The World Beneath

by Cate Kennedy

  It was probably goatskin, and in that case would be OK, because goats were domesticated and occasionally a feral nuisance, so she should stop worrying. One of the things that made her so chronically tired and possibly a little edgy, Sandy thought, massaging the pins and needles in her ankles, was just the task of constantly having to be on guard against everything. That’s why she had to check the drum out carefully, because there was always the chance of someone coming over to your house, flipping your drum over, finding a little sticker that said Made in Pakistan or whatever, and starting to talk about poverty and human-rights records to make you feel bad.

  And there was so much to feel bad about — whether you were exploiting somebody, or whether an animal was suffering because of you, or whether you were taking away the jobs of other drum makers somewhere else, or whether the wood had been taken from a rainforest you were helping deplete ... for crying out loud, it never stopped. You tried, endlessly, to tread lightly on the earth, to take only photos and leave only footprints, to buy locally and reduce, reuse and recycle, and all you got was tired. It took up so much of your energy. She hesitated, then untucked her legs and lay down. Amazing, how a mat this thin could be so comfortable once you lay on it. You just settled your head back onto the cushion and made sure your whole spine was touching the floor. Then practise thinking of nothing. Breath going in, breath going out.

  Trying to do the right thing. To not just give in to it all, and switch off your conscience. She knew it drove Sophie crazy, sometimes, but then Sophie was a teenager and teenagers thought you were oppressing them if you made them get out of bed in the morning.

  ‘Who’s going to notice?’ she would say, exasperated, as Sandy refused to drink orange juice that contained pulp from imported oranges. ‘What do you think’s going to happen — the fruit juice police are going to storm in here and arrest you?’ And Sandy would laugh, but a little uneasily, truth be known, because Sophie was right — everyone was kind of policing each other, everyone was under surveillance.

  She’d been a vegetarian for many years, for instance, but when she’d given birth to Sophie and started breastfeeding, a terrible, insatiable urge had come over her. She’d needed meat. Big slabs of roasted red meat, oozing juice.

  This need hadn’t occurred to her until she’d walked past the Rotary fundraising sausage sizzle at the market, then suddenly her feet had turned her around and walked her back as she’d fished four dollars out of her pocket and found herself saying, ‘Two, please.’ Her voice seemed strange to her as she spoke, firm and guttural with someone else’s resolve, and her eyes had watched the guy pick up the sausages with tongs and put them in white bread (White bread! Empty of nutrients! With margarine from the supermarket stuffed with dye and polymers and known carcinogens!), watched every move he made as she said yes to onions and yes to tomato sauce and it was all she could do not to salivate down her own chin. Then she went and sat under a tree and, staring into the middle distance at nothing in particular, had eaten the sausages in three short minutes, every tastebud on her tongue crying its thanks.

  She licked her fingers, and contemplated having two more, and it was only the baby in her sling waking up and starting to cry with hunger that stopped her. As she put Sophie to her breast she was calculating what the time was, and if she had time to get to the butcher’s before it closed, and if she did, what she would say if someone saw her.

  ‘Iron depletion,’ she began to explain, when people looked at her with disapproving surprise, with that infuriating wounded disappointment. ‘It’s for the baby.’

  And it was true, a large part of her exhaustion seemed to vanish once she started eating what her friend Carlie distastefully referred to as ‘flesh’.

  It was gleeful, she thought now, shifting more comfortably on her cushion, taking a breath to join in the Energising Hum. Gleeful, the smug catching out of others, the chance to know better. People came awake when they saw an opportunity for it. Their faces actually brightened.

  When Carlie had had her baby, Sandy had felt a miserable, envious swoon. A textbook home birth, in the tub, with aromatherapy oils and gentle music, culminating in a baby boy Carlie had named Jarrah.

  She thought, not for the first time, of Sophie’s chaotic arrival in the world and how she wished she’d come up with a more imaginative name. Carlie had a sling based on a Mayan design and she’d invited her to hold Jarrah in it one day, about a week after his birth. Attached to him, she noticed bemusedly, was a small fabric-wrapped parcel.

  ‘What ...?’ she’d said nervously, holding the baby carefully and letting her eyes travel from the bag to the baby. Joined by a wizened sort of cord, she observed guardedly, her eyes hadn’t been deceiving her.

  ‘Lotus birth,’ said Carlie. ‘It’s a very ancient tradition.’

  She had sat very still, not wishing to reveal her ignorance, but her face must have given her away.

  ‘Umbilical nonseverance,’ Carlie had gone on. ‘It’s the practice of not cutting the umbilical cord at birth, letting it fall away naturally.’

  ‘So that’s ... that’s the placenta?’ said Sandy faintly, gesturing to the bag.

  ‘Yes, the fabric’s from Rajasthan, because that place is very significant to me, of course, after spending so much time there. You dust the placenta with rosemary powder and lavender seeds, then later you plant it under a tree, at a ceremony when the time feels right.’

  She kept her eyes away from the cord after that. No saved placenta, at Sophie’s birth. The whole birth plan out the window. The final, humiliating failure of a caesarean she still tried hard not to refer to, her ultimate cowardly abdication, the absolute hospital takeover. She vaguely recalled an injection of something, the midwife lifting something away as the doctor got ready for the stitches, but frankly, seeing the baby safe and breathing, and with a good hit of pethadine, it had all felt like something happening miles away she couldn’t care less about.

  It was only afterwards she’d been blindsided by the nagging persistent thought that she’d given away control of everything. Just given up and let it happen.

  ‘We planted a tree,’ she said finally. Carlie, on a roll now, explaining how empowering the home birth had been away from patriarchal obstetric intervention (‘You’re so right,’ Sandy said) and showing her how she’d even made her own baby powder for Jarrah out of chemical-free cornflour (‘Wonderful,’ she exclaimed), on and on until Sandy had gone home to roll a big fat joint and wait for five-year-old Sophie to come back from school to lift her out of her debilitating, dispiriting sense of inadequacy. Sophie, at five, could cure her of anything.

  But, see, the karma rolls around again. She’d come unexpectedly across Carlie eight months later in the hypermart Big W in the next town up the highway, an economy box of disposable nappies clearly visible in her trolley and Jarrah howling like any other ordinary kid in his papoose, two ribbons of green mucous dribbling from his nose, pulling at Carlie’s hair and straining to get out.

  ‘They get illnesses whether you want it or not,’ Carlie had said hurriedly, wiping a snail trail of snot off her shoulder. ‘It builds up their immunities naturally.’ Her face had been scarlet and she’d made a quick excuse and escaped to the checkouts.

  Ridiculous, she thought to herself as she watched Carlie’s retreating harried back, ridiculous, this tiny surge of triumph.

  ‘Sandy?’

  Bloody hell, the yoga instructor was bending over her.

  ‘The meditation is over.’

  ‘I know,’ she answered, mustering a serene smile. ‘I’m just gathering my thoughts.’

  She got up (For goodness sake, don’t scramble up off the floor, Sandy, you’re forty-five years old. Sit in a chair like a grown woman), hearing reflective strings and birdsong fill the room as someone pressed ‘play’ on the CD player. Sandy took a while to straighten up. She’d pulled a muscle, she thought, doing the Downward Dog. She’d buy some tiger balm in the shop.

  She loved the shop, here at the We
llness Centre. She’d slip in there during breaks to drink in its atmosphere of assurance and tranquillity. Why couldn’t home be like the interior of this shop? Sandalwood burned in the oil burner, a waterfall burbled soothingly in the background, lovely quilts and kites and tribal pillows were hung from the ceiling. Textiles. Maybe that was what her place needed. More textiles. She drifted to the bookcase, shifting the collection of marble elephants to browse. A book would be an investment, something she could read and learn from later, pick up the fine points of what they were covering. She selected God Has Gifted You, Sacred Path Medicine Cards and Questions for Your Spirit Guide, and took them over to the register; $79.50, but that was OK. She had a lot of questions.

  No mirror here either. Just the unadorned composting toilet and the walls of the Windermere Hut covered in maps and photos, everything but a simple mirror she could use to fix her make-up in the morning, and she should have thought to just bring a small compact one in her toilet bag, but it hadn’t even occurred to her. And Rich with his camera, probably wanting to take photos of her; she’d come out looking like some twelve-year-old idiot with tiny eyes and bad skin and her hair tucked up under a moronic beanie, that’s what she’d have to live down, and there was no way she could go up to a total stranger and ask them if they had a mirror to loan her, what sort of up-herself loser would ask that on a bushwalk? Sophie opened her packet of make-up wipes and rubbed savagely at her eyes. It would all just be black smears now, anyway, better nothing than that deranged look. She’d pluck up the courage and ask someone. That woman Libby, maybe. She might have one. There was no way she could go out in public just with nothing. It would feel like being naked.

  Rich moved on auto-pilot. Score a sleeping space on the bunk platform, roll out your sleeping bag. Amazing how relative comfort was, he mused, how little you were prepared to settle for. What he really wanted was a hot shower and a lingering read of the paper in an armchair, listening to the ice sigh as it melted in a double scotch, but he was prepared to settle for a wooden platform like something in a Malaysian prison cell, and just about as crowded.

  What’s more, he was grateful for it. Full of nothing but unutterable relief as the hut had come into view, knowing the interminable trudging was finished for another day, that he could at last slide off the backpack and experience, for an odd, false moment, the sensation of being as light as air without it. As he fumbled through cooking dinner on his fuel stove on the packed tabletop, he watched from the corner of his eye the young dreadlocked Israeli couple doing the same thing. Or perhaps not a couple. Perhaps just two people who hardly knew each other, doing the walk as some kind of army endurance exercise. They were pretty much silent, glancing with stolid coldness around at other walkers and speaking to each other in short, low monosyllabic exchanges.

  ‘How are you finding it?’ said another woman stirring something in a pot next to him.

  ‘The walk? Fine.’

  ‘You’re with your daughter, aren’t you?’ A Kiwi, he thought.

  ‘Yes, how about yourselves?’

  ‘Old schoolfriends. Promised ourselves we’d do this when we all turned thirty. So here we are.’

  ‘Well, good on you.’

  He scoured his brain for something else to say, and failed. He was too tired for this. Too tired to do anything other than measure out the water for this packet of artificially flavoured crap and boil it up then shovel it into his mouth then hit the sack. Hit the boards. Hit the wall. No need to get dragged into a conversation, anyway. The woman was listening now to the Germans at his table as they discussed Tasmanian wildlife.

  ‘The devils, yes, but they are not so numerous now, after the facial cancers.’

  ‘And the quolls. We saw so many of them on Bruny Island. So beautiful. And once all over the mainland.’

  ‘I read somewhere that fifty percent of all native mammals originally on the mainland are extinct now,’ the New Zealander said.

  That can’t be right, Rich thought, poking at the rice. They’ve all got the wrong end of the stick there. He was too exhausted to intervene.

  ‘So why not, the biggest mammal to live here still surviving, with so many thousands and thousands of square kilometres of unexplored territory?’

  This was an earnest girl talking now, whose tan suggested she’d just spent a month or so in Cairns.

  ‘For me, I believe they are still here. We’ve met now, two tour operators who believe it still exists. It was still only classified as an endangered species up until 1986. And the Parks and Wildlife officer who saw one in 1995 — why would he lie?’

  ‘Yes, I remember reading this too. In the remote wilderness,’ said another.

  ‘Pyengana would be where they are,’ said the Kiwi.

  They were talking about the tiger, he thought, tearing the corner off a packet of Surprise Peas’n’Corn. The good old mythical beast. He saw, fleetingly, those yellow glass eyes, the smell of mothballs, that giant yearning clump of testimonials.

  ‘And here, in this park, the German tourist who photographed one in 2005. I think many, many people still do believe, but are afraid they will be laughed at. Many scientists. And the tour operator is offering $1.75 million now.’

  ‘They say the photos might have been faked.’

  The girl shrugged. ‘For me, I still believe. I still hold out a hope. For this I come halfway across the world.’

  ‘Is there a bus to Pyengana?’

  Bound to be, Rich thought dully. Get out there and thrash the bushes, folks. Secure the territory in a coordinated pincer movement. Operation Tigerhunt.

  He looked up and waved at Sophie, shouldering her way into the hut.

  ‘Sit down,’ he called. She looked so spindly and fine-boned, he thought as she picked her way through the tables, compared to the strapping outdoorsy Germans. So wan and worried. And younger, somehow, although he couldn’t put his finger on why.

  ‘Have you seen those girls from Melbourne Uni?’

  He had to think. What girls? ‘No. Don’t think they’ve arrived.’

  ‘What about Russell and Libby?’

  ‘Not sure,’ he answered, heaping a huge serve of rice onto her plate. ‘Tonight’s gourmet treat, brought to you from Continental Rices of the World.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, taking the plate carefully.

  ‘Risotto à la Richard,’ he added. ‘Sit down here, we’ll eat together.’

  She flashed him a look. A stricken look, hunted. He watched her lower the plate self-consciously, take her eyes from its contents back to him again.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘There’s enough for seconds too.’

  What was her problem? Who was she looking for, her eyes darting round the room? ‘If it’s OK by you I think I’ll go and eat mine outside. Watch the sunset.’

  He kept his face expressionless, covered up the hurt quickly. ‘OK, then. Whatever you want.’

  It took him a few moments to gather the energy to turn back to the table alone with his own plate. Feeling like an idiot, like he’d asked someone to dance and been snubbed. The Germans were sketching maps now, flicking through their guidebooks with an expeditionary air.

  ‘So,’ he said jovially to the New Zealand woman, mustering a warm smile, ‘all of you have been friends since school, have you?’

  Once he’d finished he went out to look for Sophie. OK. So she was moody. No need to worry. Just try to think back, see if he’d said or done anything out of the ordinary today that might have put her nose out of joint. Nothing — he was totally in the dark. So, let it go.

  She saw him and approached with her own empty plate, and they stood, the tension hanging between them making him feel a rush of confusion.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ll wash up.’ He touched her spoon and felt dirt on it, grit moving beneath his fingers.

  ‘Well, I know I’m not much of a cook,’ he said lightly, ‘but did you really have to dig a hole for it rather than force it down?’

  Her eyes snapped over to him, a
nd she sucked in her lip. ‘You’re meant to. It says in the camping book — you have to bury the leftovers. Because of scavengers.’

  ‘OK, OK, keep your hair on.’ Jesus, this was impossible. He’d never realised how instantly defensive a teenage girl could be.

  ‘Give us your plate, then,’ he said, gesturing. ‘I’ll wash them away from the water, OK? Like you’re supposed to. I bet that’s in the book too, right?’

  ‘Yeah, it is.’

  ‘Us humans, we’re just a bunch of filthy old polluters, aren’t we?’

  She wiped the spoon clean of dirt on her jeans. What was wrong with meeting his eye once in a while?

  ‘Yeah,’ she muttered. ‘We are.’

  It had been going so well, those first few days. A bit shy, maybe, but he’d done nothing to warrant this kind of cold shoulder, he was sure of it. He’d caught her looking at him sometimes over the last day or so, speculatively. God knows what went on in a fifteen-year-old girl’s mind — it was as though she was still waiting for him to do whatever it was that would live up to her expectations. But — he acknowledged this with a flutter of panic — she didn’t seem to be smiling quite so much now. What was she waiting for? What cues was he supposed to read?

  Less than a week, now, he thought tensely. To what? Make her love him?

  No, not love him, he corrected himself hastily. He didn’t expect that. But at least respect. At least not to look at him with that expression of bland, polite lack of interest, enduring him. And to want to see him again, sometime. The thought of seeing that look on her face when they said goodbye on Tuesday was intolerable.

  It’d drive you insane, having to live with that. The thought that whatever it was that had disappointed someone, it was something in you that you couldn’t see.

  His calf muscles ached as he crouched to wash the plates, his sore ankle stiff with raw heat.

  She was under his skin, now, whether he liked it or not. And he had till Tuesday to work out how to do it. How to see what she wanted, and win her over.