Wildlight (26 page)

William was naked, his torso and buttocks stark against his skinny suntanned legs. He waded thigh deep in water,
oohing
and
aahing
at the cold, splashing water at his armpits like a wren in a birdbath. Tom felt heady and odd. His flannel shirt was soaked with sweat. He thought he might throw up. He removed his beanie, unbuttoned his shirt, pulled off his T-shirt. The ocean felt sharp, the wet sand soothing on his feet. Tom’s jeans dragged off when he dived. He gathered them up, dunked them in the ocean, squeezed mud from the denim and plunged them through water with the vigour his mother used to prewash his fishing clothes. The water clouded with clay and mud. Tom felt dizzy with the effort. His shoulder was on fire. He threw his jeans up on the rocks and dived in again, savouring the cold, the feel of water on his face and streaming through his hair. He surfaced near William.

Tom followed the old man’s gaze to the skin of his shoulder. A ragged flap, the skin pulled loose; Tom’s tattoo was open flesh, raw and inflamed.

‘Did someone put a knife to you?’ William was serious.

‘I don’t know.’ Tom didn’t. William looked at him awry. ‘It’s the truth, man. All I remember is weird stuff, dreams.’

William inspected it. ‘It’s infected. No wonder you’re out of sorts. We need to get it seen to. Give it a good rinse in the salt water.’

William spread the contents of his first-aid kit across the rocks, an array of bandages and strips, a worn foil sachet of capsules. ‘Get a couple of these into you. Past their best but better than a kick in the pants.’

Antibiotics. Tom grinned. William had as much gear in his backpack as you’d find in the galley cupboard. ‘Good thing I met a scout.’

‘The way you look after yourself, you’re more in need of an undertaker.’

Tom’s laugh was cut short by the swab of antiseptic that William manically dabbed with his jittery hand. Tom clenched against the pain. ‘Hey, William?’

‘Hey, what.’

‘Promise me you don’t have a suture kit you’re planning on using.’

‘Don’t tempt me, boy.’

*

They lit a fire on the beach. Tom proudly produced his last packet of pasta with creamy bacon sauce. ‘Tried this?’ William hadn’t. ‘Mate, you haven’t lived.’

William didn’t look convinced. ‘What happened to the mighty hunter? I was led to believe we’d be tucking into fresh seafood.’

‘All in good time.’

William laid out the makings for risotto. Tom could barely wait for it to cook. William added stock powder and dried herbs to rice, garlic flakes and onion, dried tomatoes, a medley of coloured curls and chips that drew up water and blossomed into zucchini, mushroom, red and green capsicum.

The rainbow colour of the vegetables took Tom back to crunching on peas snapped from the vine, to carrot thinnings smudged with dirt, to running the big sprinkler in summer when he got home from school, spraying the greens for slugs and bugs. His mother still brewed an eye-smarting concoction from onion, garlic, chilli and soap flakes. When Tom was small it hadn’t been called organic: she’d made her own pesticide because they couldn’t afford the bought stuff.

William shaved off slices of cheese and served himself a modest bowlful. He handed Tom the pot.

‘You get enough?’ Tom said.

‘I’m watching my figure.’

It tasted wondrous. Better than wondrous. ‘You dried all this stuff?’

‘And grew a fair deal of it. The gardening keeps me out of mischief.’ William finished his meal with a mug of tea and a cocktail of tablets. ‘Don’t grow old, Tom.’

Tom couldn’t think of a better way to ask: ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘Parkinson’s, I’m told.’

A
sorry
sounded lame. Tom settled on a nod.

‘You stick around long enough, something’s going to grab you,’ William said. He tipped his mug of tea at Tom. ‘I wish at your age I’d known the things I know now.’

‘What would you have done different?’

‘Taken a few more opportunities when they presented themselves. Pursued a certain girl when I still had the chance.’

‘Never too late, they say.’

‘On the contrary.’ William didn’t expand.

William lived on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, had a stake in a community garden with others in his neighbourhood. The old man could put away his share of tea. He poured himself another cup and took a big slurp. ‘Haah.’ Tom held an image of his mother’s swollen feet rising like scones above the rim of her work shoes. She’d give that same satisfying
Haah
when she prised them loose and stepped into worn-down slippers. She’d take off her glasses and rub her eyes and listen to Tom’s prattle as she chopped the things for dinner. She’d suddenly halt.
Will you look at you
? She’d rinse her hands and wipe them down her apron—the touch of damp fingers combing his sticking-up hair as dreamy as their aroma of freshly chopped onion.
Have you done your homework, Tom?
He’d sag. He’d bump against her. The best kind of homework was gathering vegetable seeds, spreading them out like seashells, drying and storing them for next year.

The night was still, the sky enormous. A great swathe of constellations glittered through the sky, brighter, stronger as darkness deepened, like someone winding up the volume. The fire felt warm. Tom’s belly was taut with food. He’d taken paracetamol and the pain of his shoulder had eased. He blinked to keep awake.

‘How about we stay put tomorrow?’ William said. ‘I don’t know about you but I could do with a bit of resting up.’

It was for Tom’s benefit, not William’s. ‘I haven’t much food to share,’ Tom said. ‘A few Iced VoVos.’

‘I expect we’ll make do,’ William said. His mother’s favourite saying. A rest day sounded good to Tom. ‘Who’s Frank?’

‘Why?’

‘Up there,’ William nodded to the mountain. ‘In your delirium you called me Frank.’

‘I wasn’t delirious.’

‘Might, you were off your bloody rocker.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

‘It’s a matter of fact. You were in a bad way. Thought you were either dead or on the drugs.’

‘Nah.’ The ocean hummed. Breeze flounced the skirts of she-oaks. ‘Frank’s my brother. I work—used to work—on his cray boat.’

‘You liked the fishing?’

‘Not much.’

‘One door closes,’ William said.

‘It’s the door that needs to open that’s my problem.’

‘Come up our way. Mountains, rivers, beaches, farms. Best climate in Australia.’

‘Any mud up your way?’

William smiled. ‘Streets are sprinkled with fairy dust. Tracks are lined with gold.’

‘You always been there?’

‘Came out from Holland in the seventies. Settled near Laurieton. Nice a place as you could find.’

William reminded Tom of Peter Cundall from the TV gardening show—the old codger’s enthusiasm fuelling his own, gardening tips so timely that each Sunday night of Tom’s growing up, Peter Cundall spoke directly to him. Tom had gone to see him at the Hobart Show. He’d waited until all the other people had left before stepping forward to ask his questions. The old man had given Tom his first proper lesson in soil. He’d spoken to Tom man-to-man. The right kind of compost, the right pH, adding nitrogen, rotating crops, drainage and aeration. Tom did have skills. He did have things to offer.

‘You have family?’ William said. ‘Other than Frank?’

‘Just Mum.’ Tom gathered the dinner things to rinse in the stream. ‘Hey, William?’

‘Hey, what.’

‘I owe you.’

‘You owe me nothing, boy-o. One day you do the same for some other scruff.’

*

The flotsam along the shoreline changed from buoys and fishing rope to domestic rubbish, the remains of a television, beer bottles, toys, unpaired rubber thongs. They passed two groups of hikers walking east to west, raucous with chatter, their gear pristine.

Wilderness eased to an undulating track free of mud, to mountain peppers laden with red berries, to sheltered beaches and sweeping views, to long easy stretches of boardwalk. Tom walked without having to study every step; he looked around thinking,
This is good
, a wedge-tailed eagle circled above.

An old misshapen conifer, wooden shacks, a white painted bridge across a lazy creek. The South Coast Track ended and a gravel road began.

Tom used the public toilet and caught sight of his wild bushman reflection in the mirror. Hardened and coarse: he bore the look of Frank. His stubble had grown to a charcoal beard, his hair looked grimy. He felt older, hollow-eyed, his underarms stank. He’d lost a heap of weight; William had given him a length of cord to thread through his belt loops to stop his jeans sliding to his ankles.

William had the bus timetable already figured out. When Tom followed him onto the coach and pulled out a wallet stuffed with notes, he felt the driver’s wariness. He paid his fare to Hobart and watched the way the driver counted out the change with nervous concentration. None of the easy friendliness he afforded others on the coach.

Tom stretched along the back seats and slept the three hours into town. He woke groggy as the coach jerked forward, down Macquarie Street then around to the Davey Street lights. He propped himself to sitting at the sight of Constitution Dock, the
Perlita Lee
tied up in her usual berth. He didn’t want to think about his brother, he didn’t want to arrive home to Frank perched at the kitchen table with a stubby in his hand. He thought about his mother. She’d be worried sick.

He and William walked from the bus stop, Tom weary and stiff-kneed, the old man’s hiking sticks still tapping out their rhythmic gait. Tom waited until William’s airport bus arrived, until the hiss of doors forged a clasp of hands and a clumsy hug. There was something tender and sad in William’s palm pressed against the glass as his bus drew away.

Tom walked home from town. He breathed out when he rounded the corner to their street: Frank’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Tom unlocked the gate—his mother should have been home by now. Tom paced down the side of the house. He stopped at the garden—everything looked parched. He marched to the glasshouse. Withered blooms, sagged leaves; his mother’s African Violets, her pride and glory, dead.

Tom unlocked the kitchen door. He called. He checked his mother’s room. Rosary beads, potpourri, Jesus in His rightful place, melting from His cross. The house smelled old and sad.

Tom opened the bread bin and took out the few stale crusts. Lift your game, Mother. He inspected the fridge—the shelves almost bare. She must have snagged a cheap flight and gone to Melbourne to his aunt’s. Tom sniffed the carton of milk and drank what was left. He slathered peanut butter on the crusts and layered them with cheese. He opened the cupboard and pulled down a packet of biscotti. He changed his mind and imagined takeaway chicken and salted chips—a whole barbecued chicken—Tom could taste it. He threw his clothes in the laundry tub and ran the shower. The odd sensation of warm running water, the concentrated scent of soap. He found the nailbrush and cleaned a layer of grime from his hands and feet. He wrapped himself in a towel, trimmed his beard then shaved.

He found his mother’s first-aid Tupperware box and returned to the mirror to re-dress his wound. All that remained of Frank was a single fluke of anchor. His shoulder no longer looked angry and inflamed. When Tom pressed on the wound it throbbed—something tender that if knocked or scraped could flare again—but somewhere on the track a healing had begun, though such an injury would never be expunged. Tom knew that for the remainder of his life a puckered scar, a broken anchor, would brand his skin to remind him of his choices: Tom Forrest would never let himself be entwined with anyone again.

Tom dressed in shorts, a lightweight shirt to conceal the wound from his mother. The lemony smell of laundered clothes, the precision of her ironing. He walked into the living room. He halted. Cards on the mantlepiece as cluttered as Christmas. Cards with doves, butterflies, crosses and angels, mournful cards with lilies and roses. Blood drained from Tom’s brain.
In Deepest Sympathy. Blessed Are They That Mourn. In Remembrance. At This Sad Time.

Tom’s hands shook when he opened a card.
Your beloved sons.
He couldn’t focus. He fumbled. He opened another.
Our deepest condolences on the tragic loss of Tom and Frank—Jeannie and John (Bluey) MacIntyre
. Part of him wanted to laugh. Tom felt dizzy. Nothing made sense. He sat on the coffee table his mother forbade him from sitting on because it wouldn’t take his weight. A search party, William had said. South West Cape.
South West Cape
. Where Frank had dumped him. The click of the gate, familiar steps along the path. Tom tried to stand but his legs wouldn’t hold him. The back door, plastic shopping bags set upon the kitchen table. ‘Mum?’ Tom’s voice warbled. He sounded like a boy.

She didn’t answer. Everything went still. He heard the ragged whimper, he heard her take a step. Tom breathed the tainted air that was different from the old stale grief that infiltrated curtains and elevated his father’s recliner to a monument of loss. Tom’s mind flicked to an image of Frank. He saw his brother turn the dinghy and not look back to Tom abandoned on New Harbour’s shore. The dinghy motoring out through fog, the sight and sound swallowed by the pall. No bearings. No GPS. No line of sight to lead his brother safely to the larger boat.

The lounge room, the walls and curtains, a knitted sleeve unravelled from its needle—everything began to spin. Tom blinked, he pulled air into his lungs but he couldn’t slow the vortex in his head. His mother filled the doorway, her body stooped. She looked so frail. Her pale face a crumpling of fear, a giddy disbelief. He saw her close her eyes in communion with her Saviour. Then she gazed upon Tom with a look that caused his eyes to swim. Something precious and maternal, something raw and shameful passed between his mother and himself: if a lifetime of abiding faith had earned the chance for even one son to be spared, she had prayed that it be him.

The slide toward emptiness is upon her. ‘When will I see you?’ Steph asks, watching him dress. She knows this part, is attuned to the note that creeps into her voice, a neediness that has her lover pause. He studies her with measured patience. Acknowledgment, perhaps, of this small breach between them, the inevitable chafing that comes from talk about the future. In the lamplight his gaze seems parental. ‘I’ll call you.’ He leans down to the bed to kiss her, traces his thumb in a downward arc across her lips. ‘Soon.’