Beneath the Mother Tree Read online

  A ferry had arrived at the jetty so he decided to catch it. A chorus of complaints met him as he entered the confined space of the boat. He had grown accustomed to his smell, so had forgotten.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, disoriented, floundering around the cabin like a fish trapped in a bucket.

  The decky grabbed him by the elbow. ‘Upstairs, mate. You’re stinking the boat out.’

  Riley clambered up the ladder to an open deck and stepped into the fresh air. The sun, about to disappear behind the mainland, had become a red eye bleeding into the ocean, turning the water liquid gold. Now he was further out from the island, he perceived it as a crouching creature, its red rock face looking toward the open sea, glowing in the golden light. A pod of dolphins glided past, playing in the wake. Riley had lived in a shady, wet jungle most of his life. This place was open light and water. He cried out, temporarily awed by the utter beauty, rejoicing in the dolphins as they swam off into their golden world.

  Half-way across the strait, the remainder of the sun melted into the mainland, and his stomach churned and bubbled. As the ferryman came to collect his ticket, Riley vomited ice-cream into the wake.

  ‘Seasick?’

  Riley wiped at a dangling string of spit, embarrassed. ‘I…no…I ate too much ice-cream.’

  ‘That’ll do it, every time. That combined with a nice steady swell like we got this evening. Return? Single? Multi? What?’

  ‘What’s a multi?’

  ‘Twenty trips.’

  ‘Oh um…single?’

  ‘Six eighty, please.’

  ‘I…where does this boat go?’

  ‘The mainland.’

  ‘Australia?’

  ‘No, fuckin’ China. What you reckon, mate?’

  Riley kept his face neutral. Unused to people, he never knew if they were serious or joking.

  ‘Christ, even your money stinks. What the hell you been doing? Rolling in dog shit?’ The ferryman disappeared down the ladder, shaking his head.

  Riley watched as the mainland grew closer, recognising the barge ramp and the car park where his mother had left her car.

  As he walked up the jetty, the street lights came on in a magical welcome. The timing gave him hope. He didn’t know where he was going or how to find his father from one snapshot taken years ago, but the idea of returning to his mother repulsed him.

  Endless cars zipped past square houses in varying shades of grey and brown, crammed side by side in tiny rectangular yards, high fences marking their boundaries. He considered how people could exist with no space between them and longed for Burrawang’s 200 hectares, where he had roamed the rainforest for hours without encountering a soul. He remembered himself as an eight-year-old, the day he had arrived at Burrawang, how David had tried to walk him through the forest, how rude Riley had been, how untrusting. He felt a welling of tears and swung left into a laneway, determined to stop the electric train of thought that always led back to David.

  It was pleasant to be away from the main road. The streets were quieter, with only the occasional car. He started to run, free and wild on an unknown adventure in a new land. ‘I’m Huck Finn,’ he shouted.

  David would be proud of him for leaving: ‘It’s your journey now. Claim it.’

  Riley roamed the back streets, staring into houses lit from within, fascinated by the people who were unaware they were being watched. Most families sat mesmerised in front of giant screens. He could understand this. The small amount of television he had encountered held him transfixed. Television was another thing his mother never allowed.

  He came across a family singing happy birthday as the father carried a cake with three candles to the table. The little boy blew the candles and they cheered and hugged. Riley couldn’t hear what they were saying but their elation propelled him to jump a low fence and hide behind a bottlebrush bush to gain a better view. The father threw the little boy into the air, making him squeal, begging his father to do it again. Riley pulled the photo out of his pocket and tilted it toward the light from the window. Had his father thrown him into the air like that? The way he was looking at him, Riley suspected he might have. The possibility filled him with an unaccustomed longing.

  An outdoor light flooded the yard and an old woman from the neighbouring house gathered her garden hose. ‘You pervert! Jim. Pam. There’s a perv in your yard. I’ve called the police. They’re on their way.’

  The happy family stopped smiling and looked toward the window as their neighbour sprayed him with the hose. Riley jumped the fence and bolted. Turning left at the end of the street, he glimpsed a police car. Minutes later, he heard its siren. He ran down a lane way as the insistent wail grew louder, frightening him into a thickly hedged yard, the house silent and empty, where he hid and waited until the siren faded and long after.

  He knew about police and their sirens, remembering the day the police came to Burrawang after a neighbour had lodged a complaint against his mother. They wanted to talk to David and his mum in private, so the lady officer took him out to the police car and let him operate the siren. After they left, David was fuming. His mother had lied about something again.

  Riley’s last encounter with police had only been months ago. Two officers had woken him from where he was sleeping under a bridge and asked him his name. ‘Your mother’s worried about you, son. We’ll give you a lift home.’

  Riley drifted down streets randomly, not knowing where to go or what to do to find his father. How could there be so many houses and people jammed into one world?

  On discovering a Lilly Pilly tree, he gorged on its citric fruit, and at an abandoned play-ground he drank and drank from a tap. Climbing onto a platform with a slippery slide down one end and monkey bars on the other, he realised he would be screened from the road if he lay down. Thinking it would be a safe place to rest, he didn’t mean to fall asleep.

  7.

  The doof-doof music vibrated through each corner of the massive warehouse, leaving Ayla hoarse from trying to be heard. Every way she turned someone had questions for her. What had she been doing? When was she coming back? She pushed her way through the dancers, towards a door that led onto a balcony, equally crowded, but at least the music dulled to a muffled thud. The cloying smell of marijuana hung low in the air. She checked her phone again for a message from Harley, wishing now she had insisted on visiting Jip before leaving the island. On the phone, Harley had been adamant, ‘all good, man.’ He was such a reserved soul, Ayla hadn’t wanted to invade his privacy.

  She drank from her cider and spied the one she was hoping to avoid: Harry Anderson, bare-chested and holding court. She had asked once why he never wore a shirt. He had ripped her top off and said, ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it honey,’ before sinking to his knees in mock awe of her naked torso.

  He had his arm draped over the shoulder of a pretty brunette. The gathered crowd hung on his every word. Ayla was surprised at her body’s reaction as he spotted her mid-sentence.

  ‘Baby-face,’ he rushed over, wrapping himself around her.

  She pulled away. ‘Hi, Harry.’

  ‘How the hell are you?’ He tried to kiss her on the lips but she tilted her head. Ayla had lost her virginity to Harry, and most of her self-worth. Harry Anderson, drama major aspiring to be a literature major, had wooed her with his perfect body and bad poetry. The lust he aroused had sent her to the point of addiction. Harry became her drug. She thought she would die when he withdrew to start writing worse poetry for Clarissa, a virginal arts major. There had been three other virgins since. Mandy had kept her informed. He was known on campus as the Virgin Slayer. Ayla felt humiliated she had been his initial conquest. Her only source of pride was that she held the record for maintaining his interest the longest. Their relationship lasted exactly fourteen months.

  The brunette came over and slipped her arms around him, sizing Ayla up. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Sonya, this is Ayla. Ayla, Sonya.’

  Ayla couldn’t help herself. ‘What happen
ed to Clarissa?’

  ‘Psycho bitch. Had to take a DVO out on her, wouldn’t leave me alone.’

  Sonya pulled at him. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘Soon, okay? What have you done to your hair, Aylee? Looks sexy,’ he reached to touch it. ‘Rrrrringlets,’ he said, growling his R.

  She moved away. ‘Goes like that from swimming in the sea every day.’

  ‘And women pay hairdressers big bucks to get sprayed with bottled salt water to achieve the same effect.’ He smiled his winning smile, but she was no longer charmed by it.

  ‘I need to widdle,’ Sonya said in a child’s voice and placed his hand between her legs.

  He pushed her off. ‘Then go widdle.’

  Sonya sulked off unsteadily on her platform heels, her tube of a dress riding up to expose her underwear.

  ‘God, it’s good to see you, Ayla.’

  She couldn’t speak, feeling the pure physical energy of their past rising between them.

  ‘Want an eccy? Got one left. We could split it and cut this scene, go back to my place, relive old times? What do you reckon?’ He fished in his pocket for the tab.

  ‘Aren’t you here with Sonya?’

  ‘She wouldn’t care, she’s that pissed.’

  ‘Yes she would. When are you going to stop being an arsehole, Harry?’ Even Ayla was surprised at the snarl in her voice.

  He blinked.

  She sipped on her cider and spotted Paul, a long-haired science major. ‘Paul,’ she called and waved.

  ‘Ayla, honey,’ he held up a joint and motioned for her to join them. ‘Guys, look who’s here.’

  Ayla was embraced by friends from her old faculty and Harry sulked off into the crowd. They passed around the joint. Ayla was reluctant.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re out of practice, honey?’

  ‘Afraid so, Pauly,’ she took a small puff and coughed out the hot smoke. ‘Have any of you seen Mandy? I’ve lost her.’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’ Mandy snuck up behind her. She dragged Ayla inside where they danced and giggled like teenagers again until Mandy’s housemates, four of them, all majoring in law like Mandy, signalled they were leaving.

  Falling outside into the fresh air – it was such a perfect night – they decided to walk home, past crammed restaurants and pubs seething with drunks. So different to the island, for Ayla it was a visual feast. She was so busy taking it all in, she collided with Evie.

  ‘Fuck, move over. Think you own the pavement?’ Evie growled.

  Ayla had asked Mandy about Evie once because she never felt comfortable around her. ‘I’m sure she hates me.’

  ‘Nah. She’s from a mob out west. Had a crap childhood. She assumes all whites are racist. Where she’s from, most of them are. Can’t blame her for being angry. More she learns about the history of our people, the angrier she gets.’

  ‘What?’ Evie was glaring at her.

  Ayla looked at the time and caught Mandy’s eye. ‘I might get going, actually. If I catch the next bus, I’ll make the last ferry home.’

  The others, with the exception of Evie, called out in protest, wanting her to stay. Mandy dropped behind. ‘Don’t let her get to you, mate. She’s like that with everyone. I’d offer to deck her but look how bloody big she is.’ They held hands. ‘Please stay. I’ll cook pancakes for breakfast.’

  Ayla felt ashamed she didn’t have the endurance to stay and ‘suck it up’, as Mandy would put it. Evie was a blip in Ayla’s life compared to what she had seen Mandy endure: years of inherent and casual racism. Like the time in their first year of uni, while waiting for Mandy to buy a coffee, Ayla had walked into an expensive gift shop where the shop assistants glanced at her but continued their conversation. When Mandy entered a few minutes later, Ayla was appalled to witness their suspicion as they followed Mandy around the store, assuming she was going to steal something. Mandy thought it was a big joke the way Ayla had become outraged on her behalf. Mandy dealt with that kind of occurrence on a regular basis.

  ‘Pancakes are tempting, but I’m too worried about Jip.’ Which was true. ‘Got to go or I’ll miss this bus. Love you.’ She hugged her friend.

  ‘Love you too. Hey, thanks for coming in.’

  Ayla ran fast through the late-night traffic of cabs and throngs of lurching drunks, but missed the bus, which meant she would miss the last ferry home. She caught the next bus, deciding to ring Grappa and ask him to fetch her in his boat. Anything was better than dealing with Evie. Evie made her feel ashamed. In Evie, she saw the generations of resentment. The whole big unspoken mess of it, an open wound still bleeding. Growing up alongside Mandy, Ayla had not only witnessed the racism, but the indelible effects on Mandy’s extended family from a generation of stolen children. A death in custody of Aunty Dora’s favourite nephew, which almost destroyed her. She had watched some of the mob on Big Island not able to cope with the reverberations of trauma, falling into the narrow cracks of substance abuse, and marvelled at the ones who endured with dignity. She had heard whispers of childhood memories of the Bullyman from the mission on Big Island and the horror stories passed down of the massacres; the landscape reverberating with the cruelty of it all. It made her think of the initial moment she had ever felt guilty about the colour of her skin. She and Mandy were seven. Unbeknown to Helen, they had crept down to the beach.

  ‘We can pretend we’re mermaids and this is our rock we sing from. Come on, your Mum’s not here.’ Ayla insisted as she climbed Mud Rock.

  Mandy’s little face clouded over. ‘There’s a bad reason my Mum won’t let me on that headland.’

  ‘What bad reason?’

  ‘White soldiers with guns pushed them like cattle my Mum said.’

  ‘Pushed who?’

  ‘My ancestums.’

  ‘What are ancestums?’

  ‘Like my great, great aunties and uncles.’

  ‘Your relatives?’

  ‘Yeah, my relatives. They herded them up, those soldiers with guns, and pushed them over the edge. They all got smashed on the rocks and died. Even babies, Mum said. My cousins, they don’t call it Mud Rock, they call it Blood Rock. So, if I was you, I’d get down right now.’

  Ayla stood her ground, undecided, hands on her hips jutting out in defiance.

  Mandy waited, scowling. ‘My ancestums, their skin was dark like my uncle Freddie. The soldiers had white skin…like yours. Maybe they were your ancestums.’

  Ayla looked at her skin and wondered why people had different coloured skin. ‘You’re lying. Grappa tells me all the stories and he hasn’t told me that one.’

  ‘Not his to tell.’ Mandy pegged a stone hard against the rock so it splintered into pieces. ‘If you think I’m a liar, I’m not playing with you no more.’ With that, she ran off crying. Their first fight.

  Ayla stared through the bus window at the dark suburbs, remembering how she had climbed to the top and crawled to the very edge. In the white foam of the waves below, blood began to swirl and what at first she thought was a large chunk of brown seaweed, became the body of a dead baby smashing against the rocks. It wasn’t words that spilled out of her mouth. She didn’t know what it was, but it came from somewhere deep within her seven-year-old self. She sang to Mandy’s dead ancestors and felt them listening. She sang until the tears ran down her windblown face and the dead baby dissolved into the crashing waves.

  The memory made her shiver in the almost empty bus, speeding through the endless suburbs in the night towards the water’s edge.

  Riley woke up disoriented on the playground equipment, with no comprehension of how long he had been asleep. Busting to urinate, he slid down the slide and headed for the clump of trees at the edge of the park.

  Wondering if he had broken the record for the longest pee in the world, he saw a beach through the low-lying branches, and beyond that the shape of the island in the middle of the bay. In the distance, he could see the silhouette of the jetty. A bent moon hanging above it. Dejected, he walked towards it
, knowing the only option was to return to his mother. To find his father, he needed more information and she was the only one who could give him that.

  The massive houses with yards that ran down to the water contained large dogs with blood curdling barks. The beach turned into boulders at one section, which he scrambled over to escape a Rottweiler.

  Nerves shattered, he arrived at the end of the jetty, relieved to find the shelter shed empty. He walked to where the pier ended to dip his feet into the water, curious at how the cement steps continued descending into the murky sea.

  ‘A mermaid’s staircase?’ he asked the dark liquid gently lapping his toes.

  The image of the girl in the fog returned. He imagined her ascending from the bottom of the ocean, walking naked up the steps in the moonlight, glistening wet, and became so aroused he had to sit on the cold metallic seat to calm himself.

  The day’s heat had dispersed and a chill rose from the water. There was no sign of the ferry. A bus pulled up, then drove off, but no one came along the jetty. To warm up, he decided to play his flute, squatting on the bench to test the sound. With the night so still and the water like glass, the acoustics bouncing around in the shed were sublime. He played his song for David until David was conjured, standing there beside him, listening; the lines in his face, full of pride. Riley could hear David’s foot tapping along, as it sometimes did.

  The bus driver was talking to her. ‘Rise and shine. Last stop.’

  Ayla stepped onto the pavement as the briny sea tang welcomed her. The bus sped off. Still half asleep, she pulled her phone from her pocket.

  ‘Hi, Grappa….sorry if I….I’ve missed the last boat home…if that’s not too…thanks. You’re the best.’ She stared at the long jetty that ribboned into the darkness. At least the shelter shed at the end was lit up, even though from here it was impossible to see if anyone was in it. The lack of human life in the car park felt wrong. She decided to stay under the cold comfort of the street light, until she caught sight of Little Beaudy.