‘No, I grew up here.’
He paints a blue horizon line then rinses the brush in a small amount of water that he has dispensed from his drink bottle into a milk container top, brought for the purpose.
‘No way,’ he says.
‘Yes way.’ I smile at him.
He wets the page under the horizon line, letting the blue run, rinses the brush again. He then wets the space above, leaving a thin line of white so the horizon does not bleed into the sky.
He drops colour, ultramarine, onto the bottom half of the page, and the paint flows freely. With a tissue wrapped around a small angular stone, he blots out the shapes of white rocks.
‘And you haven’t been here before?’ he asks, adding paint now to the sky. He again uses the tissue to remove patches of paint, giving the impression of clouds. A darker colour beneath the clouds gives them depth. ‘To one of the most beautiful views in the world?’
I shake my head, enjoying watching him work. ‘And you? Where did you escape from?’
‘Here, too. But on a farm – out at Cambridge.’
‘Ah, a farm boy. I thought you were a good sort.’
He smiles and puts the page aside to dry in the breeze and sun. He cuts another piece of salami, offers it to me.
‘So, you grew up in Hobart itself ?’
I tell him the story, the abridged version I’ve been telling my whole life, without the new insights. I was raised by my grandmother. My mother is a doctor in Sydney. I don’t say anything about my father.
‘And you’re pleased to be back. Every time I go away, I’m so bloody pleased to come back.’ He holds his hand out to the vista as if asking how anyone could ever leave.
I admire the view as I chew on the salami, savouring the salty oiliness.
‘Yes, I am pleased. I still don’t know many folks here though – most of my old school friends have moved away – so thanks for this.’
‘No worries. That’s why I was surprised you were from here. You seemed new.’
‘Or a loner …’ I laugh.
‘I doubt that.’ He looks at me kindly. ‘It’s hard to get out with a kid. I get it.’
‘It is tricky, but …’
‘But what?’
‘I’ve been a bit crap at keeping up my own connections, to be honest. And I could have asked Ian to do more than he did, in terms of Ellie.’
Sean packs away the lunch and straps his painting pad to the outside of his pack, the still-damp picture facing out. He stands.
‘Maybe. Or he could have just done it. Why do you have to ask? He’s her dad.’ He extends his hand so that I can pull on it as I, too, stand up. My legs are already shaky from tiredness.
He points the way forwards. ‘Downhill from here, mostly.’
I know he’s talking about the walk, but I can’t help but think the same applies to my new life in Tasmania. I held back in conversations with Ian, which may have been part of the problem. Did Sylvia open up to him in a way I did not? I feel the weight of the pack on my shoulders and again take Sean’s hand as I step over a high log.
The walk takes us along a perilous cliff edge that makes my stomach drop whenever I let my gaze wonder there. When I was a teenager, a mother from the school jumped or fell, we will never know which, from a dolerite column on Mount Wellington and I have never been able to look at cliffs in the same way since. The ripple effect of that death extended much further than she could have known. It was the greatest tragedy most of us had ever been touched by and I still feel weak to my core whenever I contemplate it. I remember Nina shaking her head in sadness. ‘Sometimes, life can seem too much,’ she said. ‘But there is always tomorrow.’
Further along, I stop at the sight of a tiger snake across the path. Sean throws a stick in its direction and the vibration of the stick striking the ground causes the snake to vanish into the low-growing, scrappy vegetation faster than seems possible.
The winding track takes us down to a forest of tall grasses like giant sugarcane. It resembles nothing I have seen before. The plants are three times my height and, without a path, I doubt I would be able to navigate my way out.
I tell Sean about Abdhul and his friends, and he tells me that it is the only time he has ever felt ashamed to be Australian, the way this government is treating refugees.
‘We can’t take everyone, of course, but this is crap what we’re doing,’ he says. ‘People would open their houses to them given half a chance. I bloody would. Can’t be any worse than the mobs of shearers and backpackers who used to blow in to our farm.’ He laughs. ‘I don’t like the way the women cover themselves up though. Especially the full-face arrangements.’
‘The backpackers?’ I tease.
‘Yeah, right. They get their kit off at the first opportunity.
‘I’ve heard some extreme Muslims don’t let their kids go to school music classes,’ he continues. ‘That’s child abuse in my books.’
‘The Muslims I’ve met love music. And the women remove their headscarves around other women.’
‘But not around men.’
‘No. Not unless they know them very well.’
‘See, it’s sexist.’
I try to shift the conversation back to genetics, but he won’t have it.
‘I’ve pissed you off, haven’t I?’ he asks.
‘It’s complex, that’s all. Even within the Muslim community, I think.’
‘But it doesn’t have to be. That’s my point. Religion buggers everything up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we shouldn’t help people who need it, like I said, but I’m jack of having to be so politically correct all the bloody time when things don’t make sense. When it goes against being free and what I reckon is Australian. It makes mugs of us.’
‘I suspect Claire might agree. Having a refugee kid in our daughters’ class is freaking her out a bit.’
‘Dunno. I reckon she’d be a bit more right-wing than me, to be honest. Not that I know her. I feel sorry for her, actually. Being married to that dick.’
Sean is still behind me, allowing me to set the pace, but I can see his hand out of the corner of my eye, brushing past the narrow canes of the tall grasses, the leaves rustling high above us.
‘People are too ready to fool themselves that they’re happy when they’re not, just for the sake of calling themselves a family,’ he says. ‘It’s such a bloody facade.’
‘Sounds like you’re talking from experience.’
‘Not really. A bit. My folks were pretty sane, but Mum could have spoken up more. Dad could be a bully when he wanted to and Mum tried to keep the peace. It became a bit of a double act and I got tired of standing up for her when she wouldn’t stand up for herself. Instead she’d defend Dad. Gave me the shits.’ He’s quiet for a time. ‘Kids just want to be with people who love them and who love each other. It’s pretty simple.’
I roll my shoulders as best I can, releasing tension.
‘You didn’t mention your own father before …’ he says cautiously.
‘I don’t know who he is.’
He’s quiet for a bit, then says, ‘Maybe you’re better off not knowing.’
Soon we are climbing again, my legs leaden beneath me, but I go on. For a while Sean walks ahead of me, extending a hand to help me over rocks or logs, the painting of the ocean view drying on the back of his pack leading me on. As we finally descend towards the campsite, my feet are like lumps of concrete pounding the steps. How can Sean call this a short walk? Each step is painful, and I promise myself new hiking boots.
Nearly there, I think, eyeing the smoking fire. Almost at the bottom, I roll my ankle and fall inelegantly face-first onto the track. I fight to hold back what Sean must think are pathetic tears.
‘Bloody rubbery ankles. Bane of my existence.’ I bend my foot carefully up and down, checking that my ankle isn’t broken. ‘I’ll be right in a sec. I’ve just stretched it down the side.’ I point down the outside of my foot and lower leg. Sean hooks me under an arm a
nd helps me lift myself onto a large rock.
‘Show me,’ he says. He sits in front of me and gently takes my foot in his hands.
‘You know what you’re doing?’ I try to laugh.
‘I’m just looking for any deformity or swelling.’
I laugh at his seriousness. ‘I can move it.’ I rotate my foot. It’s sore, but okay.
‘Careful!’ he says. ‘But, yes. If you can do that, it’s nothing serious. I used to do some guiding and had to do a pretty intensive first-aid course for it.’
I can hear the others coming out of the water, chasing each other back to camp. I see flashes of them through the trees. They are laughing and running and completely naked.
Sean winks then extends a hand to me, pulling me up to standing. ‘Ideally, I’d put some ice on it for you, but cold water might be the next best thing. I’ll strap it later.’
‘It’s really fine,’ I say. ‘I’m just hypermobile.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ he says. He breaks a branch off a nearby tree and gives it to me to use as a walking stick. Carefully, we continue, crossing a creek into the campsite, my legs so shaky that I don’t trust them to take another step.
At the bottom of the hill, Hen and Jane are dressed again and making a cup of tea, a half-eaten block of chocolate between them. They are in shorts and t-shirts, their hair still dripping wet and their faces flushed from the cool water.
‘Took your time,’ Hen teases.
‘No rush,’ Sean answers.
I drop my pack and take the chocolate Jane is handing me. She has spread out a tarpaulin in readiness for setting her tent.
‘Do you mind if I …?’ I ask, lying on the tarpaulin and putting my legs in the air before she answers.
In my peripheral vision, I see Sean smiling at me.
‘It’s been a while since I hiked that far. You nearly killed me,’ I admit.
Sean laughs sympathetically. ‘Won’t take you long to get back into it.’
He kneels beside me and again checks my ankle, which is the height of his head. ‘Like I said, a dip in the cold water will do it good.’
We change into our bathers and, leaning on Sean’s shoulder, I hobble to the water’s edge, sliding into the flat-calm sea as soon as it is deep enough. The cool water on my swollen ankle and aching feet is liquid gold. I open my eyes to the green light underwater and for the first time in as long as I can remember feel whole like this, without Ellie beside me, without Ian, without Nina or my mother. I think of Helena being denied the chance to love the young German, Uli, and am profoundly sad for her. When I emerge for air, I come up underneath Sean, who is floating on his back.
‘Sorry.’ I laugh and he holds my arm.
‘Why?’
That night in Sean’s tent, after an evening of star gazing and wine by the fire, a meal of curry that Sean made in advance, I look at his silhouette as he lies beside me. His nose, in profile, has a dip in the bridge and I wonder how he injured it. A childhood fall from a horse or a dirt bike? His lips are full and parted, his eyes closed. I have no doubt he’d take people into his home who needed shelter, faster than many of the people espousing views he’d probably consider ‘leftist’. I like his honesty. There is a sexual stirring in my belly that makes me want to move closer to him. To rest my head on his chest and smell the sea on his skin.
As if he can read my mind, he turns to face me. We’ve left the tent fly open so the breeze comes in through the mesh, and I can see his eyes sparkling in the moonlight. They are squinted slightly. He is smiling.
‘I’m pleased you came back home,’ he says. He leans over and kisses me, salty and hot.
I kiss him back, feeling his lips and tongue in a way I had ceased to feel with Ian. Every point of connection is intensely sensitised, his chest tight against me and his hands firm against my back, under my shirt, drawing me closer. He lifts me onto him, but I was heading there already, so for a moment am airborne and we chuckle. My heart is racing and I realise I am alive. I am so very alive.
24
It is night. Everyone else has left the lab, and my analysis is nearing completion. Within seconds I will have the results of Michael Forster’s and my DNA profiling, a test that looks for shared alleles across various loci and produces a score at the end. I am dizzy with nerves. I look up briefly, catching sight of my reflection in the glass of the laboratory doors. Curious Varvara’s nose was torn off, Nina warned me often enough.
The machine produces its results as a print out, which I read.
My heart rate slows.
I am not related to Michael Forster.
I am not the child of a rapist.
I lean my hands on the laboratory bench and hang my head between them, smiling.
And if I am not Reginald Forster’s daughter, then I am the child of a German man who I saw only once, fleetingly, at my grandmother’s funeral. I am crying with relief and look up, surprised to see Sean entering the lab. I hadn’t even heard the door open. He comes to me quickly.
‘Sara, what is it? What’s happened?’
I tell him I know who my father is. That I have done a test. I wave the sheet of paper and sigh out.
He looks about him, a man aware of rules. I am not allowed to be running this test with university resources.
‘I don’t make a habit of this. I just had to know.’ I tell him about the rape and my recent fears that I was the rapist’s daughter. I tell him I am instead the product of a love that Nina forbade. ‘He’s still alive, my father, but I haven’t met him,’ I say.
Sean kisses my forehead. ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’ He appears hurt, and I turn away, irritated that he feels he already has some claim over me, my history, my thoughts.
‘I only found out about it all really recently. I wasn’t ready to talk.’ I sense him putting up his own barriers, and don’t want this to come between us. Knowing Sean has been the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. ‘And I was so enjoying being with you,’ I say. ‘Separate from all of that.’
He kisses me a second time. ‘You can talk to me, Sara. You don’t have to keep this stuff inside. Do you have to get home or …’
‘Ellie’s not back until tomorrow night. It’s fine.’
‘Let’s grab a bite. Come on.’
He helps to wash and pack away the lab gear, and steers me out into the night.
‘I’m fine,’ I tell him. ‘Why did you come back?’
‘I left my phone behind. I was going to call you actually.’ He chuckles and gently nips the back of my neck with his hand. ‘It’s still there.’
‘Sorry. Do you need to …?’ I look back towards the lab.
‘It can wait. I’ve found you now.’ He takes my hand and I shake my head in elation that I finally have the answer I’ve been searching for my whole life. I am smiling to myself, and Sean turns me towards him and holds me tightly. He doesn’t say anything and doesn’t need to.
At the restaurant, I tell him I will be a minute, that I have to phone my mother.
‘Of course. What do you want me to order?’
‘Anything. Fish. Salad. Whatever looks good. Really I don’t care.’ I kiss him on the mouth, still smiling, and our teeth clash.
‘Helena …’ I begin. ‘Mum …’
‘Yes.’ Her breath catches. It’s the first time I have called her this. ‘Is everything all right?’ She sounds worried.
‘I am not related to the Forsters. I did the DNA check.’
I hear her sniff a couple of times in quick succession, a kind of shock. She releases a deep sigh. ‘After all these years.’
‘Can you call my father? Do you think I can meet him?’
‘Uli?’ she lets out a small cry. Barely audible. ‘Yes. Yes. I always thought I could see him in you, but I wasn’t game to believe it.’
‘Do you have his number?’
‘I do. I tracked it down to tell him about the funeral.’
‘Will he be very shocked do you think? Do you thin
k he will want to meet me?’
‘I am sure he will. Hopefully his wife is okay about it, that’s all.’
Sean is waiting for me at a table by the restaurant window, the candlelight flickering on the convict-cut sandstone around him.
‘How’d she take it?’
‘She’s relieved. Happy. She’s going to phone my father so we can meet.’ I’m speaking fast and take a breath. ‘But Uli …’
‘German?’
‘Yes …’
‘I had a friend at uni called Uli. So you’re a kraut!’
‘Half.’ I pause, thinking of all the competing history that is within me. ‘Anyway, my father is married. Hopefully I don’t come as too much of a shock.’
‘Do they have other children?’
‘I don’t know.’
Sean puts a hand on mine and tells me he is very pleased for me. ‘And how are you feeling?’
It is such a simple question, but I can’t remember Ian asking it of me in recent years. I think he just assumed if I needed to tell him how I was feeling I would. I try to remember how often I asked him how he was.
‘I feel like the world is finally making sense,’ I say. ‘How cheesy is that?’ Sean squeezes my hand.
My phone beeps with a good night message from Ellie. I look at the time, and feel annoyed that she is not yet in bed. I wonder if it is Ian or Sylvia who is tucking her in. Ellie’s message reads: ‘I love you Mum’. It’s all I need to hear. There is a string of random emojis, which she must have just figured out how to use. Animals and faces. Houses and kissing lips. I laugh.
‘It’s Ellie,’ I tell Sean.
My phone beeps again with a selfie picture of Ellie and her teddy in bed. I ache to be with her. I show Sean the photo.
‘She looks very sweet,’ he says. ‘You must miss her.’
‘I do. It’s like my skin has been removed and my heart and all my other organs are taking the full brunt of what the world can throw at me.’ I suppose it was like this for Helena.
‘She should be asleep,’ I say, mostly to myself. I send Ellie back a picture of myself, pursing my lips in a ‘kiss’ shape. I type: ‘Off to sleep now. Sweet dreams. Xx’
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