The Glass Mountain (10 page)

11

He has two days to go.

‘I gotta get back then, Essie.'

She nods and smiles.

‘See, they promised the Big Man before he carked it to regulate me an' their word is honourable, even if they don't feel very congenial about what they're being honourable about.'

She nods and smiles.

‘An' they wouldn't be feeling entirely therapeutic if I walked out on 'em.'

More nods and smiles.

He thinks, if he'd gone on about heaving himself out of a seventeen-storey window, she'd still smile an' nod.

The last few days she's been different. She's pale-like mostly an' coughs a lot an' there's still blood on her little hanky but she's different. It's as though she's smiling inside like ya do when yer got a secret ya not gonna tell …'Course it could be just 'cos of today …

‘You'll reckon my special place's the most excellent place that ever was.'

Again she smiles.

He goes on, ‘It's very perspicacious that Sheralyn said “Yes” to us going, 'cos now yer got on yer best pink. An' pink makes ya look very perky, Essie.'

* *

She sits on the high seat in front, a straw hat with flowers in her lap. Her feet dingle, dangle, don't touch the floor.

Driver Marion clips on her seat belt, scans the rear mirror. ‘Everybody ready?' she calls. Habits stick.

Arms in blue wave as the mini-bus takes off, as it bumps out of the drive and into the road.

In late afternoon the sun penetrates rattling windows. Heats blood.

‘It'll be cool there,' says Ossie.

‘You know I think —' Essie stops. ‘I think Mr Eliot was right. “In my beginning is my end …” To be happy at the beginning and the end …'

‘There ya go again, like my dad.'

‘Do I?'

‘An' his homilies.'

The toilworn mini-bus rumbles on.

‘Left here,' calls Ossie.

They swing onto a dirt road. Bumpety bump.

‘Stop near that bunch of trees.'

‘Here?'

The driver stares into a biblical wilderness.

‘The river's below a bit, Marion. Not many journey to this spot.'

‘I'm not surprised. How do you get down there?'

Like three entrants in the four-legged race they descend. Slip and slither. Once, Essie falls. Once they all fall.

‘Sheralyn'd kill me,' squeals the nurse as they slide to a stop.

‘Oh,' gasps Essie, ‘it's beautiful.'

Marion plonks herself on a rock and starts to dab at blood. ‘Should've brought my book,' she moans. ‘It's in the bus.'

‘We'll be alright on our own,' replies Ossie.

The officer-in-charge surveys the streamscape. ‘Well, give a shout if you need me.' She starts up the climb. ‘You won't move from here, will you?'

They sit in silence, watching the play of sunbeams on water, the shimmer of heat, the busy beat of wing and fin.

The ineffable beauty of the river world.

‘Well?' says Ossie.

Essie smiles. ‘ “… some day, someday long hence, when the cup has been drained and the play has been played, sit down by your quiet river … and I will surely see you coming, eager and light hearted, with the South in your face …” '

‘The Wind in the Willows?'

‘Yes.'

In silence they sit, as sunlight glints between trees, as two damsel-flies flit coquettishly and dart away, as the long Indian summer day deepens.

‘See the fish, Essie?'

‘You've got a beautiful mind, Ossie.'

‘Don't just —'

‘A beautiful mind.' Essie turns, takes a young hand. ‘Thank you for letting me share your special place.'

The damsel-flies return and carry on flitting.

‘I have a special place too,' she murmurs, ‘where a mountain rises and the sea is green — where the golden frangipani grows wild and free …'

‘Where's that?'

She goes on. ‘There the nights are so warm you can hardly breathe … We'd sit on the veranda and watch the glass mountain and wait —'

‘Wait for what?'

‘I must see it just once more,' she says.

‘Ya'd better get rid of that cough first.'

‘Yes.'

'Cos they won't be heaving ya up mountains if ya go spitting blood.'

‘Who won't be?'

‘Yer Marjorie an' them.'

‘They won't be taking me. They'd laugh at the idea.'

‘Who's gonna then?'

Essie slips off a shoe and dangles a foot in the gurgling stream.

‘Why Ossie,' she says, ‘you are.'

12

‘Essie —'

‘You don't have to worry, Ossie. It's all arranged.'

‘Essie —'

‘Shh. Here comes Marion. We'll talk later.'

‘Essie, I don't like saying this, but a variety of old people are ga ga an' I'm considering the distinct possibility that you are —'

‘I told you, I've thought it all out —'

‘Like, how's ya doctor gonna make it with his little bag of pills what ya can't do without? An' are ya gonna fly, Essie? Like, become one of them little sparrows round an' about, 'cos ya don't have a car an' I got no licence to drive one even if ya had one. An' then there's ya Marjorie an' them, what'd be just a little contrapuntal that you'd heaved off an' a little more still 'bout who ya'd heaved off with. An' what about Sheralyn, 'cos people lose very excellent jobs when their clients up an' heave away? An' 'cos of you, Sheralyn'd be on the dole an' Marjorie woulda rung the cops an' they'd be doing a bit of hefty investigating, what they'd enjoy too — it not being too intellectually synonymous — since a little ole lady an' a tattooed bikie are not ya everyday wayfarers. An' the larger of the two would have his own special reasons for not wanting the cops wayfaring in the same direction …'

‘Have you finished?'

He is sitting cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom. It's after dinner and she's lying on the bed, propped with pillows.

‘Ossie, come here.' She pats the edge of the doona.

Still he continues. ‘An' I'm fulminating that this special place of yours is about a hundred ks away.'

‘More.'

‘An' there's one other incidental what requires contemplation. In a very few days certain members of a certain fraternity will be fronting up expecting my presence to be around. An' they're not the sort of people I'd be inviting you to be acquainted with, Essie, for reasons best known to myself.'

Essie smiles. ‘I've thought of that. I've thought of everything.' She rearranges a pillow and pulls herself up. ‘Ossie, listen. It's all quite simple. I want to go home. I want to see my mountain, the place of my childhood before I —' she stops.

‘I know, Essie, I know yer sick. I know all about it.'

‘Now this is the plan. We take one day to get there, one day to be there and one to get home — three days in all. I will notify Sheralyn who will advise my family. I will also leave a note for your friends thanking them for their patience in allowing you to — well anyway, I'll think of something.' She reaches for his hand. ‘Please Ossie, I've such a desperate longing to touch familiar soil again, to return to the beginning, to where I belong and in my heart have never left … Do this for me.'

‘Essie, I'm sorry. It's a contradictory risk to drive without a licence. I know, 'cos —'

‘We'll go by bike.'

‘Bike!'

‘Motor bike.'

‘Next ya'll say ya gone an' bought a Harley.'

‘That wasn't the name. But yes, it's bought and paid for.' She thumbs through a stack of papers on her bedside table.

‘Essie, ya gone ga ga —'

‘Here we are. It's called a nine hundred c.c. touring bike. Such a nice man at Wheels City — his name's Trevor. We talked about hiring, but by the time he'd explained about deposits and signing contracts and everything, I thought it was simpler to buy one. He agreed.'

‘Ya are ga ga.'

‘All I had to do was read out the numbers on my little card and it was done. It's black with silver things. I hope you like black with silver things, Ossie. Trevor was so helpful. He was genuinely miserable that he couldn't sell me a sidecar. Then he remembered Travis. Trevor's friend Travis has a sidecar, a pink one that he grows flowers in and he'll lend it to us! That's country people for you …' Again she thumbs through some papers. ‘Here's his address … they're expecting you. Oh, and helmets. We need helmets. Trevor's organised that too —' she suddenly falls back panting and reaches for a handkerchief. She's starts to cough, to spit stuff, thick and yellow … He lifts her head and puts a glass of water to her lips.

‘It's no go, Essie. I don't wanna be burying ya with my very excellent spade on the side of some highway an' all.'

‘I won't die, Ossie, I promise.' She straightens up. ‘I've got my medication and plenty of morphine. I've thought of everything.'

‘Ya haven't thought of Henry. Or are ya thinking of nailing his bowl to the back seat as well?'

‘Horace is looking after Henry. As I said, I've thought of everything.'

She wipes her mouth and takes a deep breath. ‘I'll make a list of what we'll need which you can pick up tomorrow.' She smiles and reaches for his hand. ‘We'll be Mole and Ratty — wayfarers rounding the next bend in the river. Ossie, we're going to have fun!'

13

It is black and silver. It has handlebars and headlights for burning the heavens, chrome dagger rails for slicing stars and no front fenders to stop the wind.

‘Ya got a pretty good grandma!'

Ossie faces a smiling Mr Wheels City.

‘Ya got a pretty good grandma,' he repeats.

‘Yeah.'

‘Nine hundred c.c. tourer, one owner, reconditioned motor — whatcha reckon?'

‘It's —' Ossie stops. ‘It's kinda perfect.'

‘Name's Trevor and you must be Ossie.' A hand swipes at a speck of dust. ‘By the way, tell ya gran I couldn't get mauve. Rang around but mauve's not a colour that's popularly called for.'

‘Mauve what?'

‘Helmets. Red's the next best. Reckon red's okay?'

‘Red's okay.'

‘I guess ya gran told ya Travis owes me one and he's cleaned his little sidecar out real nice.'

‘That's very excellent.'

‘I hear yer off somewhere.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Well, with red helmets, a pink sidecar and this machine they'll see ya coming for miles.'

‘That's what worries me.'

‘Listen, Ossie, that thing can fly like a bird. Ya got nothing to be worried about …'

14

‘We leave tomorrow.'

He's met her in the passage on her way to lunch. Her cheeks are pink. Differently so. They're clown's cheeks — shiny and unnatural.

‘Tomorrow?'

‘My room, after dinner,' she whispers. And disappears.

Ossie weaves a vacuum across carpet, burrows into corners, swishes a nozzle over vinyl and chintz. He will leave the cottage sparkling, even more spotless than he found it — with flowers too.

He packs up and, in softly falling rain, makes his way across the grass to the main building.

She is lying on her bed in the half light. A shadow in shadows. He flicks on the lamp.

‘Well,' she says. ‘What do you think?'

‘That this is an obsequious mistake —'

‘About the bike?'

‘Essie —'

‘Do you like it?'

‘It's a very excellent bike indeed, but —'

‘Good. I wanted you to have something — nice …'

‘Essie, ya can't get a second-hand Yamaha for under five grand an' —'

‘Let's say it's a sort of thank you for taking me. I think —' she muses, ‘I think it'd be better if we left it at Travis's until we're ready to go. I'm sure he won't mind. Tell him you'll pick it up at four.'

‘Four?'

‘In the morning. Now here's the list. We don't want much, mainly something to keep the rain off. We can buy what we need on the way. I'll take — borrow — a couple of blankets and a cushion or two.' She gives a tiny squeeze of a laugh. ‘I'm so happy, Ossie.' She reaches out and grabs his hand. ‘I know you're worried but you don't have to be. The good fairy on my shoulder assures me that all will be well. ‘Of course —' she glances at him — ‘of course everything would be quite perfect if I thought you were looking forward to a little wayfaring too — even a tiny bit.' She pauses. ‘Are you?'

He doesn't reply.

‘If you were going off with some pretty young girl you would be —'

‘Essie, for someone who reads
The Wind in the Willows
, you can be very controvertible at times.'

‘I'm sorry, I'm just so excited. I want to know if the house is still there, if it looks the same. I want to see the world again from the top of the glass mountain. I want — she stops, smiles into some distant place — ‘I want to once again feel its power, its mystery, its magic. There's a story connected to the glass mountain, Ossie. A strange and wonderful story.'

‘How come it's glass?'

‘It's not. They call it that because of the peak.'

‘What peak?'

‘Its peak juts straight into the sky and it's as clear as glass is clear. And people come, because of what happened, to watch. And wait.'

‘For what?'

‘It's a long story,' Essie replies. ‘And you've got to be up at four.'

Ossie stretches out on the warm carpet, grabs a cushion and slips it behind his head, ‘Well, if ya reckon I'm gonna be able to sleep, Essie, yer more antediluvian than I thought. Tell me.'

15

‘The story begins at the time of the Great War — the war to end all wars. I was born in the last year of that war so I remember nothing of it except the story. The story of a young man who went to it. He was sixteen. He was after adventure and like so many others he lied about his age. It was a way to see the world …

‘He was a good boy, so the story goes — happy, nice-natured. His family had a farm at the foothills of the glass mountain on which the boy worked. Maybe it was to escape the boredom and repetition of farm life that he enlisted, I don't know. But in 1915 at the age of sixteen he left, went by train to the city and then by troopship to the Middle East, to Cairo. He sent home a photo of himself on a camel. His letters were full of a wonderful country of sand dunes and pyramids. He said he'd met other kids from home, a couple from his very farming community. He had four friends. He was having his adventure. They all were.

‘And then one day the order came. They were to sail to Turkey, to the Straits of the Dardanelles and sieze the peninsula on the west side of the straits, thus blocking the siege of Constantinople. The place was called Gallipoli.

‘They landed on the 25th of April. As we all know, it was a massacre. The Turks held the high ground. Shrapnel rained down upon the slopes, the beaches … Bodies fell in piles along the sand and the sea was red with blood … The Anzacs dug trenches but in fact they were digging their own graves — five hundred thousand young men who had no quarrel with each other, slaughtering each other and at such proximity that each side could hear the other breathing …

‘There was no escape, no place to escape to. Of the young man's battalion only five were left. He and two of his mates and two others.

‘Again the order came to “go over the top” to attack the Turkish stronghold. The four fell. The story goes that four times the boy charged into the cross-fire and brought each one back. The last, his best mate, was lying near a young Turkish officer whose legs had been blown off. He went back for the fifth time. It's reported that when he brought the Turkish officer in, he was heard to say, “He's no different to us.”

‘He never talked about the war, not then or later. But it's thought he must have gone mad, just momentarily, for he went “over the top” for the sixth time. It was then he was hit.

‘They met the ship, his mum and dad and sister. Hundreds and hundreds there were on the wharf. He wasn't easy to recognise.

‘He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest distinction of all … Again the story goes that, at his request, it was nailed to a tree at Lone Pine — the place where those young men from both nations fell.

‘The words on the cross read “For Valour”.

‘One evening he wheeled his chair onto the veranda — to be alone I expect. This young man with no legs and still only nineteen was home … The war was over.

‘Inside the house a child was crying, a baby girl, his new niece — me.

‘He was on the veranda alone. Everyone else was doing the things one does after dinner. That's when it happened. The mountain peak turned gold. Pale at first, then rays deep and thick as butter flooded the houses, the fields and the trees. They warmed his skin, then faded and were gone …

‘The story would have ended there if a neighbour in the next paddock hadn't witnessed it also. He saw the light sweep over the fields and fall upon the head of the young man.

‘He might have started the myth. Who knows? Put about that the light was the Grail. A new holy grail that touches only the pure in heart …

‘The Holy Grail was the cup used by Our Lord at the last supper. And in the legend of King Arthur it's the knight Perceval who guards it and, the legend goes, it can only be seen when in the presence of the pure in heart …

‘Perhaps the glass mountain never did turn gold. It's just a nice story that's gathered significance — a story that began as one thing and ended as another …

‘Or maybe it's just a trick of the light, when the sun's rays fall at a certain place in a certain time on a certain date …

‘I don't know. But I do know that people from all over still come to the glass mountain. People want miracles and they watch. And wait …'