Darkness more visible

by Finola Moorhead

  A book was left open, spine up, by the chair. I read this piece of text:

  The conflict, therefore, is not between females and males, but between SCUM—dominant, secure, self-confident, nasty, violent, selfish, independent, proud, thrill-seeking, free-wheeling, arrogant females, who consider themselves fit to rule the universe, who have free-wheeled to the limits of this 'society' and are ready to wheel on to something far beyond what it has to offer—and nice, passive, accepting, 'cultivated', polite, dignified, subdued, dependent, scared, mindless, insecure, approval-seeking Daddy's Girls, who can't cope with the unknown, who want to hang back with the apes…

  I flipped over a few more pages before I dropped it back where I found it.

  SCUM will kill all men who are not in the Men's Auxiliary of SCUM.

  When I replaced it, I remembered that Hope had admitted to reading time there. Not exactly the kind of propaganda to thrill the cockles of my heart, but I felt my unerring nose had happened upon an explanation of the argument between my mates.

  I left Virginia's as I had found it and walked up a narrow, wet, yet rocky track which wound its way deep into the rainforest. Not a people-friendly place. I sensed the slithering of snakes and feared choking by thick vines hanging like ropes. It reminded me of American movies about Vietnam where the jungle is set with booby traps. You take one wrong step and whoop, you're gone, either down a hole or suspended in the air caught by your ankle. There were no reassuring sounds of chopping or chain-sawing, or even dog-barking. Just the relentless carry-on of things that don't care whether you live or die. I felt more oppressed there by the palpability of what I couldn't see than anywhere else I had been on Lesbianlands. Wherever her sculpture was, Virginia herself was not here. Of that I was certain. I turned around and walked slowly back to Rory's as my Achilles tendon started giving me hell.

  Rory, Chandra and I had chunks of chewy camp-oven bread with tomatoes, lettuce and soft cheese, by the creek down from where the trucks were parked on the road. A little circle of blackened rocks marked this spot as a frequently used one. Rory threw together a twig fire faster than well-equipped campers can extract, hook up and light their gas burners, to boil the billy, to wash our lunch down with tea. All very wholesome. Glad of the prosaic picnic, I quietly watched a pretty little red and black bird duck in and out of the trees whistling sweetly. The other two settled into reminiscences, apologising to me, saying this need to share the past must be their age. I nodded and asked the name of the bird. Rory pointed out the parasitic bole on the branch of the dying tree, 'It's a male mistletoe bird. The female is just as pretty but much more subtle and could be easily mistaken for any little brown bird in the scrub.'

  With our things packed and dog in the back, we left Rory and got in my Suzuki. I could see in her face that Chandra was not finished remembrances, so I asked questions as I drove along the dirt road. Her mother was a champion horse-woman with a winners attitude to hard work and discipline. She applied this strength to her daughter's condition and together they worked out ways to not only cope but to enjoy life and be cheerful. The great achievement of that time was at a gymkhana in the Under-thirteen Show Jump when she did a clear round in her side-saddle over two-foot-six fences and won a ribbon. It was not only the ribbon, however, that thrilled her as a kid, it was the wholesale appreciation of the crowd. Everyone there had stood to watch. They lined the white rail fence. When she finished they cheered as she rode past them. She saw their joy for her, some with tears in their eyes. She received congratulations as if, like her mother, she were an Olympian. After that she became part of the landscape for the showy set, doing as much as she could about the stables. Surgery was dangerous. Instead of going straight to orthopaedic surgeons, she and her mother consulted broadly, especially the physiotherapists in the public hospital. There they all worked on developing her hip movement. Upper-body fitness went without saying. Her mother did not indulge invalid habits except as a necessity. Brothers and sisters, a couple of each. Father, in the background.

  'He couldn't cope with my disability. Or he didn't want to. All I remember is his carrying me now and then and my mother having a go and then giving up on him,' Chandra explained.

  'Now?' I prompted. 'Family?'

  'I keep in close touch with one sister and in formal contact with the others and their kids. My mother died suddenly, of undiagnosed breast cancer, when I was nineteen.' There was real sadness in her voice.

  'It must have been an awful shock.' I took my eyes off the road to look at her.

  'It was.' She gestured right. 'Go down there. We will swim in the waters of Lethe.'

  'What's that?' I asked pleasantly, anticipating more education.

  'Nothing. I'm just talking about living in the present. My mother was the best, and I am glad she died quickly at the age of forty-five, because she was beautiful then, really stunning, and the undiagnosed bit, well it's just her. She left me the legacy of her tremendous care and thoughtfulness when I needed it, sadness, devastation, loss. Then I had to make my own adulthood, exactly as I chose. They say necessity is the mother of invention,' she laughed with a tinge of bitterness. 'Two years of grieving, bordering on clinical depression, then I was twenty-one and women's liberation had begun. Black liberation, gay liberation, disabled liberation, it was all stirring, and I was there.' She pointed to a gap in the trees. 'We're here.' I stopped the car in the shade.

  She began taking off her clothes and said through the cotton of her T-shirt, 'Not far.' The casualness of her response to a question I didn't ask silenced me more.

  Chandra has a body which is like the mismatched halves of a child's cutout game. The upper half tanned and strong-boned, mature. Her lame legs are not ugly. The thighs are thin and white and held together. I guess I was staring rudely. Operations throughout her childhood failed to separate them.

  Opening the driver's door, I tumbled into pre-exercise stretches as a way of covering the growing chaos in my mind, her sudden nakedness, and the silly words which sprang forth, like, 'What are we doing?'

  'You don't have to take your clothes off yet. Carry me down to the river. Down that track there. It's quicker than if I take my sticks.'

  'Okay.' I moved forward to lift her undressed, unabashed form.

  It was quite a steep slope down, but the river, when we got there, was deep brown and shaded by big trees with exposed root systems. I wouldn't say I was particularly psychic but the black pond was spooky. A sudden depth and sluggish movement in a flowing river, where one could drown, being caught by debris underneath and held down.

  Chandra tapped my shoulder and directed me to a spot where she could reach a branch that overhung. As I disrobed, I watched the schizoid body monkey-bar along the limb, swinging hips with flexible tight abs. The white, thin legs clung together as if the thigh-bones fitted into each other with a slight twist. She hurled herself into the water like kids do from dangling ropes. I stood calf-deep on the rounded river rocks, looking for the place to execute a shallow dive. I was surprised by regular splashing and glanced at Chandra. She held my attention. Her preferred stroke was, apparently, the butterfly. Her working hips and muscly abdomen meant her lower half moved like a dolphin, and her powerful arms thrust her shoulders and chest out of the water effortlessly. I don't know why I expected her walking disability to extend to swimming. It didn't. Her whole body moved in a unified undulating motion. I stumbled over the rocks and eventually fell into the river. She went under the surface of the water then. Unlike the sea, the texture of fresh water had a soft embrace, like satin, and each stroke was silky. My freestyle followed Chandra's butterfly at a fairly even distance. Then I turned into backstroke to look at the trees, leery of floating leaves and sticks, swimming snakes. A fascinating network of roots held the dirt of the banks together, in some places making portals to clay caves. Platypus holes? Maybe, wombats'. Neither past nor present but something to do with time was dragging me to the mysteries of things. I sighed and floated in an effort to relax. Chandra s
urfaced and circled, overarm, backstroke, in one place, speaking to me when her mouth was in the air.

  'I am the river mermaid, and you are the summer Amazon. Please, if ever we become lovers, be like my mother.'

  She dived beneath me.

  When I went under and swam in wave motions, copying her, I forgot everything until my body had to come up for air. We made love in the water, front to front with our hands, and floated on our backs afterwards, daydreaming, and giggling with a crazy embarrassment if we caught each other's eye. She did not seem aware of the ghosts which were so real to me. I was sure their bones were still there, beneath me in the sludge, veiled from view either by the thin membrane of time or the aqueous layers of the pool. She kissed me, then I carried her wet body back to the car. We dressed and let our clothes dry us.

  The trip back to her place was speedy, electric with possibilities. Would we become regular lovers? Did I really want that? Chandra, I thought, had not made up her mind either. While she wasn't short on compliments of my physique, I felt she was containing me at a point of tension, as dressage-riders keep the power of their horses curled around the bit in their mouths. Apt image, okay. Okay.

  We both, it seemed, had so much to do we said goodbye with the briefest of embraces, as if, after our intimacy we had to run away from each other to think. I returned to my home, musing about the Golden Notebooks, hideous flying creatures of mythology, Hope's aliens, pan-like Pam's soliloquy, the intellectual Ilsa's denial, Virginia's disappearance, and the subtle emanations of death from the pond Chandra called Lethe.

  48

  …too drunk to get an erection…

  Virginia decides she will drink lots of water, so her system can be cleansed and diluted. Dense forest abuts part of the perimeter fence, lilly-pilly berries and wild figs litter the ground. Indignation rather than fear obsesses her. She feels a slow simmering rage.

  The rape has been attempted. He was too drunk to get an erection, then fell on his knees and tried to make her come with his tongue. She was having a shower when the assault occurred. There is a drum of water, which is filled and fed through a hose into an old tin can with nail-holes in the bottom. In pathetic burlesque the plastic curtain with tropical fish on it defines the place downhill from the shed beyond the tank. Her neighbour locks his cyclone gate so that she is secure inside and so is his gear. Incidentally, he locks the gun lobbyists out.

  He snuck up saying, 'I promised you this. Even though you're the wrong one. Wrong one on two counts. The other old girl, she's a mate of mine, a partner, though she says she doesn't hold with too many guns. The young one simply ain't you, she's the one I promised it to in the pub. They were joshing me, bunch of lousy sheilas, do anything to get their nails into drugs. Big mouths. I don't like being teased.'

  Virginia stood still, wet and goose-bumped as he undid his fly, unsteady on his feet, possibly because of the rocky ground in the half-night. More likely too much alcohol.

  'That's what it is all about, isn't it? Drugs. That's why you girls want to go feral in the bush. I know,' he said. 'But you'll do.' Willy Campbell's arms are very strong. He thrust and banged and started swearing as his member was not behaving in the manner he required. The half-moon in the cold sky is studied by Virginia as she shakes her head at the stupidity of the male sex. He entered her with his tongue, both his hands pushing the cheeks of her buttocks. Virginia resisted coming by looking at the trees trying to name them, thinking about wood, her breathing became jagged. Her senses were threatening to swamp her mind. She persisted in the effort to think, examining the branches of the eucalyptus, thin arms in the failing light, white mahogany, turpentine, blackbutt, tallow-wood, corymbia. Then an idea struck her and sucked feeling away from cunt and clitoris. His vigorous, sensuous exertion proved fruitless and he gave up exhausted.

  Even so, he was proud of himself. 'I'm good, aren't I? I'm good,' he proclaimed. Virginia wiped her face with the scrap of towelling, an old beer mat, within reach. She pulled on her pants and khaki shirt as he sat on a rock and rolled a cigarette. A bit of candle was waxed to the tank stand. She gestured towards the biggest tree about twenty-five metres away, with bark just visible.

  'Is that a tallow or white mahogany, do yer reckon?' she asked, in no way giving recognition to his violation.

  'Tallow-wood. You could get a fair bit per cubic metre for that fella.' He is still calling this land ours? Virginia remarked to herself.

  'Yeah,' she uttered, 'we might.' She lit the candle with his lighter. His thick lips had a mean sneer. After about an inch of forehead, greasy hair shot straight out of his scalp. He would watch his drinking. Next time would be full-on rape. He had unfinished business.

  'Tallow, good,' she said.

  'Yeah, beautiful springing waxy wood.' Willy like most locals knew his timber.

  'Green, it would have quite a whip in it I should imagine,' Virginia checked.

  'I suppose,' he said as he got up. The half-moon went weak behind wispy clouds in the now blue-black sky.

  'Would you like sausage tonight?' Hospitable, harmless country folk, ha!

  'No thanks, nothing. I'm on a hunger strike.' Virginia reminded him of the situation.

  He took it as a joke. 'That makes you cheap.' He walked away.

  Black cockatoos flew to a parliament of fowls gathering in the casuarinas on Vanderveen's property. Virginia recalls what they called her at school, Olympic high-jump material. The tallow-wood grows close to the fence. She thinks of Emma George and how she pole-vaults four metres something. The pen and the little blade in her pocket, whether used or not, is always there. He has forgotten to lock her up in the shed, securing the cyclone gate instead. She inspects the soil near the tree and finds a long, straightish branch. She sits down and cleans it of twigs and forks. Then sleeps.

  In the daylight, she skins off the bark. The heap of hay-bales left over from the target practice comes into her vision. But she has decided to vault over the fence, landing in the dense lantana that covers the steep drop on the lower side of the enclosure. The keep. She has thrown herself into lantana before and gone tumbling down. After the pain of love she has contempt for other pain, and her enemy. Contempt for your beloved belies your heart. Seeing she came second in the triathlon, she rates her chances. Virginia practised pole-vaulting with Jeff many years ago. Pole-vaulters pace, utilising a little leap in each step as they get closer, they slam their pole into the ground and fly. To clear the loose spirals of barbed wire on the top of the fence she needs to leap over two point four, maybe three metres. They must have something valuable here already.

  She tests her pole for faults. It is nice and green, strong about a hand-width diameter at one end and narrower the other, and about a metre taller than Virginia. She holds it like a lance at a knight's tournament so she can balance and sprint. She will have only one try. She looks for a place to jam it in. If it breaks, she is gone.

  Think positive, she tells herself. I am shit-scared. He will come again this evening, or even sooner.

  The fear gets Virginia's adrenalin pumping so thoughts for survival reign. She has been numbed for four days, injured and bruised before that. But she is fit now, lighter. She steals away from sight of the camps, the smoke and drunken blabber, beyond the spiky tea-tree bushes. She examines the hay-bales in case climbing is the better option. But it would be too obvious and too arduous moving them. If she visualises vaulting rhythmically in detail, she can do it. She runs, sprints, paces. She jabs the pole into the dirt, throws herself over the fence in a high-jump flop, and lands on her back in the lantana whose shallow roots disengage from the crumbly ground. The weed and she fall down the steep gradient. Virginia grasps the prickly spines, dragging them with her for harsh cushioning. She comes to a halt in the buttress of a fig. Stays there.

  Rory, driving home on the major road through Lesbianlands, encounters Ci on horseback, with another rider, a lad, breaking the rules. She stops to remonstrate. Ci answers her back.

  Rory screams, 'I am
not responsible for your ignorance of lesbian ethics!'

  She stands on the tray of her truck. Ci looks like the gypsy she is with a bandanna tied around her forehead. Their dogs take the opportunity to show each other smells in the immediate vicinity.

  'You cannot bring a man onto women's land!' Rory is almost in tears.

  'Who says?' says Ci cheekily. 'I'll bring whoever I like to my place.'

  'No,' hollers Rory. 'This is female space.'

  'He is only a kid!' Ci excuses herself carelessly.

  'It doesn't matter how old he is. He has the rest of the world, why bring him here?' Rory argues, stamping her foot.

  'Because it is where I live,' Ci replies calmly. 'Why should you worry? We're not going anywhere near your place.'

  'That is beside the point.' Rory sits down heavily on her tin tool case. The kelpie, Tess, leaps up and comes to her knee. 'Ci, it took us so long to establish Lesbianlands as a male-free environment, money, work, meeting after meeting. You can't just be so cavalier.'