Wildlight

by Robyn Mundy

  Tom looked past the creek, past the outcrop of rocks, the ridge, the world shifting back in kilter. This landscape, full of primal wilderness. He surveyed the coast. The ocean flooded back to him and with it a disdain for Frank, a poison that burned beneath the shoulder of his sleeve, the pulse of it white hot. ‘My things.’ Tom looked back up the track. ‘They must be at the camp.’

  William motioned. ‘Other way, mighty. High Camp’s further along, beside the stream.’

  ‘The cave, I meant.’

  ‘Cave?’

  Tom pointed to a knoll.

  William looked at him dubiously. ‘You been on the silly weed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No caves around here, not that I know of. Caves back down along the coast that the old people used. Before us whities.’

  None of it made sense to Tom.

  ‘Never mind,’ said William. ‘We’ll find your gear. Another cuppa first. Take your time. Always time for a brew.’

  *

  ‘Travelling light,’ William said when they found Tom’s pack lying on grass at High Camp. No gumboots to be found. Tom pulled his Blundstones from his pack, thankful he hadn’t turfed them along the way. His daypack and torn plastic sheet looked comical beside William’s oversized pack. The old man must be hauling thirty kilos on his back. ‘What happened to you?’ William said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘They’ve been searching for some fellas out at South West Cape. A group came through as I was leaving Melaleuca.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me.’ There was no getting out of it. ‘I had a falling-out. Decided to walk home on my own.’

  ‘Without gear? How much food are you carrying?’

  Tom felt himself withdraw. ‘I’ll be all right.’

  ‘You didn’t look too all right when I found you.’

  His tone reminded Tom of Frank. ‘When I get down to the coast I’ll find some fishing line, catch a feed. I know better than most what to do.’

  ‘Mighty, it’s none of my beeswax but anyone can see that at this present point in time you’re in a tight spot. Walk down together, share a meal or two. No questions asked. Scout’s honour.’ The old man’s fingers knocked a shaky salute against the brim of his hat.

  William was offering help, offering his food to Tom, a stranger. Tom hadn’t even shared his name. Resistance rippled through him. ‘Why would you do that? I could be some bad arse for all you know.’

  ‘Right thing to do. Simple as that.’

  Frank would shun William’s offer of help. Even Tom’s mother, though not as bluntly. In Tom’s family it always came down to saving face: they were above anybody’s charity. Frank measured his worth—his whole identity—with self-sufficiency, an ability to provide. Yet, in that, something was awry. In an odd inverted way, between the bullying and boasting, through every reminder of benevolence, it felt to Tom that Frank was seeking his regard; that Tom’s approval mattered in the same way that an insistent sinner needs redemption from the Church.

  ‘The river crossing down at Prion,’ William went on. ‘Those two dinghies weigh a ton on your lonesome.’ As if to convince Tom, the older man held out trembling hands. ‘You never imagine the day will come when you can’t manage on your own.’

  Something melted in Tom. He put his hand in William’s. ‘Name’s Tom. I hope I can keep up with you.’ That brought a smile.

  *

  The wind had dropped away, the morning sun intense. Tom was far taller than William but each step down the Ironbounds measured a full stride. At times Tom stepped in a slurry of mud and found a firm footing. As often he sank past his knees in a quagmire. His feet slid inside his short leather boots. His toenails felt soft and bruised, the pads of his toes were chafing into blisters. Tom felt weak and feverish, his limbs, his insides, everything aflame. He stopped to catch his breath, wipe his cuff across his brow. ‘Good old Tassie,’ William said. ‘Frostbite for breakfast, burned to toast by lunch.’

  Tom let his mind wander. He tripped on a root and fell hard. Pain tore through his arm. His shoulder throbbed. He picked himself up. ‘That’s usually my trick.’ William offered Tom one of his hiking sticks. Tom shook his head. Let William think he was proud. The old man was nuggety and tough, never mind his two strapped knees. He wasn’t quick but each step was efficient—he kept at it, unfazed by mud and effort. The Master of Zen.

  The rainforest petered out to sclerophyll, to tall leatherwoods and myrtle, to brilliant coloured fungi, to an understorey of cutting grass too sharp to grab for support. Its long reeds lay as a woven mat across the track, catching one boot, tripping the other. The change in vegetation did little to reduce the mud. They sank to their knees, slogged over exposed roots, crawled beneath fallen trees. Tom’s jeans and William’s bare legs looked moulded from clay. Tom forced himself to concentrate, to place his feet with intent, to block out boredom and weariness and a pulsing heat that pinched his shoulder with the slightest motion of his arm.

  A change in the air. A whiff of kelp. They were nearing ocean. He caught a glimpse of blue. The path flattened, dense forest and tall trees thinned to stands of tea-tree, to open coastal scrub. To a view across the ocean.

  William halted, he cocked his ear. ‘Chopper.’ He searched the sky.

  Tom saw a gleam of red, sun sparking off glass as the machine tooled its way from the direction of Maatsuyker, a load slung beneath. His skin smarted. Stephanie. They were leaving for home. A well of emotions threatened to spill. For weeks Tom had steeled himself, afraid he might unravel if he let thoughts of her slide in. It was the same mind game he used to get through weeks of working on the boat. But seeing Stephanie leave, the thought of Maatsuyker without her, was a severing of magnitude. Everything he knew of Stephanie, of the part of himself that had finally found the nerve to stand up to his brother, stemmed from that small island and this stretch of coast. Another wash of feelings overcame him. His steps slowed. Until a week ago this whole corner of coast was Tom’s patch. By leaving the boat he’d relinquished his rights to a place, to knowledge and skill. He couldn’t now define himself as the deckie who could trace every cove and bay in his mind, who knew the cliffs and beaches better than Frank, who recognised a storm sky and loved the night sky, who’d served an apprenticeship long enough to anticipate the changes in dawn and evening light across the seasons. This sudden pining; a pathetic kind of grief that made no sense to Tom.

  The rotor noise grew urgent, the helicopter passed by close enough that he could see floats strapped to skids, the sling load crammed with plastic boxes. Tom faced the ocean, imagining Stephanie belonging to another place, continuing on, her future mapped out along self-assured lines of navigation. He begrudged her that certainty, her privileged position in life. When she flew over she might look down upon this coast, upon tannin streams and button grass plains, see scraggy stands of paperbark and tea-tree and leatherwoods. She might register this craggy mountain range, make out stretches of the track. She’d see the crowns of trees but she wouldn’t see the twisted trunks or fallen logs cling-wrapped in moss, moist in the chill of the shadows. She wouldn’t sense Tom, or comprehend his turmoil.

  The noise of the helicopter receded. Native bees droned. Tom filled his mind with the taste of Leatherwood honey, inextricably linked to his sense of home. He felt a stab of irritation at William standing, waiting, at this meaningless track that people chose to be a slave to. Pilgrimage? Get a life, man. Tom cast him a glare. He scratched at beads of sweat running down his neck, felt a gnawing ache and put it down to hunger. From his backpack he fished the bag of chocolate William had given him. He didn’t care that he’d broken his resolve to save what was left. He filled his mouth, caught sight of William looking on, the old man’s silence at odds with the jerk of his limbs, the tremor of his hands. His whole body seemed to quiver, as if there was nothing of weight to keep him grounded. William was past it. A good gust could take him out. He must be pushing seventy.

  ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it,�
� Tom said. William gave a wounded blink. Listen to yourself, Tom, as foul-mouthed as your brother. ‘Sorry,’ Tom muttered. ‘I’m over mud.’ William nodded to move on.

  They reached Little Deadman’s Bay. Tom couldn’t see Maatsuyker. The track had taken on a different feel. He was spent. ‘Aren’t we stopping here?’

  ‘Next beach along. Forty minutes tops,’ William claimed. It took Tom, trailing behind, one hour and a half.

  The beach squeaked. The crust of sand broke beneath his weight. Tom pulled off his boots and revelled in scuffing barefoot through dry sand after kilometres of mud. Tannin water from a creek poured down to the ocean in shallow rivulets—burnt toffee, the creek bed like patterned curls of salted butter. The creek was flanked by cobbled stones warmed from the sun. Tom drank from the creek, wet his hair and face. He adjusted to this landlocked point of view. He gazed out to a sparkly ocean frilled with wavelets that rolled across the shallows. The only way Tom knew the coastline was from the vantage of the boat.

  William was naked, his torso and buttocks stark against his skinny suntanned legs. He waded thigh deep in water, oohing and aahing at the cold, splashing water at his armpits like a wren in a birdbath. Tom felt heady and odd. His flannel shirt was soaked with sweat. He thought he might throw up. He removed his beanie, unbuttoned his shirt, pulled off his T-shirt. The ocean felt sharp, the wet sand soothing on his feet. Tom’s jeans dragged off when he dived. He gathered them up, dunked them in the ocean, squeezed mud from the denim and plunged them through water with the vigour his mother used to prewash his fishing clothes. The water clouded with clay and mud. Tom felt dizzy with the effort. His shoulder was on fire. He threw his jeans up on the rocks and dived in again, savouring the cold, the feel of water on his face and streaming through his hair. He surfaced near William.

  Tom followed the old man’s gaze to the skin of his shoulder. A ragged flap, the skin pulled loose; Tom’s tattoo was open flesh, raw and inflamed.

  ‘Did someone put a knife to you?’ William was serious.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Tom didn’t. William looked at him awry. ‘It’s the truth, man. All I remember is weird stuff, dreams.’

  William inspected it. ‘It’s infected. No wonder you’re out of sorts. We need to get it seen to. Give it a good rinse in the salt water.’

  William spread the contents of his first-aid kit across the rocks, an array of bandages and strips, a worn foil sachet of capsules. ‘Get a couple of these into you. Past their best but better than a kick in the pants.’

  Antibiotics. Tom grinned. William had as much gear in his backpack as you’d find in the galley cupboard. ‘Good thing I met a scout.’

  ‘The way you look after yourself, you’re more in need of an undertaker.’

  Tom’s laugh was cut short by the swab of antiseptic that William manically dabbed with his jittery hand. Tom clenched against the pain. ‘Hey, William?’

  ‘Hey, what.’

  ‘Promise me you don’t have a suture kit you’re planning on using.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me, boy.’

  *

  They lit a fire on the beach. Tom proudly produced his last packet of pasta with creamy bacon sauce. ‘Tried this?’ William hadn’t. ‘Mate, you haven’t lived.’

  William didn’t look convinced. ‘What happened to the mighty hunter? I was led to believe we’d be tucking into fresh seafood.’

  ‘All in good time.’

  William laid out the makings for risotto. Tom could barely wait for it to cook. William added stock powder and dried herbs to rice, garlic flakes and onion, dried tomatoes, a medley of coloured curls and chips that drew up water and blossomed into zucchini, mushroom, red and green capsicum.

  The rainbow colour of the vegetables took Tom back to crunching on peas snapped from the vine, to carrot thinnings smudged with dirt, to running the big sprinkler in summer when he got home from school, spraying the greens for slugs and bugs. His mother still brewed an eye-smarting concoction from onion, garlic, chilli and soap flakes. When Tom was small it hadn’t been called organic: she’d made her own pesticide because they couldn’t afford the bought stuff.

  William shaved off slices of cheese and served himself a modest bowlful. He handed Tom the pot.

  ‘You get enough?’ Tom said.

  ‘I’m watching my figure.’

  It tasted wondrous. Better than wondrous. ‘You dried all this stuff?’

  ‘And grew a fair deal of it. The gardening keeps me out of mischief.’ William finished his meal with a mug of tea and a cocktail of tablets. ‘Don’t grow old, Tom.’

  Tom couldn’t think of a better way to ask: ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Parkinson’s, I’m told.’

  A sorry sounded lame. Tom settled on a nod.

  ‘You stick around long enough, something’s going to grab you,’ William said. He tipped his mug of tea at Tom. ‘I wish at your age I’d known the things I know now.’

  ‘What would you have done different?’

  ‘Taken a few more opportunities when they presented themselves. Pursued a certain girl when I still had the chance.’

  ‘Never too late, they say.’

  ‘On the contrary.’ William didn’t expand.

  William lived on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, had a stake in a community garden with others in his neighbourhood. The old man could put away his share of tea. He poured himself another cup and took a big slurp. ‘Haah.’ Tom held an image of his mother’s swollen feet rising like scones above the rim of her work shoes. She’d give that same satisfying Haah when she prised them loose and stepped into worn-down slippers. She’d take off her glasses and rub her eyes and listen to Tom’s prattle as she chopped the things for dinner. She’d suddenly halt. Will you look at you? She’d rinse her hands and wipe them down her apron—the touch of damp fingers combing his sticking-up hair as dreamy as their aroma of freshly chopped onion. Have you done your homework, Tom? He’d sag. He’d bump against her. The best kind of homework was gathering vegetable seeds, spreading them out like seashells, drying and storing them for next year.

  The night was still, the sky enormous. A great swathe of constellations glittered through the sky, brighter, stronger as darkness deepened, like someone winding up the volume. The fire felt warm. Tom’s belly was taut with food. He’d taken paracetamol and the pain of his shoulder had eased. He blinked to keep awake.

  ‘How about we stay put tomorrow?’ William said. ‘I don’t know about you but I could do with a bit of resting up.’

  It was for Tom’s benefit, not William’s. ‘I haven’t much food to share,’ Tom said. ‘A few Iced VoVos.’

  ‘I expect we’ll make do,’ William said. His mother’s favourite saying. A rest day sounded good to Tom. ‘Who’s Frank?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Up there,’ William nodded to the mountain. ‘In your delirium you called me Frank.’

  ‘I wasn’t delirious.’

  ‘Might, you were off your bloody rocker.’

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

  ‘It’s a matter of fact. You were in a bad way. Thought you were either dead or on the drugs.’

  ‘Nah.’ The ocean hummed. Breeze flounced the skirts of she-oaks. ‘Frank’s my brother. I work—used to work—on his cray boat.’

  ‘You liked the fishing?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘One door closes,’ William said.

  ‘It’s the door that needs to open that’s my problem.’

  ‘Come up our way. Mountains, rivers, beaches, farms. Best climate in Australia.’

  ‘Any mud up your way?’

  William smiled. ‘Streets are sprinkled with fairy dust. Tracks are lined with gold.’

  ‘You always been there?’

  ‘Came out from Holland in the seventies. Settled near Laurieton. Nice a place as you could find.’

  William reminded Tom of Peter Cundall from the TV gardening show—the old codger’s enthusiasm fuelling his own, ga
rdening tips so timely that each Sunday night of Tom’s growing up, Peter Cundall spoke directly to him. Tom had gone to see him at the Hobart Show. He’d waited until all the other people had left before stepping forward to ask his questions. The old man had given Tom his first proper lesson in soil. He’d spoken to Tom man-to-man. The right kind of compost, the right pH, adding nitrogen, rotating crops, drainage and aeration. Tom did have skills. He did have things to offer.

  ‘You have family?’ William said. ‘Other than Frank?’

  ‘Just Mum.’ Tom gathered the dinner things to rinse in the stream. ‘Hey, William?’

  ‘Hey, what.’

  ‘I owe you.’

  ‘You owe me nothing, boy-o. One day you do the same for some other scruff.’

  *

  The flotsam along the shoreline changed from buoys and fishing rope to domestic rubbish, the remains of a television, beer bottles, toys, unpaired rubber thongs. They passed two groups of hikers walking east to west, raucous with chatter, their gear pristine.

  Wilderness eased to an undulating track free of mud, to mountain peppers laden with red berries, to sheltered beaches and sweeping views, to long easy stretches of boardwalk. Tom walked without having to study every step; he looked around thinking, This is good, a wedge-tailed eagle circled above.

  An old misshapen conifer, wooden shacks, a white painted bridge across a lazy creek. The South Coast Track ended and a gravel road began.

  Tom used the public toilet and caught sight of his wild bushman reflection in the mirror. Hardened and coarse: he bore the look of Frank. His stubble had grown to a charcoal beard, his hair looked grimy. He felt older, hollow-eyed, his underarms stank. He’d lost a heap of weight; William had given him a length of cord to thread through his belt loops to stop his jeans sliding to his ankles.

  William had the bus timetable already figured out. When Tom followed him onto the coach and pulled out a wallet stuffed with notes, he felt the driver’s wariness. He paid his fare to Hobart and watched the way the driver counted out the change with nervous concentration. None of the easy friendliness he afforded others on the coach.