birding hut. Len was nowhere to be seen.
Wheeler and Sally got stuck into some tucker, but I wasn’t hungry. Then they had a swim, but I stayed lying on the sand. When he looked at me suspiciously, Sally covered up for me. Having a sister, even a tactless one, can be helpful. It deflects attention.
Pretty soon the effect of the sun overwhelmed Wheeler and he had a little snooze. Sally gave a sly smile and pulled a bottle of crimson nail polish out of her backpack, and pointing at the nail polish, and then at his toes, she passed me the bottle.
Painting his toenails red gave me a vindictive pleasure.
We wrote him a note in the sand and then we went around to the arch in Stumpy’s Bay where we sat absorbing the secluded serenity of the cove and the pungent breath of the dark, wet cave.
‘I could stay here forever.’ Sally sang fragments of song as we carried on walking along the cool, blue swash.
In Nautilus Bay there’s a series of granite boulders that look like gigantic misshapen buns, rather like at the gulch. We began clambering over them. Sally was ahead of me. When she reached the top, she gave a loud gasp. I looked up and saw her wobble. When I reached her, she clutched my arm tightly.
‘A corpse!’
A body floated on the surface of the water.
‘It’s floating, Sally.’
‘A bloated corpse!’ She put her hand to her heart.
‘You idiot. It’s not bloated. It’s Len.’
My sister recovered fast. She pulled me down behind a boulder and said, ‘Those pebbles you’ve been filling your pockets with – let’s throw them at him!’
She dug in my pocket, then threw one while I crouched behind a boulder.
He dived and stayed underwater a long time.
We waited. Again, he floated face-down.
Sally gave me a prod. I threw half-heartedly. I heard the patter of my tiny stones hitting water.
‘Did you see his daggy bathers?’
‘They’re okay.’
The patter had barely ceased when a pebble pinged off our boulder. When we looked, he seemed not to have moved, but the water patterns had changed. Sally threw again.
Len turned around slowly and hurled another pebble at our boulder. Then he flipped over and did some lazy freestyle.
‘Let’s go down and say hello,’ she said.
Kes was still on the sand behind us, sniffing at a dead penguin.
We dropped down onto the beach and she shouted, ‘What’s the water like?’ as he turned and swam a lazy breaststroke back in.
He gave a thumbs-up. I thought he smiled at me, but Sally said, ‘Time to get convivial. See the smile he flashed me?’ which was disappointing. On the beach, in the sunlight, with Sally’s company, the seabirds gliding and diving, and geese honking away in the distant tussocks, it felt very different from the night on the beach. All I could think was that before the day was done, he’d be kissing Sally.
She walked into the water, flicking back her long blonde hair, and then she swam out into the deep water where Len was doing some show-off bursts of different strokes. I could see immediately that she would dazzle him.
I waded into the water and Len and Sally broke off talking.
‘You’ve got sharp eyes,’ I said to Len when I reached them. A truly, pathetically unimaginative comment.
‘You’ve got loud voices.’
I looked past him, as though deeply fascinated by something way out at sea and we all trod water, bobbing over the incoming swells, while Sally chatted. Then she swam back towards the beach to where Kes was lying with our daypacks.
‘You melt into the island,’ I said. ‘I thought we’d bump into you once in a while.’
‘I’ve been around.’
‘Like where?’
‘About. Seen you plenty.’
I sank beneath the waves to cool down my face. I hoped he hadn’t seen me dancing on the beach when I thought seabirds were my only audience.
‘Sounds like your boat,’ said Len, so I told him about our circumnavigation.
We bobbed over a swell and he dived again. When he came up he blew out a great arc of water. ‘This beach is getting crowded. Might leave youse to it.’ So disappointing. I said we wouldn’t be hanging around, we just needed to catch up with Wheeler, then Sally, swimming back towards us, asked where he was camping.
He pointed with his chin. ‘Beagle Bay.’
Wheeler cut back the motor and as he puttered up to us, Sally and I grabbed the sides and hitched a ride up to the beach.
There were some crayfish in a bucket. ‘Good blokes, those fishers,’ he said.
He invited Len to have a barbie with us that evening. Len shook the water out of his hair, cast a critical eye over the crays and said, ‘Might get some abalone.’
Water slopped in the bottom of the boat and the smell of fuel hung in the air as we dragged the dinghy up the beach. ‘Where’s a good place for us to camp tonight, d’ya reckon?’ Wheeler asked.
Len scratched at a mozzie bite on his cheek and shrugged. ‘Good spot about an hour’s walk from here.’
Wheeler told us he’d brought a bat and ball and that it was time for a quick game-and-picnic stop.
We played. We ate. Len kept darting looks at Wheeler’s toenails and Wheeler kept giving him puzzled little glances. I thought Len would disappear at the first opportunity, but he didn’t. He and Wheeler went diving and came back with abalone, and Len was talking about the island, telling him how his family came birding here every year. I heard him say, ‘My mum was birding when I was born,’ and he pointed back towards Beagle Bay. Then Wheeler said, ‘That’s why you like coming here?’ and, shifting uncomfortably, Len said, ‘Just so happens I’ve time on my hands.’
‘How come?’ Wheeler asked.
‘Thought I’d give school a miss, didn’t I?’
‘Hey, mate,’ said Wheeler. ‘I did the same thing. Tossed it in for a bit of this and that. Next thing I know, I’m back doing my A levels.’
‘Can’t see the point. I’d rather do a bit of fishing for my keep.’
‘Mate!’ He scuffed the sand with his foot – and that’s when he noticed his toes. He said, ‘Well, that explains a lot! I’ll get you for this, young ladies! You’ll have cost me my reputation around these islands.’ Then he turned to Len and said, ‘It pays to stay on the alert around your local sheilas. Their sense of humour isn’t exactly profound,’ and after that he carried on talking to him about why he should hang in at school and the dodgy future of the fishing industry. He didn’t know that I was never going back to school again either.
Sally sat down beside Len and started asking him questions. I could tell he was uncomfortable. I saw that he’d reached into his pocket and was rolling a pebble in his hands. It looked a lot like the one he’d given me.
Wheeler squinted at the sun and said, ‘We’re going to have to make tracks, comrades. Last chance to say yes to a boat ride,’ and when Sally said, ‘Let’s camp here,’ he shook his head. ‘On we go,’ he said, getting up. Then he told Len there’d be room in the boat; maybe they could do more diving.
Len looked at his feet. ‘Yeah, why not?’ he said.
Kes was also keen on a ride. He stood in the bow, nose held high, sniffing the breeze, mouth a huge grin of delight, his tail charting circles. We watched them disappear and then we set off.
‘Wheeler’s not quite himself,’ said Sally.
It was true. I’d also caught him with a sombre look on his face when he thought he wasn’t being observed. Another argument, I supposed, but I didn’t share that with Sally.
We were tired and grumpy by the time we came upon them at Hannah’s Hope Bay. We’d walked fast, determined to do it quickly and we did, but the tide had been in, which had meant headland climbing, bush bashing and tussock leaping, and our arms and legs were scratched from fighting antagonistic vegetation.
Hannah’s Hope has a tiny freshwater creek and a delicious curve of perfectly white sand. Bluebottles, kelp and cuttlebones dotted the wrack line. Wheeler and Len were on a reef at the far end, and we couldn’t see Kes anywhere.
