by Nicole Hayes
When they broke away, Nick smiled. His fingers followed the curl of her hair. ‘It’s okay, Tess. No rush.’
She pressed her mouth against his, pushed it open although he needed no encouragement, and nothing else mattered.
She feels it first. Long, thin, cool, a silent caress against her outstretched leg, no heavier than a piece of rope. No more threatening.
Until it moves.
Tessa’s lids fly open, the world swimming before her. She blinks, and images of the day fill the space where time has disappeared, completing the blanks. She’s lying in the dirt, in the middle of the rocky shelter, her wrecked shoulder still caught in the sling, but barely, her backpack under her head.
Tessa freezes as she watches the snake slither towards a patch of sunlight just beside her right foot, its tail still draped across her lower leg. Cast in the grey film of early dawn, its colour is hard to make out, but she thinks it’s green-tinged, maybe a light brown.
Tessa holds her breath, fighting the impulse to scream. The snake looks lethargic, like it might have been sleeping. Like it hasn’t identified her as a danger yet. Every fibre of her being threatens to expose her, but she knows her only chance is to stay perfectly still.
She stares, mesmerised. She doesn’t know what kind of snake it is, but it hardly matters. So far from anywhere, unable to move, she wouldn’t survive even the least toxic of bites. She prays it will move on without striking.
She doesn’t know where Nick is, and is suddenly terrified he’ll return. A startled snake is the most dangerous kind. As though hearing her thoughts, the snake lifts its head and flicks its tongue, surveying the environment regally. Alert.
Tessa’s heart is beating so hard it hurts her ears. It feels as if her ribs will explode.
The snake shifts in the air, offers a steady, terrifying hiss. Studies her as she holds her breath. It’s propped, ready to strike.
A distant shriek of a cockatoo slices through the silent bush, and Tessa becomes aware of other noises outside the cavern. Rustling in leaves, the whistle of a koel, the cackle of a kookaburra, the creaking of the ancient trees around them. All of it magnified against her growing terror.
The snake dips and weaves, an odd waving motion, then continues to slide across Tessa’s leg, further into the warmed patch of earth, and stops.
Tessa quickly assesses her chances of getting away unharmed if she were to leap up now. Decides it’s zero. She worries about Nick – where is he, anyway? And then she starts shaking, shivering with fear or exhaustion or both. Each faltering breath a betrayal. Sweat breaks out in tiny beads that begin their slow descent down her face, her back, under her arms, each of them potentially enough to trigger an attack.
The snake turns towards her. It drops its head and slithers even closer, its eyes firmly on her, unblinking.
Tessa holds her breath. I don’t want to die, she thinks. And means it.
And as if hearing the answer it wanted, the snake slithers across the sunlit patch towards the bright morning sun.
Tessa opened the door of the fibro as gently as she could. The lights were out, but she could see the muted reflection of the TV glancing off the wall in the living room, When Harry Met Sally playing. Her mum stretched out on the couch, asleep. Tessa couldn’t help herself; she sniffed the air and checked for empty bottles.
Nothing.
Instead, a collection of brightly coloured cushions – teal, aqua and turquoise – were placed in the corners of each chair, lifting the faint eggshell of the walls, the ivory of the couch. The hand-blown crystal vase, a delicate orchid shape, that Tessa’s gran had given them was back holding pride of place in the middle of the coffee table. It had disappeared after one of the arsehole’s meltdowns, and Tessa had assumed it’d been smashed. A throw rug was flung over the couch like in a designer magazine, and the room had been organised to make the most of the front windows and the shade of the towering ghost gums outside.
Tessa felt a rush of joy. She embraced it with the same trepidation new things always seemed to bring, and a determination to hold on and keep it safe.
She crept across the living room, mindful not to knock the repositioned coffee table or the vase of – were they fresh flowers? She couldn’t make out what kind they were. Maybe jonquils or daffodils? She never remembered which was which. But in the faint glow of the TV they looked a vibrant yellow. Tessa stood over her sleeping mum, felt an ache in her chest that took her breath away. She wanted to cry and laugh at once.
Joy.
Tessa draped the throw over her mum, saw her twitch and shift, waited for fear of waking her, but Ellen’s eyes remained shut, her mouth dropping open before she began to snore softly.
Tessa stood there, entranced. Felt a tear wet her lashes. She shook this off. Ridiculous. Stupid. But she wasn’t truly angry. And she let the tear slide off her lashes and along her cheek, because, fuck it. This was what life was, as Nick said. The good and the bad. The grief and the joy. The exquisite ache of love and loving.
‘What!’ her mum said, waking suddenly, her eyes bleary and startled. ‘Oh, Tess.’ She straightened. ‘I didn’t realise you were home.’
‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
Ellen waved this away. ‘No, it’s fine.’ Warmth lit her eyes. ‘I’m glad you’re home.’
‘Me too,’ Tessa said.
On the TV Sally was telling her best friend that the married man she was seeing was never going to leave his wife. ‘Damn! I missed half of it,’ Ellen said, pulling the blanket around herself. ‘I love this movie.’ She tucked her feet in beside her, making room for Tessa. ‘Catch the end?’
Tessa nodded. Took in their small, cramped fibro, how clean and cared for it felt, so different to all those times she would creep in after school, praying no one was home or that her mum was sober. ‘The house looks great,’ she said.
‘Thanks to the op shop. I went to every one in the district. I’ve been collecting bits for two weeks, trying to match it all. Add some colour.’
‘It’s amazing.’ Tessa sat down and pulled the cream-coloured throw over her knees, though she wasn’t cold at all. Then shifted closer to her mum, curling her legs under her, and settled in.
Ellen smiled. ‘It’s not bad.’ A touch of pride in her voice. ‘How was the party?’
Tessa wanted to answer but couldn’t find the words. She nodded. Smiled.
‘Wow. That good?’
‘Yes,’ she breathed.
‘Nick’s a nice guy.’
Tessa swallowed and faced her mum. ‘I think … um, I mean, he’s …’ He’s what? It’s not about him, she realised. It’s about her. ‘I think I love him.’
Ellen rested her head on Tessa’s shoulder, and it felt natural and good. ‘I’d picked up on that.’
‘Am I that obvious?’
‘Oh, it’s mutual. That’s pretty clear.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m just glad you’re better at this – at love – than I was. Than I am.’
Tessa felt a tug in her chest. ‘You did okay the first time around.’ She smiled. ‘With Dad.’
Ellen closed her eyes briefly, then opened them with a sigh. ‘Yeah. I did.’
‘Who knows …?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘Don’t even.’ She laughed dryly. ‘I’m done with that. I’ve got my hands full here, with you.’ But she didn’t make it sound like a bad thing.
They watched as Harry and Sally’s blind dates with each other’s best friends went horribly wrong, when Harry and Sally are left on the Manhattan street, abandoned, together.
Tessa wanted to explain to her mum how she felt, how happy she was, how … complete. But none of the words she could think of even touched the sides. She leant against her mum, tucking her shoulder in more comfortably, feeling the wholeness of a solid arm around her, an arm that wasn’t going anywhere.
Maybe this, right here, was enough.
And before she knew what she was doing, or had a chance to correct herself
, Tessa turned to her mum and gently touched her lips to her cheek, startling them both, so swift and feather-light it was almost as if it didn’t happen.
‘You look totally freaked out,’ Nick says, from his perch on a log by the rocky shelter.
The sky is awash with golden streaks, swathes of pink and apricot, slivers of blue. Already, Tessa can feel the beginning of the day’s heat.
‘Yeah. I had a close encounter. Of the reptilian kind.’
‘Yikes. Are you okay?’ He scans the ground around them.
‘Just.’
The second the snake moved on, Tessa had leapt up and patted herself down, checking her body for any other unwanted visitors. She’s usually comfortable in the outdoors, but that was the closest she’s ever been to a snake and it has freaked her out.
‘So next time, we need to think about what’s around us. Take turns staying awake.’ She frowns, trying to remember. ‘And we need to make a lot of noise too.’ She knew all this, but had been so tired when they’d decided to stop.
Nick cocks his head. ‘Whatever you say, outback girl.’ He grins, a wan, listless thing, but she appreciates the effort.
She stretches. The ache in her back is nothing compared to the crippling throb of her shoulder. She must have slept on it at some point, so exhausted that not even the pain was enough to wake her. Now that the rush of adrenaline from the snake encounter has subsided, she’s truly feeling it.
The colour of Nick’s skin is fading to a sickly grey beneath the dirt and remnants of dried blood the river couldn’t erase. He looks worse, Tessa realises with a jolt. She lifts her hand to touch his forehead, beside the gash along his hairline, his matted hair almost obscuring the wound completely.
‘Does it hurt?’ she whispers, her fingers hovering just above the wound now, as though she might be able to generate some kind of healing energy by proximity alone.
He offers a broken smile. ‘Define “hurt”.’
Her lips curl softly. ‘I can’t. I just know it when I see it.’
She doesn’t close her eyes this time when his lips brush hers. She fastens her gaze on his and lets the silk of his mouth envelop every bit of pain. It’s a long time before she breaks away, the idea of what lies ahead looming dark and ominous in front of her. She wants to keep her eyes closed and wish the truth away, like she used to when she was little. Nick watches her, the heat of the kiss still visible in his eyes. The smile that touches his lips promising so much more – so tempting that Tessa has to turn away to resist it. She could easily slip back, back to how they were before …
She doesn’t even have a word for what happened. ‘Accident’ doesn’t seem to cover it, given it was really a cluster of events, all of them as inevitable and as terrible as any she’d known before. Almost any.
Yet that glimmer of hope lives on, taunting her, a hope she knows is more dangerous than a thousand snakes.
She approached the quiet house. The car in the driveway, though he wasn’t meant to be home yet. The lift this gave her – Daddy’s home! – tempered with the reality of what that had begun to mean lately. The anguish, the apology in his eyes. The hours, sometimes days, in bed. Which version of her dad would she find?
She crept around to the backyard, wanting to peek through the family-room window before she went in – to ‘gauge the temperature’, as her dad used to joke when he knew he was in trouble with her mum – but her eyes were drawn to the shed, the door propped open, a sign that someone was in there because it was otherwise always closed.
She peered in through the dark window, squinting against the glare, but her eyes couldn’t adjust. The angle wasn’t right. She moved to the door, felt a brief wave of something unnameable, the temperature turning to ice before she stepped through the doorway …
‘No!’
Tessa ran a hand through her hair, sticky and damp. Her sheets were soaked, her whole body drenched in sweat. She leapt up and paced the room, shoving the terror back into its box until it was little more than a flutter.
She stared out the window, clean and shiny, the sun already heating the panes. Her eyes fell to the shed. The now unhinged door. The rusted iron and the corrugated panels. Felt it drawing her in, even as she shivered, shook it off.
She turned her back on it then and headed to the bathroom for a shower.
Tessa feels the thumping first but it takes some time to penetrate her dreams.
Whump, whump, whump.
The very earth seems to be shaking, the sound vibrating from the ground up. Her eyelids are so heavy she doesn’t know if they’ll ever open again. Her whole body feels as though it’s caving in on her, and even the smallest gesture or movement, right now, zaps her of energy.
They’d walked for a couple of hours and had found a path that afforded them the occasional glimpse of the river while continuing in what Tessa was sure was the direction of the road. They’d stopped to drink, to rest. It was meant to be brief, a power nap that would allow them to move on before the hot afternoon sun dug in. Hoping to reach the next gully, hoping to find the road, before dark. But here she is, all those hours lost.
Whump, whump, whump.
She forces her eyes open with effort, recognising the sound in a single, horrible and exhilarating blow.
Helicopter.
Helicopter.
‘Nick!’ she calls out as she scrambles to her feet, her limbs unexpectedly lighter, energy coursing through her as though in answer. She takes a second to get her bearings. They’re surrounded by trees, unable to see beyond them except back the way they came, up the mountain. She swings around to her left.
That’s it.
‘Where is it?’ Nick appears from behind, looking panicked.
Rather than explain, frightened of the seconds they’ve lost, Tessa grabs his hand and runs towards the sound. Feet pounding, heart hammering in her ears, she can barely hear the chopper over the sound of her own blood. They come to a stop where the canopy clears, and search the sky.
‘There!’ Tessa sees it first, up higher than she’d guessed. The quiet of the bush and the cavernous shape of the mountainside have amplified the sound. She peers up at the sky, shielding her eyes against the sun, lower now but still hotter than comfortable. She has to use her visor hand to wave, has to close her eyes against the sun to do it. Nick, her shadow, doing the same, his burnt hand pressed against his chest.
The helicopter slowly moves away from them.
They leap and cry, shout and wave, putting every last measure of energy into drawing the pilot’s attention. And suddenly, the helicopter seems to pause, makes a wide, sweeping turn and heads back towards them. Tessa hesitates, trying to gauge if they’ve been spotted, hope sharp and prickly in her chest. Then she realises her error, and starts waving again, wild and desperate, ignoring the pain in her damaged shoulder, screaming and screaming until her voice is wrecked. She watches the helicopter hover briefly before continuing on. Away.
They chase it as far as they can, but it’s disappearing too fast, and the bush closes in on them again, blocking their path. They stand there, panting, watching the helicopter shrink to a tiny dot.
‘Please,’ Tessa rasps. ‘Please.’ Her body finally gives out, and she crumples to the ground, too tired to even look up. She’d cry if she could manage tears.
‘We tried,’ Nick says, defeat in his voice.
Tessa shakes her head. ‘They didn’t see. They’re not … They’re not coming back.’
Nick reaches for her. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No! It’s not okay. WE’RE NOT OKAY!’ Tessa pushes him away, drags herself to her feet. Wobbly and weak but overcome with the fiercest rage. It gushes through her, wild and frightening. ‘Fuckers! Come back here, you motherfuckers!’ A great, gulping sob rips through her as she waves her fist and flips them off.
And then she hears a soft whimpering. She looks at Nick. His face in his hands, shaking his head, his body trembling.
Heart in her throat, she approaches him. ‘I’m sorry
. I don’t know …’
But when he looks up, he’s laughing. ‘You really told them,’ he says, between snorts.
Tessa stares at him, imagining the sight she made, and feels the smile splitting her face. She feels giddy, lost, ridiculous. She starts laughing, and they collapse on the ground, clutching each other like they’re drowning, laughing so hard they’re no longer able to make noise.
Nick is the first to stop. He smiles at Tessa, who can hardly manage that. She forces herself to regroup, tries to orientate herself but is turned around and confused. The trees are so thick and there’s no obvious way down. No clear sense of the slope of the land. How far they’d run. Or what direction.
‘Where’s the river?’ she whispers.
They stare at the bush; its steely quiet offers no help. It poses, instead, the question: Which way?
The edges of the shed took shape slowly. First the tool board hanging on the wall, the stockpile of sculpting tools that was always growing – gouges, scrapers, rasps and a mallet, chisels, hammer, bench screw; tools for texturing, burnishing, sharpening and cutting. The workbench piled with coils of wire, blocks of wood, clay, plasticine, soapstone and mason jars. The pieces themselves filling the floor space from one end to the other: busts and carvings, mixed media projects, unfinished or broken. Her brush couldn’t keep up with the images that cluttered her mind. The memories as sharp as the smell of turps.
But for Tessa, it was the forgotten promises, the half-formed ideas that she remembered when she was painting: damaged toys he was planning to fix, brilliant innovations in billycart-making, the doll’s house he’d said he’d build but which never evolved beyond a roughly painted shell. They’d collected the parts together – wheels from a damaged pram, an axle from a discarded toy car, a crate from a local warehouse. They’d size up each piece, checking the angles and the shape, ignoring the shake of his hand or the grey that would flush his cheeks whenever the shakes began. How he’d stop squinting and frown, sit back as though stung, his eyes glazing over and sweat in beads on his lips. She would touch his hand or his shoulder, call to him gently, and sometimes that would work. Sometimes he would blink and lick his lips. Shake his hand and make a joke about how he was angling for a sprayed effect. Or say he’d drifted off for a bit, but he wasn’t going anywhere.