Wildlight

by Robyn Mundy

  It had all gone belly up the day Stephanie came aboard the boat, when she let slip Tom’s plan to leave. He could have expected an earful from Frank but his brother was too cunning for that. His punishment had taken the form of a public exhibition of the man Tom Forrest had become. The degradation of stealing pots made all the more tawdry before the girl Tom wanted to impress.

  The fishing went on, but Frank sensed a shift in Tom—Hab felt it too. Tom and Frank were a continent buckling, a tectonic rift, one half wrenching itself apart, whatever the collateral damage. Perhaps Frank had cause to be pissed off with Tom, but he’d played it wrong. He’d forfeited the fucked-up obligation Tom served for a lifetime of big-brother benevolence. Frank had given Tom his exit plan. As soon as Hab’s wife had the baby. When Hab came back to work. Tom wouldn’t leave Frank short-handed. He owed his brother that.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Stephanie said.

  He squeezed her hand.

  Tom parked the car on the road; he led Stephanie down the side of the house.

  ‘Wow.’ She slowed at the sight of the garden. ‘Is all this your mum? Or you?’

  ‘Some of both.’ He’d forgotten how this garden might look to someone else. Even around the perimeter of vegetable beds, spring onions vied for space between rosebushes and azaleas; garlic filled the gaps between the lavender and ranunculus; across the back trellis snow peas curled around the dried remains of his mother’s sweet peas. Tom walked Stephanie past the fruit trees to the glasshouse. He showed her the seedlings and herbs, grumbled about the valuable bench space taken up by his mother’s orchids and African violets she rotated from indoors to the glasshouse to guarantee perpetual blooms. ‘The place needs weeding,’ he said as an apology.

  Stephanie fingered through the old shoeboxes—seeds stored and dated in recycled packets Tom saved from the kitchen. In a dishevelled kind of way the place held an order. He could put his hands on anything.

  ‘All this.’ She looked at him in a way that lifted Tom. ‘This is you. This is how I think of you.’

  He took a deep breath. The air trapped by the panes of glass felt warm and dank on his skin. He pinched off herbs, cupped the aromatic rub to his nose. ‘What?’ he said to her smile.

  She rubbed her fingers. ‘That thing you do. Sniffing leaves. I love it.’

  The promise of a giant moon glowed beyond the old iron rooftops of the street. Pizza dough proved in the warmth of the kitchen; it swelled above the rim of the bowl. Stephanie stretched out on the lounge room rug, searching through CDs. ‘Tom?’ She held up Mariah Carey, acting out a look of death by hopelessness.

  ‘It’s Mum’s. I’m more your Whitney Houston kind of guy.’

  ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  Stephanie watched him as he floured the bench and rolled and stretched the dough. He spooned homemade sauce across the base, giving it the flourish of a painter. He’d never cooked for anyone but his mother. Or on the boat, for Frank and Hab, but that was fuel that filled your belly and didn’t count for anything. Beastie Boys pumped from the CD player. The big speakers were last year’s Christmas gift from Frank. The only other females Tom could remember in this house were Aunt Fina from Melbourne, and Frank’s wife Cheryl when she and Frank first started going out. In the years they’d been married Cheryl had never visited; Frank always showed up on his own.

  Beyond the patio, the adobe oven pulsed with heat. Tom raked the coals to the back. A rush of sparks flared up into the night through the open chimney. He used a metal paddle to position the granite tile and slide the pizza in on top. Built yourself an igloo, Frank had mocked Tom’s home-built oven. He’d never seen their mother turn on Frank to give him such a dressing-down. Tom knew she fretted. Nights, she’d look up from the television, rest her knitting in her lap. Is everything all right with you and Frank?

  What could he say? She was mother to them both. Tom watched mozzarella melt and spread. His gut twisted at the echo of his brother’s latest declaration—Forrest Brothers—Frank had hyped up on the boat trip home after another top catch. Tom had stayed silent, hadn’t flickered at Frank’s bait that snagged like a dirty hook. Thank Christ for Cheryl, who would look at the books and tear down Frank’s grandiose talk of a second boat with the fierceness of a Tassie devil. The last thing Tom wanted was to skipper his own vessel. He’d served his time. He was sticking to his exit plan.

  The air beyond the fire grew damp. Stephanie shivered. Tom brought his Gore-Tex jacket from the chair. ‘It will be too big.’

  ‘It’s toasty.’ She turned up the padded sleeves.

  She set the tiny patio table with a cloth and serviettes, found cushions for the wrought-iron chairs. ‘Shall I light this?’ She held up his mother’s votive candle.

  ‘Go for it.’

  She held the match to the wick. ‘Make a wish,’ Tom said, unable to stem ingrained habits. Stephanie closed her eyes in concentration.

  Her hair smelled of wood smoke, his hands of fresh herbs. They stood together at the open oven, his girl blanketed in his jacket, the night air aromatic.

  *

  Steph followed Tom through the kitchen. She’d stacked the plates from dinner on the sink, left her scarf and backpack on the table. She felt her heart pulsing in her chest. She hoped she wasn’t trembling.

  Beyond the brightness of the kitchen and lounge the house changed mood. This narrow hallway, these dark wooden doors. She felt a heaviness distinct from the night and put it down to first-time nervousness.

  Tom opened the door to his room. A night-light at the floor cast a reassuring glow. Steph paused. His bed. She took a breath.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Tom said softly.

  She couldn’t trust herself to speak. She squeezed his hand. As sure as a girl could be before leaping off a cliff.

  *

  ‘Back in a minute.’ Tom grabbed his keys and went out to the car. He searched the glove box, looked behind the seat. Where? He’d gone into the chemist before picking Stephanie up—a lady with a baby had watched him knowingly from the other side of the shelves. Lubricated, Ribbed, Form Fit, Ultra Thin, illustrated packs of twelves and twenty-fours bearing a form of intimacy that spoke of late-night American TV, not him, not this tonight. Tom had prickled with uncertainty—he’d grappled with his own presumption at how the night might go. He thought to slink out of the pharmacy and leave it all to chance. But wasn’t the onus on him?—safe sex, they harped on in his final year at school. If he hadn’t been prepared, if things had gone this way—which obviously they had, or would, if he could only find them—then what? He’d picked the plainest pack, blue and white, Chekmate, trying to find meaning in the misspelled name. He’d waited till the girl had finished serving at the counter. No, he didn’t need a receipt, thanks. No, he didn’t want a bag. He’d put them—

  Stephanie looked at him enquiringly. She was curled against the pillows where he’d left her, still wearing his jacket. She reached into the pocket. ‘Looking for these?’ she said shyly. He gave a feeble simper. Chekmate.

  *

  Steph lay across his radiating chest, the race of his heart beating in her ear. ‘Okay?’ he said. Steph nodded. Tom pulled the bedcovers over her shoulders. Should she feel more special? Womanly? She felt unlinked from her body, a little dreamy, the way she felt on New Year’s Eve after guzzling champagne. Tom had read her inexperience from the start. He hadn’t laughed at her awkwardness. He’d whispered she was beautiful. He’d touched her skin, he hadn’t hurried her. Everything was caring.

  His breathing had eased, his chest rose and fell in a sleeper’s rhythm. Steph felt wholly alert. She turned her ear to the sounds of the house: a creak of timber, a branch scraping the gutter outside the window. Around her—in the smell of the air, the set of old drawers, the flattened pile of the old-fashioned carpet—was the contrast of Tom’s growing up to her own. His room was neat, unadorned—personality withheld. Tom’s selfhood was the greenhouse, the garden—an outdoor oven he’d built himself. Steph looked around the
walls. The bedroom had no posters, no art on any wall she had seen.

  A statue of Jesus stood on the phone stand, another of Mary on the mantlepiece; you could hardly call them home furnishings. Only photos—the story of his family in flowery ornate frames, set out along the mantlepiece. His mother’s wedding portrait reminded Steph of Gran and Pop’s. Then Frank the baby, Frank the toddler, Frank in school uniform, Frank with his father showing off a catch of fish. Tom’s father, older, hooked to a tube and seated in the recliner beside which the photo now stood. It touched Steph to see Frank back then, his head resting on his father’s arm. The first photo of Tom, his father hollow and grey against hospital sheets, a tiny naked newborn propped against his chest. Thomas Lee, weight and birth date labelled in the corner. Photos of Frank cradling little Tom, ushering Tom as he took his first steps; Frank earnest and proud with Tom riding on his shoulders the way a boy would with his father. Frank and Tom seated on the bonnet of Tom’s car. Frank and Tom together on a slipway, the Perlita Lee dressed up with bunting.

  Tom stirred, he turned to reach his bedside clock.

  ‘It’s early still,’ Steph said. ‘Just eleven.’

  He stroked Steph’s leg, the dip of her waist. ‘I wish you’d stay, Cinderella.’ He touched her breast and kissed a curve of skin.

  A thread loosened. She pressed herself against him. She could go back to the school first thing, before anyone woke, knock on Marcie’s window. She drew her body close to his.

  ‘Wait,’ he fumbled with the packet. Steph lifted her body over his. Tom put his hands around her hips. She kissed him. She didn’t feel anxious or unsure. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered.

  Her body moved to a murmur, she closed her eyes and let it lift and carry her out upon a wave. In the corner of her senses a branch scraped at the gutter, murmurings that might have been her own. ‘Stop,’ she heard Tom whisper. She felt his body halt. He gripped her arms. A fridge door rattled, a voice, the sharp scrape of a chair.

  ‘Your mother?’

  Tom scrambled for his clothes. ‘It’s Frank. He’ll be drunk.’

  She listened to Tom’s steps along the hall. The floorboards creaked. ‘Well,’ she heard Frank in the kitchen. ‘While the cat’s away, eh, Tom-Tom?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Frank’s words were slurred. ‘Thought you might want company. Mum away, all on your lonesome. But I see you’re managing just fine.’ Frank let out a belch.

  Steph dressed with trembling hands; she fumbled with the laces of her boots, combed her hair with her fingers as she moved along the hall toward the light.

  Frank was seated at the kitchen table, her scarf wound stupidly around his head.

  Steph waited at the kitchen door, the armour of Tom’s jacket wrapped around her. Frank blinked. ‘Stethenie.’ Too drunk to say her name. ‘Wasn’t expecting you, sweet pea. Correction,’ he held up his hand. ‘Tom-Tom’s sweet pea. But I’m his big brother so that makes you everybody’s sweet pea.’ He pulled the scarf from his head, swept his arm across the kitchen table, bowling his stubby of beer across it.

  Tom picked up his car keys. ‘I’m taking Stephanie home.’

  Frank cackled. ‘Helluva drive to Maatsuyker Island.’

  ‘Get a taxi, Frank. Go home.’

  ‘Home? Cheryl’s a bitch. Cheryl says she hates my fuckin guts. Not very ladylike, is it darlin’? Not very Forty Buckets Beach.’

  Tom summoned her. He held the door.

  ‘Tom-Tom tell you our big news?’

  ‘You’re pissed, Frank.’

  Steph couldn’t help herself. ‘What news?’

  ‘Top Fuckin Secret,’ Frank ranted. ‘Everybody has to sign a con, a conf—one a those. But we’ll tell you.’ Frank turned to Tom with a theatrical wave of his arm. ‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s Captain Tom-Tom, skipper, I said skipper, of his own Forrest Brothers’ cray boat. How good is that, girlie!’

  ‘Don’t listen. He’s full of shit. Come on, Stephanie.’

  Steph followed. The wall of cold snapped her back into time, the moon distended, its icy light glancing off the roofs and road.

  Tom drove. He gripped her hand. Steph sat in a daze, caught between her body and the clutter in her head. Her voice trembled. ‘You said you told Frank you were leaving.’

  ‘I am leaving.’ He sounded strange. He sounded on the verge of tears. He pulled up at the gate of the school. ‘I’ll be here in the morning. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty. I’ll explain then.’

  ‘Explain now, Tom.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘Frank knows I’m leaving. I haven’t said when, but he knows. He’s saying all this stuff as a way to make me stay.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he just ask you to stay?’ Like any normal person would, Steph felt like saying.

  Tom rapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘It’s his way. Frank doesn’t say sorry. He’d never come right out and beg. He thinks if he spouts big plans and I don’t say anything to the contrary, that it will all blow over and I’ll have changed my mind.’

  ‘Have you changed your mind?’

  ‘I told you. I’m leaving.’ Tom’s voice sounded tight. ‘I have to wait until Habib gets back. Till his wife has the baby. A couple of weeks. I can’t leave Frank without a deckhand.’

  ‘Why not?’ Steph said. She waited for an answer but Tom just shook his head and stared up at the moon. It threw her back in time to Callam. Steph had turned a blind eye to her brother’s furtiveness, his sneaking out, rumours at his school of someone selling drugs. She’d denied it from herself, the way she had with Tom. Steph might have drifted along in a bubble of illusion had she not found the roll of notes hidden in her brother’s bookcase. The feel of other people’s money soiled her hands. Every fulcrum has a tipping point. Statues of Jesus and stealing people’s pots. ‘I know what happens on the boat,’ she said to Tom. ‘I know what you and Frank do.’ Steph couldn’t be a part of that.

  18

  Out and around the Needles, a steep bank as the helicopter rounded course and turned to face the island. Steph couldn’t claim to be at ease, but gone was the terror of her first flight. From the back seat she loosened her grip on the seat and looked down to a pair of yachts beating westward. The ocean sparked and glittered in the breeze, the lighthouse tall above the vegetation, the canopy of tea-trees laden with white flower. Maatsuyker had turned to icing on a Christmas cake. They flew over the weather station and house, across newly mown lawns and road. Every tree, every bush in flower. Steph saw the blue truck, her parents standing either side, reaching up to wave.

  The helicopter rocked on the pad. Steph let herself catch up while she waited for the shutdown—it felt like peeling back the skin of town. It felt like coming back as someone new. The pilot did his paperwork, the rotors warbled to a stop. He opened his door. ‘Special delivery,’ he called to Mum and Dad. ‘Two for the price of one.’

  Beside Steph, the radio technician fumbled with his seat buckle. He remembered his headphones then heaved himself out. Steph was next. Her parents enveloped her, squeezing her, firing questions one over the other. How were exams? How was the school? Which room did they put you in? Gosh, we missed you. How was your dinner with Tom? It’s been like this all week. Your mother even sunbaked on the lawn. Wait until you see the mail.

  Steph took a deep breath. ‘Mum. Dad.’ Steph beckoned to her friend. ‘This is Marcie, from the school. I invited her to spend the day. A rescue mission,’ she said to Mum.

  Her mother gaped. Dad blinked. ‘Does the school know Marcie’s here?’

  ‘Not entirely.’

  Marcie blurted, ‘Steph said you wouldn’t mind and there was a seat in the helicopter because a person couldn’t come and I really wanted to see the lighthouse and the island and where you live and everything. I hope it’s okay.’

  ‘It is okay. Isn’t it?’ Steph said to Mum and Dad.

  A second radio technician carried the gear to the truck. ‘Be there in a minute,’ Dad calle
d to them. ‘Excuse us, Marcie.’ Her parents walked Steph to the front of the helicopter. ‘What were you thinking?’ Dad said. ‘You can’t go abducting someone else’s child. What if something were to happen to her?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘She could fall down a cliff. The helicopter could crash. If the wind got up she could blow away—how old is she? Ten?’

  ‘She’s twelve, Dad.’

  ‘She’s no bigger than an ant.’

  Mum clucked. ‘So it’s fine for our daughter to be in the helicopter when it crashes?’

  ‘That wasn’t—’

  ‘What about the school?’ Mum said to Steph.

  ‘We left a note.’

  ‘Stating what?’ Dad said.

  ‘That she’ll be back tonight. Weather permitting.’

  ‘Good golly.’ Her father was working himself into a tizz. ‘Her parents will have called the police, rounded up a search party. They’ll be beside themselves.’

  ‘That’s just the point,’ Steph said. She should have guessed this was a bad idea. ‘Her parents are in the middle of a break-up and her mother’s gone AWOL for the weekend. Her father says he’s too busy with the farm to come down for her until next week.’ Steph appealed to her mother. ‘She would have been at the boarding school completely on her own. I felt sorry for her.’ Her mother’s eyes flicked in Marcie’s direction. ‘Tom’s going to pick her up tonight.’ Tom had offered to get Marcie back to school. Steph hadn’t thought that far. ‘He’ll make sure she’s okay.’

  ‘Stellar job!’ Dad exploded. ‘Imagine what they’re going to make of that: in a car with a nineteen-year-old boy.’

  ‘I’ll phone Marcie’s father,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll speak to the school.’

  Dad shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you would do something so impetuous. It’s the sort of thing your brother would do. No regard for consequences.’

  ‘James,’ her mother said, pulling him aside.

  Steph slumped. She hadn’t slept. She’d lain awake through the night, replaying what had happened with Tom, what she’d said, trying to convince herself of what Tom was and wondering how a single conversation could turn something intimate and tender to a ragged, ugly screech.