Bush, page 1
About the Author
Grew up in the small country town of Colac, in south western Victoria, Australia, where the novel was set. Had an enchanted childhood with a close-knit family and friends which sometimes centred around our holiday house at Lorne. Gained an understanding of the rugged coastline and the people there. Started work as a journalist at seventeen, while studying at university. Got married in the late 90s and had two beautiful boys, Hugh and Ben. Have worked as a writer for social justice and environmental organisations ever since. Now head of Middle School English at The Geelong College – a prestigious school in the south west of Victoria.
Bush
Rhonda Matheson-Browne
Bush
Olympia Publishers
London
www.olympiapublishers.com
OLYMPIA EBOOK EDITION
Copyright © Rhonda Matheson-Browne 2019
The right of Rhonda Matheson-Browne to be identified as author of
this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All Rights Reserved
No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication
may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,
copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions
of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal
prosecution and civil claims for damage.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is
available from the British Library.
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents originate from the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First Published in 2019
Olympia Publishers
60 Cannon Street
London
EC4N 6NP
Dedication
A massive thank you to my loving family, my partner and my friends for sticking by me through this process. Your tolerance and love has enabled me to overcome some major obstacles.
Like the passion vines, that entangle themselves and suffocate the Australian rainforest, Bush is a story of strength, courage, loyalty and the idea that, to create a greater good and to save our endangered species, we need to break some rules, which are deeply rooted in our culture. These characters find themselves on an intoxicating course to change and the outcomes are breathtaking, heartbreaking, terrifying and unexpected.
Chapter One
The taste of blood registered before consciousness. The body was cold and wet. As it slowly roused, there was an acknowledgement from somewhere, that everything was so wrong and the response was to start shaking violently. Crouched in the bush, covered in blood, despite the injuries, fear overtook pain effortlessly. None of this made sense… left eye would not open, blood coagulated down face and matted in hair, body thumped with an internal rhythm that it had not felt before… instinctively, what was needed, was to get up as quickly as possible. There was danger, and someone would be watching, waiting – somewhere, or so it was assumed… considering. Beaten, crushed, immobilized badly, but this time it was different, it was on the other foot. It didn’t make any sense. Shakespeare’s words came to mind, “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.” The irony of the mind, even in these seconds. No humour should register, but it does.
A flash back of memory… unrelenting, sadistic and had gone on for hours, that was the only glimpse, but it wasn’t specific. There were no faces, or landscapes, or voices. That was the most peculiar part.
Slowly raising the left hand to what was a fairly serious wound on the eye and left temple. Shaking fingers, found a wide, gaping hole and the shock suddenly displayed itself as nauseousness. The flash of the axe being aimed menacingly suddenly made the entire trunk arch, rolling over and vomiting the little fluid that had obviously sustained this slight life force until now.
When the shock had registered, seemingly deep within the bones, the body regained as much composure as physically possible. Survival was paramount here. This was bad… obviously a lot of blood had been lost, considering the state of the injuries and the leaf litter below but death hadn’t come, and it was important that death was avoided at this stage. There were two things in mind; firstly, to escape without being detected by the people who had caused this carnage and ultimately to stay alive, as now the game had turned and this, quite apart from the obvious… was a very uncomfortable position to be in. It was noted that the location was a long way from civilisation and while, lucky to be alive, the situation needed to be assessed cleverly before any decisions were made.
Scratching clumsily into the matted hair of blood and caked dirt… no recollection of getting here or the event (other than the violence) which ended so devastatingly, was even close to the surface.
The campsite was spotless, no evidence of a struggle and the intensity of the atrocities that had occurred during the previous night. The assailants were gone. There were no cars, or even tracks. Weird as it had obviously rained heavily throughout the night. No footprints, or drag marks.
As the mind aimlessly racked through the nothingness of the night before the intense pain of broken limbs and shattered muscles and tendons suddenly deemed the body immobile. The pain had obviously rocked the brain back into a state of unconsciousness, as on awakening, there was now a memory of getting to this point.
Tugging and wrestling the body over to the base of a tree, a quick inventory of the injuries were noted. Broken right leg, broken left clavicle, broken jaw, skull and right wrist, probably perforated lung from ribs. Bad, but not an end game by any length of rational reasoning. Gritted teeth enabled the shirt to be removed. A splint was made with two straight sticks for either side of the leg and the shirt was tied around it to secure the bones. The wrist, shoulder and leg were pulsating unnaturally as this was done; but the adrenaline had started to kick in and the determination to survive was the only factor now. Dehydrated. The dewy morning had created a puddle in the clearing, this would provide the hydration to enable a start to the long journey back to civilisation. The major wounds needed sterilisation, the head wound needed to be secure, otherwise the flies and mosquitoes wound infect the wound quickly. A fallen branch was used to pull the body erect and the pain that erupted throughout sent it into a hunched convulsion. Vomiting the murky puddle water was the result of this movement. With all the strength the body could summon, a path was set along the east side of the block. It was a murky day, dull, no wind, no harsh sun. It was hard to make out the direction of the sun, or maybe it was the blurred vision that disabled the vision. An old washing line held a partially rotten sheet, almost moving, but hopelessly, in the slight breeze.
Grabbing it off, it was then tied tightly around the weeping wound on the head. Tea tree would be harvested along the way to create a bit of an antiseptic bandage. It would not be sterile, but it would keep the insects off the open cut. The shattered body meandered obediently, yet not willingly and the long walk to obtain survival began.
The brief medical training had helped a great deal throughout life, this time it will hopefully prevent death.
Nature itself hadn’t stopped. The birds flitted past and sung ancient tunes that had interrupted the quietness of the bush. The block itself was called Nell, after an Aboriginal ancestor who had caused bellowing men to cower at her feet. The clouds now parted and the sun seemed more intense than it should have. A sign from this long dead indigenous sorcerer that this was not going to be an easy trip. A simmering hatred ignited from this thought and lurched a movement towards an unknown destination.
A kangaroo thumped off to the north, its grazing startled by this alien creature who should not be in this location. Wandering on …poorly. But not without hope or will. Prayers may have worked for a more spiritual person, a religious person in fact, but it was an embedded belief that there was no ever-loving God looking over them all, protecting them from themselves. They were all alone. Obviously.
Chapter Two
Eric stood up looking around at the scattered campsite that was slowly being assembled around him. He was tall and solidly built, with mopped brown hair and drooping brown eyes.
“Have you seen the parsnips?” he asked Bill, who was tapping solidly on a tent peg.
Bill blinked in an over-exaggerated manner. Bill had been his best mate since junior school and looked like the Nordic opposite to his dark friend. “What did you just say?”
“I asked,” said Eric, rummaging through the boxes and bags that were littered around the campsite, “whether you have seen the parsnips? I distinctly remember putting them over there only moments ago.”
Bill blinked again and looked around at the dense Eucalyptus forest of the Otway National Park. “If you say the word parsnips again I am going to flatten you,” Bill stated with finality, as he leant down to continue knocking his tent pegs into place. Bill was not a very tolerant man and he had a process he wanted to complete before he could sit back and drink that particularly peaceful afternoon away.
Eric (tall, dark and thickly built) and Bill (blond, thin, tall and athletic) were among four former university students who attempted to make it a ritual to camp at the Aire Valley, each Christmas, for a week. They had jobs now and some of them had to travel from overseas to make
Eric was a little overweight, “beardy” as his kind friends put it and Neanderthalic, or cave man, was his nickname from the people who were not so kind.
He was a doctor of geology and was working currently for the Australian Worldwide Exploration company looking for gas in Papua New Guinea. This was his first time living outside of the country and he missed his family and friends. He came from a big, farming, western district family. He had two sisters, who were very tough and six brothers, which explains the latter. He was the youngest and had been spoilt rotten but bullied within an inch of his life.
“I just wondered whether you have seen the parsnips? There is no need to be rude about it,” Eric said as he walked off towards the opened back of the Subaru station wagon to search further into its unopened contents.
Bill ignored him until it vaguely registered that Eric had said the word one more time. Although, it was hardly audible, “parsnips” had slipped from his friend’s lips.
Bill was the opposite in every way from Eric. He was an only child who had been raised rather clinically by two academic parents in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. He was tall, athletic, blond and had a very cool manner with the women at university, which meant they flocked around him. He was currently working as a mechanical engineer in the mines in WA and had a real aversion to people telling him what to do.
“Did you say what I thought you said?” Bill asked standing up slowly from the intricate tent assembly process he had committed himself to.
“Parsnips,” Eric reiterated with exaggerated gusto and laughed hysterically. It was a momentous effort, but he maneuvered his big frame into a hunched, sprinting position and headed north through the bush.
Bill took flight quickly as he was much smaller and more agile than his prey. As he smashed and crashed his way through the bush, he now possessed no regard for what he destroyed as he focused on his target. The pair beat their way loudly through the bush. Eric laughing hysterically, which wasn’t helping his escape and Bill letting out a primal sound as he relentlessly sought his big, burly, bear like mate. The wattle, tree ferns and the forming viminalis trees were negotiated or flattened throughout this impromptu chase and it wasn’t until they got to the end of the path, between the river and the trees, that it all came to an ugly end.
It finished badly for the both of them yet it provided a great source of satisfaction and entertainment for those who were following the unfolding circus.
Bill had landed a lucky, yet clumsy, grasp of Eric’s waist and the heavier man had fallen heavily on the bracken and leaf litter along the water’s edge. They were grasping hopelessly at each other and were trying to establish their footing in the extremely slippery river, when Beth, a slight, dark haired girl, got between them and pulled them towards her by the scruffs of their necks.
“What in the name of God would create this behaviour from an engineer and a geological scientist? If people from your work places could see you now they would doubt your competence.”
Bill was red-faced, but still angry and blurted out that it was all Eric’s fault, because he wouldn’t shut up about the parsnips.
“I don’t want to know about it. Just apologise, shake hands and let’s get back to putting the camp together,” Beth said.
“Parsnips,” Eric said and Bill punched him so hard in his fat, bearded face that he fell to the ground and was unconscious.
“You’re a bloody, dickhead,” Beth hissed. “The Colac Hospital is about an hour away. What if you have killed him?” She was so close to his face that he felt actually terrified by her tiny, yet enormous, anger.
Beth was a microbiologist at Melbourne University and was known very early on for her small stature and inflammatory temper. Bill and Eric absolutely loved her. She had grown up tough with a single mother and had been smart enough to secure her own full scholarships to Melbourne High and then Melbourne University. When she finished her doctorate at Monash Medical Centre she was employed at Melbourne University as a microbiologist… she was employed as a botanist looking at unique moss in untouched rainforests.
As she looked down at her unconscious friend she knew the situation was no longer humorous and had suddenly become grave. She got down into the damp mossy river bed and felt for a pulse. She dared not to look up at Bill as she knew her indominable temper would disable him unconscious too, so continued her evaluation of the stationary lump before her.
Chapter Three
Richard scratched frantically at his skin; the Los Angeles weather had gotten to him and he couldn’t seem to settle into the heat anymore. He was flicking through the internet restlessly wanting something to capture his eye, something to gain his attention. All he got was the weather channel which reported:
“Santa Ana-type winds are to be expected in some of the region’s valleys on Friday morning — most likely between 7 am and noon — but those winds won’t be half as strong as the ones in the desert Thursday evening.” https://www.dailynews.com/2017/03/30/high-winds-hit-southern-california-tumbleweeds-dust-storm-snarl-traffic/
He looked out the window at Los Angeles before him. It reminded him of a review he had read about Maritta Wolff’s 1970’s novel ‘Sudden Rain’, set in Los Angeles.
Wolff’s Los Angeles is dried up, its people—the women especially—are starved for real connections.
“I was hoping for the rain, but now it’s stopped,” Cynny tells her husband at dinner. “We need rain so badly, everything’s so dry and parched and dusty. Sometimes I can’t bear it, I find myself absolutely longing for it. Instead Santa Ana winds arrive, and the tension escalates from there.” https://lithub.com/10-essential-books-that-capture-los-angeles-in-all-its-sublime-beautiful-darkness/ accessed on 22/7/18
The review had made him desperately want to read the novel and he believed the result was the situation he found himself in now. Starved of real connections, parched and dusty was a great description of Los Angeles for him now.
It had initially been such a prepossessing and beguiling city. Dry and hot mostly, with an imminent threat of earthquakes or dust storms from the Santa Anna winds.
It had been his end game, the pinnacle of everything he had aspired to, the proof that he was everything he thought he should be. But as he looked over the landscape it now seemed tainted, slimy, faded, dirty and covered in a “‘marine layer’, a cloudy overcast, almost fog-like cloud which may affect the beach and first mile or so of the coastal strip, especially in the mornings”.
He really needed to stay off the weather channel and away from books that an author had placed in the freezer for 30 years, as there was obviously a reason that Wolff didn’t want people to read it.
He was bored, so bored that his skin had started to itch, like it had when he had severe allergies which presented sometimes as hives as a child. He didn’t know whether it was this ‘marine layer’ of fog that hung desperately to your skin, clothes and the people around him, or something else. He just wanted some freedom and he longed to go back to Australia. Having finished his last film, he decided he was sick of acting. He longed for freedom and fresh air. He didn’t want to see another plastic version of a woman for as long as he lived and had no more need to “satisfy the yearning creativity within”.
On cue, Melanie slipped over next to him and attempted to get him to place his arm around her shoulders. He shoved her hand away, probably more forcefully than was necessary. But, he found this type of woman lecherous, not easy to flick. They had been adored up close and from far for a long time and they truly believed that physical attraction was enough for them to secure a viable relationship.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, clearly hurt.
