We roll the Bluebird out of the hangar, then climb inside. I pull on my headset. Inside the cramped cockpit, Erik runs through the safety brief with me. Keep clear of the controls. If we make an emergency landing, hold your door ajar and exit to the rear of the aircraft. Then he checks my harness, pulls it tight, starts the engine, the propeller sputtering to life. The Bluebird hums in response, her whole body geared up, as Erik moves us into the glare of the day.
I’m already smiling.
We rumble along the tarmac, so different by day. The flat lands roll by my window, straw yellow from the parched summer. I can smell avgas and upholstery, and it’s cool in the cockpit.
I watch Erik concentrate. He brings the plane to a stop before turning onto the runway, and I watch the furrow of his eyebrows as he does his final checks, mumbling things to himself, testing the flaps, touching dials. He makes a final radio call and we turn onto the runway.
‘Ready?’ he says, grinning.
I give him the thumbs up.
He guns the throttle, hurtling us down the tarmac, the force pushing me back into my seat, the roar of the engine in my ears. The blur of the yellowed grass is all I can see of the earth. Suddenly, we’re tipping backwards, my stomach pushed low, my breath held, as our wheels leave the runway. I watch the shadow of the Bluebird ripple along the earth, growing smaller and further away with us. We are up, up, the trees shrinking to green clumps beneath us, the roads straps of licorice. The angle of the plane begins to level and, below, the land becomes a patchwork quilt – parcels neatly divided, some green, some dry and brown, all stitched together by dark seams. As we get higher, I can make out rivers carved through the landscape like silver threads, and mountains like small felt mounds.
‘We’re just above Cooper’s Creek,’ Erik says. ‘Your place is below us somewhere.’
I search for our house, but we’re high enough for cars and houses to be ant-like. If I parachuted out now, where would I land? The thought of jumping out doesn’t even fill me with fear. The earth below is puckered with cloud shadows, and flitting across it all, one tiny bird shadow . . . us.
‘Check this out,’ Erik says.
I look out the cockpit window. Looming ahead is a mountain of white cloud. What was the size of a pillow from the earth is now a monstrous, frothing beast.
‘Want to check it out?’
It’s a challenge.
I nod and seconds later, we’re in a white world. I can see nothing but fog. Not up, not down, not the ground, not the sky. Clouds are much prettier from the outside.
‘Hold on,’ Erik says.
The plane bumps and jolts, buffeted by the cloud. Stories of light plane crashes run through my mind. Grandad’s friend Justen Emmett died a few years back when his light plane crashed on the runway doing circuits. He was a good, experienced pilot. An instructor. It’s why Grandad wouldn’t take me up until I was sixteen, when I could decide for myself. I grip the edge of my seat and pressure wraps itself like film across my chest. I look at Erik. Is this really safe? I try to control my breaths, but they’re coming too fast.
He must see the fear on my face because he’s no longer smiling. ‘Turbulence,’ he says. ‘We’ll punch through.’
We burst into the blue again, sunshine hitting me square in the eye. I turn back and watch the cloud behind us grow smaller. Puffs of white now dot the sky, and Erik skirts around them, our wingtips brushing the edges.
‘Don’t worry,’ Erik says. ‘I wouldn’t have done that in a blanket of cloud, but that was just a puff. I’m only rated to fly by sight.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Where I can see below. Visually. Hey, you want to feel butterflies?’
I look at him. ‘Is it safe?’
‘Totally.’
‘Okay then.’
‘Hold on.’
I grip my seat as Erik pushes the control column down and I’m lifted out of my seat as far as my harness will let me. I squeal as my stomach rises and Erik pulls up on the controls again to level us.
‘Like a roller-coaster,’ I say.
‘Negative Gs. The roller-coaster of the sky.’
Then he tilts the wings, making me lower than him, and turns the Bluebird around in a big arc. That’s when I see it out my window – the coastline, a jagged scar against a never-ending sea. Aqua rivulets drain green and sandy from the rivers into the ocean.
‘That’s Port Macquarie,’ Erik says. Like it needs a name, this paradise. ‘From three thousand feet.’
The sea is a blanket of diamonds beneath the glare of the sun. Who knew perfection lay so close to my front door?
Erik flies us to the coast, and uses the coastline as a map, following the edge of Australia. The beaches are thin white crusts at the edge of the land, irregular and gloriously rugged.
Along the horizon, the ocean cuts a sharp line and fluffy clouds pile up along the edge of the world. Erik’s looking at the clouds too. He notices me watching him and gives me a smile.
‘Everything okay?’ I say.
He looks once more at the horizon, then back at me. ‘Enough sightseeing. Let’s land this baby.’
He arcs away from the ocean, away from the clouds brewing over the horizon and points the nose of the Bluebird back towards land.
The mountains get closer as we lose altitude. They’re soft suede from here. As we fly towards the valley between them, features become distinguishable again. The dark clusters of treetops, the sliced-up parcels of the flat lands beyond the mountains.
‘Almost there,’ Erik says.
He focuses on the instrument panel. I see numbers dropping. The artificial horizon shows the Bluebird dipping. My ears pop as we descend into the valley. The forest beneath us is thick, and I can’t help wondering where we’d land if something went wrong.
‘There,’ Erik says, pointing straight ahead. ‘See it?’
I squint. ‘Trees, trees and more trees?’
‘Your one o’clock,’ he says.
I point my finger in the direction of one o’clock.
‘Can you see the strip?’ he asks.
I can’t, but I’m glad he can because we’re getting lower every second. I can make out the branches of trees now, and sheer rock-faces along the riverbed to my left, the mountaintop to my right.
Sitting in the passenger seat, flying feels like freedom and lofty skies and gliding. But for the pilot, it’s about precision too, judgement, speed and quick decisions.
One wrong move . . . I look below us. There’s no room for error.
Erik is touching dials as we commit ourselves deeper to the valley, when I see a small white flag. A strip of grass. Reflectors winking.
‘I see the flag!’ I say.
‘Windsock,’ he says. ‘Know where we are yet?’
The cliff faces, the drop off into the forest. In that instant, the wilderness around me slots into a sequence of familiarity. I’m shocked by how disoriented I’ve been. I recognise the tired old windsock Grandad replaced every few years. It mostly hung limp, but today it’s waving at us in greeting as we sweep in.
‘Rawson Falls,’ I say.
‘Bingo.’
Erik concentrates as he pushes a lever and the flaps go up on the wings. Then he pulls back on the power and levels out. Green blurs either side of us as we glide, a pocket of air sinking us down before the Bluebird steadies.
‘Hold tight, there’s a bit of a crosswind,’ he says.
I don’t know what he means by hold tight, but I brace my hands against the dash of the aircraft, heart in my mouth as Erik angles the nose of the plane left, so we’re coming in slightly sideways. I watch the shadow of the Bluebird flickering across the grass, growing larger until she merges with us and Erik flares for landing. With a bump and a rumble, we’re hurtling across the rough runway, bouncing over the grass as Erik pulls the engine back to idle and we slow down.
He turns the ignition off and there are lines of sweat down the sides of his face.
‘What d’y
ou think?’ he says, turning to me.
‘Well, I’m alive.’
He laughs. ‘It’s a tricky strip to land, and hardly anybody knows about it, but it’s where Grandad used to take me. I’ve done it a few times since I’ve been back.’
We climb out of the plane, and the earthy smell of the forest is strong here, like it used to be before the big dry. Tufts of grass have been kicked up by the Bluebird’s tyres.
The runway is atop an escarpment. A lone, flat stretch in a landscape of treetops and sheer drops. We walk to the edge of the cliff and I peer down. Erik grabs me by the arm.
‘Careful,’ he says.
I take a step back. He makes me feel brave, reckless even, and I don’t care which because either is better than scared. How long have I lived by what I fear instead of what I desire?
We look across Lion’s Leap to the other side, where Rawson Falls is little more than a mist of spray over a smooth, rocky ledge.
‘There’s not much left of it now,’ Erik says, disappointed.
We both watch the falls a while, and it strikes me as sad that something once vibrant and powerful is now so faint.
‘When we were kids, it thundered down, didn’t it?’
‘You want to see it?’ Erik says.
I nod and start down ahead of him, but the rocks slip beneath my feet and I slide on my butt. I can see Erik trying not to laugh. I get up quickly, dust myself off and refuse to look back at him.
He’s been here a few times recently, so I try to prove I have the home-ground advantage by pushing ahead. I can remember every bend, every hand hold and foot grip as the narrow animal track twists and turns its way down the rock face. The tree trunks are green with dry moss, and whip birds call shrilly to each other.
Erik is breathing hard behind me, trying to keep up with my pace, stones sliding beneath his shoes. But being smaller, I manage to keep a step ahead. I round the next twist in the track, enjoying the sureness of my feet.
The dirt turns to river sand beneath my shoes. One more bend, and the track spits us out into the rocky mouth of the waterhole. A land mullet is basking in the sun on a large rock near the edge of the falls, all black and sleek, but it slithers away when it hears us.
‘Is it just that we’re bigger, or did this thing shrink?’ he says.
What was once a sprawling, gushing waterhole, is now the size of a large plunge pool, and where the water used to cascade down the rocks into the valley, it now only trickles.
I bend down and sift through the pebbles at my feet, finding two thin, flat stones. I pass one to Erik.
‘It’s still big enough for rock skimming.’
I crouch down, reach back, flick my wrist and send my stone skipping lightly across the top of the water. Five ripples are left in its wake. I haven’t lost my touch.
Erik gets down on one knee. Rubs his stone between his palms, blows on it for good luck. Squints one eye, and flicks his stone out. It seems to hop across the surface forever. Seven skips. Impressive.
‘Ireland,’ he says. ‘Lots of rocks, and surrounded by water. Rains almost every day, see. Not like here. This heat is killing me.’
‘It’s not even hot,’ I joke. ‘You’ve gone soft.’
‘Up for a swim?’ he says.
‘Didn’t bring a cossie. I might have, if you’d told me where we were going.’
‘Me either,’ he says, taking off his shirt.
I inhale sharply. He’s already down to his boxers.
Erik is lean, his skin pale, his muscles etched finely against his stomach and chest. With each breath, they rise and fall.
I walk towards him slowly. I know what I want, but am I brave enough? I’m wearing dark underwear, which is almost as good as a pair of swimmers. My period is all but over. I search for a reason not to do this, and there isn’t one.
So I unbutton my white school shirt and shrug it off onto the rocks at our feet.
He holds me, hands light against my shoulder blades as he pulls me closer.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispers into my ear.
Then we’re kissing, our bodies pressed together. My hands are in his hair, and his hands are on my back, holding me close, so close.
But I’m scared this could all go wrong. Go too far.
I pull away. I need to tell him. But will he flip out and accuse me of leading him on? Tell me he’s taking me home? No, he won’t. I know this deep inside, because I have a feeling about Erik that goes beyond the five senses. I want to be clear, though. No wriggle room.
‘I’m not going to sleep with you, okay?’
I kiss him lightly on the lips, but he doesn’t answer.
‘What?’ he says after a moment.
‘I’m not going to sleep with you.’
‘Course,’ he whispers. ‘I wasn’t expecting that. Like, at all . . . I mean, not now.’
Not now. But one day. Maybe.
Weirdly, the idea doesn’t fill me with terror, but a warm buzz of electricity. Maybe one day I actually will.
He heads for the water. Splashes in and breaststrokes his way across to the shade on the far side.
‘There’re leeches,’ I call.
He moves away from the edge, treading water in the middle of the pool. ‘Is there anything out here that’s harmless?’
‘Leeches won’t actually kill you. Just suck your blood.’
‘Comforting.’
I’m conscious of his eyes on me, so I delay taking off my skirt. But when he turns his back, I leave it in a heap with my shirt. As I come to the water’s edge, Erik shoots a spray of water at me.
I haven’t swum at the waterhole in years. Not since Erik was last here. So I edge my way in, inhaling and drawing up my arms from the cold.
‘Less painful if you just run in,’ Erik says.
I move in up to my thighs, the water stinging and icy against my legs.
‘Now dive,’ he says.
So I take a breath, don’t let myself think about it, and dolphin dive in. The water is shocking as it swallows me.
When I burst back to the surface, I’m gasping from the thrill and the cold and the sheer aliveness of being here with Erik. I thought we would never make another memory together. When I said goodbye all those years ago, I thought I was letting him go forever.
My teeth are chattering and his lips are purple as Erik draws me towards him. I wrap my legs around his waist, and our goose-bumped bodies press together, shaking, as his cold lips kiss mine. Only his tongue is still warm. I kiss him back, and we tread water together. As we kiss, he bites my bottom lip gently, and I let him.
We’ve both lost interest in the water by the time he carries me out. We’re cold and shivering and neither of us have a towel, but he lowers me down onto a hot rocky ledge to get dry and looks at me like my body is wondrous. Special. Something to revere, not something to use.
So I kiss him, soaking up the heat sizzling off the rock.
He closes his eyes, and I roll onto my back to bask in the sun, but it’s no longer as bright as it was.
‘Now the clouds roll in. Typical,’ he says, reaching for me.
But I’m looking at the sky. The sun is a hazy orange ball, blocked by thick cloud. The weather must have changed while we were swimming.
‘Cloud looks low,’ Erik says.
I bolt upright, fear gripping my stomach.
‘That’s not cloud,’ I say.
We dress and pick our way along the narrow path to the escarpment. The path is crumbly and the couple of times I stumble, Erik steadies me from behind.
An eerie silence blankets the forest, the creatures of the bush all retreating from the dry, afternoon heat. The moisture seems to have been sucked from the air, and the wind blows in hot gusts as we near the top. The air is hazier at the top, harder to breathe, and the sky mimics sunset. Except it’s too early in the day.
When we run into the clearing, the smell of smoke hits me. Pungent and dirty, it stings my eyes.
The Bluebird
is perched there like a bird in a foggy morning. I stand a moment in the field, looking up at the orange sun, as blackened leaves twist down from the sky.
I catch a piece that spirals towards me.
‘It’s warm,’ I say.
Erik scans the tree line to our right. Dark clouds billow out above the forest, spilling slowly across the sky.
‘Jesus,’ he whispers.
The sky is changing rapidly, a post-apocalyptic shade of orange with the sun as its red heart.
‘There was a bushfire in Willaware a few years ago. It was bad.’
‘How bad?’ he says.
‘Embers blew ahead of the fire front. Started up spot fires. It spread fast. Homes were lost, a couple burned in their car.’
‘Shit.’
The heat blows towards us in gusts. Dry and hungry, it will feast on the thirsty forest.
‘I don’t know anything about fires,’ Erik says, ‘but I know wind. And it’s gusting northerly.’
‘So it’s blowing north?’
‘No, from the north. Towards us.’
He studies the windsock. It stands horizontal with each gust, then falls limp.
‘We can get out, right?’
He’s looking at the sky. ‘It’s gonna mean flying through smoke.’
‘Have you flown through smoke before?’
I see his Adam’s apple bob once. ‘No.’
‘Is it safe to fly through smoke?’
‘Nothing’s completely safe, Ruby.’
‘So we fly through smoke, or stay and hope the fire doesn’t get us.’
‘Exactly right.’
I think of the couple who burned in their car. We have nowhere to shelter. The plane full of fuel will go off like a bomb.
I think of Mum. At home. My breaths are coming faster than I can catch them.
Erik touches my back. ‘Ruby, I need you to keep calm, okay? I’ll get you home.’
‘If the smoke’s too thick . . .?’
‘We land again. Hopefully further away from whatever the fuck is causing this.’
The sky is vermilion now, smoke swelling.
‘I think we should fly.’ I look to him for confirmation.
‘Me too,’ he says.
We jog to the Bluebird, and Erik opens his door to help me up. As I step onto the wing of the plane, an ember lands on the Bluebird, before sparking out.
Ruby Tuesday Page 21