Beneath the Mother Tree

by D. M. Cameron

  ‘There’s something wrong with me, Aunty. Missed the island too much.’

  ‘The island will always be here. Not going anywhere.’ Dora shaded her eyes. ‘Here comes trouble.’

  Grappa walked towards them pulling his hat off out of respect for Dora.

  Ayla enjoyed watching Grappa relate to Aunty Dora. He went all puppy eyed and soft around the edges.

  ‘How you going, ladies? That Harley’s dog?’

  Ayla nodded. ‘Not feeling too well. Are you, Jippy?’

  Dora squinted at the sun. ‘Just finishing your morning walk now? Running late today, old man?’ A cheeky smile slid across her face.

  Every morning at sunrise Grappa rowed to the island and walked the perimeter like a guard keeping watch. He unofficially thought of himself as the island’s official protector. Aunty Dora and Grappa often crossed paths of a morning, collecting rubbish. They had both seen enough of what plastic could do to birds and sea creatures.

  Grappa hid his smile. ‘Slept in. Awful night’s sleep. Moon was too bright.’

  ‘Yeah, big moon last night. Had some bad dreams myself. Hasn’t happened in a long while.’

  Jip whimpered and rolled onto his back, shaking his head in the sand. ‘Poor old feller. Better get him to a vet.’ Dora gathered her morning glory. ‘Well, this basket isn’t going to weave itself.’

  ‘Heard some fancy arse from down Melbourne way’s offerin’ to pay big money for your baskets.’ Grappa fiddled with his hat.

  ‘Yeah. Should make me happy, hey? But I kind of feel ashamed when I think of those poor old Grannies on the mission when I was a kid, sitting there smoking their pipes, weaving the traditional reed baskets all day for nothing but baccy money.’ She looked out toward Big Island as if she could see the remnants of the mission with its three-sided tin huts and banana trees, then turned and walked away.

  Grappa watched her big hips swaying from side to side. He called to her. ‘That moon’s gonna be just as bright tonight. Come for dinner?’

  Dora waved without looking back, ‘Might just do that.’

  Ayla smiled at Grappa smiling.

  Irritated, he changed the subject. ‘Why isn’t Harley here?’

  ‘Popped home for a sec. Hopefully ringing a vet.’

  ‘Harley’s off his head most of the time. Probably got home and passed out.’ Grappa’s disgruntled snort reminded Ayla of her mother.

  ‘Want me to sit with Jip? Got stuff to do?’

  ‘Nothing that can’t wait.’

  Grappa pointed at two large ospreys circling over the water. ‘They never come over this side this time of year. That’s because of your Far Dorocha. Has he tried it on again?’

  Ayla wavered.

  ‘When?’ Grappa knew her too well.

  ‘This morning in the fog, I heard him, but I didn’t see him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the beach.’

  ‘On the beach, where?’

  ‘Where our path comes out.’

  ‘So, he knows where you live.’

  ‘Grappa, he’s just some tourist –’

  ‘The crabs aren’t running, the jellies are suiciding, the birds are jittery.’ He watched the dog shudder through laboured breathing. ‘Now Jip,’ he said, and walked away.

  ‘Where you going?’

  ‘To find out what’s happening.’

  ‘The Nor folk?’

  He tapped the side of his temple and strode off with purpose, placing his hat firmly on his head.

  Ayla’s smile broke her face in two remembering herself as a child, lying on one of the Nor Folk Tree’s branches, listening to Grappa whisper. ‘The only way you’ll ever see them is if you believe in them. I saw one once, when I was your age…sittin’ at the base of the buttress root there, starin’ like he’d been waitin’ all his life for me to notice him.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Almost human, but they can shape shift into anythin’…a dragon fly, a sparkle of light.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Nup. But he was hard to keep in my vision because he was the same colour as the skin of the tree, like he was part of the tree…’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It was only after, when he’d vanished. I shut my eyes and a voice came into my head…knew straight away it was him, whisperin’ in my ear.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  Grappa searched her little face. ‘He told me…one day I would have a granddaughter called Ayla, that I was to tell her about the Nor folk. He gave strict instructions to pass on all I knew.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they’re the spirit of the land. It’s important each new generation remembers to love and respect them, watch for them, listen for their guidance. If they die, then the land dies. If the land dies, we die.’

  Ayla caressed Jip as she scanned the water and remembered what it was she had seen that day as she lay in the Moreton Bay fig, looking up through its twisted branches, wallowing in the sweetness of the fermented seed pods rotting on the ground. She had glimpsed a solid flash of gold, a momentary sparkle as big as Grappa’s thumbnail. Grappa had convinced her it was one of the Nor folk. For many years she carried that miracle with her as proof there was a shimmering beneath the surface of things. Life beyond life. She knew now it had been a trick of light.

  Two orange butterflies fluttered around her head before landing on Jip. Her younger self would have viewed this as a healing gift sent by the Nor folk. She fell into her old habit of pretending. ‘Come on, Jippy. Draw on their energy.’ Jip’s tail wagged.

  The butterflies flew off, circling higher and higher, heading west towards the mangroves. ‘Come back.’

  Jip shuddered uncontrollably. ‘Such an idiot, Ayla.’ She spat the words through clenched teeth. As if butterflies could help. The faery myth didn’t even belong here. It came from the other side of the world. This was dugong dreaming country. Aunty Dora’s stories were full of sea creatures, not bloody faeries. Why hadn’t she pointed this out to Grappa? Her anger mounted each time Jip’s muscles shook. ‘Face it Grappa, you’re nothing but a –’ she tried to think of Mandy’s word for white feller. ‘Degga. Nothing but a degga, and so am I.’ Degga meant ‘a stranger.’

  Three metres from where she sat, Ayla knew there was a midden. Mandy had revealed to her the shelly layers of remains stuck in the red clay of the earth. In the bush to the right was one of several ‘canoe trees’ on the island. Ayla stared at the canoe shaped scar left by the men who had prised its bark off in one thick slab. The place was saturated with evidence of an ancient blood line.

  We have no right to pretend we have a spiritual link here.

  This new thought brought tears as she stroked Jip. If she were a fully qualified vet she would know what to do instead of sitting around like a waste of space. Her mother was right. She was throwing her life away cleaning houses. Cleaning houses on an island where she didn’t even belong. She felt so lost and useless as Jip whined in pain, she wanted to scream.

  Grappa arrived at the tree sticky and thirsty, stopping at the brook which ran down to the beach to wash his face. It had been months since a good rain, so it was nothing more than a trickle, but still crystal fresh. In all the years, he had never seen it run dry.

  ‘Purest water on the land.’

  He looked up. The wind had risen, and the clouds were moving too fast. The she-oaks whispered as the circling Brahminy kite cried out, warning that something dark had disturbed the island’s peaceful equilibrium.

  Always impressed by this arrangement of trees dominating the skyline – not native to the island, the pines had been planted in a protective circle like guards standing to attention around the ancient fig – he took a deep breath and entered the sacred grove. A private living, breathing room that often smelt of nectar. He knew it was the perfume of the Nor folk, impossible to define and as elusive as their presence. The sand was thin here, only a sprinkling over the hard, grey bones of the earth. Leani
ng against the knotty trunk, he lowered himself to the ground and spoke his greeting to the aerial roots cascading from the horizontal branches.

  ‘Dia dhuit.’

  On saying this he often heard Gran’s reply, ‘Dia is Muire duit.’ She had insisted he always say two things to her in Irish: hello and thank you. After she died, he only ever spoke these sacred words here, to the Nor folk. The strangeness of the language on his tongue felt powerful. In this simple act, he was calling them out from the tree.

  ‘I come with a heart full of love and gratitude. Never a day goes by I’m not aware of your presence.’ Captivated by the light dancing in the space, he cleared his throat. ‘Think Ayla might be in a spot of trouble. Far Dorocha’s returned. Got his eye on her, he has. Tried to get her again this mornin’ in the fog. Have no doubts it was him called up that fog. He knows where she lives. What would you advise me to do?’

  He pulled his flask from his pocket and toasted the old fig. The hot fire of pure whisky quenching his thirst. Soon, sleep rested his chin on his chest, his snores wafting up through the gnarled limbs, disturbing the hovering Brahminy kite.

  His Gran was sitting outside in her old striped-canvas beach chair near the edge of the circle, where the goat’s foot petered out, butterflied leaves curling in the sun. Delighted to see her, he ran like a boy onto the sand, dropping to his knees at her feet. The castle he started to build was effortless. Feeling too young and lively, he did a forward roll and fell into the impish sparkle of her eyes as she settled into her chair. He’d forgotten how she’d loved that time-worn chair.

  ‘The poor O’Ryan family, they never lived it down.’ The familiar sound of her voice with the soft lilt of her accent was almost unbearable.

  ‘Lived what down, Gran?’ he whispered, scared she would evaporate.

  ‘Maeve O’Ryan was a bit odd I always thought.’

  He cherished the way she pronounced thought as taught.

  ‘Such a pretty lass. Beware the pretty, pretty ones.’

  The woman on the barge came to mind.

  ‘Prettiest in our village everyone claimed, but odd.’

  ‘In what way, odd?’

  ‘When Maeve was a wee one, she went from being a bonny baby to a nightmare of a ting who wouldn’t stop bawlin’ cryin’. Her Mammy was full sure it wasn’t her Maeve. She believed the faeries come and put a changelin’ in her place. Because everyone knew, at the bottom of the graveyard behind the church at the end of the village there was a faery mound. Father Kearney hisself was saying he had seen lights there of a night and heard strange music. Come evenin’, no one would go near the place. But one dark summer night, so dark even the moon was hidin’, Mrs O’Ryan picked up her screamin’ baby and carried her to the end of the village and left the poor wee ting at the bottom of the faery mound. Left her there all night. At dawn she returned, and there was her baby Maeve lyin’ as quiet as a church mouse.’ Gran leant forward in her chair. ‘But Maeve O’Ryan grew up to be a queer one, ne’er a kind word for anyone but always a laugh for other’s misfortunes. Some even say she caused them. A fine trouble maker. People said it was the time she spent with the faeries. Others claim it was the cause of a mad mother. But my theory is…she was a changelin’. Her eyes were too black. To look in her eyes was like looking into the end of nothin’.’

  The wind began to howl and the sky turned an unnatural colour. Grappa saw something moving too fast to be human, charging through the blinding sand towards them. As it closed in, he knew it was the woman from the barge. Her serpentine tresses of hair had grown a life of their own.

  ‘Stop her,’ Gran cried, struggling to get out of the chair. Her terror made him jump, blocking the path of the woman who was focused on his Gran.

  ‘What do you want?’ His scream a whimper.

  He looked in to her eyes and saw the end of nothing as the world was sucked into blackness.

  Waking with a start, he was drenched in sweat.

  I’ve got to stop drinkin’ in the middle of the day. This thought made him thirsty, but his flask was empty. His body was so stiff, it took him a minute to get to his feet. He hugged the old tree and gave thanks.

  ‘Maith thu.’

  A loud group of approaching teenagers forced Grappa in the opposite direction. Trying to remember where he had anchored Little Beaudy, images from the dream flashed through his mind. He clutched his head as the piercing headache spread rapidly.

  5.

  Riley sat on the back deck, devouring a croissant stuffed with pineapple. He wasn’t fond of tinned pineapple, but for some reason his mother had bought five cans.

  The view over the mangroves was markedly different to the one from his tree house. The vast scale of the swamp was distinct in its lonely, twisted beauty. Beyond the sea, a watermelon sun was being swallowed by the mainland, casting a pink light on the breeze which made the whole swamp shimmer. It was a pity about the smell. Riley had learnt to breathe only through his mouth out here, where on certain days the mud became a ghastly brew resembling rotting fish and faecal matter.

  He counted the crows sitting in the mangroves, glaring at him. Twelve. Carrion eating birds of doom, David called them. Riley detested the murder always hanging around the house, watching. What were they waiting for?

  The mosquitoes here were smarter and smaller than the fat lazy ones he was accustomed to up north. These vicious nasties were so numerous that he was driven inside, where he met his mother who was clad in a black-satin gown which revealed too much of her breasts.

  ‘Are you going out in that?’ The shock made his voice squeak.

  She threw her hands up in distress. ‘I don’t know what to wear. This came from a resort so I thought it might be appropriate. I wish…’

  David was here. He finished the sentence for her in his mind. Riley couldn’t remember the last time she had seemed so nervous. ‘You look fine. Calm down.’

  She followed him into the kitchen and started slamming cupboard doors.

  ‘What are you after, Mum?’

  ‘Glasses.’

  ‘Above the sink.’

  ‘Thank you for organising the kitchen.’

  ‘Thanks for buying food.’ He decided not to ask about the pineapple. The rapport between them felt unusually healthy. He considered telling her about the money, but decided it might be safer to broach the subject of work. ‘I might see if there are markets on the mainland. I could run a stall, maybe sell my flutes and busk or something...?’

  She choked on her water. ‘Why?’

  ‘To make money.’

  ‘We don’t need money. All of David’s investments…believe me, money is not an issue.’

  ‘It’s not that Mum, it’s.... I’m an adult. I want to make my own money. Prove to myself –’

  ‘Why? If you need anything, tell me. I’ll buy it.’

  ‘I don’t like you having that power over me.’ There. He had said it.

  ‘Power? What do you mean, power? I’ve never denied you anything. Tell me what you want, and I’ll buy it for you.’ She banged her empty glass down on the sink.

  ‘What if I want to go to university –’

  ‘University? You can’t. There’s no uni here.’

  ‘Exactly. I’d have to pay for somewhere to live. I’d need money for food, transport.’

  ‘You’ve never told me this.’

  ‘Maybe I could study music.’

  ‘Music?’ Her laugh was brutal. ‘If money is what you’re after, I wouldn’t become a musician.’

  He exhaled. There was no point. She was incapable of seeing life from anyone’s perspective but her own.

  A car came up the dirt road.

  She squeezed his hand. ‘Leave the unpacking in the living room. I’ll do it tomorrow.’ She picked up her handbag. ‘I don’t want to do this.’

  David wasn’t around to protect her anymore and her dress was so revealing. ‘Please be careful. You know how you are…with people.’

  ‘With people?’

&nbs
p; ‘Maybe I should go with you? How do you intend getting home?’ He followed her downstairs.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling boy, I can protect myself.’ The look on her face…was she laughing at him?

  He felt embarrassed as the car drove off. He had sounded like David.

  In the dark stairwell, the creaking house filled with menace. He ran upstairs into the brightness of the kitchen and through to his bedroom, flicking lights on.

  Another creak.

  What was it with this house?

  He began to unpack books.

  Someone was creeping down the hall.

  He peered into the empty passage and shivered. Maybe the mermaid girl was on the beach? If not, he could sit by her ‘No Trespassers’ sign and seduce her with his music. A more attractive proposition than staying here alone in this house at night.

  Ayla let out her frustration on the chopping board. ‘I even offered to cover the vet bill or said the community could donate.’

  ‘Of course they would. Jip’s the Whale Welcoming mascot.’ Her mother sat at the kitchen table, painting her toenails purple.

  ‘He refused.’ Bits of carrots flew into the air.

  ‘Too proud, bless his soul.’

  ‘He insisted I go in the end. There was nothing I could do. It was godawful.’

  ‘Poor little Jippy.’

  ‘The more he deteriorated, the angrier Harley got. He’s blaming some woman that moved into the old Johnston house.’

  ‘Someone bought that ghastly place?’ Her mother disappeared into her bedroom.

  Ayla called out. ‘God help her if Jip dies.’

  ‘Poor woman. Welcome to the island.’

  ‘I’ve tried ringing Stan all day. Must be out of range.’

  Her mother reappeared. ‘Ayla, it’s not your responsibility. If Stan were here, he probably couldn’t do anything either. He’s retired. People seem to forget that.’

  ‘He’s got a few supplies left, could give Jip some painkiller at least.’

  ‘Well he’s not here and you’re not the island vet. You can’t fix everything.’