Deeper Water (5 page)

‘Mum doesn’t like us doing it, but sometimes we do it anyway.’ I picked up my teacup, not really wanting to drink it. ‘She doesn’t know.’

‘Sounds fun.’

I couldn’t tell if it was the idea of doing something Mum didn’t like that had the most appeal for Hamish. But maybe that’s why I suggested it in first place.

‘If it looks too high we don’t have to go in.’

He took one more agitated look around the room and then said, ‘I’m in.’

It took a while to get to the secret tree, the moist heat settling around us, and once we arrived we had to climb it to get the body boards down. Things like that were harder for me with my bung foot, so I stood there and gave Hamish directions. It was a big old camphor laurel, like most of the trees around. Someone brought them in from China years ago and now they’d run wild like rabbits, occupying all the hills the first settlers had cleared. I guess that’s what happens—colonisation. They might grow like weeds but they were great for climbing. Big, with widespread branches, dark, waxy leaves. In spring all their new growth came out luminous light green, just around the edges, so from the distance it looked like they were glowing. Whole hillsides alight.

‘What’s that over there?’ Hamish called out from up on a branch.

I knew what he’d be seeing. There was an abandoned shack a few paddocks away on Old Gordon’s land. Probably the original farmhouse, people said. Been there as long as anyone remembered. Grey and disintegrating, faded walls all sagging to one side, a perpetual lean. We’d thought it was haunted when we were kids, but still snuck out and scavenged through its dusty rooms looking for treasures. Old Gordon had done his back in years ago, so he didn’t get out on the farm much. In any case, he never tried to stop us rummaging. Last time I’d been there I was pretty little, but I remembered it—all ransacked, bits and pieces scattered around outside. It was where my brothers had stolen away to smoke their cigarettes and do whatever forbidden things boys their age did.

I still remembered the day Caleb told me I couldn’t come. It was no place for a little girl, he said. No sisters allowed. I thought Sunny would argue but he didn’t. He just hung his head and away they went. Maybe that was the beginning, the beginning of their leaving.

‘An old farmhouse, no one lives there anymore,’ I called back, trying to shake my brothers from my mind. ‘It’ll topple down some day.’

Hamish peered at the shack for a minute longer and then scuttled down with the boards.

‘You reckon these things are going to hold us?’ They were battered looking, washed down in some earlier flood, old with chunks out of them, but they worked alright. Hamish looked sceptical.

‘Yep, they’re unsinkable, I promise.’ I couldn’t help smiling. ‘The problem will be staying on them. It’s not as easy as you’d think.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ He was staring at the creek but when he turned back, I could see he was worried.

‘You don’t have to go in,’ I said, reaching out and squeezing his arm. ‘Not if you don’t want.’

When I touched him he went still. Almost like a camouflage mechanism.

He glanced down at my hand on his arm.

‘I’m fine,’ he said softly. ‘I’m good.’

‘Okay,’ I said, taking my hand away. ‘We get in here because the water’s relatively calm and it’s not too deep. Then we follow the current. There’s a couple of bumpier places, but nothing too rough. We get out before the bridge ’cause it’s dangerous to go that far down.’ An image of his sunken car, on the other side of the bridge, resting somewhere out of sight, flashed in my mind. ‘If you lose your board, it’s no big deal, just swim to the side and wait for me. The only thing you have to look out for is debris that might be washing down. Big logs and stuff. That’s the dodgiest part.’

The creek was still a brownish colour but in a few days it would be clear. I stepped closer to the water and pulled off my skirt, flicking it over one of the lower branches. I was wearing undies but Hamish didn’t seem to know where to look. ‘I can’t swim in a skirt!’

Hamish nodded, not meeting my eyes, and after a few seconds he stepped up and took off Mum’s big floppy top, hanging it over the branch. He was the whitest man I’d ever seen, tall and strong-looking, but the paleness of his skin gave him an odd kind of delicacy.

‘Ready?’ I asked, trying not to look at his shirtless chest.

He nodded and I stepped into the water. It lapped around my ankles, fresh and cool, but the day was warm and the walk had made me hot. In the shallows, I moved gingerly ’cause it was easy to get off balance, especially with my foot. The secret tree spot was the part of the creek farthest upstream from the bridge that was still on our property. The front of our land was bordered by the creek. It snaked around, each bend creating a different kind of waterhole. Some of them were more open—wider and deep. Other sections narrowed right down, became more like tinkling streams. Where the paddocks had been cleared for grazing, camphors had sprung up along the banks. In some places the trees were quite thick, almost forest, but even at the more open stretches there was usually a shady place to sit.

At the secret tree spot the current was relatively gentle, and I waded out deeper, holding onto my board.

‘Come on, flood guy!’

Hamish laughed from the bank but he didn’t get in. The water lapped around my belly, and the bottom of my singlet spread out around me. I dipped down until it was up to my neck.

‘I’m going to go under. It’s better if you’re all wet,’ I called out, and then I plunged deep, feeling the water rush at the skin on my face, feeling my scalp prickle with the coldness, feeling the current stream by. I loved that first plunge, and I stayed there a few seconds just to let the water soak right in. When I broke back through the surface, Hamish had his feet in the shallows, watching me. I moved closer to him, holding onto my board.

‘It’ll be okay once you get in,’ I said, aware of my shirt sucked against my skin. If I was with Anja we would have gone topless. Being naked was part of the thrill. ‘You lie down on it like this.’ I lay across the board to demonstrate. ‘And you just hang on. The creek does the rest.’

It took some coaxing, but after a few minutes I had him in the water and lying across his board. He was a bit wobbly but alright.

‘Ready?’ I asked.

‘Ready.’

‘What are the rules?’

He thought for a minute and then he replied, ‘Hold on tight. If you lose your board swim to the side. Make sure you’re off before the bridge.’

‘And watch out for giant logs!’

I kicked off with my feet. Hamish followed a beat behind me and we were away.

At first the water carried us along quite gently. Hamish stopped clutching the board and looking grim. He actually started to smile.

‘Okay, there’s a rough patch up here—keep your knees high,’ I called back to him. The boulders beneath the water made it bumpy, and every so often you jammed one of your knees on a rock. Hamish was heavier than me—I could only assume he would come out a bit banged up.

The current started to quicken and the water bounced us around. We were pushed along so quickly it was hard to think about anything much. I heard Hamish grunt behind me and knew he’d scraped a rock. Riding the creek always made me feel a touch light-headed. It was kind of a thrill. I started giggling, and then I couldn’t stop. We went round a few sharp bends, ducked beneath a couple of branches and then the bridge was in view, way off in the distance.

‘Start swimming to the side!’ I called over my shoulder.

We paddled against the current until we were out of the rushing water. Climbing up the bank we flopped onto the grass and sat there panting. A few days ago the flood was up over this stretch of paddock and now the grass was all flattened beneath us. Hamish lay on his back, staring at the sky.

‘Mema, that was great. Creek-riding. Another notch on my belt.’

It was a foreign concept, this belt notching, but I was distracted by the way the hair on Hamish’s chest formed whorls when it was wet. It wasn’t dark, his chest hair, but it wasn’t blond either. It was a light woody colour. I watched him while he watched the sky.

After a bit he sat up and stared back at me. Sitting there beneath his gaze my skin seemed to tighten.

‘So, what else do you do around here, Mema?’ His question came out slow, his voice soft.

I looked away from him, thinking about what Anja and I would do. Raising myself up, I wandered back to the creek to collect some rocks from the shallows. ‘You’ve got to come close to the water,’ I called.

Hamish got up and moved down the bank towards me.

‘Painting-rocks,’ I said and crouched in the shallows. I rubbed the ochre rock I’d found against a bigger, smoother rock until it started to make a paste. Once I had enough, I reached out my hand.

‘Come on.’ I motioned for him to come closer.

‘Will it come off?’

‘Yeah, silly, it washes off in the water.’

I reached out to his shoulder and drew a long line slowly down his arm.

‘See?’

He looked down at my hand and then up at me.

‘And then you do dots,’ I said, my voice a bit raspy. I didn’t know why I was whispering. Dipping my little finger in the paste, I pressed careful dots beside the brown line on his arm.

‘There’s even different colours.’ Fishing around in the shallows, I handed him a dull-looking yellowish stone. ‘I like the bright red ones best, though,’ I said, holding up a darker one.

I rubbed my stone on the smooth rock till there was more paste and then reached up a hand to paint his face. Perched beside me in the shallows, he stayed motionless beneath my touch. Goosebumps broke out across his shoulders and he closed his eyes. Hamish had been clean-shaven when he washed up, but now the regrowth on his face was thick, and up close I could see every hair. I drew a line from the middle of his forehead straight down his nose and then dipped my finger in the paste again and painted a line horizontally across each cheek. Taking the yellow stone from him, I rubbed it into a paste and drew a yellow stripe beneath the red one on his cheeks, then dipped my little finger in again and pressed on a row of dots.

‘There,’ I said, and he opened his eyes. Against the rich ochre, his eyes seemed strangely bright. Intense and otherworldly.

‘Now your turn,’ he said, surprising me and dipping his finger into the paste.

I closed my eyes and he traced a line down my forehead, gently, as though I might break. Stopping to get more paste, he ran his finger down my nose, right under it till he touched my lip. He added dots and a few more stripes and then he said, ‘Done.’

When I opened my eyes, his face was so close I was startled. He bent his head, searching for stones in the space between us. After a minute he glanced up and said, ‘You look pretty, Mema. Like a warrior princess or something.’

A huntress, I thought, like my name. But I didn’t say it out loud.

Mum didn’t believe in mirrors, so there were none in the house. I always got a surprise when I was out somewhere and I stumbled on one. I was much darker than everyone else in my family. Dark skin, black hair. Seeing myself made me think about my dad. About how different he must have looked from the men that came before. Mum had told me he was a ‘handsome beast’, and that after him she stayed well away from beautiful men. He was gone by the time I was born, but Sophie told me Mum didn’t get out of bed for weeks. He was the last bloke she’d ever let stay the night, so I suppose in the scheme of things Hamish was getting an easy ride. I’d always felt I was pretty, and there was no one to tell me I wasn’t, but I didn’t know what to make of Hamish’s words.

‘Thanks,’ I said, a little confused. ‘You look pretty too.’

He looked at me but he didn’t speak. The silence felt dense and odd. It hung there, building around us. I don’t know why but I stood up and scrambled back to the grass.

‘Shall we ride the creek again?’ I asked him, feeling jittery. ‘We have to go back to the tree to get our clothes either way.’

He watched me for a few seconds then nodded and slowly pulled himself up the bank.

We could have crossed the paddocks, it would have been quicker, but we wandered along the creek bank instead. There were trees and it was shady and cool. The sound of the water tinkled beside us, and we were quiet. I was thinking of Hamish, of how the air around him felt charged. I was wondering if it was him or me that made it that way.

Sometimes when I walk through the bush, I stop seeing where I am. I get so lost inside my head that I don’t notice much around me. But it’s not always like that. Sometimes it’s the opposite and everything outside myself becomes heightened. Every tiny curled frond emerging, every raised root beneath my feet. The tiny beads of water gathering on leaves, gradually gaining weight until they fall. At those times, it is as though I can sense every drop of water hit the earth. Time slows, and instead of moving through the land, I am somehow just within it. The hum of the place starts up inside me. But that day with Hamish I was lost in thought and so I didn’t see the snake until we were almost right upon it. I stopped mid-step and Hamish bumped into me from behind.

‘What is it?’ In the quiet his voice seemed to boom.

‘Shhhh,’ I whispered, holding a finger up to my lips. ‘It’s a snake.’

The python was curled neatly in a spiralled lump at my feet. We were virtually on top of it. I tried to step back but Hamish was right behind me.

‘Where?’ Hamish whispered, looking at the bank on the other side.

‘Right here!’ I pointed down at the ground in front of us. ‘I didn’t see it.’

‘Shit!’ he said, stepping back quickly. ‘You nearly stood on it.’

‘Yeah, but it’s only a python.’ I moved backwards too. ‘And look, it’s not moving. It hasn’t even stirred.’

‘You can still get an infection from a carpet-snake bite,’ Hamish said, shuffling back another metre and staring at the python.

I knew a lot about snakes because Anja was obsessed by them. She’d been bitten plenty of times. ‘I used to think pythons were completely harmless,’ I said, studying the perfect spirals of the snake, ‘until one tried to eat my cat.’

‘I’ve heard stories about them eating full-grown pets,’ Hamish said. ‘Hard to tell if they are true.’

‘I was sitting inside eating breakfast and I heard this terrible screaming sound. I thought the cat had caught a bird, even though I’d never heard a bird make a sound like that, and I ran outside to rescue it.’ I paused, remembering. ‘But when I got there I saw a python had my cat, had wrapped itself around her neck, and she was screaming, the air slowly squeezing out of her.’