Deeper Water (21 page)

I nodded, but I didn’t want to talk about Billy. I didn’t have words to describe what we’d done. ‘She kissed me, Soph.’

Stepping up closer, I smoothed my hand across Lila’s downy head. The baby flapped her arms out towards me. She’d never done that before. She’d never had the coordination. It was plain remarkable how much babies changed every single day.

‘I don’t really understand.’ I took Lila from her, snuggling her into my shoulder.

‘I dunno, Mema.’ She was considering it. ‘You and her were always so close. Like an odd pair of twins. Maybe she’s just being possessive. I mean, she
is
possessive. You know she is. Half the time she doesn’t even like me hanging about.’

‘But did you … ever think she liked me like that?’

‘Nup.’ Sophie didn’t even hesitate. ‘Never crossed my mind.’

Leaning my cheek towards Lila’s head, I breathed in her scent, and she burrowed in towards my neck. I swayed then, moving my weight from foot to foot, thinking she might sleep.

‘Did you … like it?’ Sophie looked down at Thor in the box. ‘The kiss, I mean.’

I thought of those ants swarming from Anja’s face to mine. I still didn’t really know if I liked it. Sophie looked back up and I shrugged. ‘It was okay. I’d just … never thought about it.’

Sophie nodded, watching my face. ‘’Cause if you did like it, that’d be alright, you know, Mema.’

I guess I realised that. In these parts, falling in love with a woman might be considered the pragmatic choice. Especially in my family.

‘Her dad busted us.’

‘Jim?’ Sophie’s body shifted, she was listening in a different way. ‘Fuck, that’s not good.’

‘I’m worried about her, Soph.’ My eyes filled up. ‘You know how it is for her. He’s unpredictable. When I went up there to check on her, there was no one around. I think she’d been sleeping in the hut. Who knows what Jim’s been doing?’

‘Oh, Mema, you know you can’t go up there.’ Sophie put a hand on my arm, just for a second, her grip tight. ‘I mean it. Don’t go up there. Jim’s a nutter.’

‘But she
lives
up there. I’m not supposed to go up there ’cause it’s too dangerous, but she hasn’t got anywhere else. That’s her life.’

‘Does Mum know what’s going on?’

I shook my head. ‘Anja asked me not to tell her. I wouldn’t anyway, though.’

‘I can’t take you into town today, Mema. I don’t have enough petrol to get back. But it’s payday tomorrow, so we can go in then and look for her. Okay?’

Sophie got a parenting payment so at least there was that.

‘Maybe I should ask Frank?’

‘He would have come out here on his way back from town already. You know how he is, always heads out early. Probably dropping the flood guy in town.’

I nodded, knowing she was right. We all knew Frank’s movements, in a roundabout way. Same as he would know ours. Mum’s little walk down to the bridge must have really thrown him. I imagined him then, standing there self-consciously with his flowers, not expecting to have to face her.

‘You could ask Mum,’ Sophie said, looking across to the postcard on the fridge.

I thought of my brother Max, of what he might be like now, of how it would feel to see him. Lila’s body was going limp against mine, sleep seeping in. I shook my head, kissing the skin just above her ears. I didn’t want to tell my mum anything. Not today.

‘Look at you, the baby whisperer,’ Sophie said gently, glancing back at me. ‘It’ll be alright, Baby-girl. Anja will be okay for one more day.’ Sophie sounded far away—she wasn’t thinking of my predicament anymore.

I nodded, wandering towards the couch.

‘You sit there with her for a bit while I do the washing up. She sleeps better if someone’s holding her.’ Sophie stepped up to the fridge and slipped the postcard out from beneath the magnet, peering into the glossy photograph as though it might reveal something more than glaring sands and rolling waves.

I sat down with the baby’s soft weight against my shoulder, Sophie and the postcard at my back, and I wondered then if we all slept better—like Lila—tucked up in some other person’s arms.

I guess I could have hitched into town, or ridden the bike even, but I didn’t. I wanted to find Anja, but there was another part of me that was scared. She’d never stayed away so long, and every minute that passed I imagined her anger growing, until somehow it was swelling, taking up all the room in my mind.

That night I waited for Billy outside on the sweep of the hill below our yard. Mum had gone to bed early and I was so itching with thoughts I fled outside. I saw the faint glow of Billy’s torchlight flickering across the paddocks below me, but once in range of the yard he switched it off. The stars were bright and my eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. The silhouette of him stepped from a pocket of trees.

I liked the way Billy stood so straight. He had a quiet kind of grace, and it was easier to observe from a distance. He didn’t see me at first, so I got to watch his steady stride towards me, taking all of him in. Well, all that I could see. There was nothing so appealing as a man, in the right sort of light. For a second I thought of Hamish, walking across the paddocks with the pup, but I banished the image of him from my mind.

When Billy got close I called his name. His whole body shifted at the sound, aware of my night-time gaze. When he was right in front of me, I held out my hand and he took it, sitting down beside me on the grass.

‘You right?’ He was like that, straight into it, as though there’d been no time between then and when he saw me last.

I nodded, but I was concentrating on the feel of his rough fingers in mine. It got me thinking of the clay.

‘You ever throw a pot?’ I asked him, sliding my free hand along his forearm, sort of wishing he would slide it along me.

‘Nup.’

It was soothing to have his body so close. All the thoughts that had been clanking around inside my brain began to quieten.

‘You want to swim?’ he asked me, squeezing my fingers in his.

I thought about that for a moment. My body had already started up its whirring. I could feel the wetness pooling, waiting for his touch. I hadn’t bothered with underpants, knowing they were only going to come off, and I wanted to lift my skirt and show Billy my nakedness, but I didn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking of his hand stretching up my leg, slowly. The feel of each blade of grass was suddenly spiky beneath me and I shifted a little on the ground.

‘Not tonight,’ I said, wondering about what I wanted.

I felt him glance across at me in the darkness, waiting, I suppose, for some kind of clue.

‘Let’s go into the trees,’ I said finally, standing up and letting go of his hand.

He seemed to spring up beside me, effortless and light. ‘I’m listening,’ was all he said.

I led him sideways, the opposite direction from Anja’s place, but still uphill towards the bush. All the hills around our place were forested. Camphors and the occasional gum, leaf litter thick on the ground. Dried camphor leaves are slippery underfoot, rustling like paper, but after the floods the soil stayed moist. Once we reached the trees and stepped under the canopy, the leaves beneath our feet were quiet, sinking slightly into the dampness as we walked. The camphor smell of the earth rose up around us.

The darkness was different in the forest. Thicker. It seemed to carry more weight. I stretched my arms out in front of me, feeling my way between the trees. I wanted to be deep inside, in the heart of the forest. I could hear Billy’s step behind me. In my mind I could see him pause to orientate himself. I tried to imagine his face, but all I could think of was his hands.

‘Billy?’ I whispered, grasping a tree trunk and feeling my way amongst its roots.

‘I’m listening.’ His voice came from behind me.

‘You coming?’ I reached the tree and rested my cheek against the bark.

I felt his fingers brush my shoulder in the dark. Holding my breath, I waited for him to step up against my back. For a moment there was only stillness and then in a heartbeat he was there. He pressed against my body, sighing into my hair. The bark of the tree was corrugated but not sharp and I liked the feel of it against me, rough and smooth at once, the woody smell of it lingering in the air.

‘Press me harder,’ I whispered, leaning in against the bark.

He lifted his hands from me to the tree, a palm on either side of my head, and then he pressed himself into me, the contours of his body following my back, his breath heavy against my ear. I wanted to feel his bare skin, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. He pushed himself away from me and I closed my eyes, feeling suddenly lonely. Even though the air was warm, I felt goosebumps spread up my legs and across my back, and I quivered there against the bark, wondering how to let him know.

‘I’ve got it this time,’ he said. ‘The condom.’ And I could hear him digging in his pocket.

I nodded against the tree but I didn’t say a word.

He unzipped his pants, and I tried to block out the sounds of him tangling in the dark, readying himself in whatever way he knew.

‘Mema? You right?’

Murmuring some sound, not words exactly—an affirmation—I pressed myself further into the trunk. I could hear the crack of Billy’s knees as he crouched behind me. And then the feel of his fingers grasping my ankle beneath the hem of my skirt. First one, and then the other. He squeezed softly, rubbing his thumb against the skin of my bung foot. I felt a sudden wetness in my throat, tears welling up in my closed eyes. He moved his hands up my calves, his hold firm, and I sank a little into his touch, sliding down the bark towards the roots, my singlet and skirt rolling up as I slid down, until I could feel the tree’s rawness against my skin. There was a root between my legs, thick and knobbly, and I thought of the mossy log and all the pleasure it gave.

His fingers paused on my skin. ‘You like that, don’t ya?’

I didn’t want to speak.

‘The feel of that tree?’

I liked it as much as I liked him. I liked all of it together. And then I was kneeling, the root between my legs and him behind me. He lifted his hands high against my thighs, pushing my skirt up.

‘No pants,’ he whispered, sliding his fingers across my skin.

The whirring in me was rising, loud in my ears. I reached down to touch myself, my fingers between me and the hardness of the root, and he breathed out against my shoulder, a trembling breath. Then his fingers were inside me, and he groaned, shifting around till his body took their place, the plastic sheath between him and me. He tugged my singlet over my head, pushed the skirt up my body, and I sank into him a little further, pressing my fingers against the place I liked, and letting him press against me, while the tree rose up in the centre, bark smooth and hard against my breasts, the smell of crushed camphor filling the air. Far above, I could hear the sound of the leaves brushing against each other in the breeze.

It didn’t take long and I was done. Inside my mind was black like a starless night, and I pushed my forehead against the bark, listening to my own breathing.

‘You don’t really need me, do ya?’ Billy said into the darkness, and I could feel the throb of him still hard inside me.

I turned a little, looking over my shoulder, knowing his face was right there in the blackness. ‘Maybe not.’ I couldn’t deny it. ‘But I like you … some.’

He laughed then, more gently than I’d heard him.

‘
Some?
’

I nodded, moving to turn around, and he slipped out from me, shuffling back into the darkness through the dirt and leaves.

‘You find your tree.’ I told him, lifting my skirt up over my head, wanting to be free of it. I crouched there naked, peering into the black.

‘I’m gunna.’ His voice was soft, just a little way off. ‘Okay … I got it.’

‘I’m listening,’ I whispered, and my whole body stilled waiting to hear the soft inhale and exhale of his breath. I crawled then towards him, my fingers and knees pressing into the soft earth, the camphor smell still thick in the air. When I was close, he reached out a hand and felt for my face, lifting my chin. He was sitting, back against the trunk, waiting for my touch.

‘Mema, at my tree you gotta look at me, okay?’

‘I can’t see you,’ I said. ‘I can’t see a thing.’

‘I don’t care.’

I felt my way up his body, pulling up his shirt to feel the skin of his belly, and he leaned down and kissed me, straight on the mouth.

‘You gotta be thinking of me,’ he whispered against my lips, ‘and not that bloody tree.’

I smiled, nodding, and clambered up over his lap.

‘I got it.’ I pressed my cheek along his face. ‘Billy, I’m listening.’

I’d forgotten to get my sheets off the line, so when I crept back inside in the middle of the night, my bed was bare. Even in the dark I knew I was grubby so I just lay out a towel that was hanging on the back of my chair and hoped that’d be enough. I pulled the doona up over me, imagining all the leaves and dirt and twigs I’d gathered on myself with Billy. I imagined lifting my body from the towel in the morning and seeing a map of what we’d done, each leaf and stick a landmark.

I thought it’d be impossible to sleep but it wasn’t. I knew tomorrow I’d seek out Anja, find what kind of rage she was carrying, see if I could shoulder some of the burden. But somewhere inside I knew that everything would be different, that I couldn’t do these things with Billy and expect nothing would change. And just before I slept I thought again of Hamish, of all the feelings I’d had and where they’d gone. It seemed wrong that it could be so easy to extinguish the flame I’d carried for him by smothering it with another person. And deep down I wondered if it was still there, a few smouldering coals, ready at any time to ignite.

Sophie and I were quiet on the way into town. Both the babies had crashed out in their car seats almost as soon as we got going, so maybe she was enjoying the peace. I’d gotten up early to have a shower. I didn’t want to risk Rory watching the show. I don’t know what I thought he’d see that he hadn’t seen before, but it bothered me. It was odd that having sex with Billy should make my body a private thing. I didn’t understand it, but it seemed to be true.

I stared out at the rolling green of the trees lit up in the morning light, the new leaves of the camphors glowing against the sky. I breathed in deeply, and then slowly let the breath go.

Sitting there, in Sophie’s battered little Honda, babies slumbering in the back, the breeze blowing softly against my cheeks and the trees flickering by, it didn’t seem that anything much could be wrong.

We pulled into town and Sophie parked beneath the shopping centre in the shade. It was an ugly cement box of a building, twice as high as everything else, with a giant-sized supermarket inside. Built before I was born, it was the newest thing in town, rising up out of the street like a misplaced puzzle piece. Someone’s dream gone bad. We all went in there from time to time, but the fluoro lights and skid-marked floor were a little depressing.

Sophie transferred Rory into the stroller without waking him, and then hung her bag over the handles. She was adept at this sort of thing by now. Lila woke up as soon as we stopped, but she still had that dreamy look about her. I helped Sophie fasten the baby-pouch and then we slipped Lila in. It was amazing how, when you had little kids, even doing the simplest task—like the shopping—required so much preparation. Looking at Sophie in the dimness of the car park, it struck me how encumbered she was. So weighed down it was a miracle she could move.

‘Okay.’ Sophie nodded at me and I resisted the urge to tweak one of her curls. ‘I’ll probably be an hour or so. Go to the post office and ask Rosie about Anja. If anyone knows where she is, Rosie will.’

That was true enough.

‘When I’m finished I’ll take the little ones across to the park.’ She jiggled Lila in the pouch, trying to get comfortable. ‘Come find us there when you’re ready.’

It was hard for me to imagine where Anja would hang out in town without me. I supposed the first place to look was the Savoy, so I headed in that direction. Out of the car park into the sun. I walked across the pedestrian crossing, staring down at my feet in my special boots, remembering how I used to jump from white stripe to white stripe when I was just a kid. When all of your experiences are in one town, everything you do points to something you used to do, and then it’s layer upon layer of memories built up around the same place. Everything becomes personal, even the pedestrian crossing.

I was looking down so I didn’t see him at first, standing at the other side.

Hamish.

When I raised my eyes the breath caught in my throat. It startled me, how my body responded to the sight of him, all racing heart and jittery limbs. He was talking with a couple of men in button-up shirts and ties. They must have been from the council to be dressed that way—clean and scrubbed, ironed even. Hamish saw me then and he lifted his hand, motioning at me to wait, but he didn’t stop his conversation. The men were finishing off, about to say their goodbyes. I stood off to the side, feeling silly, listening in to the last of their talk. Something about sending documents, nothing that meant anything to me. I looked down at the skirt I’d chosen that morning, all bold blues and reds, hanging long against my boots. Next to these men I felt like some exotic parrot, and I could see them trying not to stare at me. Finally they held out their hands for Hamish to shake and headed across the crossing, just the way I’d come.

‘Thanks for waiting,’ Hamish said and I nodded. We were awkward, standing there in the open street.

‘You got a minute?’ He had new clothes, shop-bought. They were only clothes, but they made him seem even more like a stranger. ‘Want to get a coffee?’

I looked at his face, familiar from all the time we’d spent together. Even though it had only been a week or so since I’d last seen him, everything about him seemed more remote. I suppose it was because of Billy. Billy felt strong and real to me, the shape of his fingers lingering on my skin, while Hamish seemed like a vanishing dream. But my body didn’t seem to think so, doing its juddery thing. I shrugged, a touch ashamed. I wanted to make a quick exit, but I was in town to search for Anja and Hamish was as likely to know where she was as anyone else I might bump into. Maybe more so.

‘The Savoy?’ He pointed up the street and we headed off together in silence. I could feel him glancing at my face. It would be hard for him to know—I suppose—why I was so quiet.

We sat at the booth at the back, me staring down at the laminated menu even though I knew exactly what was on it. Something beeped and I looked up, startled. Hamish ignored it but the noise repeated, insistent and loud. Glancing away from me, he pulled a phone from his pocket and checked the screen. I wondered what it said.

‘So …’ He tucked the phone back in his trousers. ‘What’s new?’

It was hard to know where to start.

‘Nothing,’ I said at last. ‘Nothing, really.’

‘You look good.’ That surprised me. Hamish scanned my face and added, ‘Healthy.’

I nodded, not sure what to say. I wondered if the way Billy touched me had changed me somehow, brightened my skin.

‘Glad I spotted you.’ Hamish flicked the corner of his menu between his fingers. ‘I was going to ring you today ’cause I’m leaving tomorrow and I wanted to say goodbye.’ Since the moment I’d first met him, Hamish had been in the process of leaving, but his words still felt wrong inside my head. ‘There’s some stuff I need to tell you.’

I don’t know why, but I thought Hamish might try to tell me about his girlfriend, the girl who wasn’t that special, or something equally as unhappy to hear. I guess I must have looked like I was bracing myself.

‘It’s about the mill.’

‘The what?’

‘The sugar mill. The one I’ve been investigating.’

This was left of field.

‘What about it?’

The waitress came across then, the same skinny girl with the dimple. She stared down at Hamish unsmiling, the dimple nowhere in sight.

‘Just a coffee,’ he said, motioning to me. ‘What’ll you have, Mema?’

‘A tea.’

‘What sort of tea?’ The girl asked me, cheeks pink. I looked at her closely then and saw what I hadn’t straight up. She was jealous. Burning like I had burned. I wondered if Hamish had been sprinkling some charm her way.

‘Just a normal tea,’ I said, feeling sad for her. ‘Just white thanks.’

‘She likes you,’ I said, when she’d walked away.

‘We have a bit of a thing.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not going anywhere, it’s just … there.’

My eyes narrowed. I was wondering about the size of the thing, and whether it was bigger for her. It looked that way from the outside.

‘She’ll get over it,’ Hamish said. ‘They always do.’

That got my hackles up. ‘How would you know that?’ I hadn’t thought of him as careless. ‘You’re never there to see.’

I must have sounded sharp ’cause he looked at me real close. He was silent for a minute then, like he was sorting out the right words in his mind.

‘Mema,’ he scratched his fingernail against the surface of the table, ‘you seem … put out. You want to get it off your chest?’

‘She looks pretty fresh to me.’ I wondered what the difference was, the difference between me and her.

He shook his head and I thought of the time after the creek-riding when he’d painted my face and told me I was pretty. All the times after that when I’d felt something between us. In my whole life I’d never been such a fool.

‘Why did you say all those things?’ It came out a whisper. ‘Why’d you tell me you liked my hair?’

Even in the darkest corner of the Savoy I could see a familiar redness creep up his neck, slow but sure. He stared down at the table and I wanted to cry, shame rising inside me.

Finally he looked up. The waitress came and plonked down our cups, my tea splashing over the rim. Hamish nodded to her, lifting his coffee and taking a sip. She stood there a second and then turned on her heel.

‘I dunno, Mema.’ I could tell he thought it was a tiresome question. ‘It’s just … habit, I guess.’

I felt myself flush, knowing it was true. I watched the prickly back of the waitress banging around behind the counter. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I felt a kind of relief that it wasn’t just me. That I wasn’t the only one who had misread intentions.

‘Boy meets girl. Boy drops a line in the water to see if girl bites.’ He sighed, shrugging. ‘We all do it.’

A game. ‘Fishing?’

He was getting impatient. ‘I guess.’ He had another sip of his coffee, looking down into the brown liquid. I wondered how many different lines he had in the water.

Hamish wrapped his fingers around the base of his cup. ‘Mema … I thought we were friends.’ He looked back up at my face. ‘I mean, I thought there was something different between us. It just seems … a bit pointless to argue over stuff as small as this.’

I didn’t know what to say to that. I sipped my tea but it tasted dirty on my tongue.

‘Anyway,’ Hamish said. ‘I want to tell you about the mill. The big picture. It’s important. More important than all this relationship stuff.’

Relationship stuff. I glanced at the door, thinking about Anja.

‘Mema?’

‘Have you seen Anja lately?’ I asked him, done hearing how small the stuff between us was. ‘Do you know where she’s hanging out?’

Hamish turned around, following my gaze to the door. ‘I haven’t. For a while I was seeing her everywhere, but then not.’

I must have been frowning ’cause he asked what was wrong.

‘I haven’t seen her for a while, that’s all.’

He tried to catch my eye.

‘Mema, it’s about the trees.’

‘What?’

‘The mill is going to start burning the trees.’

I had no idea what he was talking about.

‘I mean, in the cane season they’ll burn the cane waste, but out of season they’re going to start harvesting the camphors.’

I still couldn’t comprehend it. ‘The camphors?’

‘Yeah, they’re considered noxious weeds—I know you know that—so they’ll pay contractors to come in and knock them down and chip them in the paddocks. Then they’ll pay the farmers for the woodchips. Burn them up for green energy.’ He drummed his fingertips against the table. ‘Everybody’s happy.’

‘The trees?’ He’d got my attention now. ‘The camphors?’

He nodded. ‘Well, wood is considered a renewable energy, ’cause trees can grow back. I think it’s a loophole myself, burning wood is more polluting even than coal, but I’m not in charge.’

In my mind the hills were on fire.

‘I mean, it might be different if there were plans to regenerate the native forest, but of course that isn’t on the table.’

‘But …’ I stuttered out, ‘… how can that happen?’

‘Well, if there’s money to be made …’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m telling you now.’

Around me the land dissolving in smoke. It was too much all at once—Anja missing, Hamish leaving, my brothers so long gone. It felt like everything was slipping from my grasp. I covered my eyes with my hands.

‘Mema,’ he said, ‘I’m going to be gone tomorrow, so it’ll be your fight. I just wanted to give you a heads up.’

‘My fight?’

‘It’s a tricky one ’cause the environmentalists don’t like the camphors either. The cane toads of the forest, so to speak. So it’ll be hard to get them onside.’

Hamish reached across and pulled my hands from my face.

‘Mema,’ his voice was soft, ‘this is important.’

I tried to look at him but it was a lot to take in.

‘They’re going to chip them in the paddocks?’

‘Yes.’

‘But there’ll be nothing left.’

‘Well, technically even bush regenerators don’t advocate clear-felling trees, even if they are noxious weeds—damage to waterways, loss of seed stock, all that stuff—but because there’s money involved I don’t think anyone will make too much noise.’

‘Why?’

‘Except maybe the animal activists.’

‘Who?’

‘Well, animals find protection in those forests. Natives. A few koalas, possums, smaller marsupials. Some people won’t like that.’

I felt like I’d been whacked on the head from behind. My ears were ringing, my brain slow.

‘Mema, you’ve got to pay attention.’ He tapped me on the arm, gently. ‘There’s this guy, he lives in one of the next towns along, and he’s an expert on endangered frogs.’

His words seemed to come from far away, but I nodded.

‘He’s one of those bio-nerds, been studying this particular species for a while. I haven’t met him but we’ve been emailing.’

‘Bio-nerds?’

‘University types that specialise in one animal or plant, something so obscure no one’s ever heard of it.’

‘Oh.’

‘So, he’s been studying this frog that only really exists in your region. And guess where it lives?’

I didn’t answer, just sort of shook my head.

‘In the creeks around your place … and in the camphors.’

‘Frogs?’

‘Right. I mean, they wouldn’t have originally been camphor dwellers, but they’ve adapted,’ Hamish continued. ‘So, I’ve got his number here, and his email, and a printout of our correspondence. I’ve been carrying it around, hoping I’d see you.’ He pulled out a couple of folded pages from his pocket. ‘I think you are going to need him.’ He handed me the papers. ‘I told him you’d get in touch.’

‘Me?’

‘Mema, no one cares about the camphors. Only you. If you want to stop this mill thing, you’re going to have to get out of your comfort zone.’

‘And do what?’

‘Well, talk to this guy first. Tom’s his name.’

I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine ringing up a stranger to talk about frogs.

‘I know it’s not your thing,’ Hamish said carefully, ‘but I think you’d be good at it.’

I didn’t quite know what he was referring to. ‘What?’

‘Mema, you got to love the world to want to save it.’ His eyes glowed, lighting up his face, almost evangelical.