‘Moving on feels like forgetting Connor,’ she’d said. ‘And I’m not going to do that.’
The kids began a yelling match. ‘I’m not sitting in the back with all those stupid toys.’ Jake shouldered his bag and headed for the car.
‘Mum,’ said Abbey, ‘stop him.’
Kim ventured out to the driveway, shielding her eyes from the blinding sun. It was unusually hot for an October morning. Haze shimmied over the concrete and baking bitumen beyond. The doors of their old blue station wagon were open, with Jake already in the front seat. He was chewing gum and listening to his iPod though headphones. Time to go before he changed his mind or cooked in the heat.
Kim went into the lounge room, where a small urn stood on the mantelpiece. It had a smooth silver lid with a paw-print design. All that was left of Scout. How could that be? She still didn’t understand how a dog or a person could simply be gone. Here one moment, and a pile of ash the next.
At least she knew what had happened to Scout, the details of his death. It was different with Connor. He’d died so far way, in a land unimaginably strange, unimaginably hostile. She had only the sketchiest details – an ambush along some remote track. Kim held the little urn to her heart and closed her eyes. Connor would want Scout to return to Journey’s End. It felt good to be able to do something for him again.
CHAPTER 3
It was a long drive to Journey’s End. Longer than Kim remembered, and the afternoon sun already hung low in the sky. They’d done the last two-hour stretch without a break. Abbey woke up in the back. ‘Are we there yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Are we nearly there?’
Kim negotiated a particularly hair-raising hairpin bend and wished she knew how to answer Abbey’s question. The truth was, they were lost. She hadn’t been to the farm for ages, and back then Connor had done the driving. The GPS was useless. It kept sending her down no-through roads or suggesting she slam into soaring embankments or drive over cliffs. She hadn’t thought to bring a map, and her phone had lost reception.
‘I need to go to the toilet,’ said Abbey.
Hard to hear her over the engine. It was running rough. ‘You’ll have to wait,’ said Kim. The infuriatingly calm GPS voice was giving directions again. In five kilometres turn left into Bangalow Road. Maybe this time, the turn-off would be where it was supposed to be.
Abbey tapped Kim on the shoulder. ‘I can’t wait.’
A red light lit up on the dashboard. Damn, what did that mean? Kim was no mechanic, and the car was overdue for a service.
There weren’t many places wide enough to pull off the narrow gravel road. At last she found the entrance to a rough track and stopped the car. To their left, tree ferns rose up the sheer hillside. To their right, the ground plunged away to a forested valley. At least it gave them a chance to stretch their legs.
Abbey pouted. ‘I need a proper toilet.’
‘Sorry. You’ll have to go behind a tree.’
So much cooler here, the burning Sydney streets far behind them. Abbey mooched off and Kim trailed after her. This was rainforest. Buttressed trunks towered into the blue, dominating the canopy. Broad leaves and matted limbs meshed overhead, hiding the sun. Black booyong. Scatterings of brush box and tallowwood. And, look, a silver quandong with masses of iridescent blue berries. They hung in colourful contrast to the fresh green foliage and crimson older leaves. Kim turned seed-collector, scouring the forest floor for clusters of fallen fruit.
Abbey emerged from behind a pepper bush, and examined the berries. ‘Those are pretty. Can you eat them?’
‘They’re not poisonous, but I don’t know how edible they are.’ Kim took a nibble and pulled a face. ‘No. Let’s take them home as souvenirs.’
When they got back to the car, Kim caught her breath. Jake wasn’t alone. He was out of the car and a man stood beside him, hat in hand. Mid-thirties. Tall, very tall, with penetrating, coffee-coloured eyes and a dark complexion. A threadbare T-shirt showed off his powerful build, and a swathe of jet hair fell over his forehead. A scar ran down one cheek. He looked a little wild.
‘You are having trouble?’ he asked. ‘With your car?’
His voice was deep and low, with a foreign inflection she didn’t recognise. She wasn’t good with accents. Kim moved between Jake and the stranger. ‘No, we just stopped to . . . to collect these.’ She held out the berries.
His eyes flicked from the fruit to her face with unsettling swiftness. ‘They are sour. Better to leave them for the bats and bower birds.’
Jake looked up. ‘Bats?’ It was the first time he’d shown an interest in anything all day.
‘Flying foxes,’ said the stranger. ‘They have babies at this time of year, and are hungry.’
‘Baby bats?’ said Abbey. ‘They sound cute. Can you show me?’ She reached for the stranger’s hand.
Kim snatched her daughter away. Alarm swept over her, and she tried to argue it away. ‘We need to get going.’ Kim put a protective arm around Abbey’s shoulder. ‘Kids, get in.’ Kim climbed behind the wheel and wound down the window. ‘Jake, I said get in.’ He shrugged and for once did as he was told.
The car turned over, once, twice, then stalled. She tried again. It shuddered and shook. She switched off the engine. Damn. What did that light on the dash mean? She fumbled in the glove box for the manual.
The stranger appeared at the window and Kim’s hands gripped the wheel tighter. ‘Your radiator is leaking,’ he said. ‘You must not drive.’
They climbed from the car. He pointed to where a slimy green fluid was pooling on the ground.
‘Can you fix it?’ asked Jake.
‘Yes, at least for now. Give me your chewing gum.’
Jake grinned, and fished the gum from his mouth.
‘Yuck,’ said Abbey, but seemed fascinated just the same.
The man popped the hood without asking. Kim wanted to say, Thanks, but no thanks, and ring the auto club. She tried her phone again, moving around, seeking reception. When she stood in the middle of the road, one bar lit up. Hastily she dialled the NRMA. ‘Hello?’ The call dropped out.
Kim stood very still, mindful of her surroundings. A breeze sprang up, tossing the treetops. The canopy came alive with its swishing murmur. A crow’s mournful ark ark aaaaarrrrk sounded in the distance. She tried her phone again. Nothing.
‘Mum?’ called Jake. ‘Come and look at this. He’s found a hole.’
Kim hurried back to the car, trying to put her misgivings about the stranger aside. Without his help, they weren’t going anywhere.
The man emerged from under the bonnet and straightened. Strength showed in the curve of his spine and the set of his shoulders. He fixed her with dark, unreadable eyes. ‘Do you have far to go?’
‘No.’ She was unwilling to be specific. ‘Not far.’
The man dropped the hood and wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘That should hold you. I’ll fetch some water.’ He walked down the track and was swallowed by forest. Ferns by the side of the road shivered and shook as he left. The wind? Kim tried to pull herself together, but questions crowded her mind. Just where did he expect to collect water from? And what was he doing out here anyway?
Ten minutes later, he returned with a jerry can and filled the radiator. ‘Try it now.’ She turned the key. The engine sputtered, then roared to life. ‘I’ve left the cap loose so the gum won’t blow out,’ he said. ‘It needs a proper repair.’
‘Is there a mechanic in Tingo?’
‘Old Charlie, but he charges a fortune. You’d be better off going to Wingham.’
‘Wingham,’ said Kim. ‘Right, thank you. I was wondering . . . do you know Bangalow Road?’
‘You and your family – you are perhaps lost?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I just thought we would have reached the turn-off by now.’
‘It’s easy to lose your bearings in these mountains,’ he said. ‘You don’t have far to go. It’s next on your left.’
Thank goodness. She could find her way from the turn-off. Kim managed a smile as the kids piled into the car. They wound down their windows and leaned out to wave goodbye. A howling sounded from the forest.
‘What’s that?’ asked Jake.
‘Just the wind in the trees.’
‘That man was nice, wasn’t he?’ said Abbey. ‘And so clever. To fix the car with Jake’s chewing gum like that.’
‘Yes,’ said Kim. ‘Very clever.’ She sped up, anxious to put some distance between them and the man and the howling forest. In two kilometres turn left into Bangalow Road. Not far now. She took the corner too fast, wheels skidding on gravel. That stand of lilly pilly on the left looked familiar. She knew where she was.
Five minutes later they turned into a rutted driveway, marked by a milk-can letterbox and a fading sign hanging precariously on a tree. You could hardly read the words – Journey’s End.
‘Is this it?’ asked Jake.
‘Don’t you remember? You’ve been here before.’
‘That was years ago. How old was I?’
Years ago. Really? It didn’t seem so long since they’d spent that last summer holiday here: when Jake was nine, and their future bright, and their family still intact.
The wind almost blew her off her feet as she got out to open the gate. It lay off its hinges and Kim struggled to drag it aside. She reached up to touch the sign, to trace the bleached words with a forefinger. The slight pressure was too much for the weathered nails. They tore from the bark and the heavy board fell, catching her shoulder on the way down. She cried out. The last time she’d seen that sign, Connor had painted it with shiny black letters, and they’d all trooped down together to hang it up. Now it lay broken in the dust at her feet.
Kim propped the sign up against the tree trunk and climbed back into the car. Please let it start. Why hadn’t she left it running? The motor turned over first time. She wrestled with the wheel, struggling to keep the car on course between the washaways and potholes. Across the little bridge over Cedar Creek, then tackling the steep track to the homestead.
‘Look.’ Jake pointed as a wallaby broke from the scrub and bounded ahead of them. They followed it all the way up to the house, where it doubled back, leaped a sagging wire-netting fence and took off past the dam.
The car shuddered to a halt behind the woodshed. She’d forgotten how ramshackle the place was. Long ago, Journey’s End had been a forestry work camp and some historic logging relics lay on the hill behind the house. A rusting, wheeled log-skidder, a dilapidated steam traction engine and what was left of a horse-drawn grader. Rainforest, creeping ever closer to the house, would one day swallow them up. The yard was littered with stuff Connor had thought might come in useful: pipes, wire netting, bricks. More wallabies dashed away from behind a rusting engine block overgrown with blackberries. They were everywhere.
Kim stared at the farmhouse. It looked different from how she remembered: smaller, older. Paint flaked from the weatherboards. A loose piece of roofing iron swayed and rattled alarmingly. Why could nothing stay the same? Houses, marriages, lives, loves – they all fell apart in the end. The wind moaned in the trees and she suddenly wanted to turn around and drive back to Sydney.
‘Are we there yet?’ asked Abbey.
‘Yes.’ Kim put on a brave voice. ‘We’re there.’
Nine o’clock. Kids finally asleep, and the gale had passed. Kim put on a coat, and took her coffee and candle outside where a fat pink moon was rising over the forest. She ran her hand along the rough trunk of an old firewheel tree that shaded the verandah. Thankful that it, at least, hadn’t changed. Moonlight through its leaves cast hypnotic shadows on the wall. She saw pictures in the shapes. Here a dog. There a heart.
The evening had gone passably well. Abbey disapproved of the toilet, which was out the back door, beside the dilapidated bathroom-cum-laundry. It required some intensive de-spidering before she consented to use it, and she was disbelieving when Kim flushed it with a bucket of wriggler-filled water from the corrugated-iron tank. The gas and power hadn’t been reconnected as promised and without electricity their pump didn’t work. Abbey soon got over it. She loved putting the little house in order. Helping to cook pasta for dinner on the ancient wood stove. Making up the dusty beds. ‘It’s like a giant cubby,’ she said, setting placemats for her soft toys at the big table Connor had made that first year from a slab of blue gum. They ate by candlelight.
Jake came out of his mood once he discovered the stove and fireplace. Nights were cold in the mountains, even in late spring. He appointed himself master of the flames and did a great job of keeping the wood up, using a tomahawk he found in the shed. This was a surprise. Kim couldn’t remember the last time he’d been helpful. The tomahawk went to bed with him. Was twelve old enough to use an axe? She didn’t know. It would be different if Connor was here to teach him.
Connor. She’d grown used to being without him in most places, but never here. This was a new loss. His gumboots still stood alongside her own in the little kitchen, his raincoat on the hook behind the door, his books on the shelves in the hall. How dare they still be here when he wasn’t? The air was thick with missing him. Kim swallowed and closed her eyes as grief swelled and built.
A boobook began its soft calling, somewhere in the gloom. The rhythmic mo-poke, mo-poke was oddly comforting. She tried to shut out her pain and focus instead on the nocturnal bush sounds. The hooting owl was joined by crickets, a choir of frogs from the dam, a possum’s territorial growl. The night was alive. She took a deep steadying breath. A breeze sprang from nowhere, bearing the fragrant scent of eucalyptus. It began to rain. Chilly air caressed her skin and gradually her pain ebbed away.
The candle had burned low when Kim finally went inside. She put a log on the dying fire. It burst back to life and she warmed her cold hands. Dancing flames lit up the room, reflecting on the small urn containing Scout’s ashes. Tomorrow she’d find that special place for him.
Kim yawned and headed down the hall. She peeped into Jake’s room. He lay sound asleep, with the tomahawk taking up half the bed. She stole in and put it on the floor. Pale hair fell across his face. She swept it back and kissed his forehead, before creeping down the hall to her daughter’s room. Abbey was awake. The little girl sat on the old chest beneath the window, hair luminous with moonshine. A line of soft toy animals was perched along the sill.
‘Goodness me,’ said Kim. ‘It’s so late. Why aren’t you asleep, my darling?’
The girl turned to face her, eyes alight in the soft glow. ‘My teddies are talking to the bush animals.’
Kim guided her back to bed and tucked her in. ‘Now lie down. Your teddies need to get some sleep, and so do you.’ One by one she placed the toys at the end of Abbey’s bed until there was no more room.
‘What about Percy?’
‘He can be our watchdog.’ Kim set him back on the sill. She pulled the wide curtains half-shut, revealing a small mural next to the window.
Abbey sat up. ‘It’s Scout . . . and Percy.’ So it was, Kim had forgotten. Abbey couldn’t have been more than two when Connor drew a picture of Scout on the wall to keep her company at night. When Kim had protested he’d said, ‘It’s our place. We can do what we like.’
Our place. Each time they came after that, he added to the picture. A river bank. A tree. A koala in the tree. A pretty waterfall cascading down rocks. Then colour – mellow shades of brown and green, with splashes of blue. Abbey got Percy for her third birthday and Connor drew a poodle on the wall beside Scout. He was a talented artist.
Kim slipped into bed beside her daughter, listening to the soothing patter of rain on the tin roof. Abbey yawned and snuggled close, nestling her head on Kim’s arm. The shadow of the toy poodle, silhouetted against the window, looked uncannily real. As Kim dozed off, an eerie howling sounded from the forest. She held her daughter tighter.
‘Don’t be frightened, Mummy,’ Abbey murmured without opening her eyes. ‘That’s Percy’s
friends, saying goodnight.’
CHAPTER 4
Kim woke to find Abbey braiding her hair. ‘Mum, stay still.’ The little girl bit her bottom lip in concentration. Tangles of golden pillow-mussed ringlets framed her face. She looked like an angel in the soft morning light. ‘What were those noises coming from under the floor last night?’
‘I think we must be sharing the house with a wombat,’ said Kim.
‘Can we call it Mothball, like the one in the book?’
It seemed like yesterday that Abbey was perched on Connor’s knee, listening to him read Diary Of A Wombat. Kim closed her eyes. Life was divided firmly into two parts – before and after Connor’s death. She referenced each memory this way. Trouble was, the after-Connor ones were multiplying in an untidy jumble, while the precious before memories remained finite and frozen in time.
‘Can we go exploring?’ asked Abbey.
‘After lunch,’ said Kim. ‘A man’s coming this morning to talk about selling the house.’
‘I don’t want to sell it,’ said Abbey. ‘Neither does Percy.’ She jumped up and took the toy poodle from the windowsill. ‘We want to live here with Mothball, and get a pony, and grow carrots.’
‘Live here?’ said Kim in astonishment. ‘What about the outside bathroom and the spiders in the toilet? What about school and your friends?’
Abbey shrugged and ran from the room in her pyjamas.
Kim sank back on the pillow. In daylight, Connor’s absence wasn’t so overwhelming. She’d slept unusually well in spite of the wombat. Bad dreams, so often her night-time companions, had not found her. She stretched. What was the estate agent’s name again? Stan? No – Ben. Ben Steele. He’d be there at ten. She got up and made a face as she caught sight of herself in the wardrobe mirror. In yesterday’s clothes and with a crooked crown of unfinished plaits. She’d better tidy herself up but, first, coffee. What time was it anyway? She went into the kitchen and looked at her phone. Dead. Oh well, it couldn’t be too late. She never slept in.
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