Lessons from the Heart (23 page)

‘Don't tell me,' Toni says. ‘
Write in my journal.
What is it, an epic?'

‘No, it's not even a story. I decided not to do a story. It's just bits.'

‘Bits?' The sound of it rattles at the back of her throat like broken biscuits. ‘You've spent all this time writing
bits?'

‘Mood pieces, then. Like music. But I have to go over and over them because some of them aren't very good, and they're for assessment.'

‘Like about what? What was the bit you were writing yesterday?'

‘It was nothing much.'

‘You were scribbling so hard you barely knew I was in the tent. It must have been about
something.'

‘It was just about a girl.'

‘
Yes ?
'

‘Well, nothing. She was just out in this Park, at night, by herself.'

‘But hang on, that didn't happen till later, till last night. You were writing this
before.
What are you, psychic or something?'

‘Don't be stupid.'

‘Lolly, you're not going back there tonight.'

‘You'll be out somewhere.'

‘Lolly, you're not going. I'll go and tell him myself.'

‘Mind your own business.'

‘I'll ring Miriam.'

‘I'll never speak to you again,' I say, and mean it. For that moment. ‘Anyway, I never said I was going anywhere. With anyone.'

‘Neither did I.'

We don't talk all the way back – even though she's gone out of her way to persuade Mrs Harvey to let her ride in my bus, with me. But we rock against one another, our bodies are in touch, and we can feel each other's hurt on our skins. And we're closer by the time we get off than if we'd talked and apologized and made up.

And you only, I think, maybe get one friend like this in your life. And I think Toni must be thinking the same thing because she picks up my pack as well as her own without even asking and carries them both because she can see I'm exhausted from last night and no sleep and have to go on duty again tonight at nine. And that's after we've had to help with the barbecue dinner and cleaning up, and if I see another hamburger and sausage and white plastic plate and knife and fork for the rest of my life I swear I'll become an axe murderer. Of cows anyway.

‘Tell you what,' Toni says, ‘have a shower and cool off, and we'll go over to the Resort and see if we can sneak into one of the hotels and I can get a gin and you can have a lemonade.'

‘They'll want to see our ID.'

‘Not here. They'll think we're tourists. You can make up for eighteen easily.'

‘I should have a sleep. I'm on duty at nine.'

‘Better you sleep tonight.'

But, in the end, we don't do anything. We just lie there in the heat, looking up at the ceiling of the tent, and thinking.

‘What's bothering you?' Toni says.

And I don't say,
Nothing
or
Who said anything is bothering me,
or
Mind your own business,
or anything like that.

‘I'll have to leave a message for Jason. Just tell him I'm not coming.'

‘I've already told you,' she pushes herself up on her elbow, ‘I'll do that.'

‘No, it's no hassle. I want to do it myself.'

But at eleven o'clock, when the time does come, I find I don't want to face Jason, or even see him at all. Trouble is, I don't know where Toni's got to either – she's not in the tent when I get back from patrolling and lights out – and I wait and wait, hoping now she might come with me, but she doesn't, and I sense he'll be there already, waiting under the orange lamp at the entrance to the campground.

And the more I think of him waiting there, sitting on his bike, just waiting patiently, the more I can't help myself and am drawn to go, just to see. Not to talk to him even, but just to see. And be certain. And if I don't go now, I'll scratch myself, or scream or do something stupid – everything's so heavy and still – and wake the whole camp.

The tents are all in darkness now, and there are clouds over the face of the moon. I avoid the gravel paths and the road with its round lighted globes. He'll be expecting me to come on the road, in the light, like I did last time. In the darkness, I hear the water sprays hissing on the unused tent sites, feel the wetness of the grass and the slipperiness of the sand turning to mud under my sandals. There are hedges all along the borders of the campground, clumps of bushes, wattles and tea-tree, and I make my way along the line of them, reaching out and feeling with my hands as I go, until, at one point, the darkness is so thick I can't see at all and I have to cut back towards the road. Which I think is on my left now. I go left towards where I can see a light, and in three steps I'm almost on it, on him, in orange under the lamplight. And I stand there, unable to go back or forwards, or even to look down to check the colours I'm wearing, whether they'll be seen.

Jason sits, straddling the bike, waiting patiently, just as he did last night. He's looking up the road, over to my left, where I would be coming. If I were. He taps a short rhythm with his fingers on the helmet perched on the petrol tank of his bike. Another helmet hangs by its strap from the seat behind him. I breathe, and take one step back and find the sharp needles of some bush pressing into my back. Jason sits under the orange lamp, and taps. Another step, and my back is pushing into the bushes themselves and something breaks, a twig, small branch, with a crack, it might almost be glass, and ‘Shit!' I breathe then, because it isn't me, it's something else, an animal, possum perhaps, something off to my right, a few metres behind me, but it's me Jason has seen or something just near me, surely, because he stands, his legs up over the bike, his brow now furrowed and dark under the yellow-orange light. There's no tapping, no sound, as he looks, stares, through the light, the darkness, at me. And I turn my head slowly to find the direction I've come, over the wet lawns, and think I know. Though even the sprinklers have stopped now.

Jason lifts his right leg slowly over the back of the bike and then fits the helmet down with both hands over one of the handles, doing it by touch, never once taking his eyes from the spot where I'm standing. He can't see me, I know that, I am in darkness, he is in light, the light is in his eyes, I am fifteen or twenty metres away, more, in the darkness – he cannot see me, I know that for a fact. All he knows is, something is there, a bird, night foraging, an animal – a fox, something that goes … crack! again, just to my right, and he starts off again and there's fear, just for a second, on his face, and then he takes his first step, and the roaring and the screaming begins. And I'm sure we both cry out with the shock of it, because he hasn't even touched his machine and yet there it is – roaring and screaming. To a halt, in the emptiness behind him. The rider of the second bike sweeps into the entrance and brakes sharply next to Jason's bike. The rider waves, calls something to Jason over the noise of his engine. Then kills it. My hands go to my ears with the pain of the noise, and the sudden silence.

‘
Jase!
' I hear the second rider's muffled shout. Again he waves, pulling Jason back towards him with his gloved hand. Jason goes, looking back over his shoulder to make sure I'm still there, haven't moved. Whatever I am. But then the other rider's voice rises, questioning, is insistent, and just for a second Jason looks away towards him and answers – it's too far to hear – and when he looks back, I can tell, he's already unfocused in the light, not sure, searching. And, foot by foot, I can move then. Feeling my way with my heels, the skin on the backs of my hands against the bark of bushes, of plants, of small trees. Now there is just the rise and fall of the two voices, occasional words, phrases, ‘Women' from the second rider, and then Always late' and a laugh from Jason. And the second rider says, ‘Nah, not now,' and ‘C'mon,' and all I know is, he's tempting Jason away with his voice. And ‘Never know,' Jason says again, and then shrugs and takes the helmet from the handle of his bike and pulls it down over his head. He puts his head back then, stretching his neck to buckle the clip under his chin. ‘Never know,' he says once more, though up at the moon this time, and laughs: ‘Might've got lucky.'

And that's when I become aware of it, the trembling in my legs, and I'm breathing hard as if I've been running when I've done nothing but stand here. And the sound of my own breath – and I can tell the shaking's about to get worse – is almost as loud in my ears as the two bikes starting together, and the riders settling, then revving off in the direction of the Outback Hotel and the Park. And as they go, one of the riders looks back once, briefly, over his shoulder, and I'm sure he knows I'm there, and he can see me, but I haven't moved, and he can't, and I'm safe.

* *

‘I thought,' Toni says when I get back to the tent, ‘you were about to do something stupid for a moment.'

‘No.' I've calmed down on the walk back, and even the shaking has stopped. And I'm too tired now to know, but I don't trust my judgement any more, and the whole thing may have been something, or nothing. ‘I just wanted to get out of the tent for a while. To get some air.'

‘No, you didn't. You went down to the entrance to see if Jason was there, to watch him.'

‘Whatever makes you think that?'

‘I was there.'

‘You followed me. You waited till –'

‘Yes. I was never more than four steps away from you.'

‘Jesus, Toni. So it was you.'

I look at her, and she's so cool and wide-awake. She hasn't even had to hurry to get back here before me. Her hair is gelled and spiky as though she's just stepped out of the shower. She's wearing her gold sandals and a pink top I've never seen before. It could even be silk, I think, as she moves and it moves with her, and I realize she's not wearing anything underneath. She looks like she's twenty-three or four.

‘Just get some sleep, Lolly. Especially if you're coming in the morning.'

‘The morning?'

‘The
Climb.

‘Oh, God –'

‘Don't you want to?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Decide in the morning.' She turns the lamp down to the point where it's almost off.

I roll onto my mat and am almost asleep.

‘You're not going out,' I say, ‘after all?' As she squats crosslegged on her mat.

‘Not now.' She reaches out, and plunges the tent into darkness.

‘Antonia!' The woman in black is screaming. ‘Antonia!' She is kneeling in a triangle of light, and the sky at her back is on fire. ‘Where
is
the wretched girl?'

‘Mrs Harvey,' I say. ‘What is it?'

‘Where's Antonia?' she shouts again, and the anger and fear in her voice fills the tent.

‘Toni?' My hands go instinctively to the sides of my head. ‘I don't know.'

‘Well, get up and find her. And Prescott as well,' Mrs Harvey says, and she's standing now, and through the flap of the tent all I can see are her legs and feet. ‘Find the young fool,' she hisses. And she's so full of anger, I don't know whether she means Toni or Mr Prescott.

‘But what is it?' I crawl to the entrance of the tent. There's still cloud but the sky is bright red. It can't be that long after sunrise. ‘What's happened?'

‘There's been an accident.' And I can see she's almost in tears. ‘On the Rock. One of the boys …'

‘What?'

‘Has fallen –'

‘Off?'

‘On the Rock.'

‘Who?'

‘Billy. Billy Whitecross. One second, he was running, I called out –' Mrs Harvey's actually crying now, and shaking, and I can see she's re-living the moment even as she tells me. ‘I was the one who shouted out at him. I just meant to warn. We were on the Climb, he'd got too far ahead. I just meant to warn him.'

‘Mrs Harvey,' I say. Because she can't stop shaking. ‘It wasn't your fault. If he was running.'

‘It shouldn't have happened. If they'd been there –'

‘Who?'

‘Toni Darling. And Mr Prescott.' And when she says their names, the shaking stops. And she's full of anger again.

‘But what about Billy?'

‘The rangers have gone up there. With stretchers. They'll bring him down.'

‘He's not –?'

Her eyes widen then, with shock. Because she's read my mind.