by A. A. Bell
‘Oh.’ U mak me sad, he signalled clumsily.
Y? she signalled in reply.
Becoz I cant spel ha... ‘How do I make a “p"?’ he asked.
She replied by pressing her left thumb, index and middle fingers against those on his right hand, at the same time pressing her right index finger against his left.
He repeated the chord twice, then added a single tap with his right ring finger: happi.
Y did u end with i? she responded slowly, allowing him plenty of time to understand.
He laughed. ‘Because it’s much easier than “y".’
She replied by typing a long, swift message like a speed typist.
‘Whoa! What was that?’
‘I said you need more practice.’
‘No, you didn’t. I think the first word was “your", and the last letter was “s".’
Mira blushed. ‘The exact wording was “Your heart is as warm as your hands".’
‘So you think I’m cold-hearted?’
‘I just told you it was warm.’
‘But the saying is “Cold hands, warm heart”... and vice versa.’
‘Not in your case.’
‘Oh. Well, thank you.’ He patted the trunk of the tree. ‘So what does all this Braille mean? I thought the little bumpy codes were supposed to be tiny, small enough to read with your fingertips?’
‘Chords,’ she said, correcting him. ‘Each set of little bumpy codes for each letter is called a chord.’
‘I know. But I’d still need to be a giant to read thumbtacks with my fingertips.’
She giggled and signalled for him to take her hand and follow her. Reaching out with her left foot, she fumbled briefly around the ground with her bare toes until she found a long thick root that branched into a Y-shape near the front bumper of his car. She searched along it a little more with her biggest toe, exploring its angle and direction as far as three notch marks that were sliced unevenly across its top. Then she turned parallel to the tree root and led him confidently to the twin ghost gums.
‘Stand here,’ she said, positioning him on her left.
She felt across the broad, smooth trunk of the ghost gum with her hand until she found a long, low branch with a line of thumbtack Braille pressed along it. She shifted his hand onto the start of it.
‘You read it with your palm, like this.’ She guided him along the first line of the quatrain. ‘This is how my mother taught me while I could still see. Just relax and close your eyes. Try to picture each chord in your mind.’
‘Well, there’s two “e"'s... I think. And an “n”... but I can’t read anything in between. Feels like it’s upside down if this first dot is meant to be a full stop?’ He drew her hand back to it.
‘Oh no, dots like this mean the next letter is a capital.’
‘No wonder I’m hopeless,’ he laughed.
‘It takes practice. It says: “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour."’
‘Whoa! That’s beautiful. What’s it mean?’
‘Exactly what it says, as well as everything it makes you feel. Down here,’ she added, dragging his hand underneath to the fifth line, ‘it says it was written by William Blake. Down here,’ she drew his hand further down onto the broader trunk and the start of another quatrain, ‘is an extract from “The Ladder of Saint Augustine” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It says: “The heights by great men reached and kept, were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” I like that one, because it reminds me that I’ll escape from Serenity one day, if I just keep trying. And back up here,’ she said, drawing him up and around to the other side of the first branch, ‘is one that says: “Tomorrow starts today, with all our things to do and say.” My mother wrote this proverb but you mentioned it this morning too. They’re not all so serious. On the other side of that tree to your left is a long, funny bush ballad by Thomas E. Spencer called “How McDougal Topped the Score". And on the tree behind you is a funny rhyme about a cat in a hat by Dr Seuss.’
‘They’re all poems. am I right?’
‘Not exactly. Many are just quotes from songs or proverbs. My mother taught me tunes to play for some of them, but they all live and breathe with their own rhythm, depending on how you feel when you read them. Don’t take my word for it, though. Look up and listen to them sing for yourself.’
He did, and as he admired the slim shards of sunlight through the canopy and the glistening gold code on the trees’ branches, a long silence followed, disturbed only by the whisper of leaves in the playful breeze. Time paused and the tune harmonised.
He took a step backwards, and a twig snapped. ‘Oh! They’re your poet trees!’
TWELVE
‘You’re right.’ Ben whistled in admiration. ‘In this breeze, I can almost hear them singing.’
Mira hugged the nearest tree and played her fingers up and down the trunk. ‘Don’t say that back at Serenity. They’ll lock you up with me.’
Ben stared up at the array of broad silver branches studded with gold thumbtacks, many of which, upon closer inspection, had begun corroding.
‘I know how good it must feel to be home,’ he said. ‘And you can come home permanently, just as soon as we can prove you can live out here safely by yourself.’
His gaze shifted to the old, but sophisticated timberwork in the cantilevered beams and flooring, linked from tree to tree and room to room by a network of mossy suspension bridges. ‘I’m not sure if this place will be fit to live in, though. We might have to build you a proper cottage.’
‘Why? I can live here safely. It’s got everything I need. Come up and I’ll show you.’
She reached out with her left foot again and fumbled to follow the tree root that led her back to the car, but she followed it only so far as the three unevenly spaced notches, then diverted along the left branch of a Y-shaped offshoot to the next tree, which had a trail of timber boards leading up it, like a ladder.
‘Hey, slow down, Mira, before you hurt your —’
‘Ow!’
Too late. She bumped nose-first into the tree.
‘This trunk must have grown really thick!’
‘I suppose so. The Braille seems stretched on this one, and some of the floor is cracked. Are you okay?’
‘Yes, of course!’
‘Take it easy. This place is in desperate need of maintenance. How long is it since anyone’s been here?’
‘You’re asking me? The last time I was here, I was twelve.’ She explored the bark of the trunk with her fingers until she found the first rung for her foot and another two, higher up, for her hands. ‘So how old am I now?’
‘Twenty-two. Hang on. ‘ He placed his hand on her shoulder to prevent her from climbing. ‘How can you not know your own age? It’s only one year since the biggest birthday party of your life. Even without family, the staff should have made an effort for you. It’s standard procedure.’
Mira shrugged off his hand. ‘I can’t answer that without. without talking about you know what.’
‘Hallucinations?’
She nodded.
‘I won’t tell the others. Cross my heart and hope to die or stick a needle in my eye.’
‘Hah!’ Her smile twisted sideways. ‘You’d never do that! If you have two good eyes, you should be grateful.’
‘That’s exactly my point. So now you know how serious my promise is, don’t you?’
She frowned, unconvinced, and reached for the timber rung again, but he blocked her way.
‘Look,’ he said, leaning closer to her, ‘I just meant to say that you can tell me anything about your hallucinations and I’ll only use the information to learn how I can help you faster. I won’t tell anyone else until you say it’s okay.’
‘Ha ha,’ she goaded sarcastically. ‘You just told a blind girl to look and talk about hallucinations. Be careful, or Matron might reall
y lock you up with me.’
‘Stop dodging the question, please. You know I’m not here to hurt you, don’t you?’
‘I don’t need eyes to see that.’
‘So how is it that a smart girl like you doesn’t know how old she is? Come on, help me out here.’
Mira sighed and pushed the sunglasses higher onto her nose. ‘You can’t... it’s not possible to understand, unless you know what it’s like to be sedated every day. And you don’t, do you? You don’t have the slightest idea what it’s like to be half-dead for years.’
‘I know what it’s like to be locked away. It’s not the same, but it did force me to exercise my imagination daily to stay sane. So try me. Who else do you know who would listen?’
She sighed again and rested her forehead against the tree.
‘Birthdays,’ she muttered. ‘Try telling those parties apart from other patients’ birthdays or New Year’s parties when you’re blind and sedated. I could be twenty, I could be thirty. What does it matter anyway, when it’s just one more year that’s been stolen from me?’
‘But surely your twenty-first. it was only last year. Surely someone made an effort to make it special?’
‘I don’t doubt they did something different from a usual boring day. You people have procedures for everything. All I remember from the last party — whatever that was for — is the blue. everything blue, same as it’s always been since just before my fatherdied, a blue fog filled with blue ghosts, all of them busy, but none talking to me. So rude!’
She paused, her head turned sideways, squeezing her eyes shut tight behind the sunglasses, as if trying to prevent the memory from hurting. ‘When the fog takes me into the sky, it’s really scary. It doesn’t matter how many voices sing “Happy Birthday". Or maybe it was Happy New Year? I just remember there was mock cream on the cake. I hate mock cream, but the invisible people always insist that I eat it.’
‘Invisible people? You make them sound as if they’re different to the ghost people?’
‘Don’t tease. You know they are.’
‘I’m not teasing. I’m honestly trying to understand your perspective.’
‘You’ve used that word twice already. Does “perspective” mean “lies"?’
‘Definitely not! It means your way of looking at things. I’m just trying to understand you better — without being blinded by the light of my own experiences.’
‘Oh.’ She relaxed a little and played her finger along the bottom rung of the ladder until she accidentally bumped into his hand. She blushed and recoiled away from him.
‘So what is the difference between invisible people and ghosts?’
Mira frowned. ‘Well, for starters, invisible people are invisible, but the ghost people are all blue, like the hazy fog I fell into.’
‘Fell into?’
‘When I fell out of the tree after my father died — pay attention, Ben. I’d seen the rude ghosts plenty of times before that, like I told you. Except for the headaches I got from looking at them, I didn’t mind, because they never hurt me, even if they were doing something scary like hunting each other. Then after my father died, I was living here by myself, so in their own silent way they kept me company. But after I fell, it was like I was living with them all the time.’
‘Are there any ghosts here now?’
‘Probably. I can’t tell anymore. I used to see them everywhere in the blue fog. They even walked through me. But now I’m blissfully blind to them.’ She tapped the side of the sunglasses to remind him of her stitches.
‘Can you hear them? Or smell them?’
‘No, they’re completely odourless and silent, but I learned to read what they were saying to each other.’
Ben grinned at that idea. ‘You’re blind, but you can lip-read?’
‘I don’t feel blind inside the blue fog, Ben. I can see enough to stop me tripping over most things — unless they move or someone invisible trips me. That’s how I fell out of the tree — an invisible woman tackled me. Come on up,’ she said, pushing past him. ‘I’ll show you where.’
‘What about the invisible people? Are they here too?’
‘That’s a silly question.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ she drawled, as if the answer was obvious, ‘you’re one of them.’
Ben scratched his forehead. ‘I’m not invisible.’
‘Prove it,’ she called as she reached the halfway mark.
‘Prove what? You can hear me, touch me, smell me.’ He glanced over his shoulder to the windows of his car. ‘I can even see my reflection.’
‘But I can’t see you. You’re not visible to me. Therefore you’re invisible.’
‘Oh, well, yes. When you say it like that, I suppose I am. Hey, don’t use that top rung! It’s only hanging by a nail!’
Mira tested it for herself as she reached the top and pulled herself over it onto a high platform.
‘What about your own body?’ he called, starting to climb up to her. ‘Can you see yourself?’
‘No, I think I’m trapped between worlds: half-ghost and half-invisible.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because the ghosts disappear when I close my eyes, and even though I can’t see myself, I can see the differences in both worlds as my eyes are closing.’
‘That’s called blindsighted, Mira. You think you can still see even when you can’t. It’s just your mind playing tricks after your fall.’
‘Now you sound like a psychologist. So much for not being blinded by the light of your own experiences.’
‘Sorry. Forget I said that. Just let me try to get this straight. From your perspective, there’s you, there’s ghosts and there are invisibles. Is that right?’
‘See? That wasn’t so hard. Now let me ask you a question?’
‘Go for it.’
‘Okay, well. If I can see people I can’t hear, and hear people I can’t see, which ones are really my hallucinations?’
Ben chewed on his lip as he reached the top. ‘From your perspective, I suppose they all are.’
‘Bingo!’ She clapped him on the shoulder. ‘If I’m crazy, you’re part of my insanity. The only way I’ve been able to cope is by obeying the rules of the ones that can hurt me.’
‘That’s invisibles, like me?’
She nodded again.
‘Whoa!’ he cried as he turned around. ‘What a view!’ He could see over the orchard and the trees of a low sand dune to a private crescent beach and the quiet cove of Halls Bay. ‘I didn’t realise you owned your own beach! I thought this whole inlet was swampy.’
‘You’re so lucky, Ben.’ A light breeze played with her hair as she pulled out the band to release her ponytail. ‘You’re so lucky to really see it. I miss it so much, but at least it still smells and sounds the same.’
‘Ah yes, there’s nothing quite like the tang of a salty breeze.’ He chuckled and walked to the nearest timber wall to peer through cobwebs and dirt on the window into a dusty kitchen and dining room.
Mira wrinkled her nose. ‘The ocean always smells like dead fish to me, but it’s home.’
He walked from one end of the balcony to the other.
‘The bedrooms are over in those two trees.’ She pointed while keeping one hand on the rail. ‘There’s a TV and lounge in the tree opposite us, but I’ll need to check the solar panel still works before we try to turn on the power. The bathroom and laundry have their own tree too.’
‘Do you have plumbing up here as well?’ Through the kitchen window he’d seen taps and a sink, but couldn’t remember seeing any pipes underneath.
‘Yes, each roof has its own water tank and the waste water is piped down to the vegetables. Except for the toilet water — that goes through an old compost system that filters the solids and soaks it into the orchard. The fruit trees must be dead from thirst by now, I guess.’
‘Overgrown more like it.’
‘Really? Well, then maybe... Follow me. Maybe we can
taste some fruit.’
She followed the railing around a creaking section of floorboards until she reached an overhanging branch from a neighbouring tree; a mulberry. Beside it grew an orange tree and a passionfruit vine, all within reach at even distances along the rail. Deftly, herfingers stroked the mulberry branch until she found the blackest, softest fruit. She slipped one into her mouth.
‘Mmmmmm. It’s sweet, like freedom. Here, try one.’
‘I don’t know; how can you tell when they’re ripe?’
‘Like this.’ Her hand caressed the mulberry branch again and two of the darkest, softest berries dropped willingly into her hand.
She offered the fattest one to him. ‘The best way to eat a mulberry is to hold the stem with your fingers like this, put the whole berry in your mouth, then slide all the flesh off the central stem.’
He obeyed, but the touch of his lips against her fingertips startled her and her hand recoiled, leaving the berry dangling awkwardly from his teeth.
‘Sorry!’ they said in unison.
Mira giggled, and Ben chuckled.
‘Can we try that again?’ He ate the berry that was already in his mouth and pulled the stem out between his teeth. Juice escaped down his chin. He wiped it off with his hand, only to discover that his fingers now bore a dark purple stain. ‘Uh-oh.’
‘Stains?’ Mira guessed. ‘That’s easily fixed. You just rub a green mulberry over it and it disappears.’ She caressed the branch again until she found two smaller, hard, green and reluctant berries that needed firm encouragement to let go of the tree. ‘Try these.’ She handed them to him and he followed her instructions.
‘Amazing.’ He plucked a dark ripe passionfruit from a neighbouring vine, split it open with his thumb and sucked it out. ‘This is paradise, and self-sufficient to boot.’
He walked to the nearest suspension bridge, tested it with his foot, but wasn’t game to put any more weight on it.
‘It used to be so wonderful living here.’ Mira edged her way blindly across the platform to stand beside him, but this time, without a railing to guide her, she seemed to be following his voice, testing each footstep along the way as if frightened that she might step off and fall.