by John Marsden
‘Yes, I saw it on one of the letters,’ Argus agreed. Temora continued to pick through the collection of items admiring a carved wooden elephant, and lingering over a necklace of coral and rose quartz. But at last she had satisfied her curiosity and, putting the lid back on the box, she went in search of Argus, who was no longer in the hut.
She found him outside, digging a grave in the soil behind the little shack. ‘Are there any more spades?’ she asked.
‘Don’t think so,’ he answered. ‘Found this one behind the front door. But you could make something to put on the grave, if you want. Flowers and stuff.’
Temora, who was quick and skilful with a knife, found one and carved into a piece of wood the name ‘Beulah’ and the date, then collected a garland of white and yellow flowers.
By this time Argus had finished digging in the sandy soil, and so, with some trepidation, the two entered the hut again and tried to lift the body from the bed. It proved to be unexpectedly heavy and surprisingly floppy, so they laid it back down and slid the blanket underneath. This was more successful, but even so there was little dignity about the old woman’s final journey, as they sweated and strained to get her out through the door, bumping themselves and the body a number of times. At the graveside they lowered her with more solemnity into the open pit and then, embarrassed by her haggard face, they closed the blanket over her.
‘We should say something,’ said Argus.
‘Yes, but what?’
‘I remember a sentence from when my sister was buried . . . I thought it was the most beautiful sentence I’d ever heard. “Rest perpetual grant unto her, and may light eternal shine upon her.” And we could read her poem.’
‘Yes, I’ll get it,’ Temora agreed, and slipped into the hut.
Argus looked down at the shape in the blanket. ‘Good-bye Beulah, if that was your name,’ he said. ‘I think you were probably a very nice person, but maybe not a happy one. I wish I’d known you while you were alive, but I guess I’ve got to know you a little bit now.’
Temora re-emerged with the poem, and read it with clarity and feeling. She picked up the spade and, not without some hesitation, cast a shovelful of soil into the grave. She laboured on without speaking until the job was finished, then Argus placed the carved inscription and the flowers on the mound. ‘We’d better go,’ he said. ‘We’ll be late enough as it is.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Temora said. ‘I think we should leave a message here, saying what we’ve done, in case anyone does ever turn up to see her. I mean, she might have an estranged son who she hasn’t seen for twenty years, since he ran away to sea, and he might get shipwrecked on this very coast, and stagger into the hut expecting to find her waiting for him.’
‘Yes, she might,’ Argus agreed, sounding far from convinced. ‘Still, it’s a good idea.’
Between them they managed to write a statement of what they had found in the hut and of the actions they had taken. They broke up all the perishable food and threw it onto the beach for the seagulls. Then Temora handed Argus a thick, very plain silver ring, as she slipped an identical one on her own finger.
‘What’s this?’ he said, in surprise.
‘Her rings,’ Temora explained. ‘They were next to the bucket of water, and she had marks on her fingers where she wore them. I think they were the only pieces of jewellery she wore, so they must have been the only ones she cared about. I think we should wear them from now on, so that we remember her and she’s still got a little part of her left with us. ’Cos I don’t think she had anyone else.’
‘All right,’ Argus said, ‘but we better add a postscript to our note, saying that we’ve taken them.’
This task completed, they closed the door behind them, and set off for the headland, without a backward glance. The last half of their journey to the fairground was a struggle. They both ran out of energy at about the same time, and they stumbled into the light of Mayon’s fire feeling hungry and depressed and very very tired.
Chapter Fourteen
A week later, camped at the great trading centre of Bratten, the members of the fair prepared to enjoy themselves. Bratten was at the junction of two major rivers and three great highways. Argus thought he had never seen so many people before in his life. They crowded into the fairground all day and half the night, and Argus and Temora were needed almost constantly. A typical morning might have one of them in charge of a throwing game, then acting as cashier for the freakshow, or cleaning up rubbish, before taking lunches around to people too busy to leave their posts. Sometimes too Argus would be called on to help Jud eject a trouble-maker, or patrol an area where the crowd was over-boisterous. As other stringers came and went, Argus found himself often in charge of people older than him. He had a few difficulties at first, until he learnt to identify the assertive ones. He made a point of being more assertive than they were, so that he got their respect, if not their liking.
For Bratten, this was the most important week of the year, as the district celebrated its Festival of the Gift. The fair was closed on the final day of the Festival, when the people went to the river for the Silence. But Argus and Temora and most of the people from the fair were too tired to go. They spent the day making a few desultory repairs, washing clothes, lazing about. Around dusk nearly everyone drifted in to the communal fire, and a massive stew started to take form. Ruth sliced potatoes and Argus, the only one who could do it without weeping, chopped onions. Tiresias came out of the shadows of his caravan to throw in handfuls of herbs of some kind.
‘What are they?’ Argus asked, but Tiresias only smiled and shrugged. Titius, the human skeleton, as usual contributed nothing but advice, most of it bad. Delta and Cassim, the two women storytellers, arrived from the paddocks with aprons full of fresh mushrooms, which were received with delight. Mayon added his special tomato blend: he claimed it was from a recipe he had dreamed while asleep in a cave full of carnivorous lizards. Temora’s contribution was a huge quantity of garlic.
The atmosphere was good, light-hearted and casual. People who had been taking each other for granted realised with sudden pleasure how much real affection and warmth they shared, and were suddenly delighted to see someone with whom they had been fighting a few days earlier. Even Tiresias unbent and became quite playful. One of the inevitable dogs that hung around the fair trotted close to the fire and tried to sniff the stew. Tiresias made as if to lift it up and toss it in to the pot; the dog yelped, squirmed free and made off. Everyone laughed; the tremor of shared laughter ran through the group.
After they had fed and were warmed by the excellent meal, the members of the fair sat around the fire, not wanting to leave, in a mood for sharing confidences. Mayon, who had been brought up on a farm, was telling a story of his own childhood. Argus, who had been washing plates did not hear the start of it, but arrived in time for the climax. ‘When we went to dig the cattle out of the mud,’ he said, ‘we didn’t know that the ones we could see were only the top layer. As we got them out, we realised there were more underneath. I don’t know how many layers there were. But the smell, oh the smell. I’ll never forget it. It took days to get them all, even using a winch. That was a bad drought, that one.’
Cassim chimed in. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘there are some memories that depend on smells, I think. When I was about ten we had a fire at home. We were shearing at the time, and we were down to the last mob of sheep . . . about a hundred, I think. We put them in the shed for the night, so if it rained they’d still be dry in the morning. We went back to the house, had tea and went to bed early . . . you know how tiring shearing can be. And when we woke up in the morning, there was a funny smell. We went over to the shearing shed. It was quite a walk from the house, behind a row of trees. There was nothing there except a pile of smoking embers. It had burnt down during the night, with all the sheep inside, and being so far from the house nobody heard a thing. That’s a smell I’ll never forget.’
‘Must have been a bit more than a pile of smoking embers,
’ Jud observed after a few moments silence, while people digested the story and tried to imagine themselves into it.
‘Well, yes,’ Cassim admitted. ‘That was a bit exaggerated. But most good stories are. Some of the sheep — quite a lot actually — were relatively undamaged. They were buried under others in corners of the shed, where they’d huddled to escape the flames, and they’d died of suffocation, I suppose. We were able to shear them and sell the wool, but that was the only thing salvaged out of the ruins.’
‘You could shear the dead sheep?’ Ruth asked in amazement.
‘Yes, of course. But it’s an awkward job. Not as awkward as burying them though. We had to dig an enormous pit. For the rest of the time that we lived on that farm I didn’t like to go near the site of the pit.’
‘It’s terrible when animals die,’ Ruth agreed. ‘They don’t understand what’s happening to them, whereas humans do. Maybe that’s one of the differences between animals and humans. Humans know that one day they have to die, but I don’t think animals know that.’
‘I don’t know which is worse,’ Cassim said.
‘Some animals understand,’ Tiresias said quietly. Unnoticed by Argus he had drawn closer to the fire. The flames were reflecting on his dark face. ‘Elephants understand.’
‘Elephants?’ Temora asked, a little astonished.
‘Yes, elephants,’ Tiresias repeated. ‘I’ve seen an elephant deliberately sacrifice its own life to save another, and I believe that it knew what it was doing.’
‘Tell us,’ someone said, but Tiresias, unaccustomed to speaking in front of others, paused a long while before going on.
‘Many years ago,’ he finally began, ‘I was watching a big herd of elephants grazing at the bottom of quite a steep cliff. Near me was a family group — a mother and three of her calves. The oldest was perhaps four or five. Suddenly I heard a rumble like distant thunder and at the same time the ground began to tremble. The elephants looked around them in fear, as indeed I did. But it was from above that the danger was coming. High above us a landslide had started, and was coming down a funnel in the rock with frightening speed. The shape of the funnel meant that the landslide itself was restricted to a narrow area, and I was well clear of its path. But the big cow elephant was not. She had been feeding a little bit away from her calves, and a massive boulder the size of a caravan was hurtling towards her. It was at the heart of the landslide, but the old elephant, confused by the echoes coming off the cliffs opposite us, did not see it. Her oldest calf saw it, however. Flinging his trunk in the air and lifting his front feet, he charged across the empty ground and threw himself in front of the boulder. He took the full impact of it. It killed him instantly, I think, but he slowed its progress and by then his mother had time to get out of the way.’
‘What happened then?’ Ruth asked. Argus suppressed a giggle at the thought that Ruth of all people would be concerned about elephants.
‘Well, the other members of the herd reacted the way elephants nearly always react when they come across a dead or dying elephant. They gathered around him and tried to lift him with their tusks and trunks. The mother seemed to be especially distressed. They stayed around him for the rest of the day and, although some would wander off for a few hours, they would always come back. At times there would be a circle of elephants around the corpse, packed so tightly that I couldn’t see what they were doing; at other times there’d only be one or two. Late in the afternoon one of the big bulls seemed to be tugging at the tusks of the dead calf, as though he wanted to remove them. I’d heard of that happening, but I’d never seen it before. Anyway, if that’s what he was trying to do, he was unsuccessful, and round about dusk they ambled away, although some still lingered till well after dark. When I came back the next morning, they’d covered the body with branches and mud.’
‘Oh, that can’t be true,’ Mayon protested.
Tiresias smiled. ‘It’s amusing to hear a storyteller objecting to a story on those grounds. Nevertheless it is true and it’s quite common behaviour among elephants. And that’s not the only thing about them that surprises people. For instance, with this calf I was telling you about, for six weeks or so, every elephant that passed that spot would come over and inspect the body, even if they were from a different herd. And, as the process of decomposition took over, the elephants would frequently pick up bones and wave them around as though they were examining them. Don’t ask me what they were doing. I’ve never been able to explain it and I’ve never met anyone else who’s able to either.’
‘What were you doing around elephants?’ Temora hazarded.
‘I was brought up around them,’ Tiresias answered simply. ‘I lived in a village where every night baboons raided our garden and butterflies bigger than my hand filled the morning air. My baby brother was put out in his cot in the sun one day, for some fresh air, and his nurse left him for a few moments while she finished washing the clothes, and that was the last anyone saw of him. He had disappeared, and even the widest searches failed to reveal any traces. Then, when I was eight, I was taken too, but I was taken by men and I think he was taken by animals. I was smuggled across the seas, and have never seen my family or village since.’
There was a long pause, broken by Ruth, who gave a loud sniff and blew her nose into a handkerchief. ‘Oh dear, that’s so sad,’ she said. ‘I feel so lucky. I was such a happy little girl, and I do feel awful when I hear a story like that. We don’t know when we’re well off, and that’s a fact.’
‘How did you get into this way of life?’ Delta asked her.
‘Well, dear, my parents died when I was young, about fifteen. They caught an illness that went right through the valley where we lived. Lots of people caught it, and they all died. No-one knew what caused it, and I don’t know even now, but one day they were well and happy, and the next day they were both dead. So I buried them and then went to stay with my uncle and his family who lived up in the mountains. But they were too stern and strict for me. I liked my bit of fun. And I was already pretty big. I just seemed to put weight on quickly — in a year or two I went from average plump to not much less than you see now. Well, as soon as I saw the fair I knew it was for me. It was the only way I could be looked after comfortably and enjoy the kind of life I wanted. And I must say I’ve never regretted it. It was Felder, the father of Jud and Mayon, who ran it in those days, and he was the one who hired me, and he always took very good care of me.’
‘Haven’t you ever wanted to do anything different?’ Temora asked.
‘Oh my dear!’ Ruth chuckled. ‘Yes of course I have my dreams. Don’t we all? I’d love to be a dancer or a poet or a shepherd. But I’m in a very nice groove with the fair now, and I don’t want to have to make a whole lot of changes.’
‘The wanderer’s danger is to find comfort,’ Mayon quoted softly, so that only Argus and Temora could hear. Temora looked at him long and thoughtfully, then got to her feet and strolled off in the direction of her tent. The conversation around the fire switched to the favourite topic of the human oddities who peopled the fair: illness. They could discuss their health for hours, each willing to pay the price of listening to the others’ medical histories on the understanding that the others in turn would listen to theirs. Argus, quickly tiring of the tedious subject, quit for the evening and went to bed.
Chapter Fifteen
Two days later Temora left the fair to begin her journey home. Though she did not mention it, Argus felt that Mayon’s muttered aside at the fire had helped her to make her decision.
Although she was travelling in the general direction of her home, she was leaving the fair when it was furthest away from Batlin, and the route she planned appeared to be a particularly arduous one. But she was adamant that it was time for her to move on, and she would not discuss the decision with Argus. Indeed, she seemed preoccupied, as though she had already closed Argus out of her life, and the boy’s depression as he moped around the campsite had so little apparent effect on her that
Argus started to grow angry.
But when the time came for her to go she became once more, for a few minutes that Argus cherished long afterwards, her former self. She flung her arms around him, gave him a wicked kiss and laughed with a reckless pleasure. ‘Oh, I’m so glad I met you,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget that day on the beach. And the times in the tent, and the caravan. If I ever have another boyfriend I’ll always be comparing him to you, and he’ll never know why I suddenly seem to be twenty years away.’
Argus laughed, despite himself. ‘I’ll miss you too,’ he said, and meant it, though after her familiar figure had finally vanished around a corner in the road he felt a strange sense of what seemed almost like relief. He quickly suppressed the feeling, not liking to admit that although he liked Temora he was glad to be free of such a long and intense relationship.
Her departure nudged Argus into the realisation that he must also be moving on. ‘The wanderer’s danger is to find comfort.’ He was, and must continue to be, a wanderer and, although the end of his quest was starting to take shape in the distance, he still had a way to go yet. He broached the subject with Mayon as they were setting up at their newest venue, the city of Palatine.
It was not easy for him to tell the storyteller his decision, for he had grown to look on the gentle Mayon as a second father, and he knew that Mayon cared for him as a son. Yet the storyteller only hesitated a moment before agreeing with the boy that there was nothing more the people of the fair could teach him. At first Argus promised to stay on until they left Palatine, but once he had made up his mind to go, he found himself becoming unbearably restless, and Mayon, sensing this, gave him permission to leave as soon as a replacement could be found. This did not take long in a city the size of Palatine, and so it came about that on a wet and grey-cold morning Argus slung his blanket-roll on his back and took to the roads once more.