Wildlight (25 page)

The island looked slender, velvet folds of green draped across its spine. Steph breathed. The cliffs dropped away to a ruffle of white, a chain of buoys; a small fleet of working boats sitting at rest. Across the way South West Cape tapered long and low. Land ended and the ocean ran on, assuaged and still.

Tom woke. His shoulder throbbed. He forced himself to swallow—his mouth, the inside of his throat gravel dry. His head pounded. His eyes adjusted to the dark. Was he dead? He squeezed sleep from his eyes. He tried to rearrange the smell permeating his senses into something recognisable. He sensed more than saw the shaft of light—above him? behind?—a mosaic of leaves thrown like a hologram upon a textured wall. The ground beneath him crunched like cornflakes. His stomach belched; even his bile tasted of starvation. Tom raised himself to sitting and knocked his head hard. He shrank back down, rubbed his wounded skull. His fingertips felt slimy: he licked the taste of blood. Where was he? He ran his hand across a ceiling of rock that rained grit upon his face and hair. He rubbed his watering eyes, blinked, blew a string of gritty snot. He waited for the stinging of his eyes to pass. He sniffed his finger. Old—no, ancient traces of charcoal, tree sap. Others had used this place; he felt it with certainty. At the far corner of his memory he caught an image of a girl with shaven hair, smeared with white, her heels cracked beyond their years.
Tom
, she whispered—then she was gone. Tom drew his legs up to his chest. His gumboots were gone. His pack. He searched around, fingered at the texture thick and warm upon the ground. A downy quilt of leaves, dried moss that crackled and crumbled on touch. Tom turned. He winced. The glare. He raised his hand to shield his eyes. His focus sharpened. Sunlight. An opening. Daytime. Alive. Entombed inside a shallow cave.

He pushed feet first, angled his shoulders to slide through the curved exit of rock. From the outside you’d never know the cave was here. The air felt sharp. Tom’s eyes smarted with light; the day felt onion raw. He stumbled through scrub—his soles tender and tingling, his stockinged feet not lifting properly though his eyes registered the obstacles. He reached an outcrop of rock and stopped to rest. His breath was laboured, his fingers coated in soot, a smear of blood. He followed the line of the ridge until he found the track. He panted with each step, light-headed with weakness. A saddle. An open plain. The air was still. He stopped at a planked bridge and a creek that he’d seen once before. Nothing made sense. Behind his eyes the light throbbed. He knelt at the water and slurped handfuls of liquid so icy it hurt to swallow. Tom drank and drank but no amount of liquid quenched his thirst. His belly felt distended—a waterlogged buoy that gurgled and sloshed with each intake of air. He thought he might be sick. He moved back up the track, out into the open. He found a slab of rock. Sun warmed his back, heat spread through his clothes. He didn’t feel inclined to move. He imagined himself as a lizard basking in the sun. He needed sleep. He wanted food and heat. He curled foetal on the rock, his hands tucked beneath his groin, his back angled to the sun.

*

Mighty. Hey. Mighty. Wakie, wakie
. A voice nudged through Tom’s dream clips of boat, lighthouse, his mother knitting, Stephanie’s laugh, a small dark girl. Mighty?

Tom opened his eyes. Sunlight. A glare of sky. A silhouette hovering. ‘Frank?’

‘You scared me there. Thought you were a goner.’

‘Frank?’

William
, the voice might have said, though it sounded more like
Willem
. ‘Let’s get you upright, get a brew into you. Where’s your pack, boy? Your boots? You whacked your head?’

Tom watched wordlessly as the old man pulled a thermos from his pack and poured tea in jerky movements. As much steaming liquid spilled on the dirt as in the cup. ‘Which way you headed, mighty?’
Matey
, he was saying with an accent. He sounded European.

Tom slurped warm sweet tea. He downed the remainder. ‘Cockle Creek. Hobart.’

‘Have some of this.’ William handed him a plastic bag with chocolate, nuts, a rainbow of dried fruit and boiled lollies. The lining of Tom’s mouth drooled in anticipation. ‘At least you’re a few days ahead of the swarm. The rain’s held them back. The old days you wouldn’t see a soul along this track.’

Tom’s senses drowned in an aroma of flavours. He had to stop himself from shovelling chocolate and lollies and dried fruit into his mouth all at once. William watched. His eyes shifted to Tom’s socks, his mud-caked jeans. Tom bit into a licorice coin. His face puckered.

‘Double salt.’ William spilled more tea. ‘Acquired taste.’ The old man’s shake was fierce.

‘You walked the track before?’ Tom said. His voice sounded brittle, like old netting you could put your hand through.

‘I come down this way in summer. Look on it as a bit of a pilgrimage.’

Tom spoke with his mouth full. ‘Why?’

‘Part of it’s the challenge. The weather. The mud. The first time you do it you swear you’ll never step foot on it again. Half an hour later you’re not so sure.’ William gestured to the path. ‘This is the crux of it. Down the other side you’ve got a lovely stretch of coast ahead of you. That’s the reward.’

Tom looked past the creek, past the outcrop of rocks, the ridge, the world shifting back in kilter. This landscape, full of primal wilderness. He surveyed the coast. The ocean flooded back to him and with it a disdain for Frank, a poison that burned beneath the shoulder of his sleeve, the pulse of it white hot. ‘My things.’ Tom looked back up the track. ‘They must be at the camp.’

William motioned. ‘Other way, mighty. High Camp’s further along, beside the stream.’

‘The cave, I meant.’

‘Cave?’

Tom pointed to a knoll.

William looked at him dubiously. ‘You been on the silly weed?’

‘No.’

‘No caves around here, not that I know of. Caves back down along the coast that the old people used. Before us whities.’

None of it made sense to Tom.

‘Never mind,’ said William. ‘We’ll find your gear. Another cuppa first. Take your time. Always time for a brew.’

*

‘Travelling light,’ William said when they found Tom’s pack lying on grass at High Camp. No gumboots to be found. Tom pulled his Blundstones from his pack, thankful he hadn’t turfed them along the way. His daypack and torn plastic sheet looked comical beside William’s oversized pack. The old man must be hauling thirty kilos on his back. ‘What happened to you?’ William said.

‘Nothing.’

‘They’ve been searching for some fellas out at South West Cape. A group came through as I was leaving Melaleuca.’

‘Nothing to do with me.’ There was no getting out of it. ‘I had a falling-out. Decided to walk home on my own.’

‘Without gear? How much food are you carrying?’

Tom felt himself withdraw. ‘I’ll be all right.’

‘You didn’t look too all right when I found you.’

His tone reminded Tom of Frank. ‘When I get down to the coast I’ll find some fishing line, catch a feed. I know better than most what to do.’

‘Mighty, it’s none of my beeswax but anyone can see that at this present point in time you’re in a tight spot. Walk down together, share a meal or two. No questions asked. Scout’s honour.’ The old man’s fingers knocked a shaky salute against the brim of his hat.

William was offering help, offering his food to Tom, a stranger. Tom hadn’t even shared his name. Resistance rippled through him. ‘Why would you do that? I could be some bad arse for all you know.’

‘Right thing to do. Simple as that.’

Frank would shun William’s offer of help. Even Tom’s mother, though not as bluntly. In Tom’s family it always came down to saving face: they were above anybody’s
charity
. Frank measured his worth—his whole identity—with self-sufficiency, an ability to provide. Yet, in that, something was awry. In an odd inverted way, between the bullying and boasting, through every reminder of benevolence, it felt to Tom that Frank was seeking his regard; that Tom’s approval mattered in the same way that an insistent sinner needs redemption from the Church.

‘The river crossing down at Prion,’ William went on. ‘Those two dinghies weigh a ton on your lonesome.’ As if to convince Tom, the older man held out trembling hands. ‘You never imagine the day will come when you can’t manage on your own.’

Something melted in Tom. He put his hand in William’s. ‘Name’s Tom. I hope I can keep up with you.’ That brought a smile.

*

The wind had dropped away, the morning sun intense. Tom was far taller than William but each step down the Ironbounds measured a full stride. At times Tom stepped in a slurry of mud and found a firm footing. As often he sank past his knees in a quagmire. His feet slid inside his short leather boots. His toenails felt soft and bruised, the pads of his toes were chafing into blisters. Tom felt weak and feverish, his limbs, his insides, everything aflame. He stopped to catch his breath, wipe his cuff across his brow. ‘Good old Tassie,’ William said. ‘Frostbite for breakfast, burned to toast by lunch.’

Tom let his mind wander. He tripped on a root and fell hard. Pain tore through his arm. His shoulder throbbed. He picked himself up. ‘That’s usually my trick.’ William offered Tom one of his hiking sticks. Tom shook his head. Let William think he was proud. The old man was nuggety and tough, never mind his two strapped knees. He wasn’t quick but each step was efficient—he kept at it, unfazed by mud and effort. The Master of Zen.

The rainforest petered out to sclerophyll, to tall leatherwoods and myrtle, to brilliant coloured fungi, to an understorey of cutting grass too sharp to grab for support. Its long reeds lay as a woven mat across the track, catching one boot, tripping the other. The change in vegetation did little to reduce the mud. They sank to their knees, slogged over exposed roots, crawled beneath fallen trees. Tom’s jeans and William’s bare legs looked moulded from clay. Tom forced himself to concentrate, to place his feet with intent, to block out boredom and weariness and a pulsing heat that pinched his shoulder with the slightest motion of his arm.

A change in the air. A whiff of kelp. They were nearing ocean. He caught a glimpse of blue. The path flattened, dense forest and tall trees thinned to stands of tea-tree, to open coastal scrub. To a view across the ocean.

William halted, he cocked his ear. ‘Chopper.’ He searched the sky.

Tom saw a gleam of red, sun sparking off glass as the machine tooled its way from the direction of Maatsuyker, a load slung beneath. His skin smarted. Stephanie. They were leaving for home. A well of emotions threatened to spill. For weeks Tom had steeled himself, afraid he might unravel if he let thoughts of her slide in. It was the same mind game he used to get through weeks of working on the boat. But seeing Stephanie leave, the thought of Maatsuyker without her, was a severing of magnitude. Everything he knew of Stephanie, of the part of himself that had finally found the nerve to stand up to his brother, stemmed from that small island and this stretch of coast. Another wash of feelings overcame him. His steps slowed. Until a week ago this whole corner of coast was Tom’s patch. By leaving the boat he’d relinquished his rights to a place, to knowledge and skill. He couldn’t now define himself as the deckie who could trace every cove and bay in his mind, who knew the cliffs and beaches better than Frank, who recognised a storm sky and loved the night sky, who’d served an apprenticeship long enough to anticipate the changes in dawn and evening light across the seasons. This sudden pining; a pathetic kind of grief that made no sense to Tom.

The rotor noise grew urgent, the helicopter passed by close enough that he could see floats strapped to skids, the sling load crammed with plastic boxes. Tom faced the ocean, imagining Stephanie belonging to another place, continuing on, her future mapped out along self-assured lines of navigation. He begrudged her that certainty, her privileged position in life. When she flew over she might look down upon this coast, upon tannin streams and button grass plains, see scraggy stands of paperbark and tea-tree and leatherwoods. She might register this craggy mountain range, make out stretches of the track. She’d see the crowns of trees but she wouldn’t see the twisted trunks or fallen logs cling-wrapped in moss, moist in the chill of the shadows. She wouldn’t sense Tom, or comprehend his turmoil.

The noise of the helicopter receded. Native bees droned. Tom filled his mind with the taste of Leatherwood honey, inextricably linked to his sense of home. He felt a stab of irritation at William standing, waiting, at this meaningless track that people chose to be a slave to. Pilgrimage? Get a life, man. Tom cast him a glare. He scratched at beads of sweat running down his neck, felt a gnawing ache and put it down to hunger. From his backpack he fished the bag of chocolate William had given him. He didn’t care that he’d broken his resolve to save what was left. He filled his mouth, caught sight of William looking on, the old man’s silence at odds with the jerk of his limbs, the tremor of his hands. His whole body seemed to quiver, as if there was nothing of weight to keep him grounded. William was past it. A good gust could take him out. He must be pushing seventy.

‘If you’ve got something to say, say it,’ Tom said. William gave a wounded blink. Listen to yourself, Tom, as foul-mouthed as your brother. ‘Sorry,’ Tom muttered. ‘I’m over mud.’ William nodded to move on.

They reached Little Deadman’s Bay. Tom couldn’t see Maatsuyker. The track had taken on a different feel. He was spent. ‘Aren’t we stopping here?’

‘Next beach along. Forty minutes tops,’ William claimed. It took Tom, trailing behind, one hour and a half.

The beach squeaked. The crust of sand broke beneath his weight. Tom pulled off his boots and revelled in scuffing barefoot through dry sand after kilometres of mud. Tannin water from a creek poured down to the ocean in shallow rivulets—burnt toffee, the creek bed like patterned curls of salted butter. The creek was flanked by cobbled stones warmed from the sun. Tom drank from the creek, wet his hair and face. He adjusted to this landlocked point of view. He gazed out to a sparkly ocean frilled with wavelets that rolled across the shallows. The only way Tom knew the coastline was from the vantage of the boat.