The Memory Tree

by Jennifer Scoullar

  Matt left the buckets where they were and strode to the house. Sarah followed him, running to keep up. Penny still wasn’t home. He tried her phone. It was turned off. He rang Fraser, his fingers so unsteady that he could barely press the digits, annoyed that he still knew the number.

  ‘Is Penny there?’

  ‘Ah, Matthew.’ His father sounded unsurprised, despite this being the first call from his son in fourteen years. ‘It’s conventional to begin a conversation with hello.’

  Matt repeated the question, his voice thick with fury.

  ‘No, your wife is not here, Matthew. Why, is something wrong?’

  Matt ended the call and glared at Sarah. He wished that she’d stayed away, that she’d never dropped her bombshell. But the concern on her face tempered his anger. Blaming Sarah was shooting the messenger. She couldn’t have known the trouble her news would cause.

  ‘That party at Drake’s,’ he said. ‘You want to go?’ When she nodded, Matt steered her out to the jeep, and took off down the track. Sarah sat silent beside him. Banks of low cloud erupted in torrents, inundating the road. The speeding jeep slipped and slid.

  When they reached the broad gates of Canterbury Downs, Matt turned into the driveway. Curtains of rain obscured the front of the house. He hadn’t been here since he was sixteen years old, but could still picture the dark shutters and the shape of each blue stone. His chest tightened, just to be there.

  Matt peered through the downpour, searching for Penny’s car, hoping not to find it. Was it parked around the back? He leapt from his seat, head bent against the blast, and ran to the house. His father stood in the open doorway, his face inscrutable. He looked scrawny, easy to snap.

  ‘Is it true about Penny? Has she been coming to see you.’ Matt was shivering and dripping water on the porch.

  Fraser’s eyes narrowed. ‘Your wife is my student, yes. Does she not have the right?’

  ‘It’s you who doesn’t have the right,’ yelled Matt. ‘You don’t have the right to come anywhere near my wife. Not after killing my mother and sisters. Not after splitting this town in half with your special brand of bribery and vandalism. You destroy everything fine that you touch, Dad. I tried to get away, begin again, create some sort of a life for myself. But you’re always there, aren’t you, lurking in the shadows to ruin things?’

  For a moment Fraser looked hurt, but only for a moment. Then he shrugged – a one-shouldered shrug as if his son warranted nothing more. ‘Don’t blame me if you’ve lost your wife, Matthew. I suggest you look for her elsewhere.’ Fraser closed the door hard, just short of a slam.

  Matt stood there for a minute, wrestling with his rage. Then he headed for the jeep with an unfamiliar stinging behind his eyes. He didn’t make it. He sank down on the ground in the driveway, barely aware of the storm slapping him in the face. Elbows on knees. Head in hands. Tears mingling with the rain.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder – Sarah, carrying Matilda’s sparkly My Little Pony umbrella. She held it over his head, sacrificing herself to the downpour. Water streamed down her face, her chest, and plastered her clothes to her body. The whole thing seemed suddenly ridiculous. Penny. Fraser. Himself. Soggy Sarah with the pretty pink umbrella.

  ‘Let’s go.’ She offered her hand to help him stand, and he took it. Matt looked back at the house as he drove away, and saw the curtain fall back into place at the window.

  Chapter 22

  Matt watched Penny walk into the party wearing her best blue dress. She was also wearing her sad face, the one that always got her sympathy. Not this time. She’d probably already spoken to Fraser. Perhaps they talked every day? Penny turned this way and that through the crowd, past benches groaning with drinks and snacks, past the trestle-table bar, seeking him out. Matt neither withdrew nor advanced. The edge was gone from his fury, but it smouldered beneath, red-hot, ready to ignite. Sarah had retreated to where Drake was holding court in the garden.

  ‘Where were you?’ Matt asked, when she found him.

  ‘At Uncle Ray’s. I’m worried about him.’

  Matt stared at his wife, expecting her to somehow look different, surprised when she didn’t. He took her arm, pulled her into Drake’s bedroom and shut the door.

  ‘I know about you and Fraser.’

  Penny took a step backwards. ‘What’s the harm?’ she said. ‘I could travel halfway around the world and still not find a better taxidermy teacher. It’s stupid to let your dad’s knowledge go to waste.’

  ‘Don’t call him that.’ Matt raised his forefinger to her. ‘Don’t you ever call him that.’ A clock ticked on the wall, the noise unnaturally loud. They held their positions, characters frozen in a vignette. He yielded first. ‘You knew this would kill me, Pen.’

  She exploded with the force of a flood. ‘And you don’t think it’s been killing me, these last few months? Wondering why you avoid me, ignore me, make me feel completely alone? I wanted to talk to you about Fraser, but I can’t tell you anything. You’re … absent.’

  Her anguish was so plain, so genuine – so justified – it completely disarmed him. ‘There’s a reason, Pen.’ He turned away and leaned against the window, staring into the dark of Drake’s yard.

  Penny forced herself between him and the sill, forced him to come back. ‘Please, Matt, tell me what’s wrong.’

  His cheek began to pulse and blood pounded in his ears. Could he do this? Could he free himself from his secret? The possibility screamed louder and louder, and one final look at Penny’s anguished face convinced him. Whatever happened next, he owed his wife the truth.

  ‘I’ll do more than tell you what’s wrong,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you.’

  * * *

  The mews. Matt was emptying out the new freezer in front of her. He’d driven like a madman back home, unable to stand one more moment of her not knowing.

  Penny looked on in confusion. Sweat beaded Matt’s face, and soon a pile of frozen bodies littered the concrete floor. He lifted out a large bag from right at the bottom and placed it on the bench with extravagant care.

  ‘Meet Theo.’

  Penny pressed her spread fingers against the frosted plastic.

  ‘What on earth?’ She turned to Matt with widening eyes and a slow, disbelieving shake of her head.

  * * *

  Back in the house, Penny examined Theo under the harsh fluorescent glare of the kitchen light. ‘A young male,’ she said. ‘Almost grown, I’d say.’

  ‘So, he’s real?’

  She laughed in delight. ‘I’ve no idea how, but yes, he’s real.’

  For the first time since that dreadful night, Matt touched Theo. Touched his impossible head, traced the stripes of his coat, stroked his powerful tail. And Matt’s imagination gave the young thylacine back his life.

  There he was, shifting through the foggy forest, full of promise and youthful curiosity, following his family to the unfamiliar roadside. So young and inquisitive and inexperienced. So exceptional. Had he paused in the headlights’ beam, wondering what to make of the twin moons hurtling towards him? Or perhaps he’d crouched by the track, intending to lie low. Had his family crossed the road? Had Theo leapt up to follow them at precisely the wrong moment? Matt didn’t know. He’d barely seen Theo – only the familiar thud of another roadkill had caused him to brake. Most wouldn’t have even bothered, and the remarkable, unimaginable young thylacine would have perished, unnoticed by man, as if he’d never lived. Perhaps it would have been better that way.

  Penny inspected the body, poring over each tiny detail. She scribbled elaborate notes about coat colour and genital size. ‘The scrotum really is in a little pouch. Come look.’

  At her request Matt took photos. Until it started to feel sacrilegious. Until he began to cry.

  Penny wrapped her arms about his shoulders. ‘Honey, what’s done is done. It was an accident. A terrible, inconceivable, heartbreaking accident, but an accident just the same.’

  ‘I was going too fast.’ He low
ered his eyes. They’d had that argument before.

  ‘You should have told me.’

  Yes, but there’d been no words. Not when Theo lay dead and bleeding. Not when Matt tenderly bagged his body and buried it at the bottom of the freezer. Not afterwards, as the awful weight of guilt bore down on him.

  ‘Tell me now, then,’ said Penny.

  So he did. He told her how he’d shone the torch along Theo’s body, challenged by the evidence of his eyes. But there’d been no mistaking the pattern of dark bands across the animal’s biscuit-coloured coat, running from shoulder to the base of its stiff tail. He’d counted the sixteen stripes. Reached out, hardly daring to touch. He’d felt Theo’s coat, the ebbing warmth of his body, stroked Theo’s damp head, while his tears mingled with the mizzle. He’d cradled the body in his arms and carried it to the jeep. He’d gone back to look for tracks and found them too. Dog-like imprints on the soft verge, more than one set. With a bag of dental stone, he’d gone to work, setting each cast, then prying it from the earth. By four, he’d slipped into bed beside his sleeping wife and lain sleepless till morning. He still struggled to think of that night.

  ‘I can’t believe you kept it to yourself all these months. Something as monumental as this. Why?’ Silence. ‘Matt?’ He turned away and she slapped his arm. ‘Matt, you’re doing it again.’

  Why hadn’t he told her? He knew why he hadn’t told Parks Tasmania. Theo’s family needed protection. Beautiful Binburra was mainly remote and inaccessible, one of the few truly wild places on earth. The department directed its resources to the more popular parks, the ones that attracted the most tourist dollars. It was good at producing brochures and flashy websites. The minister was good at cocktail parties and sponsorship deals, and not much else. Matt didn’t mind. Binburra was better off being left alone.

  Theo would change all that.

  Rediscovering Tasmanian tigers would be the ultimate publicity jackpot. Some years ago, a ranger reported a possible thylacine sighting near Togari, in the north-west. Dozens of Parks Tasmania officers swept in to search three hundred square kilometres of surrounding bushland. They rigged up cameras and laid sand patches along trails. They set traps, monitored potential den sites, collected hundreds of scats for chemical analysis. All based on one uncertain sighting in the dark. Matt could imagine the pandemonium an actual specimen would cause.

  He’d spent weeks agonising over it; weighing up the pros and cons of revealing his astonishing discovery. And he’d decided that Binburra National Park should not be disturbed. Could one man’s opinion justify such a serious betrayal of the international scientific community? And that’s precisely what it was, keeping this secret – a betrayal. Maybe of the tigers themselves. Publicity might bring the animals safety and support. In a perfect world, maybe, with a decent government. Not with this government. This one was rotten from Premier Logan down, walking hand in hand with big business and vested interests. It would sell out the tigers, nothing surer.

  But all this didn’t explain why he hadn’t told Penny, and she knew that.

  ‘You didn’t trust me.’ Her voice was full of hurt. ‘That’s why you didn’t say anything.’

  He had no defence. It was true. Penny would expect him to share Theo, to tell the scientists, the people of the state, the people of the world. For her there would be no choice. So it had become his job to protect the tigers, even from his own wife.

  Penny’s large accusing eyes shone with tears, and she left the room. He almost followed, but it seemed wrong to leave Theo alone. Matt stood, confused, listening to Penny moving around in their bedroom. He didn’t know how to fix this. Ten minutes later she appeared with a duffel bag, eyes puffy and red. ‘I’ll be at Uncle Ray’s when you’re ready to talk.’

  She zipped up her bag, went to the door and turned one last time. ‘This isn’t your call, Matt. You have to tell somebody.’

  He wanted to take her in his arms and beg her to stay. He wanted to kiss her, reassure her, wipe away her pain. But too much remained unresolved. Penny seeing Fraser behind his back, for instance. Remembering her disloyalty hardened his heart.

  ‘Why don’t you then?’ he said. ‘I’m sure my father will be fascinated.’

  Penny looked as if she’d been struck. ‘I won’t do this for you, Matt. You killed Theo. You decide.’

  Chapter 23

  It was almost dark. Penny drove past the string of run-down cottages, past the sagging fences and For Sale signs, and parked in the street outside her uncle’s home. By the light of a street lamp it looked more run down than ever. Fibro-cement walls begging for paint. Rusted roof. The unkempt lawns sprouting yellow clumps of dandelions. Scarlet geraniums, escapees from their beds, strangled straggly azaleas, once the pride of the garden. Ray’s battered ute slumped in the carport. She sat awhile, determined to stop crying before going inside.

  Penny had only left Ray a few hours ago and had not expected to be back so soon. He’d seemed fragile and depressed when she left him, not like her uncle at all. Not like her rock. For that’s what he’d been all of her life. Ever since a drunk driver slammed into her parents’ car when she was a baby. Somehow she’d survived; six months old, strapped into the carnage. Trapped in the shattered wreck with her dead parents. It was a blessing, people always said, to be too young to remember. And it was true – she didn’t. But Penny’s dreams invented memories at least as terrible as the truth.

  She found tissues in the glove box and blew her nose – a great honking blow. How to compose herself? Matt had taken her so completely by surprise. With Theo. With his overwhelming lack of trust in her. It was as if she didn’t know her husband at all. Penny’s thoughts ran helter-skelter, searching for answers. Keep Matt’s astonishing secret or expose him? These were her impossible choices. Her mind was racing. She couldn’t dump this problem on her fragile uncle, and she missed Matt already, and she craved to touch Theo again. And she dreaded the pregnancy test lying in the bottom of her bag.

  For months she’d suspected. For almost as many months, it turned out, as Theo had lain hidden in their freezer. Theo was why Matt had pulled away, why she hadn’t been able to share her baby hopes. Why she couldn’t face mornings anymore and why Matt turned from her at night. Theo was the albatross around the neck of their marriage.

  The porch light was on. Penny hauled her bag from the jeep, stomach still coiled in knots, and walked up the cracked concrete path. The screen door squeaked open and banged shut, the signal for Ray to sing out Come in if you’re good-looking. But today he did no such thing. Penny found him sitting in his favourite armchair before the fire. Just sitting. No television. No radio. No stereo. It wasn’t like her uncle. He couldn’t abide silence – he always had to fill the modest house with music and sport broadcasts and Jackie Chan movies turned up too loud.

  ‘Hullo, love.’

  ‘You’re sure I can stay?’

  Ray heaved his barrel of a body from the low chair and kissed her cheek, his lined face softening. ‘My girl is home.’ He picked up her bag and led the way.

  Nothing had changed in the house since she was a child. The framed grainy photograph of a young Ray with a crosscut saw hanging in the hallway. The prancing pony wallpaper in her room. The frayed patch of carpet where she’d swung her feet out of bed each morning. The homemade shelves spilling children’s books and old Dolly magazines. Soft toys crowding the top bunk.

  Penny sank down on the lacy white bedspread, adorned with pink roses. Ray put down her bag and smiled with such warmth that Penny forgot her misery for one sweet moment. But when he left the room, the waves of worry crashed back in. She fished the pregnancy test from her bag. How many times had she taken one of them, only to be disappointed? Yet, right now, if the strip showed positive, she’d surely drown in her own doubts.

  Penny crossed the hall to the little linoleum bathroom, with its cracked basin and ridiculous fluffy toilet seat cover. Mouthing a silent apology, Penny turfed Ray’s razor out of the chipped china mug.
She used the mug to collect a urine sample, then returned to her room to wait. According to the instructions, the results took an excruciating five minutes. Apparently a watched stick never changes colour, so she wound up her old puppy alarm clock and tracked the second hand as it marched past the different breeds of dogs. When the time was up and she finally dared to look, two bright red bars showed stark on the strip. Positive.

  Penny collapsed on her bed and hugged the bunny pillow. A concerned camellia, older than her uncle, swayed outside the dark window, scratching at the glass. She turned on the lamp and made shadow puppets across the pony wallpaper. Their familiar forms reassured her. Everything about this small room, where she’d known only comfort and love, reassured her. All that past pressing down on the present. Waggles peered from her top bunk, so she pulled the little toy down and fondled the dog’s floppy ears, inhaled his musty scent.

  And at last it happened. Her pain and resentment fled, replaced with a sense of overwhelming love. A child. She was having a child. She imagined Waggles snuggled in a bassinet beside her sleeping baby. She imagined soothing tiny tears, and whispering Don’t cry, my baby, Mummy’s here – just as her mother must have done for her long ago. Penny forgot about Matt and Theo. ‘My baby,’ she said aloud. It sounded good. Good enough for now, anyway. Saying ‘our baby’ would have to wait.

  Penny went to the lounge room, where her uncle sat staring at the flames. The air hung stale and smoky. How sad he looked. Ray covered the hand she laid on his shoulder with his own.

  ‘Is there something I can do, love?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Penny, pulling him to his feet and sitting him down at the dining table. ‘You can tell me what’s wrong. Why doesn’t anybody tell me what’s wrong?’ She turned on the lights and the kettle and put the television news on low. She emptied the ashtray. A grey residue of cigarette ash lay in a mound on the floor beside his armchair. Ray followed her gaze.