Lessons from the Heart (19 page)

‘Do you know which one's the Southern Cross?' I ask.

‘No, I don't know much about the stars.' And in the dark he sounds even less certain than any of the boys. ‘It could be that one,' he says, but I can't even be sure where he's pointing. ‘Or maybe that. You could always ask Gerald, he'd know.'

‘Yes, but then I'd have to hear about the birth of the Universe as well.'

We giggle together like two kids. ‘Gerald can be a bit –'

This is one of the things about Mr Prescott, he never seems to finish a sentence, and it's as if all his brains and thought go into being an athlete and a spunk and that, and he hasn't got enough energy or concentration left over for less important things like expression. Though, when he talks about sport, which is mostly all I've ever talked to him about really, and running, and strength through the hips, he's always got quite a wide vocabulary then.

‘Laura –' he says then, and I know immediately from his tone of voice that he wasn't just standing there in the dark, he was waiting for me. ‘Does Toni ever talk to you?'

Toni talk? is all I can think. Miss Blabber-Lips?

‘About …' he says.

‘No,' I say. And we stand there, and suddenly I'm as dumb as he is and my mouth's dry and you could hand me a dictionary, and I still wouldn't be able to find a single speakable work in it. Because what would
you
say if a teacher's having an affair, or isn't having one but would like to, with a student, and you're the student's best friend and everyone knows it and you're tenting with her, and the teacher, who's married and has a nice wife and two kids and one who's just a baby as young as Thomas, comes up to you and asks you whether the girl who he – who he …
likes,
I suppose – whether she
talks,
for Chrissake? About
it.
‘Not really,' I say.

‘Oh,' he says. And I can see his head and shoulders silhouetted against the sky now, and he's got them pressed back and is looking up at the stars again, as if the answer's written there. When he doesn't even know which one's the Southern Cross. ‘Oh,' he says again, and he sounds about sixteen himself and so worried I feel sorry for him and want to help him and say I'm sure it'll be all right, whatever
it
is, but I can't because I don't think it's right, I think it's wrong. And so, in the end, I don't say anything, and it's Mr Prescott who has to speak. Because you can't just stand there. And –

‘Oh,' is what he says. Again.

So we both stand there and look at the stars and the ones around the edges of the horizon are single and hard and brilliant, but in the middle, right above us, about a billion miles away, there's this really cloudy stream of silver, and at first you think it's maybe not as important as the single stars because they're so much brighter and clearer, and then you realize that what you're looking at is billions of stars but all clustered so densely together their light can't be separated.

‘That's the Milky Way,' I say to Mr Prescott, and I'm amazed at how loud and surprised my voice sounds.

‘Yes.' Mr Prescott looks again for a bit. Then coughs and says, ‘Well …'

And I know he's going to say he'd better be getting back to the boys' tents, and I feel – because he's asked – I have to offer him something. And I rack my brains, but what can I say.

‘Laura,' he says instead. ‘You know –'

‘What, Mr Prescott?' I nearly shriek. And I don't want him to say anything. About it. And I'm glad it's dark, and we can't see each other's face properly.

‘I'd never –'

And I just wait.

‘I'd never just use Toni.' And
use
sounds so vague and hopeless I think I can start to relax. Until he says: ‘I'd never do anything to hurt her.'

And I wish he hadn't said that. Because I know then how serious it is – even for him, and he isn't just fooling and messing around and getting his ego inflated or blown-up – but he's upset about something, and it could be that everything's so complicated when he hadn't expected it to be, and I wonder if it's that and they're really fucking and maybe have fallen for one another instead of just having a relationship and that, and everything on this trip's so cockeyed and mixed up and so different from home, and I just say:

‘No, I know you wouldn't.' Which sounds wet and pretending to be grown-up when I'm actually just filling up with all the pain of me and Philip again, and I just want to go and hide and don't want to go anywhere near the Rock with anyone.

‘Well, I'd better be getting back,' he says.

‘Me too.'

‘Just a half-hour more …' He tries to sound jolly, and in charge. Though in the dark, he could just as well be Billy Whitecross or any one of the other boys. ‘And then we can …'

‘Yes.'

But he's already disappeared.

On my last round, just before eleven, I poke my head in Luisa's and Sarah's tent, because just the sight of them, I find, always cheers me up.

‘Can I come in?' I say from outside.

‘Laura!' they both call, and my heart lifts, hearing them so pleased to see me.

‘Are you nearly ready?' I ask them, kneeling in the entrance to the tent. ‘Lights out in five minutes.'

‘Nala will be having her ceremony now,' Luisa says. ‘I've been telling Sarah. I wish we could go.'

‘Yes,' I say, and the word catches in my throat. ‘But we can't. I'll try and find out if it was anything special, and let you know.'

‘You could ask Jason. You know, the ranger?'

I look at her, but her face is total innocence in the lamplight.

‘What are you doing?' I say. ‘What are they?'

Luisa has pulled one of the clips from her hair and – ranged alongside it – there are four miniature cloth dolls in brightly coloured blouses and skirts.

‘They're my worry dolls,' she says.

‘Worry dolls?'

‘Don't you know them? They're from South America. They're Guatemalan.' And she says the word with such authority that I wonder if I haven't made a terrible mistake, and just assumed she was Indian Indian when all along she was indian indian.

‘What are they for?'

‘Well, each one,' she starts, and lines them up across her pillow, ‘you tell a different worry to. Like things that are worrying you. And then you put it under your pillow. And in the morning when you wake up –'

‘The worry's gone,' Sarah bursts in.

‘Oh,' I say. ‘That's lucky. Now put out your lights, please, and I'll zip up the tent. I'll see you in the morning.'

‘Goodnight, Laura,' they say together, and I think of them all the way back to my tent, the paleness of Sarah, her timidity and how she'll exist in the world, and their friendship and how they share everything, now, and I think about Luisa and how she could be Guatemalan, and how dumb I am sometimes, and the worry dolls under her pillow magicking away her worries during the night.

‘Do you want one?' was the last thing she said to me. ‘I've got four. You could put it under your pillow.'

‘I've already got my journal there,' I told her.

‘Oh,' she said. Puzzling.

Jason doesn't say:
I wondered if you were coming
– even though I'm fifteen minutes late getting there. He just says: ‘You look great, hop on. There's your helmet.'

First I was going to come, then I wasn't, and then I wondered what Mum would do, and I know she'd say: ‘Well, you made an arrangement, and it's not fair not to show up, even if it's only to tell him you've changed your mind and you're not going after all.'

‘Where are you going?' Toni had said, and I could see she was shocked when I got my jacket because she was expecting me to go to bed.

‘Just out,' I said, because I suspected she'd go out as soon as I was asleep, and she never told me anything any more, and why should I.

‘Oh, Miss Independent,' she sneered. But I could tell she was worried as well as angry, and serve her right. ‘Are you meeting someone?'

‘Maybe,' I said, and then I really got at her. ‘See you in the morning.'

‘Laura?' she called after me, but I didn't answer, and I know how that feels. ‘Laura!'

But I'm still not sure, even when I get to the entrance to the campground and see Jason sitting patiently on his trailbike under the round, orange street lamp. But the night is still just like summer in Sydney, it must be fifteen degrees where normally it's about six or seven out here because of the desert, and with the air as soft as it is and the stars out and Jason smiling and holding out the helmet for me, and everything being so peaceful and quiet and imagining myself just riding along in the dark with the wind in my face and all that above me – and Nala and the women at the Rock, and I do want to know about them and the ceremony and that – I stop thinking and just say, ‘Thank you.'

Jason shows me how to put the helmet on, then once more he says, ‘Hop on.'

So I do. And that's that.

‘Move closer,' he says, as he starts the bike. ‘That's right, wrap your legs round mine. Put your hands here.' And he takes my hands then and puts them on his hips. And his hands are strong and hard on top of mine.

‘Okay?' he says. Louder now, over the engine.

I nod, then realize that's no good and bend closer so he can hear and of course – because it's the first time I've worn a helmet – the helmets clang together, and I see his teeth through the orange plastic of his visor and he's laughing and I laugh back, and he must take that as yes, and we take off. And it
is
great, with the wind rushing against you, and I wish we didn't have to wear these stupid helmets and you could just ride with the wind through your hair, and at one point I'm enjoying it so much, I move my hands further round until they're meeting in front of Jason's body and I press myself against his back, just for a moment, just to show how much I'm enjoying it. ‘Whoo-oo,' he shouts and speeds up, and I have to lean back then and put my hands on his hips again because it's too fast all of a sudden, and he must sense this, and he slows, and it's weird – it's almost as if I'm the one who's in charge of the accelerator. And when we come to the actual entrance to the Park with the beam down across the road and the
Park Closed
sign illuminated in the bike's light, Jason just accelerates around it, down the path where the coaches usually go, and we're in and running free in the Park. A few minutes later, swooping over a tiny rise, I look to the left, following the line of Jason's arm, and it's there – the Rock, black and looming and looking so much bigger than in the day, and the moon is hanging above it, and Miss Temple's right, it's all pushed in on one side and looks fat and ready to fall like a giant teardrop.

And then we're off the road. ‘Hey –!' is all I've got time to shout, and we're bouncing now and entering a narrow track between the mulga, and dust and pebbles are spitting up from underneath us. ‘Where,' I shout into the wind, ‘are we going?' We slide close to the edge of the track, and something sharp rips at my jeans.

‘It's a short-cut,' he shouts back. And we're going parallel to the Rock now, and not towards it.

‘Slow down, Jason,' I shout again, ‘it's too fast.' But he doesn't and I have to bang on his back with my open hand because I can feel the bike sliding and fishtailing underneath us now. And this finally gets the message through, and he does. Then turns right at a corner that you'd have to know was there, you'd never see it in the dark, and the road heads straight for the Rock. But it's still too fast and bumpy and I have to wrap myself totally round him, because there are no handles or back-brace to hang onto.

‘Slow
down,'
I yell again. ‘Or I'll jump off.'

And this time he must have heard, and I think he did before, but I don't know if he believes me – that I
would
jump off, I mean – or has just worked out I'm really scared, because he slows right down and we can almost talk.

‘Sorry,' he says. ‘I keep forgetting. I just love going fast.'

Which makes me feel like a sook and a spoilsport.

‘I don't mind on the road,' I say. But it's not only the speed that I'm worried about, because we've turned again and it's all mulga and thick black bushes now, and I can't see the Rock at all and I've lost all sense of where we are.

‘It's a short-cut,' Jason says. ‘It cuts a few kilometres off. But we'll go slow for a bit now anyway, cos we're near the camp.'

And he throttles back till the bike's just chugging and I see the lights of the camp, and even with the helmet and the noise of the bike I'm suddenly able to hear the camp dogs barking and I wonder how the people ever sleep with all that racket, and then I realize they're only making a racket because of us and wouldn't be barking normally. But I know where we are now, and tell myself not to be such a wuss.

‘Is that where you live?' I yell. And he's the second person I've asked today.

‘No, that's the local people. The Mutitjulu.'

And that shocks me, because if he's not the local people, who is he? If he's a ranger?

‘I live in the Resort. In a van out the back with a mate.'

I think about being out here, with your own bike, and being able to go anywhere, riding at night, and what boys can do and girls mostly can't. And then suddenly we're out of it, out of the mulga and the scrub without any warning – it just ends – and the Rock's right there, Uluru, in front of us. And there's a fire.

It's not huge, and it's not blazing and rising up the face of the Rock or anything like I'd expected, but just flickering softly over the tops of the saltbush, and we're still a long way away and too far now to see any lights from the camp behind us either, and only one dog is still barking and then there's a distant shout and even it stops. And after all the noise and bouncing and shuddering of the bike, the silence is almost painful. Though Jason says, ‘Shh!' and looks around. ‘I s'pose we better be quiet,' he says, when he's just driven a trailbike through the middle of the Park right past the camp! ‘It'd be better,' he almost whispers, ‘if no one knew we were here.' And he seems a lot less certain than he was this afternoon, or even just a few minutes back. And I wonder if he's allowed in here after all, and if we'd both get into a lot of trouble if we were found.