When the Singing Stops (24 page)

‘Hey come on, you guys, let's make for the headwater. You can see it fall straight to the bottom,' Ann called.

‘I'll be there in a tick.' Madi was delving into the pocket of her backpack and Connor watched her curiously.

From it she drew out the small wooden frog she'd bought with Lester from his artist friend in Georgetown. It was roughly carved but it still bore a striking resemblance to the frog they'd just seen.

‘Where'd you get that?' asked Connor. ‘I didn't know you were a froggy fan.'

‘I'm not. I mean I don't despise them or anything. I've never had a pet frog. But when I saw this it just . . . appealed to me.'

Connor looked at it, turned it over and then
gave it back to her. ‘It's nice to have a lucky talisman.' Giving a lopsided grin he reached into his pocket and drew out a beige stone banded in even rings of chocolate brown.

That's beautiful,' declared Madi. ‘I've never seen anything like it.'

‘It's a zebra stone from Western Australia. My grandfather gave it to me. He picked it up in the Kimberley, I think. He was a bit of an amateur geologist. Got me interested in minerals and collecting bits of rock. Taught me to look under my feet and above my head. We used to go camping and from him I learnt rudimentary astronomy. He was a terrific man. Simple, down to earth, never went to a university but incredibly wise in his way.'

Madi handed the smooth stone back to him and decided she liked this man who'd kept a pet frog and walked about with a lucky stone from his granddad.

Connor and Madi caught up with the rest of the group as they wove through the wet track, ducking under rock overhangs and threading their way past exotic flora. ‘My gosh, look at the size of that. Quick, Connor, take my photo!' exclaimed Madi.

She stood beneath a five-metre bromeliad. ‘I have one with a spiky pink flower in a pot in my garden but it's just kind of small and clumpy. How old do you suppose this one is?'

‘Yonks. I couldn't say. You look cute though.' Connor clicked the shutter.

In twenty minutes they had curved around to the actual top of the falls. Here the broad Potaro River slithered past small jutting boulders and clumps of razor grass to the unexpected drop over the great bite from the cliff face that was the ragged edge of the falls. The golden water surged over the lip in white foaming waves that fell two hundred and twenty-six metres.

‘Watch a section of water come down the river and over the edge and try to follow it down, then you get an idea of the power and speed,' said John.

Mist drifted up from the gorge obscuring the base of the falls. The sheer weight of the water crashing below obscured its actual landing. They were standing on the left-hand side of the falls and each of the men lay down and hung over the edge, looking below into the gorge.

Sharee shook her head. ‘I'm not doing that. What about you, Madi?'

She still couldn't drag her eyes away from the immense swaying curtain of water. Then as she stared, a rainbow appeared, melting out of the mist to arch from halfway down the falls back up to the river behind. At the same time a cloud of small, black swifts, the sharp-winged birds that roost behind the falls, darted out and, swept by the updraught, sailed and soared in formation before sweeping across the rainbow to disappear into the forest.

Tears sprang to Madi's eyes at the sheer magnificence of it.

‘Awesome, eh?' murmured Connor beside her. She squeezed his hand. ‘Come and peer over the edge, it's quite a sight.'

She lay on the rock and Connor held her ankles, but the drop, the roar of water, the spray on her face was too overwhelming, and she got to her feet.

‘There's a little ledge you can stand on, right by the drop, makes a great photo,' said Ann.

‘You know what's amazing too,' commented Connor. ‘There are no touristy things—like safety rails, warning signs, protective barriers. It's utterly natural, wild, like it's always been.'

They paddled in pools at the edge of the Potaro, throwing in sticks and watching them sail over the edge. They took photos, and they sat and simply looked at it. Every moment it changed. ‘When no one messes with nature, perfection is what Mother Earth does best. No human being could create something as beautiful as this,' said Madi thoughtfully.

It was getting close to lunchtime and John suddenly commented, ‘You know what it looks like?' They all turned to him as he studied the falls.

‘Beer. It looks like the world's biggest beer fountain.'

‘John! You're impossible,' declared Ann.

‘A cold beer would go down well,' sighed Connor.

‘It's only an hour's walk to the pork-knockers' village,' said John, a gleam in his eye.

The men were on their feet, picking up their backpacks and tying on shoes. ‘It'll make a longer walk back down, but worth it, I maintain,' said John.

‘And think of the icy rum punch sitting in that old fridge back at the Bells' house.'

‘Oh, Gawd, the kerosene! That fixes it, we have to go to the village.'

They called to the boat boy who was sitting in the shade, eating a piece of fruit Ann had given him. ‘Where's the kero drum?'

The teenager gave the thumbs up and pointed behind him.

‘Right, let's go.'

Madi hung back. ‘Do we come back this way?'

‘No, there's a shorter track from the village that meets the track we came up,' answered Ann. ‘Why?' she asked, seeing the expression on Madi's face.

‘Well, after what Pieter told me, I thought I'd like to stay up here and see the sunset and sunrise.'

‘On your own?' asked Sharee.

‘Why didn't you say so? We could have all arranged to do that, I guess,' said John, thinking of the cool drinks and swim waiting back at the Bells' house.

‘Did you come prepared?' asked Connor.

‘Sort of,' she said, patting her backpack.

‘Good. So did I.' He grinned at her. ‘I had a feeling you might be hard to drag away. I'll stay with you. It'd better be worth stale sandwiches and warm water.'

‘Oh, Connor.' She hugged him.

Ann picked up her pack. ‘You'll probably be able to buy food at the village. Come on then.'

They passed a deserted guesthouse which John said had been built for former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and seldom used since because few dignitaries roughed it overnight at the falls. An hour's visit and they would fly back to Georgetown by late afternoon.

It was a hot walk to the village, the girls chatting quietly, the men half listening to the girltalk and thinking of the welcome beer waiting for them. ‘What if they've run out?' said John.

‘Don't even think it,' said Connor.

Behind them the Amerindian boy swung the empty drum, singing a folk song to himself. To Madi the unfamiliar dialect and rhythm seemed as much a part of their surroundings as the strange plants and trees and the feeling of remoteness, yet all was strangely comfortable and connected. Was it because, like Gwen, she felt herself drawn into this country? As if following her train of thought Connor suddenly asked, ‘Did your friend Gwen climb Kaieteur?'

‘I don't believe so. She didn't write about it. She just went after diamonds up the Mazaruni River.'

‘No more readings from Gwen's book then?' asked Viti.

‘Did she find diamonds?' asked Sharee.

‘Yes. But just when things were looking up she received a message sent upriver and she rushed off to New York. We don't know why she went to New York. She doesn't reveal anything of her personal life. It's very frustrating. I'd love to know more about her.'

‘You'll have to go to Ballarat where she was born and try to find out,' said Connor.

‘Was she married?' asked Ann, who was beginning to count Gwen as an invisible guest among them. ‘Maybe she had to go back to see the old man.'

‘What husband would let his wife go off into the wilds in those days?' asked John.

‘There've been women adventurers who have done that, even disguising themselves as men in the 1800s,' said Madi.

‘Don't get her going. Women adventurers are her hobby,' grinned Connor.

‘So what's Gwen's story?' asked Viti. The girls had to admit they were becoming intrigued with the romantic idea of attractive, well-to-do Miss Gwendoline Richardson heading out from Australia and ending up panning for diamonds on the Mazaruni in Guyana in the 1920s.

‘The British Guiana Government wouldn't give a woman alone a permit to take an expedition upriver,' Madi explained. ‘So Gwen fell in with a Brit—a Major Blake—who had a holding
up there, and he agreed to lease her a portion and act as her sponsor. But it was Gwen's show all the way.'

‘Chauvinistic bastards. Hope she made a fortune,' said Ann.

‘Was there any hanky-panky with the major?' asked John.

‘Well, she didn't write about that. It all seemed very above board. Once or twice she pays him a compliment about his ingenuity in saving them from a sticky situation. But Gwen could manage—and did—quite well on her own. She was the expedition leader.'

‘Oh God, is that a mirage or do you see it too?' said Connor, stopping in his tracks. They all stared ahead and burst out laughing. Across a sandy clearing stood a small thatched hut. On top of its roof was erected a fading, bent tin sign in red and yellow—BANKS BEER. Beside the hut, which served as the local store, was a rough thatched shelter over wooden tables where several men were sitting, watching their approach. A few shanty shacks formed a sort of makeshift main ‘street'.

‘Looks like the wild west in miniature,' said Connor, laughing.

The bottles of beer were cold enough and four times the price in Georgetown, but no one argued. They joined the pork-knockers under the shelter and exchanged greetings. The men,
young and old, dark-skinned and unshaven, smiled at them but there was a wariness that was not encouraging.

John explained they'd climbed up and the men nodded. ‘We do it if we have to. Most times we fly up. Strip's back there.' They pointed to a distant cleared stretch of dirt.

‘So you look for diamonds up here?' asked Viti. ‘Are there lots in the river?' Her sweet naivete was disarming. John and Ann knew the men didn't discuss their finds—even with each other. Buyers and agents flew in to buy from the pork-knockers. Some of the men preferred to sell their finds down in Georgetown. But there they ran the risk of blowing their profit on the city's nightlife. There was little to spend their money on up here except rum, beer and card games.

Madi was intrigued and began asking how they went about dredging and what the diamonds looked like. ‘I mean, are they hard to see, like gold?' She remembered a gold-panning weekend with her parents at Hill End in New South Wales, which had been very frustrating to an eleven-year-old. Matthew had found the only little nugget.

One of the young men laughed. ‘Dey sparkle with fire, girl. No mistake dem.'

‘Could I see one?'

The man responded to Madi's eager gaze and bubbling enthusiasm. He reached into his shoe and drew out from his sock a blue and white Vicks VapoRub inhalation tube.

‘Christ, I haven't seen one of them for years. My granny was always making me push one up my nose when I got stuffed up,' laughed John.

‘We have it in Australia too. But it comes in a jar, greasy stuff you had to rub on your chest,' said Connor.

The young man unscrewed the plastic top and shook the contents into the palm of his hand.

A coarse sprinkling of rough stones showed many colours, each glinting with a hint of the fire and light within.

They pored over the diamonds in fascination and then one of the other men produced a balled sock from his hip pocket and showed his cache. In minutes they were all talking and the pork-knockers, long deprived of an outside audience, attempted to outdo each other with their stories. Another round of beers and the men began discussing the pros and cons of the democratic government. Connor glanced at Madi as the death of Ernesto St Kitt was mentioned.

‘We hear it on de radio. Man, dat how dis country bein' run, mebbe de bosses didn't throw him in de river, but, man, dat be a murder for sure. He was making speeches 'bout helping de man in de street and helpin' git dis country going straight. I don' believe dat fella a druggie. My sister know he's wife. Dey a good family.'

The other pork-knockers nodded in agreement.

‘De city can be a bad scene, man. Up here,
you only got de bushmasters and your neighbour to knock yo on de head,' joked another.

‘A bushmaster? Gwen mentions them. A poisonous snake, right?' said Madi.

‘Very poisonous,' said John. ‘But you Aussies would be used to that.'

‘Mind where you sleep at the falls tonight, Madi,' said Sharee with a wink.

‘I have my hammock rolled in the bottom of my backpack,' she answered.

‘I think we should be making a move. Let's get the kerosene. Madi, see what food you can get. Are you sure you two will be okay?' asked Ann.

‘Of course. It will be an adventure,' Madi answered quickly.

Connor rolled his eyes. ‘You and your adventures.'

In the makeshift store they found a packet of Kraft cheese, biscuits, cans of Coke, some peanuts and candies. ‘Pretend we're at the movies,' said Connor handing over cash for the small feast.

The Amerindian boy struggled across the road with the full can of kerosene. ‘John, he can't carry that on his own,' cried Ann.

‘Don't fret. I've got a plan,' said John, sliding Mr Bell's stick through the handle. Ann took one end and John took the other. The boy looked around and reached up for their backpacks. ‘Take it for awhile, we'll trade you part way down.' Sharee patted Ann's shoulder, glancing at Viti who nodded her head at them.

The young pork-knocker offered to sell Madi a diamond but she shook her head. ‘I'd like to find my own.'