Beneath the Mother Tree Read online

  ‘Hate seeing animals suffer.’ Ayla threw the knife into the sink so hard, it bounced out and landed near her feet, spinning.

  ‘Ayla.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Her mother presented the painting she was holding. ‘What do you think? I’m giving it to Rayleen.’

  The seascape with the fishing trawler now had two men in the underwater foreground, her Dad and Mandy’s, both with tails. She had made them mermen, looking as if they had just shared a joke. Her mother had brought her Dad to life, the way he was laughing. Ayla heard his loud distinctive laugh. She touched him in the painting. ‘Oh, Mum.’

  They hugged.

  ‘I can’t start crying. I’ve just done my face.’ She pulled away.

  Her mother seldom wore make-up. ‘You going somewhere?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘The Resort? Why?’’ Her mother wasn’t a regular at the Resort.

  ‘Catching up with Ray. Seven years ago, to the day.’

  Ayla felt guilty for not remembering.

  ‘Sometimes I still think he’s going to walk through that door, sunburnt and smelling of fish.’

  Ayla took the painting, studying it. ‘Best one you’ve done yet, Mum.’

  ‘It’s about time I worked towards another exhibition. I’ve been stuck on the moment of his death. With this painting, something opened in me, I was able to move past that, capture them as I remember them. I’m going to do a whole series titled, “The Mermen.”’

  ‘Good for you.’ Ayla’s smile faltered. As they hugged, she breathed in her Mum, the comfortable scent of childhood.

  ‘Oh God, I will need to re-do my make-up.’

  Ayla looked out into the night. ‘I think Jip’s dying, Mum.’

  But her mother had gone.

  The resort was a faux Spanish-mission, besser-block building, rendered in ochre with arched doorways; even the toilet signs proclaimed Señors and Señoritas. The restaurant boasted a water feature with goldfish and fountain, the sound of which kept the clientele running to the Señors and Señoritas.

  Marlise felt stupidly overdressed. Why the hell had she let herself be coerced into coming? Tilly mistook the expression on her face for disappointment.

  ‘Looks a bit abandoned now, but you should see this place at the height of the tourist season, love. Can’t move in here.’

  A tourist season? There were already too many damn people on this island. The room didn’t feel abandoned, it felt claustrophobic. ‘When is the tourist season? Summer?’

  ‘God no. Place is filthy with mozzies then. Holiday housers come for a while around Christmas but never stay long now. Mozzies drive them away. Main tourist season is when the whales start coming through. The island is at its best then. Summer used to be a good money spinner, until some dickhead greenie in council decided spraying the wetlands was bad for the environment.’

  ‘They sprayed the mangroves?’ Marlise knew this occurred the world over, but it horrified her to think it had happened here, literally on her own doorstep.

  ‘Shit yeah. They’d fly over in a chopper and dump a whole load of insecticide. Worked a treat. Few years ago, they stopped it. Mozzies came back in droves and the property prices dropped. Total catastrophe. That’s why the community is pushing for council to start it up again.’

  Marlise had the sinking realisation that perhaps she had made a mistake moving here. The decision had been quick and irrational, picking the house from an on-line real estate site accessed from an internet café two hour’s drive from Burrawang. The photos of the endless swamp and the description of the house as isolated had convinced her. She had bought sight unseen, knowing from research on the island’s temperature and humidity, it would be an excellent mosquito habitat. She wished now she had also researched the local council’s policy on mosquito management.

  Tilly led her to a coffee table, around which sat a group of women. One of whom, a red-head called Samantha, she had met on the barge. Tilly was forced to yell to be heard over their prattle. ‘Girls, this is Marlise who I was telling you about.’

  They all said hello, admired her dress and resumed their conversation.

  ‘Have a seat, love.’ Tilly pushed her into a chair and waddled off to the bar.

  Marlise surveyed the room as the women reminisced over a surprise birthday party and guffawed at each freshly remembered detail. There were two other women, sitting at the bar, one dark as the other fair, discussing a painting propped between them. Grunter, the bargeman, was standing near a pool table at the far end of the room with a cluster of men. Marlise slipped quietly out of her chair.

  She interrupted the men who also appeared to be in the middle of reliving a group memory. ‘Grunter, I was wondering if jobs for deckhands ever came up?’

  A silence followed as the men stared, making her acutely aware of the shape of her body pushing through the clingy dress.

  ‘If you’re the one looking for a job, sure. Start tomorrow.’

  Their laughter sounded threatening.

  ‘No, for my son…he’s…twenty.’

  ‘Come off it, you’re too young to have a twenty-year-old,’ said a guy with a shaved head, his eyes gorging on her half-exposed breasts like they were an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  ‘Why not try the passenger ferry? We have more shifts than the barge, so a higher turnover.’ This came from a short man with glasses who managed to maintain eye contact despite his head being at the same level as her chest.

  ‘I forgot there was a ferry.’

  ‘Runs on the hour, every hour, ’til midnight. Those barge arses are slackers, stop just after sundown. Don’t have the night shifts like we do. I’m JK.’ He held out his hand so she was obliged to shake it. They all held their hands out then and introduced themselves, even Grunter.

  ‘Do you think there’s a possibility of a job then, JK?’

  ‘Let you know if something comes up. What kind of work has he done?’ JK gulped his beer.

  ‘None yet.’

  ‘Kids these days. By the time I was twenty, I’d done a shitload of jobs.’ Stevo, covered in tattoos, chimed in.

  The group rumbled agreement.

  Marlise decided to stop talking about Riley. She didn’t want him bullied.

  Tilly approached with two glasses of wine. ‘Here you are, love. See you’ve met everyone.’

  ‘Sorry, Tilly. I don’t drink.’

  The room went quiet. Marlise had the distinct impression she had grown three heads.

  ‘Not to worry. Just saved me a trip to the bar.’ Tilly grabbed the wine back.

  The women from the coffee table stood behind Tilly. Some of their faces closed to her now. Marlise realised too late, she had crossed a boundary. Why had she abandoned them to talk to their men?

  ‘Dressed in that skimpy dress.’ The tail end of a whisper.

  Sharon, a tall, pretty blonde, put her arms protectively around the shaved-headed man, whose name Marlise had forgotten.

  ‘Tilly said you study mozzies?’ Sharon’s nasal tone was eerily reminiscent of the insect.

  ‘Yes’.

  ‘Hope you’re studying how to make the little fuckers extinct’. A group guffaw made Sharon look pleased with herself.

  Marlise took an instant dislike. ‘Extinction of the mosquito would be disastrous. They’re an essential part of the web of life. Didn’t you listen in high school biology? Or sorry, didn’t you finish high school?’

  Sharon’s eyes hardened. ‘Couldn’t think of anything more boring.’ She squeezed her man tighter, as if she was frightened he was going to run off with Marlise.

  Noting this, Marlise lowered her eyelids at him. ‘They’re far from boring. Mosquitoes are the biggest killers of human beings on this planet. One lone female, by merely sucking on you –’ she let the phrase linger in the air, ‘has the ability to inject a live pathogen that can make you so sick it can kill you.’ She turned to Sharon, knowing what she was about to say was unsupported by any scientific evidence, but wanting
to scare the silly woman. ‘With the temperature of the atmosphere changing, these diseases are mutating, becoming even deadlier and spreading much further afield. If I were you, I wouldn’t be bored, I’d be frightened.’

  Tilly huffed. ‘Now, love, I know you being a scientist, you know what you’re talking about and all, but I don’t want you repeating none of that, ever again. That goes for the lot of you. Imagine if stuff like that got out, what it would do to our –’

  ‘Property prices.’ The group teased in unison.

  Tilly herded Marlise toward the restaurant, unimpressed.

  Ayla lay on her bed watching Peach, an orphaned ringtail-possum she had hand-reared, explore her room. ‘Almost time to release you back into the big wide world, Peachy.’ She held out a piece of carrot, contemplating whether to ring Harley as Peach stuffed the carrot into her mouth with her tiny paws.

  Over Peach’s crunching, she thought she heard a distant flute. She lunged up, frightening Peach who scampered back into her box. Ayla snapped her bedroom light off to stand at her window and peer out.

  Was that a figure she glimpsed at the end of the track? It merged into a shadow. Or was it a tree? She stared so hard her eyes hurt. The flute sounded again, sinuous, seductive. Thoughts of Far Dorocha turned the light from the misshapen moon bleak and grey. The crooked clothesline seemed to menace the chook pen so it cowered, and the track opening became a sinister cavern into which something ghastly could step.

  The music came to an abrupt halt. Ayla listened so hard her pulse was deafening. The noise she heard next made her skin crawl. Grappa’s childhood Banshee tales of an old demon woman wailing in the dead of night bombarded her.

  It’s just him mucking around on the flute, blowing to clear it out, she told herself. Or a curlew? Unconvinced, she pulled her curtains shut and raced through the house, locking doors and switching lights on.

  Whatever it was out there began playing that enticing melody again, raising the hairs on her arms. At least it wouldn’t be able to get in. Unless of course it could walk through walls?

  Ayla observed her own silliness. Grappa would be impressed. She imagined how much fun it would be with him here, gulping from his silver flask, working up the courage to confront ‘Far Dorocha’ and the subsequent confusion on the poor tourist’s face. She supressed a giggle. Of course, he was just a tourist, staying in one of the holiday houses. Recalling his pale torso in the sunlight, she unlocked the sliding back door and pushed it open far enough to stick her head out.

  Silence. A maroon eucalypt leaf landed at her feet. An arrow shot from a bow. A secret message?

  The sudden lack of music was disturbing. At least when he was playing she knew vaguely where he was. Meeting him in the bright of day would be preferable than meeting him at night on an isolated beach, she decided, locking the door and closing the curtains.

  She had definitely glimpsed a figure on the track. Forget Far Dorocha. What if he’s some sicko rapist? He had seen her naked and knew she lived here. Hopefully Grappa was close by, anchored in Hibiscus. As she picked up her phone, it rang, making her drop it.

  Mandy’s picture flashed on the screen. ‘Hey, Mand.’

  ‘What are you doing tonight, Aylee?’ Mandy yelled over loud background noise.

  ‘Nothing. What are you doing? I can hardly hear you.’

  ‘Speak up, Aylee. I can hardly hear you.’

  ‘Nothing. I’m doing nothing.’

  ‘Hold on, I’ll find a quieter spot. This place is pumping. Wish you were here. What are you up to tomorrow night?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She was still half-listening for the flute.

  ‘Then get your sweet little arse over here and come to a party with me. It’s going to be awesome. Warehouse up on a hill overlooking the city. Everyone’s going to be there. Whole bloody campus has been invited.’

  ‘Your Mum wants you to ring her.’

  ‘Did, this arvy. Come on, Aylee, it’ll be fun. You can stay at mine for the night. Can’t hide away on that island for the rest of your life, girl.’

  ‘You’ve been talking to your Nan, haven’t you?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with nothing? It’ll be Saturday night. Come on. What are you going to do instead? Go to the Resort?’

  ‘I’m not that desperate.’ They sniggered.

  ‘How you going to meet anyone if you don’t get off the island, woman?’

  ‘Actually, I did meet someone. Well we haven’t officially met, but he’s a musician.’

  ‘What? You are going to get your butt on that boat tomorrow girl and get in here and tell me all about him.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell, but okay.’

  ‘Text me when you get here.’ Mandy hollered before disconnecting.

  In the silence, Ayla listened, deflated now the flute had stopped. Mandy’s phone call had normalised the situation. He was human. He had seen her this morning, so had returned in the hope that she might reappear. Nothing more, nothing less.

  At first light, she would search for his footprints in the sand, just to be certain, then she would check on Jip. There was no way she could go to the mainland if Jip’s condition had deteriorated.

  She opened a packet of popcorn and nestled in front of the TV. A movie was starting, nostalgic piano music to the tune of ‘Hush Little Baby’ filled the room, blocking out any possibilities of a distant flute. White letters appeared on the screen: Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow. Ayla snuggled into the couch, wishing her mum was home. They always watched the Friday night movie together.

  Her thoughts returned to the flautist. Had he really seen her naked? She stared at the vase on the table, full of wild freesias half open in anticipation, and quivered.

  Marlise endured the night, impressed by Sharon’s subtlety. The insinuating smile that sat on Sharon’s face as she looked her up and down, signalling certain codes of dress and conduct to be adhered to, the indistinct references to being a long-term local, the continual exclusion – so understated, no one else seemed to notice. Marlise was fascinated: such a small mind, such thirst for attention. Sharon was a shiny golden fish trapped in a stagnant puddle.

  In comparison, everyone else was too friendly. By the end of the night, Marlise found the tight-knit community so welcoming she felt suffocated. When she made noises about leaving, a very drunk Grunter offered to drive her home. Luckily, Tilly intervened. ‘No worries, Grunter, got this one covered.’

  Walking out, Tilly leaned into her, ‘Wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole. Pardon the pun. Nice guy, but he’s slept with that many women, he’s sure to have some kind of STD.’ She stopped to introduce the two women sitting at the bar.

  ‘Helen and Rayleen? Marlise. Just moved into the old Johnston house.’

  Rayleen’s dark face grew darker. ‘If you can live in that house, you’re a stronger woman than me.’

  On the drive home, Marlise asked Tilly what Rayleen had meant, but Tilly dismissed it in a hurry to gossip. ‘Samantha the redhead, she’s an interesting one. One of her closest friends is Sharon – the tall blonde. A few years back, Sam had a one-night stand with Sharon’s partner Josh – the good-looker with the shaved head. They were both pissed as farts and sore and sorry the next day. Of course, the whole island knew about it. That’s how it happens here. You’ll get used to that. But you know what? To this day, Sharon still doesn’t know about that little misdemeanour. She adores Josh and Josh loves her to death. No one wants to see her heart break, and not a day goes by that poor Sam doesn’t go out of her way for Sharon, she feels that guilty. It was an unspoken pact. We all decided it was best Sharon never found out. That’s how we are here. We look after each other. Need anything, love, you just ask.’

  Tilly pulled up in front of the house and turned to Marlise with tears in her eyes. Her hand on Marlise’s arm felt clammy.

  ‘I know you’ve just suffered a terrible loss. You need to know, you’re not on your own here, Marlise. You’ve moved to the right place. Wouldn’t leave this island
if you paid me. I love these people. You’ll grow to love them. Know you will.’

  Marlise shrank from Tilly’s wine and cigarette breath, opening the car door, desperate to get away. She never knew how to react when people became emotional.

  ‘Thanks for the lift.’

  ‘Won’t come in, love. Wayne wasn’t feeling well when I left. Better get back and check on him.’ Tilly weaved away and Marlise listened for movement in the house. She knew instinctively he wasn’t home. She called out anyway as she walked through rooms, switching lights off.

  ‘Riley?’

  He had promised to always leave a note. They had made a deal. Where the hell was he in the middle of the night? Maybe he had walked to the resort, looking for her? She would give him an hour, then ring Tilly and ask her to help search for him. At least he had no money, which meant he couldn’t catch the ferry. Marlise understood in that moment why she had moved to an island.

  She slipped the metal file out of her handbag. All day she had been waiting for Riley to leave the house. She lifted the table cloth thrown over the chest and started to file the latch. After a minute, her hand cramped up and a wave of anger rose at the stupid removalist men. She whacked at the latch with the file. Noticing it moved slightly, she hit it again and again until it became the hand of the removalist man who had touched her on the thigh, and the two bits of metal snapped apart.

  She was greeted by reams of yellowed documents, articles, old press clippings of her as a young medical entomologist lauded as ‘someone to watch’, draft after draft of papers she had written, research documents kept to prove her theories were her own. Images tumbled over her, facts, lies, snippets of memories, causing her to whisper involuntarily to the empty house, until her gaze landed on the small, intricately carved wooden box at the bottom of the chest. She fell silent with the need to hide it before a world cracked open, before a heart could run dry of love. She ran her fingers over the carvings, recalling the feel of it, the smell of sandalwood. Unable to stop herself, she lifted the lid. Only to find the interior empty.