by John Clanchy
Jason lifts his right leg slowly over the back of the bike and then fits the helmet down with both hands over one of the handles, doing it by touch, never once taking his eyes from the spot where I’m standing. He can’t see me, I know that, I am in darkness, he is in light, the light is in his eyes, I am fifteen or twenty metres away, more, in the darkness – he cannot see me, I know that for a fact. All he knows is, something is there, a bird, night foraging, an animal – a fox, something that goes … crack! again, just to my right, and he starts off again and there’s fear, just for a second, on his face, and then he takes his first step, and the roaring and the screaming begins. And I’m sure we both cry out with the shock of it, because he hasn’t even touched his machine and yet there it is – roaring and screaming. To a halt, in the emptiness behind him. The rider of the second bike sweeps into the entrance and brakes sharply next to Jason’s bike. The rider waves, calls something to Jason over the noise of his engine. Then kills it. My hands go to my ears with the pain of the noise, and the sudden silence.
‘Jase! ’ I hear the second rider’s muffled shout. Again he waves, pulling Jason back towards him with his gloved hand. Jason goes, looking back over his shoulder to make sure I’m still there, haven’t moved. Whatever I am. But then the other rider’s voice rises, questioning, is insistent, and just for a second Jason looks away towards him and answers – it’s too far to hear – and when he looks back, I can tell, he’s already unfocused in the light, not sure, searching. And, foot by foot, I can move then. Feeling my way with my heels, the skin on the backs of my hands against the bark of bushes, of plants, of small trees. Now there is just the rise and fall of the two voices, occasional words, phrases, ‘Women’ from the second rider, and then Always late’ and a laugh from Jason. And the second rider says, ‘Nah, not now,’ and ‘C’mon,’ and all I know is, he’s tempting Jason away with his voice. And ‘Never know,’ Jason says again, and then shrugs and takes the helmet from the handle of his bike and pulls it down over his head. He puts his head back then, stretching his neck to buckle the clip under his chin. ‘Never know,’ he says once more, though up at the moon this time, and laughs: ‘Might’ve got lucky.’
And that’s when I become aware of it, the trembling in my legs, and I’m breathing hard as if I’ve been running when I’ve done nothing but stand here. And the sound of my own breath – and I can tell the shaking’s about to get worse – is almost as loud in my ears as the two bikes starting together, and the riders settling, then revving off in the direction of the Outback Hotel and the Park. And as they go, one of the riders looks back once, briefly, over his shoulder, and I’m sure he knows I’m there, and he can see me, but I haven’t moved, and he can’t, and I’m safe.
* *
‘I thought,’ Toni says when I get back to the tent, ‘you were about to do something stupid for a moment.’
‘No.’ I’ve calmed down on the walk back, and even the shaking has stopped. And I’m too tired now to know, but I don’t trust my judgement any more, and the whole thing may have been something, or nothing. ‘I just wanted to get out of the tent for a while. To get some air.’
‘No, you didn’t. You went down to the entrance to see if Jason was there, to watch him.’
‘Whatever makes you think that?’
‘I was there.’
‘You followed me. You waited till –’
‘Yes. I was never more than four steps away from you.’
‘Jesus, Toni. So it was you.’
I look at her, and she’s so cool and wide-awake. She hasn’t even had to hurry to get back here before me. Her hair is gelled and spiky as though she’s just stepped out of the shower. She’s wearing her gold sandals and a pink top I’ve never seen before. It could even be silk, I think, as she moves and it moves with her, and I realize she’s not wearing anything underneath. She looks like she’s twenty-three or four.
‘Just get some sleep, Lolly. Especially if you’re coming in the morning.’
‘The morning?’
‘The Climb.
‘Oh, God –’
‘Don’t you want to?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Decide in the morning.’ She turns the lamp down to the point where it’s almost off.
I roll onto my mat and am almost asleep.
‘You’re not going out,’ I say, ‘after all?’ As she squats crosslegged on her mat.
‘Not now.’ She reaches out, and plunges the tent into darkness.
Her dreams are never about the desert, or Uluru, its red heart. Her dreams are always the same – an old woman, in black, an open plain, dark cypresses, white stone under a white moon. The woman is bending, an offering in her hand. She places the offering – a swastika, a twisted cross of grasses and fresh herbs – on a stone, whispers over it. The girl, in hiding, moves closer, straining to hear. And crack! – is heard herself The old woman straightens quickly then, listens, her head on one side, the milky whiteness of the moon reflected in her eyes. She whispers one last time, then moves away, the long silver grasses brushing her skirt as she goes. She passes close to the girl, but gives no sign of seeing her.
The girl moves forward then, the scent of dandelion and wild garlic – pungent, newly cut – drawing her straight to the stone. A string trails from the cross, lies dangling from the lip of the stone. The girl winds it, double looped, around her wrist, and waits for the words to come. Nothing comes, no words, no meaning. Distraught, she looks over her shoulder in the direction the woman has gone. A single cypress – the light of the moon now passing straight through it – draws steadily away at the edge ofthe plain. Minyma ngana, the girl cries after it, willing it to turn, Inma nyangatja wiru mulapa …
‘Antonia!’ The woman in black is screaming. ‘Antonia!’ She is kneeling in a triangle of light, and the sky at her back is on fire. ‘Where is the wretched girl?’
‘Mrs Harvey,’ I say. ‘What is it?’
‘Where’s Antonia?’ she shouts again, and the anger and fear in her voice fills the tent.
‘Toni?’ My hands go instinctively to the sides of my head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, get up and find her. And Prescott as well,’ Mrs Harvey says, and she’s standing now, and through the flap of the tent all I can see are her legs and feet. ‘Find the young fool,’ she hisses. And she’s so full of anger, I don’t know whether she means Toni or Mr Prescott.
‘But what is it?’ I crawl to the entrance of the tent. There’s still cloud but the sky is bright red. It can’t be that long after sunrise. ‘What’s happened?’
‘There’s been an accident.’ And I can see she’s almost in tears. ‘On the Rock. One of the boys …’
‘What?’
‘Has fallen –’
‘Off?’
‘On the Rock.’
‘Who?’
‘Billy. Billy Whitecross. One second, he was running, I called out –’ Mrs Harvey’s actually crying now, and shaking, and I can see she’s re-living the moment even as she tells me. ‘I was the one who shouted out at him. I just meant to warn. We were on the Climb, he’d got too far ahead. I just meant to warn him.’
‘Mrs Harvey,’ I say. Because she can’t stop shaking. ‘It wasn’t your fault. If he was running.’
‘It shouldn’t have happened. If they’d been there –’
‘Who?’
‘Toni Darling. And Mr Prescott.’ And when she says their names, the shaking stops. And she’s full of anger again.
‘But what about Billy?’
‘The rangers have gone up there. With stretchers. They’ll bring him down.’
‘He’s not –?’
Her eyes widen then, with shock. Because she’s read my mind.
‘No, of course not,’ she says, as if I’ve said something obscene. ‘It’s his leg or hip. It’s broken or dislocated, or something.’
‘Poor Billy.’
‘I’ve brought everyone back. But I want all the teachers and monitors together. We’l
l have to decide what to do.’
‘But who’s with Billy? Now?’
‘Mr Jasmyne and Miss Temple have just gone out there. But all the rest – I want all the rest, we’ve got to decide what to do.’
‘But they’ll get him down all right?’
‘Just go,’ she says, ignoring me and yelling over her shoulder. ‘Go and find that … that good-for-nothing. And tell them I want them immediately.’
‘But where will I look?’ I gaze around. ‘They could be anywhere.’
‘You’ll find them,’ are her last words as she disappears into the first line of the girls’ tents. ‘Up,’ I hear her shouting. ‘Everyone up. I want everyone dressed and on assembly near the buses in ten minutes.’
I drag on some shorts, a tracksuit top, and am immediately boiling. I pull it off, and scrabble around in the gloom of the tent for a T-shirt. I spot Toni’s flung at the end of her sleeping mat and pull that on, smelling her perfume. I remember her pink top. Christ.
I look first in the showers, the toilets, the laundry. Which is stupid, they won’t be there together. I’m still not thinking, still half-asleep. I run back out onto the lawns. Some of the girls are emerging from their tents now. I hear the mixture of inquiry and complaint in their voices. ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on? Why do we have to?’
There’s no sign of Toni or Mr Prescott. The campground is huge. They could be anywhere. You’ll find them, Mrs Harvey had said, nastily, as if I already knew, as if I was part of it. And then, amazingly, without thinking, I do know. I go back to our tent, pull on my joggers and run through the lines of tents. ‘Laura, what is it?’ Luisa and Sarah call after me. ‘Just get dressed,’ I say. ‘Mrs Harvey will tell you. It’s all right,’ I shout, seeing the fear and confusion on their faces. ‘Just get dressed.’
I run on through the perimeter hedges of wattle and tea-tree. My breath – I’m still only half-awake – is coming in painful gulps now, and my throat is dry and sore, but I run anyway. Across the gravel bed of the carpark and up the red slope behind the camp. The earth is thick but soft here, a red loamy sand, and my feet sink into it, and have to be dragged free after each step. The climb’s not steep but it’s long and unrelenting, and the sand gives no footing. There are other prints, I see now, though I didn’t need to. Toni, Jesus. She was supposed to be there with the climbers. She was on duty. So was Mr Prescott. But why did Mrs Harvey go without them in the first place? No one came to the tent to look for her. Before. As far as I know.
I am almost at the top, panting, and squinting into the sun now which is hot, though it’s just risen, and the sweat’s already running from every pore in my body. Under my arms. In my eyes. And then, as I come level with the top of the dune, I think I see something, something white against the bright red of the sand – a cloth, or a flag, a white flag, rising, and falling. Another step, and I think I see the fold in it as it rises. Rises –? With the air this still? And then in the same moment a cry comes from somewhere, it could be someone’s name, out on the dune, and it’s not a fold, I realize, but a cleft. And not a flag. And then the sweat and the glare relent for a second, and I see properly, and I turn in the same moment and run back down the slope.
‘Toni?’ I call loudly, turning again, halfway down. ‘Mr Prescott?’ And climb the dune for the second time. Walking this time. The breath in my ears is even harsher now. ‘Toni?’ And when I get there and see them, they’re standing, and both Toni’s hands are at one side of her skirt, smoothing, or adjusting. Mr Prescott’s standing behind her, his lips are moving. I see Toni’s hands fall to her sides, and I start running again.
‘Toni!’ I call. ‘Mr Prescott!’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s Mrs Harvey. She –’
‘Get your breath, Laura,’ Mr Prescott says, and he’s the one who’s come forward now. Who’s taking charge. ‘How did you know where we were?’
‘I didn’t, I just came here. Mrs Harvey told me to look everywhere.’
Toni’s said nothing yet, she’s just searching my face. I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
‘Jesus,’ Mr Prescott says, looking round. ‘What time is it?’
‘You missed the Climb. And Billy Whitecross was running on the Rock. He wanted to be first, and he’s fallen …’
‘Jesus,’ Mr Prescott says again. ‘I’d forgotten all about it.’
And then it’s Toni who actually says: ‘Is he –?’
‘No, he’s broken his leg, or his hip, or something.’
‘Jesus,’ seems all Mr Prescott is able to say. He looks as if he’s the one who’s just had the fall.
‘Mrs Harvey sent me to get you. She wants you both straightaway. She wants all the teachers and the monitors,’ I say, and the three of us are moving already. And at one point, where the path narrows between the circles of spinifex and only one person can go at a time, they both stand back and let me go first, and it’s like I’ve rounded them up and they’re criminals and I’m bringing them to jail or something, and I don’t like this and as soon as the path widens, I slow down and they have to go past me again, and that, I realize, is almost worse, because it feels like I’m driving them before me.
‘I clean forgot about it,’ Mr Prescott’s found his tongue. He’s leading the way now, and Toni’s between us but hasn’t looked back at me once. Her head is down, and I want to say something to her, to tell her it’s not so bad, but I can’t think of anything. Because it is, and she must know it. And so must Mr Prescott. Whose hand keeps going to his head as if he has to keep checking that it’s still there. ‘But why?’ he says to himself. And then he turns and looks back over Toni’s head at me.
‘Why didn’t they take someone else, if they couldn’t find us?’ he asks. ‘Did they even look properly?’ Something’s changing in his voice, and he’s almost angry. ‘I mean, why didn’t they get Gerald, or Tremblings if they thought they needed more people?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Prescott. I’ve just woken up.’
‘And one of the other monitors in place of Toni,’ he says. ‘And anyway, I thought you were climbing this morning?’ And it’s almost as if he’s saying it’s my fault or anyone’s fault, and not his. And it’s unfair, but I don’t get angry back because I know it’s just him being worried. ‘Weren’t you climbing because you missed out before?’
‘I didn’t decide,’ I tell him as we reach the bottom of the dune, and already, I can see, some of the girls have stopped whatever they’re doing around the tents and are looking across the lawns at us. Their eyes wide-awake now, working it out. ‘I decided I’d go if I woke up – by myself, I mean – and if I didn’t, then that meant, deep down, I didn’t really want to go.’
Mr Prescott looks at me, as if he doesn’t know what I’m even talking about. ‘Where is she?’ he says.
‘Who?’
‘Mrs Harvey. Where are we supposed to meet her?’
‘She said everyone was to assemble at the buses, Mr Prescott.’ And I am about to say it’s not my fault, stop shouting at me, when I see him look at Toni for the first time since I came up to them, and the look on his face is so hurt and confused and tender, all at the same moment, that I don’t. I just fall back even further and let them go in front, and I’m glad I do because they’re looking straight ahead as they walk, but I hear the whisper of Mr Prescott’s voice, then Toni’s, then his again. And he goes off in one direction, and hardly turns to say: ‘Thank you, Laura,’ as if I’ve brought him a cup of coffee or picked up his javelin or shot-put for him or something.
By the time she gets to our tent, I’ve nearly caught up with Toni. And there is something, I realize, I’ll have to say to her after all.
‘You’ll have to change,’ I tell her.
‘What?’
‘Before you go to Mrs Harvey. You’ll have to change.’
She looks where I’m looking.
The back of her skirt has a red stain where the earth has mixed with something liquid. She twists her skirt, puts
her hand on the stain, tries to brush it, but it’s sticky and she stops immediately and looks at me.
‘Thank you, Lolly,’ she says. As if I’ve just saved her life or something. When it’s nothing. But just Lolly says everything to me …
When we finally get to the buses, Mrs Harvey has all the children around her and is explaining what’s happened. She seems calm now and totally in charge. There’s no sign of Mr Prescott anywhere. As we approach, I see Toni looking around for him.
‘Well, Antonia,’ Mrs Harvey breaks off, ‘there you are at last.’ And the kids, I see, are silent, but their faces are all going Oooh, and I feel unhappy and guilty again because it’s almost as if I’ve dragged Toni there, handcuffed, like a criminal or a prisoner. ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ Mrs Harvey says to Toni, and just for one second then I think Toni’s going to do something stupid, and put out her tongue and rebel completely. And I say, ‘Toni,’ softly, to prevent it.
But when Toni turns to look at me, I’m not sure this is true after all because her face isn’t upset or angry or panicked or anything. It’s almost like she’s the calmest one there, and is hardly even thinking about what is going on now, or Mrs Harvey or me or the kids watching or anything, but is miles away thinking about something else altogether. And Mrs Harvey, I think, sees this too and she can’t help herself – she’s red and angry all over again.