Nest

by Inga Simpson

  A whole town had been washed away west of Brisbane, and now, water had to be released from the dam housing the city’s water supply, worsening the flooding downstream.

  As the floodwaters began their advance on the city – river levels rising by the hour, residents sandbagging their homes and moving their valuables to higher ground, and authorities evacuating the central business district – the media spotlight finally shifted away from the disaster-declared coast.

  Only then did all that water finally flush out the very thing everyone had been looking for, but no one had wanted to find.

  Jen heard the helicopters throughout the afternoon and had to stop working, she felt so unsettled. Now it was all over the news.

  A woman walking her dog for the first time in ten days, after the rain had eased overnight, had found a muddy pink schoolbag snagged among paperbarks, in the national park. By nightfall, the area had been taped off, declared a crime scene. The police had found human remains.

  Long held beneath root and soil, gestating in decomposing plant matter, the hinterland delivered up its lost children, and the lost child in them all.

  Flotsam

  Jen turned off the television. She was wrung out for all those who had lost their homes and business and family members. Thankful for her own life untouched, unchanged. Almost.

  For Caitlin’s parents, it was finally over. A loss of hope in exchange for knowing. The beginning of getting on with their lives.

  She no longer knew how many days had gone by. It had stopped raining, though humidity was still at a hundred per cent. She had all the fans on but everything was damp. The book covers on the coffee table had curled back like leaves. Above the mosquito coil, and the bergamot, lavender and cedar combination in her oil burner, she could not escape the nose-tickling smell of mould.

  She had put it off as long as she could. The fridge was empty but for condiments and there was nothing in the cupboard but dry pasta and lentils. The Hilux smelt damp. It was damp, the seat sticking to the back of her arms. She urged it up the drive, slipping on loose gravel. There was still detritus all over the road, and potholes deep enough to swim in.

  The post office was shut, the co-op too. NO POWER! their signs said. The road was still littered with leaves and branches. Palm fronds. Her forest had sheltered her from the worst of it, it seemed. After all this time without power, the shops would have lost all their stock. Terrible. Still, she couldn’t help feeling put out. It had been almost a week since she had left the property, and she needed food, fuel and mail. Human contact.

  She kept on driving down the coast. Things would have to be more operational down there. She steered round the ‘road closed’ sign beneath the railway bridge, driving up onto the raised footpath to get through. There were a few other cars on the road in front of her and they all slowed to pass through the water over the highway, sending great jets up into the air.

  There were more cars closer to the coast, and McDonald’s was doing a roaring trade. Jen sped past, to the river.

  The river was fat, swollen and brown, pocked with flotsam and jetsam, the streets covered with scum the retreating waters had left behind. The shops were all closed, bar the tavern and corner store.

  The rain had flushed out the river, and now wild surf washed it all back up onto the beach. Logs, esky lids, thongs, milk bottle tops, mangrove leaves and orange mangrove flowers, still on their cigar-shaped stands. A whole tree had been beached. The surf produced a great brown foam, like a dirty cappuccino, which had built up on the beach in fluffy mountains, blowing back over the car park and road.

  The beach was closed and lifesavers were on hand enforcing the decision. With sets coming in at up to twenty foot, and the water rich with debris, it was fair enough. Children played in the foam, running through it and throwing gobs at each other. Jen considered pointing out that it was toxins and effluent that made the water froth like that, but who was she to spoil their fun?

  Blue

  They had been asked to wear blue, like wrens or bowerbirds. Jen had washed and ironed a silk shirt that was just the right shade.

  She parked the Hilux around the corner and walked back. People were already beginning to move inside, heads down. Half the town had turned up, maybe more, most in dark colours with blue touches, which made standing in the bright sunshine unpleasant, even at this hour of the morning.

  Her own suit, bought for her mother’s service, had grown patches of pale mould in the cupboard, especially around the crotch and armpits. There was nothing like humidity to remind you of your humanity. She had known about the service for a week, plenty of time to have it dry-cleaned, but had not managed to think in such an organised fashion. She had aired it out and sponged it off as best she could, and sprayed on a little extra perfume, but the spores tickled her nose.

  She needn’t have worried. The whole church smelt mouldy – whether from the formal clothes of the attendees or the structure itself, it was hard to tell. There was more than a hint of mothball, too. Instead of the sombre organ music she had expected, a CD was playing: young people’s songs. Reminding them that they were farewelling someone whose life had only been beginning.

  The police hadn’t released Caitlin’s remains, so it was not a full funeral, more of a ceremony.

  Jen took a seat at the back, on the outside of the pew. Ready for a quick getaway, her father used to say, preferring the rear of the room and seats near the door. That should have been a clue.

  She was a little close to the speaker, which was blaring a song she had heard before, from incidental radio play in stores and service stations, something about a young woman coming into her own, which Caitlin would never get to do.

  Jen picked out Henry’s back. His class were sitting together, three pews of them, all in school uniform with a blue armband, which was a nice touch.

  Henry turned, as if he had known exactly where she would sit. She tried to smile, and send him ‘be brave’ vibes, but her face was uncooperative. She would have made an awful parent.

  Kay and Montana sat in the row behind him. His father did not seem to be present; interstate and underground, perhaps. Caitlin’s family were up front, everyone’s eyes on them. She wouldn’t dare say it out loud, but it was the best they had looked since their daughter went missing. Their faces were sad but human, which was proof that even knowing the worst was better than not knowing.

  Lil slid in next to her and half-smiled. Patted Jen’s shoulder. Jen watched a palm tree, the tine of one frond quivering in what was barely a breeze, while the minister droned. A schoolfriend read a poem and did a good job, while her classmates stood with their small, soft hands folded in front of them. The friend ended with a funny story about Caitlin, which was smart, and she was rewarded with laughter.

  ‘Did Michael have a funeral?’ Henry had asked the week before.

  She had struggled to explain that they couldn’t really have one without knowing for sure he was dead. Time had passed, and his parents separated and moved away, one to New Zealand and one to Tasmania – as if by leaving the continent, and each other, they could escape their loss.

  Jen watched the class up front: upset, but together and dealing with their grief. They would be able to move on now. That’s what funerals were really about, after all: closure for the living.

  Gone

  She wandered the back garden as if without purpose, gathering up clutches of leaves and sticks although it was far too warm for a fire. The lawn needed mowing, straggly lengths brushing her legs. She followed the line of lomandra around and down, touching her hand to the strappy leaves. They were growing high and wide, boosted by the summer’s record rainfall.

  She stopped beneath her climbing tree, bent to gather up a perfect stick, in between kindling and wood, and well seasoned. All the while she scanned the ground.

  Craig and his new partner, a younger sports teacher from his school, had apparently had a child: a daughter. A former colleague had called to tell her before she heard it on the
teachers’ gossip line. Two years after she had left. Jen had still been teaching, then, at the little school on the south coast. The colleague said that they had fallen pregnant by accident and decided to keep the baby. It had been that simple.

  They were gone. Her Craig objects were all gone. Washed away by the rains, or carried off by an animal to decorate its house. There was a little lurch in her chest before she caught herself. She had cast them off, even telling the shrink about it – eliciting a rare smile of approval – and she couldn’t expect to fetch them back again.

  Jen watched a brown tree snake making its way along the deck railing, towards the birdbath. In the light from the house windows, he was gleaming pink. It explained why her candle holders kept disappearing, falling onto the ground below. Dislodged by a slithering drinker. He extended his head over the edge of the bath. She hadn’t seen a snake drink before, or even imagined them doing so.

  The frogs had fallen silent. Could they sense the movement of scales on wood? Or smell him there in the dark?

  The discarded skin of a gecko floated down, whole, from the rafter above, like a ghostly suit, and landed on the table. Tiny white gloves, a hood for a tail, an all-of-body fingerprint.

  Jen sipped her wine and looked out into the night. She had grown fond of her companions. Comfortable. And there was never a dull moment.

  Glider

  Jen sat up in the window with her sketchbook and pencils. She erased and retraced some of her lines, to suggest movement. Outside she could sense the maroon blur of schoolchildren, released already. She had lingered too long.

  Elena appeared at her elbow to remove her cup and crumb-strewn plate. ‘Another chai latte, Jen?’

  She should really get moving – she had promised Glen she’d write their letter to the local member about the development in town, which looked like being approved – but she hadn’t quite finished her drawing, and the air-conditioned cafe was far more pleasant than her own place would be. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Coming right up.’ Elena spun on her heel, or rather, the flat sole of her sensible clog. The music was good today, too, some local indie band. It disappeared for a while, under the frothing of milk, and then Elena was back.

  ‘Thanks.’ The door opened, tinkling the bells. She slid her coffee closer, but managed to elbow her sketchbook off the bench. ‘Bugger.’

  She turned to face a child version of herself, or so it seemed. Jen blinked. It was Caitlin’s sister. Holding out her sketchbook.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is it a possum?’

  ‘Sugar glider,’ Jen said. ‘I saw her last night. Swooping into the mango tree.’

  ‘They can fly?’

  ‘A little. From tree to tree,’ Jen said. ‘They have extra skin here, between their arms. Like a built-in parachute.’

  Briony smiled. ‘She’s cute.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Jen said. ‘Getting some afternoon tea?’

  ‘A coffee, for Mum. She’s having her hair cut next door.’

  ‘Cappuccino, love?’ Elena said.

  Briony nodded.

  Elena waved her arm over her cakes and slices. ‘Anything for you?’

  Briony stared into the drinks fridge, everything subdued colours, organic and healthy. A child’s nightmare. She opened the door and reached for a pink bottle – fizzy lychee – and took it to the counter.

  Jen sketched in mango leaves, the base of a fruit hanging down, brightened the glider’s eye and fluffed up her tail, added veins to her delicate ears. She heard the coffee land on the counter, the lid go on. Jen signed her name and tore the page from her sketchbook.

  The girl put the change in her pocket and took the drinks from the counter.

  Jen held out the glider. ‘Got room for a friend?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘A gift,’ Jen said. ‘If you’d like her?’

  Briony grinned. She tucked the bottle under her arm and took the drawing. ‘Thank you.’

  Charge

  A fine day and cooler morning presented an opportunity to arrest the lawn’s growth. She found a hat, rolled down her sleeves, and sat on the ride-on. She turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Flat battery. She rummaged around in the shed for the shifter, and propped up the mower’s bonnet. The bolts were stiff, and removing the battery awkward; it was heavy and wedged in tight. She managed, but not without a skinned knuckle.

  She watched a pair of spotted pardalotes, with their stubby tails and yellow throats, almost hovering, pinching pieces of straw from a hanging basket with a right to left movement, one strand at a time. All of her baskets ended up with the bottoms falling out, but the pardalotes and finches for miles around had lovely woven nests. She had seen them, hanging in the understorey, where it was thick: grassy domes with a side entrance, nursing a clutch of white eggs. Very appealing residences, indeed, and much more snug and secure than an open nest.

  She dropped the dead battery in the back of the ute. After searching the house and studio, she found her wallet and sunglasses still on the passenger seat from last time.

  She let the Hilux speed up downhill. It was that or ride the brake. A long-tailed brown blur flew out from the tangle of lantana, barely making it in front of her grille to the other side of the road. She had flushed a pheasant. Though a vehicle was not the ideal way to do it. And there would be no roast for dinner.

  She pulled up in front of the mower shop. Closed. It was hot, but not yet two in the afternoon. ‘Great.’

  The steering wheel was hot under her hands. She turned the Hilux around and headed back to the main street. The garage was one of the few things unchanged about the town. The same faded red bowser still stood out the front.

  Jen tucked the battery under her arm, attempting to make it look effortless, and stepped into the sudden dark. ‘Still doing mechanics?’ she said.

  The girl blinked. ‘Some,’ she said. ‘What were you after?’

  ‘Just need a battery charged.’

  ‘Go on through.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The door opened out onto steep steps. She made her way down to the cement floor, among three cars in various states of undress. She felt herself wilting; the workshop copped the full force of the afternoon sun. ‘Hello?’

  A fellow looked out from beneath the hood of an oversized ute. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Will you charge a battery for me? The mower place is shut.’

  He made his way over, his pace and enthusiasm slowed by the heat. ‘No problem.’ He squatted, attached the chargers. ‘Mower shop’s closed down,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘When?’

  ‘Few months ago.’

  Surely it wasn’t that long since she’d been in there with the chainsaw. ‘Why?’

  ‘Sold it,’ he said. ‘Some bloke took it over but then he was electrocuted. Building’s not safe. Condemned.’

  ‘Goodness.’

  He stood. ‘Not good, eh?’

  ‘How long will it need?’

  ‘Three or four hours,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll come back in the morning,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

  Jen dropped one side of the ute’s tray, hopped up and rolled the round metal frame to the edge. It was not heavy but unwieldy. She had popped into the second-hand store looking for something she could use as a bench seat or stool in the garden, but the hanging ball had caught her eye from the car park. It had been some sort of child’s hammock, more like a cocoon – homemade. Hung beneath a big old tree, no doubt. She lowered it onto the wheelbarrow, a bit like a giant egg in a teacup, and jumped down.

  She used her Stanley knife to cut away the faded, mouldy canvas, looped on with nylon rope, dropping it all in a pale green pile on the driveway. What was left, when she had finished, was a black metal frame. There was a little rust but it was perfect for her purposes.

  She gripped the barrow’s edge and the frame in one hand and lifted the barrow handle with the other. It was precarious, but easier than taking all the weight of the ball. She eased forwar
d and lurched down the path.

  Nest

  Jen piled bamboo cuttings high in the wheelbarrow, slipped the secateurs in one pocket and wire in the other, and set off down to the bottom of the garden. Those pardalotes had given her an idea.

  It was Karen who had harvested the bamboo, Glen said, from a screen planting gone feral by their pool. It wasn’t Jen’s first choice – not being native to the area – but the canes were green and flexible, which was what she needed for the first stage. Jen followed the path, kept in use as much by the wallabies and turkeys as her own feet, as far as she could along the slope.

  She sorted the bamboo into piles of short, medium and long, and set herself up next to the round frame, already hanging from her tree, just above the ground, so that she could work. At the moment, it looked more like a cage, but she meant to change that. She began with the entrance, choosing a thin, flattish cane to form a circle, and attaching it to the frame with copper wire lengths. From there, she worked back, still in a circular fashion, weaving the canes in and out of the frame like a giant basket.

  Birdsong filled the clearing, the perfect accompaniment to her work. She experimented with splitting some of the canes, starting a cut with the secateurs and pulling the bamboo apart. These lengths were more flexible, easier to weave around the tighter ends of the ball.

  She sat on a stump to drink from her water bottle and rest her arms. This was just the sort of project Craig would have been bored by, which was all the more reason to enjoy it. A young goanna skittered down the tree trunk beside her, all tail and enthusiasm. He leapt the final five feet to the ground, giving himself a fright as he came face to face with the basket.