by Di Morrissey
Odette stretched and stared into the flickering flames, drifting, feeling her mind and body begin to slow and settle. She was aware of Zac making noises in another room and of running water and a sweet smell, but it seemed far away.
‘Come with me.’ Zac was before her and led her into the small bathroom that was warm and steamy, the walls lined with spicy smelling camphor laurel. A bathtub set in the centre of a wooden platform was filled with perfumed water. A floor to ceiling glass window looked out into tropical growth. Zac sat her on the edge of the platform and, kneeling before her, took off her shoes. Wordlessly Odette let him gently take off all her clothes, placing them gently over a wooden rack.
‘Get in, my lovely. It’s not too hot.’
Odette slid into the water which felt soft and smelled of flowers. Zac slipped out of his clothes and stepped in and sat behind her wrapping his arms about her again. She leaned back against his chest and inhaled the flowery oils in the silky water. Zac unpinned her hair and rubbed her head.
‘Such wild, wild curls. I’m glad you didn’t do anything silly like cut your hair.’
‘The fashion editor tried to talk me into it.’
‘Tell me what you’ve been doing.’
As the water cooled, Odette felt her skin soften and body relax and she gave Zac an abbreviated history of her time at the Gazette.
‘So you’ve made it, little bird. Old Fitz must be proud of you.’
Odette smiled. ‘He is rather chuffed. I saw him on my last trip back to Aunt Harriet’s.’
Zac reached to one side of the bath and picked up a small wooden pail. ‘Let me shampoo your hair.’ Gently he trickled the warm water through her thick hair, poured some shampoo into the palm of his hand and began massaging it onto her head.
A woodsy, herbal scent came from the foaming shampoo and Odette closed her eyes in a state of bliss as Zac hummed softly, his long fingers rubbing, caressing and working against her scalp so that it tingled with pleasure.
‘That’s wonderful. I feel sooo relaxed,’ she murmured. ‘Sing to me.’
Zac continued to run his fingers through her soapy curls, moving down her neck and up to the front of her head, singing all the while. His clear voice echoed in the small steamy room as he sang of the secret heart of the forests. Odette listened, lulled by the sound of water, and began to drift and dream.
Eventually Zac roused her, dousing her head with a pail of clear water. He stepped out of the bath, quickly rubbed himself dry and wrapped a towel around his waist. Taking another towel he vigorously rubbed Odette’s head. He then helped her from the bath and made her stand still while he dried her body.
‘Come on back to the fire.’
Obediently Odette followed, holding Zac’s hand like a small child, wondering why she didn’t feel at all embarrassed at walking about stark naked.
Zac pulled a big sheepskin rug before the fire. ‘Lie down on your tummy, arms by your side.’
Odette did so and Zac stoked the fire and put on a record. Soon the strains of a flute could be heard softly in the background. He leant over her and, starting at the base of her head, slowly began to massage her body. Her skin was soft and supple, filmed with the bathoil; Zac’s hands slipped firmly and easily across her skin, kneading and massaging her shoulders and the length of her back.
Odette had never experienced such pleasure, such sheer physical relaxation that was on one hand sensual and on the other made her body feel light and firm all at once. She drifted into a trance-like state of utter happiness.
Then she was aware that Zac’s lips were lightly kissing the back of her thighs, her buttocks, her shoulders and behind her ears. Slowly he rolled her over, kissed her belly, her nipples and, as she reached out for him, his mouth found her lips and their two bodies came together as easily and smoothly as oil flowed over water. She wrapped her legs and arms about him as he strongly but gently moved inside her. Odette never wanted to let him go.
Later, dressed in cotton Japanese kimonos, they sat cross-legged on the floor beside the fire, feasting on big bowls of noodle soup.
While the fire burned down, Zac played his guitar and sang some of the songs he’d been writing since arriving in Peace Valley. Songs of love and hope and peace, of children and nature and joy. They made her laugh and they made her cry.
‘Oh Zac, I wish I could write like you sing.’
Then they slipped into the downy comfort of the futon, tucking the ends of the mosquito net about them and Zac made love to her again. Sleep settled on them like a cloud drifting down to blanket out troubles, dreams and fears.
The days blurred effortlessly into one another. Each was a golden day that began with Zac sleepily reaching out for her to make love, sometimes lazily, sometimes playfully. And while Odette stretched like a cat looking out of the window at the waving trees and swish of colourful birds, Zac squeezed fresh fruit juice and brought her wholemeal toast which they ate in bed.
Some days Odette worked with the women in the studio learning to pot, enjoying the physical sensation of creating with her hands rather than her head. Curving her hands lightly on the lump of clay she gently drew it up from the wheel, trying to fashion a shape that stayed symmetrical. Other days she worked beside Zac, picking the heavy hands of green ladyfinger bananas, or whatever other task he’d set himself.
Over morning tea one day she hesitantly asked the question that had been bothering her for days. ‘Zac, do you get paid for this work? I mean, how do you live? What do you do for money?’
‘No, I don’t get paid for this. I work in exchange for living here. I’m writing songs most of the time. Don’t worry, little bird. Money is a state of mind. It will come along when I need it.’
Some evenings were spent eating with a convivial group at the Rawlings’ house. Odette was fascinated by the lives these people had all led, and how they saw their future and that of their children. Conversation was lively, stimulating and good natured. Always Zac sang at the close of an evening, and Odette realised he was chronicling in song the saga of Peace Valley. Peter Rawlings called him their troubleshooting troubadour.
‘He was a great hit with the film crew we had up here. They say one day he’ll take the world by storm with his music.’
Odette turned to Zac. ‘What film crew?’
Zac looked embarrassed. ‘After your story appeared, some film guy found us. They were a genuine mob, agreed to do what we wanted, so we let them do a documentary about the Valley and what we’re all about.’
‘Really! If it’s done the way you want, that’s great. Who did it? Where’s it being shown?’
Peter Rawlings spoke up. ‘Like letting you do a story, we figured we’d rather have it done properly than lots of half-baked attempts so we let them film us for a couple of weeks. Some English television company. Don’t know what they’re doing with it. They said it might be shown on the ABC here in Australia.’
One morning Zac announced they were going to the beach. ‘It’s only half an hour’s drive. Grab some fruit and a bottle of water and we’ll make a day of it.’
The jeep easily slithered across the sand dunes and came to rest in the shade of a pandanus tree and Zac leapt out. Odette followed him to the top of the dune and caught her breath at the view. The beach stretched for miles in either direction as far as she could see until it disappeared into the hazy sunlight of distant headlands. Long blue-green waves iced in a scatter of whipped cream curled and flattened onto the yellow sand like the breathing of some lazy, living, blue creature. Save for a cluster of wheeling squealing gulls, the beach was empty.
They swam naked, feeling the freedom of the water sliding around their skin, bringing them in contact with their bodies, the sea and the sun. They splashed and chased each other and dived to the sandy bottom holding hands in clear safe water as the breakers surged above them. They played Robinson Crusoe games, following in each other’s footprints on virgin sand. They made love in the hollows of a sand dune, and ate their picnic under the sp
eckled shade of the pandanus palm.
Contentedly Zac stretched out and, arms folded beneath his head, dozed in the dappled light. Odette looked at his smooth skin, tanned a deep olive from the sun, and studied him from the thick dark lashes curling on his cheek, down the tapering length of his slim fine body, to his flawless feet and even, pink toenails.
‘It’s not fair a man should have such a beautiful body even down to perfect feet,’ she thought. And smiled to herself.
As Zac slept Odette rummaged in the cloth bag that held their belongings and pulled out her notebook and pencil. She had been storing away impressions and feelings but hadn’t wanted to write them down in front of Zac as so much of what she felt concerned him. Now she scribbled furiously, just letting emotions and thoughts flow onto the paper. She had no idea what she’d do with these words, if anything at all, but for Odette, writing it down or out was for her the surest form of expression.
She had no idea how long she’d been sitting there when a shiver ran through her body. Not from the air temperature but more some inner tremble. What Aunt Harriet used to refer to as ‘someone walking on my grave’. Odette put her pen and book to one side and stared intently at the ocean. She was warm and comfortable, her thick hair was now dry and tied back with a ribbon. Through her sunglasses the water had a yellow tinge and seemed like a remote and eerie painting.
A few minutes later Odette was suddenly overcome with a desire, no a need, to go back into the ocean. She dropped her glasses and without taking her eyes from the sea walked across the sand. Her mind was asking why was she doing this — she didn’t want to go back in the water.
Without hesitating she walked into the water until she was waist deep. Then, taking a deep breath, she dived down and swam forward, pushing through the water, feeling the rush of a wave pass above her. She swam until she was nearly out of breath, then pushed upwards to burst through the surface of the sea in a spray of droplets, her face towards the sun. She opened her eyes and gasped in surprise, almost panic — she was face to face with a dolphin whose large friendly eyes were studying her. It was so close she could have reached out and touched its broad head and beaky nose, but before she could make a move it flipped beneath her and disappeared.
Odette, treading water, spun and looked over her shoulder to find three more dolphins arching and cruising between her and the shore. One glided in close, regarding her with a knowing expression, another swam beneath her, surfacing and rolling in front of her.
‘You want to play,’ cried Odette and dived down and turned on her side to see her companions, curving and plunging around her. She shot to the surface again, bursting from the water with a shout of laughter. She reached out her arms and they swept past her, tantalisingly out of fingertip reach. They were so graceful, so joyous, so beautiful, Odette thought her heart would burst. She looked to the distant shore trying to see if Zac was awake. She shouted at the top of her voice. ‘Zac!’ And in a second the sea was empty.
‘Oh, don’t go away!’ She looked around and swam a little further out to sea, calling to the dolphins. Then some instinct made her stay still and wait. Calmly she floated on her back, bobbing gently as the swells passed by on their way to break on the beach.
They came back, appearing beside her with no warning. They were just there. Tears came to Odette’s eyes as they circled and curved about her. She simply watched them, then in unison they leapt together in a perfect arch clear out of the water, splashing back down with a strange clicking noise, flicked their tails and were gone.
Odette swam slowly back to shore and stood for a moment on the beach looking out to sea — her companions were gone.
Zac was sitting up hugging his knees. Odette ran to him and threw herself into his arms, falling back on the sand. ‘Zac, you’ll never guess what happened. Did you see? It was magic. Oh Zac!’
She was crying and laughing and he hugged her. ‘Yes, I saw. The dolphins came to you.’
‘Why didn’t you come in too? They were playing with me, I swear it, Zac. They played with me.’
‘It was your time to be with them. I’ve swum with them before. They come when you are ready. If I had gone in they might have left. They are more feminine creatures and respond better to women than to men.’
‘What do you mean, when you are ready?’
‘When your mind and heart are opening to other channels, to hear and consider other thoughts and possibilities.’
‘Now you’re not going to tell me they’re from outer space or are some higher beings and lay some weird mumbo jumbo on me.’
‘Oh, Odette, what am I going to do with you, ever the cynical journalist!’ laughed Zac. ‘No, of course not. Though there are plenty of people who believe that dolphins have a bigger brain than us so operate on a higher plane of intelligence and consciousness. No, they are just beautiful and special creatures of the sea and you have had a special and beautiful experience. How that affects your life is up to you.’
As the jeep bounced back towards the valley, with its top down and noisy engine making conversation difficult, Odette was thoughtful. It had been a moving and joyous experience and strangely, one she wanted to keep to herself and for once not write about. Maybe her time here was changing her. She felt the direction and aims of her life shifting subtly and although it was partly to do with Zac, somehow she felt she was coming to a crossroads in her life.
A few days later, while working on the potter’s wheel with an uncooperative lump of clay, Odette stopped the wheel, broke off a piece of clay and began to work it with her hands, swiftly, deftly, surely fashioning a simple shape. Ruth Rawlings stopped beside her. ‘Why, Odette, that’s lovely.’
Odette looked down at the perfect arching dolphin, the wet shining clay making it look as if it had just leapt from the sea. ‘It just sort of happened.’
‘Ah, I see. You went to the beach the other day — did you see the dolphins?’
‘Yes. I did. Are they always there?’
‘Always there but not always seen. They come to you when you’re ready.’
‘That’s what Zac said. It was so strange, I just felt I was being drawn, or called, into the water. I haven’t always been that fond of the water to tell you the truth. My parents drowned.’
Ruth placed her hand on Odette’s shoulder and her fingers squeezed sympathetically. ‘How sad. The sea can be a beautiful place but sometimes treacherous. Here we like to consider it a place where we can find some special friends. You must come back when the whales head north to their breeding grounds. Though it’s better when they’re heading back south again, then they take time out to play.’
‘How lovely. We only seem to have sharks in Sydney.’
Ruth laughed. ‘And they’re not all in the sea either! Now, Odette, seeing as you are proving to be so adept with your hands I think it’s time you learned to bake bread. I’m just off to do some, I’ll show you.’
Odette carefully laid her dolphin on a shelf to dry. ‘Bread! They’re not going to believe this back at the Gazette.’
‘It’s a full moon tomorrow night,’ announced Zac consulting the moon chart that hung behind the toilet door.
‘Oh, do we go out and bay, chant or go mad?’ Odette replied, laughing.
‘You can do all of that if you want, but it’s where we’re going that’s important. You’re getting too indolent. Tomorrow night we’ll climb Mt Warning and watch the sunrise.’
‘But that’s high. And steep!’
‘And worth it. We’ll have to leave in the middle of the night to get to the base by three in the morning. It’s over three thousand feet so a good two-hour climb or longer, depending on how you go,’ he said with a quizzical grin.
‘I’ll be right on your heels, Zac, even if it kills me.’
Odette began to think the climb just might. They’d arrived at the base in darkness, left the Jeep and started along the winding track that began wending slowly upwards. Approaching the sharp peak with its strange bulbous knob on top, the m
ountain looked formidable and unassailable etched against the bright moonlit sky.
They started walking, Zac in front with a small backpack and both with a torch, for the rainforest canopy around the mountain had closed off the moon’s light. He explained to her the mystical significance of the peak which the Aborigines called Wollumbin — the cloud catcher — for the peak was shrouded in mist most of the year. Many people believed Mt Warning, Cape Byron and Murwillumbah formed a basin which held within it a source of powerful creative and positive energies. Captain Cook had named the peak to alert sailors to the reefs off Point Danger when his Endeavour was almost wrecked there in 1770.
‘The first white people who did this climb was a party in 1868. A couple of years later, a botanist, Guilfoyle, went up but it took him three and half days,’ said Zac.
‘I can see why,’ panted Odette, peeling off her sweater and knotting it around her hips.
‘Let’s take a break. You’ll need that jumper later, it’s freezing up at the top.’ Zac handed her the bottle from his pack. She sipped gratefully. ‘Turn your torch out,’ whispered Zac.
They sat in the darkness and as her eyes adjusted Odette saw in the hillside next to her a cluster of luminous glow-worms. Then came a busy rustling and Zac turned his torch on, swinging it to the side to reveal in the yellow light a small marsupial blinking its large eyes in surprise.
‘What is it . . . a mouse or a possum?’
‘It’s a potoroo . . . some people say that kangaroos descended from this little fellow. The other scratchings were probably from marsupial mice, bush rats or bandicoots. We’ll see more in the daylight on the way back down.’
They talked little as the track got steeper, winding around and around the mountain. Occasionally, through a break in the rainforest, Odette saw the full moon, large and low, and felt she’d pass it on her climb to the peak.
Just when she’d got to the point of thinking she could go no further, they came to the final stage of the ascent. A sheer rock face confronted her.