When the Singing Stops

by Di Morrissey

  Madi was about to make a rude retort but the ground looked deceptive. She prodded a covering of dried leaves between two rocks, where she planned to step, to take her weight and boost herself upwards. The stick disappeared through the leaves into thin air—a hidden crevice with a flimsy cover could have meant a broken ankle. She steadied her pace and decided to pay more attention.

  Finally the climb lessened and the walking levelled out. Connor tapped Madi on the shoulder. ‘Listen.’ Above the abuse of disturbed birds she heard a low drone, like an incoming plane.

  She turned around to Connor, noting his flushed face and shortness of breath. She was glad that with the rivulets of perspiration between her breasts and the weight of her backpack and pulled calf muscles, she was not alone in her suffering. But that was soon forgotten as the steady drone registered. ‘It’s the falls,’ she whispered. ‘We’re getting close.’ With renewed energy she strode to where the rest of the group was sitting and catching their breath.

  ‘Johnson’s Peak is where we have to get to, down this way,’ said John.

  They walked through slightly open country with water everywhere, running between the rocks and dripping from trees. They passed intriguing plants and three-metre-high bromeliads with bizarre spiky flowers. Suddenly Madi glanced down and gasped in delight, avoiding stepping on an exquisite cluster of wild orchids.

  They ducked under an overhang of rock where a small dry cave offered shelter to animals. Then just a few clambering steps and they emerged into the open onto a big flat rock. The sound of the falls was deafening. They had arrived.

  Madi closed her eyes and turned her back to the sound. Shrugging off her backpack, she dropped it, and slowly turned around to face the falls.

  She opened her eyes.

  And there it was before her, a frontal view so close that she was overwhelmed by the realisation that all those millions of litres of water from the Potaro River were melting over the edge to the far away depths of the gorge. She thought she would be prepared for the sight she’d seen on postcards. But the grand scale, the momentum and gravity with which nature had created this spectacle with no outside influence was breathtaking. There was no indecision in the water’s course, no wavering of the solid volume of river that slid effortlessly over the lip of the falls to crash into oblivion.

  This was God’s creation, but for what cause was this geological manifestation? The answer was too difficult to comprehend while her eyes were held by the sheer splendour and magnificence of it.

  Connor’s hand touched her shoulder, and Madi reached up, squeezed his fingers and felt a wave of gratitude that he was there to share this unique experience with her.

  ‘Makes you feel pretty insignificant, doesn’t it?’ he murmured in her ear.

  ‘No. It makes me feel important because we are here and we can share this and realise together how wonderful nature is. I feel privileged,’ said Madi firmly.

  ‘Well, it’s nature’s five-star standard up here. This is pretty amazing,’ declared Connor. ‘No architect, landscaper or technocrat could have conceived or created this. It’s the rawness of it, the sheer simplicity that knocks you.’

  ‘It’s not a monument . . . yet it’s a symbol. I wish I understood more why I feel the way I do,’ said Madi.

  The rest of the group were grinning at each other, sharing the delight of confronting this awesome sight.

  ‘Photo time,’ said Sharee, delving for her camera.

  Madi suddenly turned to Connor. ‘The frog. The gold frogs—I must see them.’

  She gripped Connor’s hand. ‘Remember last night I told you about Pieter? The ethnobotanist? He said if the gold frogs disappear, it will be a sign the planet is dying.’

  ‘Well, that sounds a bit extreme. Sounds a bit of a radical greenie . . . they’re always forecasting the end of the world is around the corner.’

  ‘But Connor, we have to heed these little omens. You can’t just go blindly forward, tramping over everything, assuming all will be well. We’ve already messed up so much of the environment. When you come to a place like this it makes you realise how beautiful the world can be. That the songs of little gold frogs are important.’ She spoke quietly but with great intensity. He held back the flippant remark that had sprung to his lips. He didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm and she was right, places like this were rare and special.

  He pointed to the far edge of the flat rock that faced the falls. The gorge dropped away and on the edge of the rock were clumps of small waxy green bromeliads. Madi hurried to these as the group photographed each other with the falls as a backdrop. Connor crossed his fingers that the little frogs she seemed so keen about were actually there.

  Cautiously Madi parted the fat succulent leaves, peering down the length of their spiky arms to the heart of the plant where a puddle of water had collected. The leaves were wet and looked slimy but they felt smooth and cool and she was reminded of snake skin. She detected a slight movement and looked closer. And there, balancing and clinging to the base of a leaf was a tiny flash of gold. As her eyes focused, Madi saw clearly the almost blinding glitter of the small frog. Sucker toes spread from each foot grasping the leaf. Its head tilted as if it was listening to her breathing. An eyelid blinked. ‘Hello, little frog,’ said Madi softly. ‘I’ve come a long way to see you.’ The frog didn’t move, and Madi parted several other leaves in the same bromeliad before she found its identical mate—gilt-dipped, as shiny bright as new gold, no longer than her thumb.

  She felt Connor’s breath on her neck and she moved her head as she held the leaves apart so he could see the brilliant little creature.

  ‘What do you suppose would happen if you kissed your frog prince?’ he asked.

  ‘Trust you to think of that,’ she admonished him.

  ‘They’re pretty amazing though,’ he admitted.

  The rest of them came over and glanced at the frog and made admiring noises, but were more interested in moving on to the crest of the falls.

  ‘Connor, do you realise how significant these are?’ said Madi. ‘These particular golden frogs aren’t found anywhere else on the planet, just here in these plants in this place. It’s like they are some sort of guardian angel.’

  ‘And you say the day they aren’t here we’re in deep shit?’

  ‘Sort of. Pieter said the Amerindians have a more poetic way of putting it.’

  ‘In Australia there are dozens of theories about why the frog populations have decreased, from removal of their habitats to the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain and pesticides washing into the rivers,’ said Connor.

  ‘How do you know that? I didn’t think such things would interest you.’ Madi sounded pleased.

  ‘I haven’t lived in the rarefied corporate atmosphere or in Third World backwaters all my life. At home in Perth we had a green frog that lived in our letterbox for years. Mum used to make sure the birdbath next to it was always filled with rainwater. I wonder how many green frogs still live in the city suburbs to delight young boys and scare the girls?’

  Madi kissed the tip of his nose. ‘Connor, that story is very endearing. I’m more impressed to know you cared for a little green frog, than the fact you talked the IFO into funding an agricultural water project in Africa.’

  ‘Hey come on, you guys, let’s make for the headwater. You can see it fall straight to the bottom,’ Ann called.

  ‘I’ll be there in a tick.’ Madi was delving into the pocket of her backpack and Connor watched her curiously.

  From it she drew out the small wooden frog she’d bought with Lester from his artist friend in Georgetown. It was roughly carved but it still bore a striking resemblance to the frog they’d just seen.

  ‘Where’d you get that?’ asked Connor. ‘I didn’t know you were a froggy fan.’

  ‘I’m not. I mean I don’t despise them or anything. I’ve never had a pet frog. But when I saw this it just . . . appealed to me.’

  Connor looked at it, turned it over and then gave it
back to her. ‘It’s nice to have a lucky talisman.’ Giving a lopsided grin he reached into his pocket and drew out a beige stone banded in even rings of chocolate brown.

  That’s beautiful,’ declared Madi. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘It’s a zebra stone from Western Australia. My grandfather gave it to me. He picked it up in the Kimberley, I think. He was a bit of an amateur geologist. Got me interested in minerals and collecting bits of rock. Taught me to look under my feet and above my head. We used to go camping and from him I learnt rudimentary astronomy. He was a terrific man. Simple, down to earth, never went to a university but incredibly wise in his way.’

  Madi handed the smooth stone back to him and decided she liked this man who’d kept a pet frog and walked about with a lucky stone from his granddad.

  Connor and Madi caught up with the rest of the group as they wove through the wet track, ducking under rock overhangs and threading their way past exotic flora. ‘My gosh, look at the size of that. Quick, Connor, take my photo!’ exclaimed Madi.

  She stood beneath a five-metre bromeliad. ‘I have one with a spiky pink flower in a pot in my garden but it’s just kind of small and clumpy. How old do you suppose this one is?’

  ‘Yonks. I couldn’t say. You look cute though.’ Connor clicked the shutter.

  In twenty minutes they had curved around to the actual top of the falls. Here the broad Potaro River slithered past small jutting boulders and clumps of razor grass to the unexpected drop over the great bite from the cliff face that was the ragged edge of the falls. The golden water surged over the lip in white foaming waves that fell two hundred and twenty-six metres.

  ‘Watch a section of water come down the river and over the edge and try to follow it down, then you get an idea of the power and speed,’ said John.

  Mist drifted up from the gorge obscuring the base of the falls. The sheer weight of the water crashing below obscured its actual landing. They were standing on the left-hand side of the falls and each of the men lay down and hung over the edge, looking below into the gorge.

  Sharee shook her head. ‘I’m not doing that. What about you, Madi?’

  She still couldn’t drag her eyes away from the immense swaying curtain of water. Then as she stared, a rainbow appeared, melting out of the mist to arch from halfway down the falls back up to the river behind. At the same time a cloud of small, black swifts, the sharp-winged birds that roost behind the falls, darted out and, swept by the updraught, sailed and soared in formation before sweeping across the rainbow to disappear into the forest.

  Tears sprang to Madi’s eyes at the sheer magnificence of it.

  ‘Awesome, eh?’ murmured Connor beside her. She squeezed his hand. ‘Come and peer over the edge, it’s quite a sight.’

  She lay on the rock and Connor held her ankles, but the drop, the roar of water, the spray on her face was too overwhelming, and she got to her feet.

  ‘There’s a little ledge you can stand on, right by the drop, makes a great photo,’ said Ann.

  ‘You know what’s amazing too,’ commented Connor. ‘There are no touristy things—like safety rails, warning signs, protective barriers. It’s utterly natural, wild, like it’s always been.’

  They paddled in pools at the edge of the Potaro, throwing in sticks and watching them sail over the edge. They took photos, and they sat and simply looked at it. Every moment it changed. ‘When no one messes with nature, perfection is what Mother Earth does best. No human being could create something as beautiful as this,’ said Madi thoughtfully.

  It was getting close to lunchtime and John suddenly commented, ‘You know what it looks like?’ They all turned to him as he studied the falls.

  ‘Beer. It looks like the world’s biggest beer fountain.’

  ‘John! You’re impossible,’ declared Ann.

  ‘A cold beer would go down well,’ sighed Connor.

  ‘It’s only an hour’s walk to the pork-knockers’ village,’ said John, a gleam in his eye.

  The men were on their feet, picking up their backpacks and tying on shoes. ‘It’ll make a longer walk back down, but worth it, I maintain,’ said John.

  ‘And think of the icy rum punch sitting in that old fridge back at the Bells’ house.’

  ‘Oh, Gawd, the kerosene! That fixes it, we have to go to the village.’

  They called to the boat boy who was sitting in the shade, eating a piece of fruit Ann had given him. ‘Where’s the kero drum?’

  The teenager gave the thumbs up and pointed behind him.

  ‘Right, let’s go.’

  Madi hung back. ‘Do we come back this way?’

  ‘No, there’s a shorter track from the village that meets the track we came up,’ answered Ann. ‘Why?’ she asked, seeing the expression on Madi’s face.

  ‘Well, after what Pieter told me, I thought I’d like to stay up here and see the sunset and sunrise.’

  ‘On your own?’ asked Sharee.

  ‘Why didn’t you say so? We could have all arranged to do that, I guess,’ said John, thinking of the cool drinks and swim waiting back at the Bells’ house.

  ‘Did you come prepared?’ asked Connor.

  ‘Sort of,’ she said, patting her backpack.

  ‘Good. So did I.’ He grinned at her. ‘I had a feeling you might be hard to drag away. I’ll stay with you. It’d better be worth stale sandwiches and warm water.’

  ‘Oh, Connor.’ She hugged him.

  Ann picked up her pack. ‘You’ll probably be able to buy food at the village. Come on then.’

  They passed a deserted guesthouse which John said had been built for former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and seldom used since because few dignitaries roughed it overnight at the falls. An hour’s visit and they would fly back to Georgetown by late afternoon.

  It was a hot walk to the village, the girls chatting quietly, the men half listening to the girltalk and thinking of the welcome beer waiting for them. ‘What if they’ve run out?’ said John.

  ‘Don’t even think it,’ said Connor.

  Behind them the Amerindian boy swung the empty drum, singing a folk song to himself. To Madi the unfamiliar dialect and rhythm seemed as much a part of their surroundings as the strange plants and trees and the feeling of remoteness, yet all was strangely comfortable and connected. Was it because, like Gwen, she felt herself drawn into this country? As if following her train of thought Connor suddenly asked, ‘Did your friend Gwen climb Kaieteur?’

  ‘I don’t believe so. She didn’t write about it. She just went after diamonds up the Mazaruni River.’

  ‘No more readings from Gwen’s book then?’ asked Viti.

  ‘Did she find diamonds?’ asked Sharee.

  ‘Yes. But just when things were looking up she received a message sent upriver and she rushed off to New York. We don’t know why she went to New York. She doesn’t reveal anything of her personal life. It’s very frustrating. I’d love to know more about her.’

  ‘You’ll have to go to Ballarat where she was born and try to find out,’ said Connor.

  ‘Was she married?’ asked Ann, who was beginning to count Gwen as an invisible guest among them. ‘Maybe she had to go back to see the old man.’

  ‘What husband would let his wife go off into the wilds in those days?’ asked John.

  ‘There’ve been women adventurers who have done that, even disguising themselves as men in the 1800s,’ said Madi.

  ‘Don’t get her going. Women adventurers are her hobby,’ grinned Connor.

  ‘So what’s Gwen’s story?’ asked Viti. The girls had to admit they were becoming intrigued with the romantic idea of attractive, well-to-do Miss Gwendoline Richardson heading out from Australia and ending up panning for diamonds on the Mazaruni in Guyana in the 1920s.

  ‘The British Guiana Government wouldn’t give a woman alone a permit to take an expedition upriver,’ Madi explained. ‘So Gwen fell in with a Brit—a Major Blake—who had a holding up there, and he agreed t
o lease her a portion and act as her sponsor. But it was Gwen’s show all the way.’

  ‘Chauvinistic bastards. Hope she made a fortune,’ said Ann.

  ‘Was there any hanky-panky with the major?’ asked John.

  ‘Well, she didn’t write about that. It all seemed very above board. Once or twice she pays him a compliment about his ingenuity in saving them from a sticky situation. But Gwen could manage—and did—quite well on her own. She was the expedition leader.’

  ‘Oh God, is that a mirage or do you see it too?’ said Connor, stopping in his tracks. They all stared ahead and burst out laughing. Across a sandy clearing stood a small thatched hut. On top of its roof was erected a fading, bent tin sign in red and yellow—BANKS BEER. Beside the hut, which served as the local store, was a rough thatched shelter over wooden tables where several men were sitting, watching their approach. A few shanty shacks formed a sort of makeshift main ‘street’.

  ‘Looks like the wild west in miniature,’ said Connor, laughing.

  The bottles of beer were cold enough and four times the price in Georgetown, but no one argued. They joined the pork-knockers under the shelter and exchanged greetings. The men, young and old, dark-skinned and unshaven, smiled at them but there was a wariness that was not encouraging.

  John explained they’d climbed up and the men nodded. ‘We do it if we have to. Most times we fly up. Strip’s back there.’ They pointed to a distant cleared stretch of dirt.

  ‘So you look for diamonds up here?’ asked Viti. ‘Are there lots in the river?’ Her sweet naivete was disarming. John and Ann knew the men didn’t discuss their finds—even with each other. Buyers and agents flew in to buy from the pork-knockers. Some of the men preferred to sell their finds down in Georgetown. But there they ran the risk of blowing their profit on the city’s nightlife. There was little to spend their money on up here except rum, beer and card games.

  Madi was intrigued and began asking how they went about dredging and what the diamonds looked like. ‘I mean, are they hard to see, like gold?’ She remembered a gold-panning weekend with her parents at Hill End in New South Wales, which had been very frustrating to an eleven-year-old. Matthew had found the only little nugget.