Beneath the Wild Fig Tree, page 3
‘She might as well bivouac up there,’ he’d complain. He’d ask if I knew her plans or the people she was going on this or that field trip with. I evaded his questions because I felt uneasy too. Once, at Sally’s, when we were practising applying mascara, she’d said, ‘Why do you sometimes call your parents by their first names?’
‘You know, when they’re being aggravating. Freya often calls my nan Celeste, actually.’
She considered herself in the mirror. ‘I’m going to call my parents Mr and Mrs Jones.’
‘That’s so old fashioned, Sal. Call them Marti and Janet.’
‘Well, they are old-fashioned! They’re way too strict.’
But I’d stopped listening to her. I could hear my mother telling Janet how great campus was, how much she liked a particular group of students, and then in a lower voice, she said something about it being such good luck, getting a supervisor she’d clicked with immediately.
Dad was teaching, finally using his degree. He prided himself on speaking his mind, but it had put him at odds with the principal. ‘There the staff sit,’ he’d tell me. ‘The enthused but meek, the frustrated and the overworked, and then the rest of them. Nicky, always stand up for your principles.’
We’d take Kes for walks, out across Knocklofty or along the mountain trails. We’d discuss the books we were reading or go to the State Cinema. Sometimes we’d simply sprawl around at home, me with my head in a book and him playing his guitar or writing a song, or we’d watch TV, or go down the road so he could catch up with his best mate Marti and I could catch up with Sally. It was better going to her house because she’d always bring her guitar when she came to see me, and if Dad was home, she’d beg him for lessons.
An essay I wrote about the Greek philosophers had been chosen for a national competition, even though, prompted by Dad, I’d questioned why we looked to Greece when this country had a long-enduring philosophy of its own. Mrs Porter could hardly contain her delight. She called me ‘outstanding’. Sam Doody took no notice, but he brushed against me as we left the classroom, maybe on purpose. Even if I don’t win, I’d written, perhaps I can be a writer one day. I wasn’t sure what kind. I didn’t think I had much imagination.
I liked my school. I had friends. My teachers loved my marks. I’d gone to a couple of parties with Sally and Sam had sought me out at one and kissed me on a jetty below Battery Point. That was the day after my mother returned from a field trip, so happy she was dancing around the house, singing in her horrifying voice. Instead of going out to practise with The Crazed Desert Gophers, the band he was playing lead guitar with, Dad had cooked a special curry, put Ry Cooder on the turntable and danced her around the lounge to ‘Little Sister’, Kes prancing around them, making us all laugh. We’d sliced up oranges and Mum had poured Cointreau over them, and we’d had them for dessert. It was the first time she’d let me taste alcohol.
I slowly took Freya’s letters out of my bag and checked for 1984. And then I paused. I felt exceedingly queasy reading them without permission. I watched the heron, surveyed North Harbour, and then eased the pages from an envelope marked ‘Return to Sender.’
Monday, 26 March 1984
Dear Anneke,
Here’s a letter because it’s easier than writing my thesis, and also because lately I’ve been wishing you were back in Tassie too. I’ve been exploring the mountain and beaches with Nicky – it’s always nostalgic because it reminds me of doing the same with you.
Remember how you loved messing about on Marti’s yacht, the cruises you did with his family down the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and up the east coast – like the one to the Furneaux Islands? You were so hooked on the sea! You never realised how awed I was by my big sister’s creativity and independence.
FYI, Wheeler and Nicky have got into sailing with Marti too. Patterns repeating. Isn’t life strange that the Marti who seemed so grown-up to me when he was your boyfriend is now Wheeler’s friend, and mine too?
This afternoon was stunning. I took Nicky to campus with me, Kes scouting out ahead of us as we walked along Mount Stuart Road, looking down the river to Betsy Island and Storm Bay. I was remembering that day you and I went swimming at Short Beach …
She’d told me about that day so often we’d come to call it The Blue Cloud Day. They’d stood in clear water, bathed in sunlight and there wasn’t a wisp of white above the mountain, just a rainbow suspended above the estuary and a blue cloud weeping over Droughty Point. Their towels lay on the sand behind them, and small silver fish wove between their legs. It was a Wednesday morning. Everyone was at school, but Nan had chosen bed over her studio; they didn’t know why, and they’d shirked lessons in favour of the beach.
When they got home that bright morning, she told them their father had left with the suitcase that to his daughters symbolised surprises and mystery, exotic places, and the warmth of return. He’d left for good, and everything disintegrated.
As we’d walked along, Kes’s tail making happy loops, she’d said that Nan’s distress played out in a way that hurt Anneke in particular. She believed Anneke had known about his affair and had withheld this information out of loyalty to her father. They argued. Artworks were smashed.
Anneke stopped painting. She locked herself in her room, seldom came out, and as she told me this Freya stopped in the middle of the pavement, touched her finger to my chin and made me look into her brown eyes, promising me she’d never, ever let me go through that sort of pain.
‘It’s how we lost her. And no matter how great our efforts to reach her were after that – barely a word.’
As we walked down the sheer slope of Mellifont Street, she told me that when Anneke was deeply distressed, she’d painted pink fish all over the school oval, horrifying everyone. A spiralling aftermath had followed. She understood why Anneke took to dreaming of foreign countries, the ocean and the pleasures of anonymity, but she lost her sister to more than just geography.
We walked along Lansdowne Crescent (the shady trees, the weatherboard and sandstone houses) then down the decline of Cavell Street to Goulburn Street, and alongside the primary school Sally had gone to, the one with the big spreading oak tree and below it the old sandstone church, wedged in the confluence of two roads.
In Barrack Street we dropped a note off at The Doghouse, a pub where Wheeler’s band played, then stopped to contemplate the unloved rivulet. She told me how she used to tag along after Anneke and Marti, exploring its upper reaches as far as O’Grady’s Falls, sometimes catching yabbies or spotting a platypus. Here it was caged in cement and restrained in the dark beneath buildings. We gave it flowers, watching them float away from us, and wished for its liberty.
Freya was talking about her field trip later that month, an archaeological survey at Port Davey, in the remote South West. She said she felt sad about leaving us alone for so long. But I’d also heard her enthusing about the trip with Janet. It made me uneasy.
We idled through Sandy Bay, laughing and chatting, and then raced each other across the playing fields to the uni.
When we got to the faculty her supervisor came out of his office. He didn’t notice me. He greeted her with startling warmth and when I looked up, the reciprocity in her eyes shocked me. Outside the big window, the eucalypts were washed in light, long teal leaves floating soundlessly around their white limbs. The breeze gathered a little strength and a single leaf twirled slowly away across my field of vision, marking the start of the great unravelling.
6
Gayamaygal Country (Reef Beach, Sydney) 2000
Mouheneenner Country (Hobart) 1984
Complicated Relationships
I slowly tore Freya’s letter into tiny pieces, caught up in that uneasy moment on campus. Better to remember how exhilarated the three of us used to be, watching, from various vantage points, the mountain gathering the wind, the sun, and the clouds, choreographing lyrical sequences of weather for us, its devoted audience. But after the teal leaf fell, it seemed the mountain’s choreography grew darker, and infiltrated home.
I reached for the next letter, also returned unread. Once I’d asked Dad why my mother wrote to Anneke when she hardly ever responded.
‘Anneke means a lot to Freya,’ he’d replied. ‘She’d love her to visit so they can sort out their issues – although you didn’t hear that from me, Nicky.’
Boring grown-up stuff. It silenced my questions, but here on Reef Beach, they were on my mind, and so I opened it.
Friday, 8 June 1984
… It’s been almost a year with no word from you. Seriously, these letters are becoming more like a conversation with myself. Celeste is so concerned and we wish you could get to know Nicky. Think about a family reunion, Anneke. Please!
My news – having finally completed several pages of my thesis (to be called ‘Changing with the Climate: Environmental Trends and Human Occupation in Tasmania’), I was interrupted by my supervisor, Steve, and two of the other postgraduate students, Tracey and Mark. I’m sure I’ve mentioned them – they also came to Port Davey.
We went to the Alighieri Gallery at Salamanca Place and Celeste was there, minding the desk. I told her that Nicky and I would visit her on Saturday and then I escaped. But that meeting threw me off balance because you know how she jumps to irrational conclusions. Not that I’ve anything to be guilty about, but the way she looked at my friends, and the fact that they didn’t come over to meet her, left me feeling both they and I had been harshly judged.
By the time we reached the Illusion Café rain was falling and the mountain was lost from view. We spent so long discussing fieldwork that it wasn’t worth returning to uni and so I went to Steve’s place to talk about some difficulties I’m having with my thesis. It meant I was late home again and walked in to find Wheeler miserable about his job and none too happy with me either. Nicky succumbed to his wretched mood and flung herself about the house complaining that we ignore her. I stood in the doorway watching the unhappy scene unfold. I know he feels I’ve trapped him, but I think we’re simply taking longer than expected to transition into a more settled lifestyle. Still, Anneke, in those moments when everything begins to feel too much, I’m sorry I made the promise, wish I didn’t owe Wheeler everything, wish I didn’t feel so compromised. I perpetually feel as though I’m pushing back chaos.
Anyway, the next day I was feeling ill, bloody endometriosis, and stayed at home and I was making lunch when Wheeler walked in – home early.
Home for good, he told me.
When I asked about the promised extension of his contract he said it had never been likely. Now I’m wondering how much reorganising of our lives we’ll have to do this time Honestly, Anneke, I felt so distressed I just had to get out of the house.
I ended up at the faculty, and Steve took one look at me and invited me back to his place. He listens, Anneke. We laugh. He’s calm and understanding, and then – he made me a hot water bottle because the pain was killing me!!
But he’s not going to be my supervisor for much longer. There’s no conflict of interest in us being friends, but as he says, people sometimes develop unfounded perceptions, as I was about to discover.
We hadn’t been there long when there were loud bangs on his front door. Wheeler had been to campus, spoken to Mark and reached certain conclusions. I retrieved what dignity I could and mouthed apologies as Wheeler marched ahead of me to the car. The worn tyres spun. All I could think as we tore up the road was the shame, the shame!
We fought about Steve and we fought about the lost job and I made him drop me on Davey Street. I spent what was left of the afternoon walking aimlessly around town clutching my stomach, so it was late when I got home. He had disappeared, leaving empty beer bottles lying on the table. The house was freezing, All I wanted to do was climb into bed, but there was Nicky.
Fortunately, he didn’t return until the early hours and she’s a heavy sleeper. Because that night I risked phoning Steve to apologise before pain overwhelmed me.
I went and cooled off in the water, childhood memories manipulating my mood. Treading water, I watched a couple and their child leave the path and settle beneath the eucalypt at the eastern end of the beach. My thoughts turned to Arno and the vanishing dreams of my future.
7
Lyluequonny Country (Recherche Bay) 1984
Hope
I moved my towel to some shaded sand and lay down, flipping through pages while my memories sharpened. That afternoon in June 1984, Sally and I were in her bedroom talking about bras, Kes snoozing on the floor beside us. She’d been the first of my friends to get one, I’d written, and now everyone wore one, even me, although I didn’t need to. I was secretly convinced I was growing inwards, because of the sensation of roots burying into my chest. I constantly ached. Meanwhile, Sally kept bounding through sizes and I never came close to catching up.
In the middle of our conversation, I remembered my new Split Enz Time and Tide cassette and went home alone to get it, down the steps and along the side then through my rickety bedroom window, so light-footed that nothing creaked. That’s when I heard Dad in the kitchen. At first I couldn’t identify the sound; then I realised he was crying.
I sat on my bed. My heart was thumping; I’d never heard him so distressed. It scared me.
He poured a drink. It was a bad sign.
The clouds swallowed up the sun and my room darkened and cooled. I reached for my cassette then slipped out the window and ran back to Sally’s place, feeling alarmed.
It was late when Mum came looking for me. Janet was already laying the table and I strained to hear what they were saying through the bedroom wall. Sally was at her dressing table trying on a bunch of lipsticks her grandmother had given her and singing along sporadically to ‘Six Months in a Leaky Boat’.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, wiping a plum smear off her lips. My despondency was annoying her. She ejected my cassette in favour of Joan Armatrading, pausing for a moment to listen to our mothers, their voices low and confidential. ‘Mrs Jones is probably complaining because my dad spent a couple of extra days on Verloren Island,’ she said. ‘I wish he’d take me there.’ And she turned up ‘Me Myself and I’ and sang into her hairbrush as though it was a mic, while I stroked Kes, who sat beside me on the floor, occasionally turning his head to lick my hand.
Mum and I didn’t talk as we hurried up the road, Kes out ahead of us. The wind had strengthened. Stars came and went behind huge banks of cloud. She hunched her shoulders. I angled my face up to the southwesterly so that it sliced away on either side of it. The gate was swinging against the post. The porch light was off, and she struggled in the dark to find the front door key.
‘Your dad’s sick,’ she whispered, quietly opening the door.
So that’s why he was groaning!
‘And I’m not feeling great either,’ she added.
I squeezed her hand. Her endo could be excruciating.
‘Can I go and say goodnight?
‘No, sweetheart. He doesn’t want to be disturbed.’
My heart began racing and I called Kes over to lie on the bed beside me, while Mum warmed a pizza, which we ate at the kitchen table. I finally plucked up the courage to ask, ‘Is he very sick?’
‘It’s just, you know, a touch of flu and a lousy day at school. We’ll talk more tomorrow when I’m thinking a little straighter. But really, you don’t need to worry.’ And she took my hand and kissed it.
Afterwards, I offered to do the washing-up so she could have a bath. As I walked past her to the kitchen sink, she reached out an arm to hug me and briefly leaned her head against me. I stopped and closed my eyes. Mum had been forgetting to hug me and had even stopped kissing me goodnight. I supposed it was because I’m fourteen, but sometimes I wondered whether it was because of her thesis and her campus friends.
‘I love you Nicky. Best daughter ever.’
‘I love you too. Best mother.’
Later, I lay listening to the wind’s small howls as it rushed around the corners of the house, wondering what the matter really was with my dad.
I heard her go into their room. The door shut with a click and then a while later she tiptoed back down the passage and made a quiet phone call.
She’s phoning Nan, I thought. To tell her he’s dying.
Her voice was soft. Occasionally she murmured in a warm, sleepy sort of way. In between blowing her nose she even managed a few gentle laughs, which was soothing.
I heard her checking doors and saying goodnight to Kes. She switched off the lights. There was still no sound from Dad and every now and then my heart started racing.
Kes left his basket. His nails clicked on the wooden floors as he made his way to my room and jumped on the bed. I reached for him, then closed my eyes and watched the eucalypt leaf falling again.
The next morning I walked into the kitchen for breakfast and they stopped talking. Mum was pouring a coffee. Dad, spreading Vegemite on his toast, told me that he was going to drive down the D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
‘But you’re sick!’
He raised his eyebrows and gave me a puzzled look.
‘Want to come with me, Nicky?’
Mum put her mug down so hard coffee slopped on the counter.
‘Ah well, I’ll just have to enjoy my first day of freedom alone,’ he said.
Mum gave him a bitter look as she strode out of the room and my stomach tightened. She came back moments later to feed Kes, who looked like I felt, tail tightly curled between his legs and his eyes anxious. I went back to my bedroom and made busy noises, but as soon as Mum left, I told Dad that I’d go with him. It meant missing a test, but he really needed company.
