Wildlight

by Robyn Mundy

  *

  Steph punches numbers on her phone. ‘It’s not too late if I call by now?’

  She has the address on the card, but dutifully scrawls down Annie’s directions. ‘Town side of the Camden River,’ Annie says. ‘One click on from Tom’s. Hang a left as soon as you cross the bridge.’

  Steph drives south, glad to leave the highway for meandering roads through tall timber forest, rolling hills of pasture.

  She drives over a rise that looks down upon a bend of the river, a large array of greenhouses. She slows the car, pulls off to the gravel shoulder.

  Steph stands against the padlocked gate. Acres of steel framework, multi-spanned greenhouses encased in heavy plastic. The leap between the boy back then and this. She hadn’t pictured anything as grand. A rusted mailbox, belonging to a different time, sits nailed to a post beside the gate. T. L. FORREST punched from tin. Why would such a simple rustic thing seize her with emotion? Steph touches the roughened surface of the letters.

  She turns to leave before anyone should catch her, like some skittish animal slinking off into the night. She changes her mind and pulls her sketchbook from her bag. She sits in the passenger seat and draws an outline at the corner of the page, adds a dotted beam of light. She writes the date. Dear Tom. A line thrown out.

  Seeing this old tin box with your name brought to mind a plaque I made when Mum and Dad and I left Maatsuyker, all those years ago. Remember the Lighthouse Tree? (Remember the leeches!) I expect the plaque is still nailed to that tree, rusting with age like all the keepers’ names and dates of service that surround it, only this was a tribute to the memory of your life. If that makes no sense, too mixed-up for words, perhaps you will begin to understand my reaction to discover you here, alive and well.

  I’ve been in two minds about whether to contact you. I do not wish to intrude on your life, or cause you any problems. This afternoon I stood on the balcony of Smoky Cape Lighthouse and thought about Maatsuyker, how that special place, that fragile time, shaped the person I’ve become. I saw a ruffling in the water, a long way out. It took a few moments to even find it again and to realise the movement was a person, completely on their own, swimming across the bay. Surely the worst decision would be to catch sight of someone after all this time and then to turn away.

  I imagine a vastness of ocean between that long-ago time and the lives we lead now, but should you ever feel inclined to talk, without expectation or obligation, my contact is below.

  Whichever path you take, whatever you do, I wish you love and joy.

  In friendship,

  Your Stephanie

  *

  Dusk when Tom walks the beach naked, the air no longer warm. He finds his jeans snagged on a rock, his shirt and underwear floating in a tidal pool. All but one snap is ripped from his shirt. His body trembles as he dresses. Zulu stands dripping on the sand, a paroxysm of shivering, too spent to shake down her coat. Tom gathers his boots, carries his dog in his arms. He finds an old towel behind the car seat and rubs her down as best he can. ‘In the front. There we go.’

  She sits with her legs and bottom wedged against his leg, his hand on her rump, the heater slowly pumping warmth into the cab. The light will soon be gone, the road out slow and corrugated, the hour when a kangaroo might leap out from the shadows. He tells himself to stay awake.

  He slows at a movement, a person at the edge of the road. Zulu stands to look. Young Dreadlocks from the car park, a thumb stuck out in last hopes of a ride. It’s miles to the highway. Zulu comes alive. She whimpers. ‘No,’ he tells his dog. She whines, she howls through the open gap of window. ‘For fuck’s sake, Zulu.’ Tom slows the car. He winds down the window. He waits for the guy to saunter to the car. ‘Here comes lightning,’ he mutters to his dog. ‘You right, matey? Needing a lift?’

  ‘Where you headed?’

  ‘South.’

  The boy hesitates, wary, looks him up and down as if he, Tom, were the suspect party.

  ‘Anywhere in Port would be good.’

  Anyweir. A Kiwi. Matted hair as ratty as his pack. ‘Get in if you’re getting in. Move over, girl.’ Tom catches himself. Surrendering his life to the ocean one minute, helping some scruffball the next. He’s always been weird.

  Zulu issues a grin. And you? Tom would very much like to tell her. You’re a piss weak judge of character. They start up, the cab a stink of wet dog, heated air, the kid’s unwashed body. Zulu presses against the boy’s side, his arm finds its way around her neck, the rank odour of his armpits perfume to her nose. A tackle box of piercings through his nose and ears. The kid hardly looks seventeen.

  ‘Travelling light,’ Tom says for something to say. All quiet on the Western Front. ‘Long way from home,’ he tries again. ‘What brings you up this way?’

  The kid gives him a sideways look like he’s been asked a hundred times before. ‘Looking after my own business.’

  Ungrateful little shit. ‘Don’t mind me,’ Tom says. ‘I’m just the schmuck helping you out.’

  At least the kid has the decency to look contrite. ‘Sorry. I’m looking for work. Heard it was a cool place.’

  ‘You could do worse.’

  The ute bumps across corrugations. Tom sits upright, stiff-backed, wincing from a crosshatch of raw wounds slashed across his side and back.

  The kid eyes him. ‘Rough day?’

  ‘You could say that.’ Tom catches his reflection in the mirror. Christ. Hair stiff with salt, fierce scratches down his chin and throat. His collar looks black with blood.

  ‘You have a wipe-out on the reef?’

  ‘Nup.’ Tom shakes his head. ‘An old score that needed settling.’

  ‘Cripes,’ the boy says. ‘Who won?’

  Tom gives a smile. ‘More of a truce.’ He turns down the heater. ‘What kind of work you after?’

  ‘Fruit picking, farm work. I can turn my hand to anything.’

  ‘A man of many talents.’

  ‘Enough to get by.’ The boy scowls, wary that he’s being mocked. ‘Never been afraid of hard work. Ask anyone back home.’

  Finally the kid dozes. Zulu’s head stays slumped on his lap, his dog twitching in her sleep. The vehicle rumbles through the night, the high beam a ghostly arc through branches of the trees.

  Tom rubs at his shoulder, a remnant fluke of anchor ragged on his skin. Once he claimed he’d never be entwined with anyone again, convinced that one more setback would knock him down for good. He was a kid back then, hardly older than this boy, still finding who he was and floundering to free himself of a bad situation. A brave kid, he turned out to be, a decent man who somehow found his way.

  Gravel road gives way to bitumen, darkness to an orange glow of streetlights. The Hilux idles at the junction. The boy sleeps on. Tom lowers his window, draws in the quiet cool of night, the ocean air a balm upon his skin. He flicks the indicator, turns south onto the highway. Home.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Maatsuyker Island is home to Australia’s most southerly light station, the last in Australia to have been de-manned. While the grand old lighthouse still stands, its structure is being ravaged by weather that gives the Roaring Forties its title. If you wish to learn more about Maatsuyker Island, and the valiant efforts to save the lighthouse, please visit:

  www.facebook.com/groups/FriendsOfMaatsuykerIsland

  or email: wildcaremaatsuyker@gmail.com

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you for choosing Wildlight to read and for supporting Australian literature.

  I am indebted to the Australia Council for the Arts for a grant to research and write the early stages of Wildlight. As significant as the grant’s practical support was the affirmation that the project was worth backing.

  To the former Watermark Literary Society, and Varuna, the Writers House, thank you for a marvellous writing residency that catapulted this project into being. I am indebted to writing guide Ian Templeman AM for sage direction and friendship; to the Watermark Committee led by Elaine va
n Kempen and deserving of the collective title The Goddesses; and to Peta Simmons, Gordon Bennett and Tanya Newman of Bennett Steel for their generous hospitality at Camden Haven. The Varuna residency was further enriched by evening talks and readings with fellow writers.

  Chapters of Wildlight were written during a postdoctoral fellowship and I am most grateful to Edith Cowan University South West and to retired Dean Robert Irvine OAM.

  I could not have navigated this island story without two crucial life experiences. The first was living and working at Maatsuyker Island, with my partner Gary, as volunteer caretakers and weather observers. My thanks go to Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania, who manage the role in conjunction with Hobart’s Bureau of Meteorology, and the tireless efforts of Friends of Maatsuyker Island. My appreciation extends to ‘Club Mud’ hiking companion Tony Marshall for the second experience of walking the South Coast Track with me and for being blown over at the top of the Ironbounds.

  Along the way, many generously shared knowledge, expertise and experiences. Thank you, Grant and Sallie Brockman, Marina Campbell, Susan Donovan, Gwen Egg, Greg Finlay, Michael Garner, Pip Gowen, Elizabeth Mavrick, Lilly McCallum, Charles Morgan, Margaret Mortimer, Claudia Samson, Anthony Sarks of Ricardoes Tomatoes & Strawberries, Vicki Samuel, John Sansom, Jenny Scott, and Tacoma’s Museum of Glass Hot Shop. Thank you, Ailsa Fergusson, for the lighthouse sketch that appears in the novel.

  For invaluable feedback on manuscript drafts my sincere gratitude goes to Amanda Curtin, Lynne Leonhardt, Richard Rossiter, Nicole Sinclair and Annabel Smith. Thanks also to Gus Henderson and Ali Jarvey.

  To weigh a book in your hands and share a story with readers is a privilege for any writer. I am indebted to literary agent Fran Moore (with a hug to Alasdair McGregor), Picador publisher Alex Craig, and the fabulous team at Pan Macmillan: editors Julia Stiles and Libby Turner, and cover designer Josh Durham.

  Gary Miller: your zing for adventure and love of nature gladden my heart.

  Robyn Mundy

  About Robyn Mundy

  Robyn Mundy’s writing speaks to her fascination with wild places and their sway on human lives. In the preliminary stage of writing Wildlight, she and her partner spent four months living and working alone on Maatsuyker Island as volunteer caretakers and weather observers. Robyn has summered and over-wintered at Australian Antarctic stations, working as a field assistant on science research projects. She works seasonally as an Assistant Expedition Leader on ship-based tours to the Antarctic, Arctic and other remote locales. At home in Tasmania, Robyn writes and teaches writing. Visit her website at: writingthewild.net

  Also by Robyn Mundy

  Also by Robyn Mundy

  The Nature of Ice

  Epic Adventure: Epic Voyages

  (co-author with Nigel Rigby)

  First published 2016 in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000

  Copyright © Robyn Mundy 2016

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available

  from the National Library of Australia

  http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  EPUB format: 9781743549186

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Cover design: Design by Committee

  Cover images: StockPhotosArt/Bigstock

  createsima/freeimages

  This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

  The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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