Chapter 19: Ghosts

No one was really sure just how, but Albert and Sarah managed to live an extremely contented and harmonious life together. Some people theorise that this came about through Sarah beating down on Albert, with him just accepting all her decisions and declarations out of fear of incurring her wrath if he were to do otherwise, but I think there was more to it than this. From my observations they were truly and mutually in love. Yes she was often impetuous and prone to outbursts of anger, but she would always return once she’d cooled off, apologise and concede ground that allowed them broker a compromise that suited them both. And Albert allowed her these flurries of emotion because he knew that in the end she would calm down and be able to approach the problem rationally and with commonsense. Each was the central figure in the other’s life. They drank of each other emotionally, spiritually and physically and yet their thirst was never quenched.

In June the year after they were married, two significant events occurred. The first: the birth of a son, Phillip. While their love confounded everyone, the fast following of a child surprised no one. The second event, while no less momentous, had a rather negating effect on the jubilation caused by the first. War had broken out in Europe the year before, and as a colony Australia had swiftly followed the emperor into battle. France had fallen to the Germans, and Albert, along with Pat and Eamonn Moriarty, Josh Craig, and Arthur Kelly, enlisted with the AIF to fulfil their duty and save their motherlands from the Nazi scourge. All five of them were enlisted into the 9^th Division and hurriedly packaged off into ships to undergoing arms and combat training in Egypt. Pat, Josh and Arthur never returned.

            Two and a half years after signing up Albert returned. He would come to me, unable to sleep; a silhouette against the blue-black sky, haunted by ghosts unknown. He backed even further into his own mind. There were things he would not talk about; things he would rather consign to the dustbin of his mind than to bring up. Sarah offered an open dialogue, but never forced the issue, allowing him to instead work through his demons at his own pace, at night, with me.

            Some nights he would stay for hours, standing, sitting, leaning against my naked skin. Often he would fall asleep amongst the rocks and bracken that sheltered my roots, waking to the soft padding of kangaroos heading down to the dam to quench their thirst.

            Many of the stories he told do not bear repeating, and nothing would be gained from me doing so in detail. It is perhaps suffice to say that Albert saw and went through things that no person should ever have the indignity or misfortune to go through. He survived shrapnel wounds and a bullet graze, but worse than these the mental scars of bombs exploding in the darkness all around, not knowing where the next one would land, where the next bullet would come from, the slow and protracted deaths of his mates in the trenches alongside him, and the constant gnawing thought that he could be the next one to go. He held his brother-in-law in his arms as blood bubbled from the hole in his lung. Hell populated his nightmares; ghosts of comrades stalked his dreams. If he didn’t sleep he didn’t have to confront them and explain to them how he had managed to survive and yet they had not.

            In public he and Eamonn would tell their stories of the siege of Tobruk, laughing at the comedy of Lord Haw-Haw, who extolled the virtues of surrender on their longevity and his derogatory dubbing of them as ‘Rats’, a tag which was immediately taken on as a badge of honour. They played chicken against each other as the Messerschmitt’s buzzed and fired on them with machine guns. They won the first major battle of the war for the Allies at El Alamein. They adopted stories of self-deprecating bravado as their truth, leaving their mythology unchallenged for fear of either appearing cowardly or causing offense.

Eamonn managed to successfully hide behind, or even find belief within, these tales and reacclimatise into everyday life. Yes he suffered as any man would have suffered, but he managed to disguise his pain from others, or else drown it with beer when things all became a little too much for him. While Albert also tried to hide, his veneer of triumph was much less convincing and people took to avoiding any reference- direct or not- to the war while he was around, preferring instead to limit the scope of their conversations strictly to farming, weather and the future.

But life continued, as it always does, in its own intractable way, and as they say, time heals all wounds. The scars would always bear testament to his pain, but through the slow and turbulent cycles of bleeding, clotting, infection, inflammation, suppuration, contraction, and remodelling Albert’s mind was gradually brought back from the brink of madness. The busyness of running the farm, loving his wife and getting to know his son diverted his focus from his memories and greatly aided his recovery.

And while he kept visiting my lonely vista across the dam, these visits became less frequent and less volatile. Around others there would always be that invisible wall blocking off any intrusion into his crippled psyche, but alone with me on the tender slope he could let it all go free without fear of judgement or recrimination.

In time Albert managed to reinstate some sort of routine back into his life. Scraping together his wages from the war and taking out a loan from the bank, he first bought the diesel tractor he had always wanted, and then bought the Craig’s farm when they left the valley out of grief for their lost son.

He set to work tidying up his three farms- slashing back the bracken, ploughing fertilizer and ash into the topsoil, replacing fenceposts that had started to rot- until the farms were restored to their past glory. And with the energy and distraction of this work, his sleep, his relationships and his general demeanour improved. Life was restored to something akin to what it had been like before the war.

Across this new decade, with its new and exciting opportunities, the land sprang back to life at Albert’s touch. No other farmer in the district was able to match the Spring’s produce- the sweetness of the corn, the richness of the tobacco, the yield of the spuds. Most contented themselves with one maybe two different crops with some sheep or cattle to supplement their income if times got tough (and they were always tough), however my father and brother would often have seven or eight crops, plus sheep and cattle, growing simultaneously and still be able to harvest just as much as anybody else. Nobody knew how they did it and it aggravated and awed them in equal measure.

Dad and Albert’s success was such that within just seven more years they had paid off the loan for the Craig’s farm, re-mortgaged it and bought the farm abandoned by Bob Enfield all those years before, which had since been run by a succession of English and Greek immigrants. In addition to the original block next to the dam wall they now owned the entire southern bank. Itinerant workers now had to be brought in from town, some of whom were put up in the old houses of the Craig’s and Mr Enfield, to help conduct the day-to-day activities that so much land demanded.

Unfortunately, while the addition of workers lightened their daily workload, it also had the unforeseen effect of reducing the efficiency of the yield. The overall size of the harvest was larger, however when this was averaged out over the total area being used it was quite a bit less than when Dad and Albert were doing all the work themselves. The quality of the produce also slipped back towards the pack. It was as if the extra hands diluted the magic in Albert’s fingers.

Even so, the profits kept on rolling in, and the extra time the use of workers afforded them gave them more time to spend with the family. Just as his father had done with him, Albert taught his son the ins and outs of running the farm- matching crops to soils, the art of fallow, improving the soil with fertilizer, ash and mulch, work in the shearing shed, the cattle yards.

From the time Phillip was 7 or 8 he would help his father mark the calves. He would help round the cows up into the stockyards and man the gate as Albert tried to separate the cows from their calves; chasing the stock around the larger yards in circles and yelling at Phillip to either close the gate in the face of a cow or keep it open to allow a calf to pass. As they moved the animals through the yards from the larger pens to the smaller ones, they gradually sieved the calves from the cows until they were left with a pen full of cows and a pen full of calves. By now father and son would be covered either in a fine layer of brown dust or thick black mud depending on the days weather. It was tough and dirty work, but theirs was a real sense of achievement at morning tea when all the stock had been separated. Phillip would spend the rest of the day making sure there was a constant supply of calves to be fed into the race, keenly watching the measured movements of his father and grandfather, and throwing lumps of wood for the cattle dogs to fetch. Working as a team Albert and Dad split the tasks of earmarking, tagging, injecting and neutering according to who was closer to what at that particular time.

As the years went by Phillip gradually took over more and more of the workload and responsibility from his grandfather. Dad was getting on in years, and the tough physical work of the stockyard was becoming a little much for his frame to handle. He also recognised the day for what it was- an opportunity for father and son to work together, to teach and learn and to develop the bonds that bind family together. And so he would head out to the crops and attend to whatever odd jobs needed doing with the pumps, pipes, plants and fences.

With the yards now the domain of father and apprentice son, Phillip took charge of the injections syringes and passing implements between the wooden railings to his father on top of the roles he had always played. Before too long he was also getting into the race with the calves, sliding his thin frame between the ribs of two poddy calves and pinning them against the wooden railings so as they couldn’t move about as his father rummaged around behind them with the Burdizzo’s.

It came to be a time of year that Phillip looked forward to with excitement- of getting out into the paddocks on the cold and wet winter’s mornings to chase cows and wrestle calves. Come evening they would come splashing into the house, drenched to the bone, bruises disguised beneath a layer of mud, only to be unceremoniously marched back outside at knifepoint to take off their ruined clothes and wash at least some of that mud off under the water tank before daring to set foot in Sarah’s house once more. But once they had, a scalding hot shower and a rich mutton stew would be awaiting them and all would be forgiven. On this day more than any other day of the year a real kinship developed between father and son, and the day became just as much about time spent together as about marking the calves.

But while everything was so perfect with the family they had, try as they might Albert and Sarah were unable to have another child. They could conceive without too much trouble, but a series of miscarriages crippled Sarah emotionally. With each passing pregnancy the pain of loss grew heavier, accumulating in weight until her mind could no longer move beyond its innate inertia. She would stay inside for weeks; neither visiting nor being visited. Her bed became her hideout. At night Albert would rock her to sleep as she gently sobbed in his arms. Ghosts sat upon on both their shoulders. 

Chapter 17: A Quieting Knack

            One summer’s day Margie left Karabup for life in the big smoke, and while she would return each season it was clear that her life was now elsewhere. She would talk of life huddled shoulder to shoulder with countless others, of indoor plumbing and new-fangled gadgets that made life so much easier. She would share stories of her classmates, her friends in the dorm, and of the lengths they would go to in order to break curfew and go out on the town. She insisted that she never took part in such behaviour, but the glint in her eye belied the innocent façade she presented to our parents. Still, they bought it (or at least chose to) and I suppose there is no harm in that. Men would always be attracted to a girl as mischievous as Margie.

            She did come home one winter with a certain young man in tow for the dreaded meeting of the parents. He was tall and gangly, with a mop of blonde hair that just would not cooperate, no matter how much Brylcream was combed between the strands. He was like the pet emu in the chook yard- the sort that lives in a state of jangled nerves, who apologise for every slight whether real or imagined. My family tried to make him feel welcome, waving away his apologies and reassuring him that his actions and words were indeed appropriate, but after a while it all felt somehow forced. There was that lingering feeling that Margie could do better. They left deflated; a void had opened up between them and it was clear to Margie that their relationship wouldn’t last, regardless of how pig-headed and obstinate she could be.

            Two years after first leaving the farm Margie graduated from teacher’s college and moved to her first posting in another Groupie community about 40 miles south. As happens in life, the children are raised to the best of the family and community’s ability, and then when the time comes they spread their wings and take those first faltering flaps and leave the nest for good. And while she would return from time to time, there would forever be that rift separating her old life from the new.

            Unsurpringly, Margie integrated into her new community with ease. It was after all a world she was used to and comfortable with. She delved into her teaching with the gusto of those not yet cynical. In her first year she groomed eleven kids between the ages of 6 and 15 towards life after childhood. She also fell in love with and married a fellow Groupie by the name of Martin Calloway. He earned his living from a hundred head of dairy cows, and every morning and evening Margie would pitch in with the milking. She was forever running between the school, the dairy and the house, while Martin spent his days clearing trees from the back paddocks and slashing the bracken that threatened to over-run the paddocks, poison the cattle and taint the milk. Theirs was a life of hard work and simple pleasures deep amongst the Karri, and it wasn’t long before their first bub was on the way.

            While Margie was off getting educated, Albert stayed back to work the farm. He never really excelled in any scholastic capacity, but what he lacked in book-smarts he more than made up with farm-smarts. It was as if he possessed an instinctual understanding of the earth. He somehow knew when the season would break, when was the best time to plant, and when it was best to leave a paddock to fallow. He was also in possession of a quieting knack with the animals. Tearaway horses were brought to him, and within a couple of days they were as placid as a house cow.

            Albert left the school when he was 15 to devote himself to the farm. Dad and Ma wouldn’t let him to leave before this age, believing in the benefits of a proper education. But still, before this they relented to his will and gifted him a small patch of the side paddock to call his own. Growing up he was an awkward kid and never the type to do things by the book, which often set him at odds with his teachers and parents, even though his unorthodox methods often resulted in the same conclusions. Even his plans for his first patch of earth came out of leftfield. Instead of treading the well-worn path with potatoes or onions, he convinced Dad to invest in seeds for tobacco. He had got wind of a rumour that nobody else took particularly seriously- that a cigarette company had approached the council with a proposal to set up a tobacco shed in the region. Now whether due to the brashness of youth or through some divine inspiration, he decided that if indeed these rumours were true it was best to get in ahead of the pack. If things didn’t work out, he could simply blame it on his youth and notch it up to experience.

            But any thoughts of the risks were soon put to rest. Albert’s patch of tobacco outgrew the bracken, their leaves unfurling like the pages of a broadsheet on a lazy Sunday morning. Every day after school he would walk amongst his crop, and with each passing day ever less of him was visible, until only his slouch hat could be seen above the praising green leaves. He tended them as he would his children; removing any weeds that dared attempt drink their water; crushing any slugs, snails or insects that tried to make a snack of his plants.

            Across the course of the season the tobacco shed gained council approval and building proceeded with haste. And while the factory wasn’t completed in time for harvest, the company behind the venture set up a tent on the farm and walked Albert, and anybody else who was interested, through the process of picking, stacking and drying the leaves. So impressed were they by this young kids efforts that they made him a priority grower for the following seasons, working for a wage plus commission, and paid him to liaise with other prospective growers in the region and advise them on the best methods with which to grow the tobacco. By the end of the season he had become something of a local legend.

            With Albert’s success every other farmer in the region rushed to get their own tobacco crops in the ground, but not even the most experienced farmer could match him. In light of Albert’s triumphant debut Dad gave him reign over the entire side paddock. But despite the extra land, he still only planted half his paddock into tobacco, leaving the rest- that which had been planted the year before- to be divided up between several other crops like beetroot, broccoli, turnip, Brussels’ sprouts and even a short row of rice down by the water’s edge. The sizes of these crops wouldn’t be commercially viable, but I’m sure that wasn’t his aim. He approached them diligently and scientifically; working out the precise conditions required for each. When confronted as to why he would do such a thing he merely shrugged and replied “why not.”

In effect Albert was sacrificing his short-term profits for long-term knowledge and experience. Whenever the popular crops failed, Albert always seemed to be one step ahead, as if having foreseen it, already focussing on what, to him, logically came next. He never seemed to be caught unawares by droughts or pests or rot, and if he did there was always some contingency in place.

It was no surprise to anyone that Albert had bought and started working on his very own farm by the time he was twenty. Matthew Elliot had sold up and moved to a nearby community to take over the running of his new wife’s father’s farm, and the two Groupie families that had taken up the land since had found the land so infertile and inhospitable that they had defaulted on their loans and moved away to the city in search of an easier life.

Dad had stumped up much of the money to get Albert started, and as a gesture of pride, love and goodwill told him unequivocally that not a cent was to be re-payed either now or in the future. Albert continued to work with Dad on the original farm, as well as setting up his own home at the far end of the dam. They effectively formed a business partnership. On paper it was split 50:50, but in reality Dad stood aside and allowed his son to take over the management of the farm- the crop selection and where and when they would be planted. Dad had learnt a thing or two over the years about deferring to the wisdom of his superiors, even if the inspiration behind such wisdom was beyond his comprehension. He knew when he was bested and took the hint with grace and integrity.

At about this time a new family of groupies settled on the farm beyond the narrow band of scrubby jarrah at the back of Albert’s. Their name was Moriarty; an Irish family of 7 that had been removed from their farm near the south coast that had been acquired by the government for the establishment of a mineral sand mine. They had reportedly had some success with their dairy farm on the saltbush flats, and now had to prove themselves all over again in a different environment. They had managed to either convince or force the Midland Railway Company to pay for their resettlement and the droving of their dairy cows the hundred miles to their new home. Their new block already had a house established in the lee of a ridge, and although it was perhaps too small to comfortably fit all seven of them, they made do and straight away started building an extension onto the back of the shack.

To make himself known to the newcomers Albert wandered over the back fence and through the bush to their house. He was greeted behind the workshed by the bark and snarl of a wolfhound. He stopped in his tracks and raised his hands in a gesture of submission and with a low voice started talking to it; to calm it down and convince it he was not a threat. The dog stopped barking but continued its stooped approach, teeth bared. Albert slowly, guardedly stretched out the back of his hand. Snout came within 6 inches of knuckles when suddenly the dog yelped and scampered off towards the shed with its tail bent between its legs. Albert gave a start, stood and scratched his forehead in bewilderment and relief.

A laugh peeled out from the young apple orchard behind the shed. Albert jerked his head around and caught a flash of flax through the new leaves. A short bullish young woman in a summer dress (despite the greyness of the day) strode out of the thicket; her head tilted back in laughter. He stood there, culpable and lost for words. Instead of introducing himself he merely shook her proffered hand while she introduced herself- Sarah Moriarty, daughter of the proprietor. She looked at him quizzically, confused by his silence.

He finally regained some form of composure and introduced himself- Albert Spring, from over the fence. She invited him in for a cup of tea while they waited for her father and brothers to return from inspecting the fences. He sat and made small talk with the matriarch for what seemed an interminable time, constantly fiddling and taking hurried glances around the kitchen for an escape or a chance glance of Sarah through the open doors as she walked about the house conducting normal house duties. He was captured by her ease of movement and innate confidence- his antithesis.

There in that foreign environment his mind began to wonder to thoughts hitherto untapped- of the future outside of work, of love, a wife, children. He was surprised by this sudden change in his train of thought and tried to shake it out of his head and concentrate on the conversation he was supposed to be involved in, but the thoughts kept coming to him. Even once Mr Moriarty and his teenaged sons had returned and engaged Albert in talk of his farm, his stock, his crops, his machinery these thoughts kept gnawing away at him. He resolved then and there that this girl, Sarah Moriarty, would be his wife.

It took 18 months to convince her, but he got there in the end. Albert used any chance or excuse he could to go over to the Moriarty’s, generally on the pretence of learning how some new tractor or diesel-powered crosscut saw worked. He would be there when the engines of these new machines were dissembled to learn how they worked, and apply this newfound knowledge to purchase his own new machinery. And all the while he kept his eyes peeled for any glimpses of Sarah. He would engineer himself into circumstances where he could talk to her one-on-one and his heart would race in anticipation of their meetings.

For her part, Sarah noticed Albert’s infatuation right from the off. She didn’t mind the attention and even kind of enjoyed the feelings his attentions stirred up in her. Something about this young man- so in tune with the earth and yet so at odds with the rest of humanity- captivated her, and despite her best efforts, she found herself also looking forward to the fleeting moments they would share. She brimmed with life and excitement, in possession of a passionate temper that could quickly give way to sorrow. She was not adept at keeping her emotions hidden; everything was writ large in her face and body.

And so it was that after all their unspoken and surreptitious courting it was Sarah who made the bold move of stating her attraction and intentions towards him. She pushed him into an apple tree and fair threw herself at him. What else was there for Albert to do but go along for the ride?

As devout Irish Catholics, the Moriarty’s insisted that Albert would have to convert to Catholicism before any marriage could take place. Despite his family’s initial doubts and criticism of this proposal, Albert duly accepted the terms without any real conviction other than it was what had to be done in order for his happiness to be complete.

They were married two months later in the little church in Sarah’s settlement in a ceremony attended by most from the surrounding communities. The church overflowed with loved one’s and onlookers curious about the union between the small, tempestuous Irish girl and the stocky, graceless Pom.

After the ceremony and the crying and fussing of the mother’s-in-law everyone migrated across to the Moriarty’s place for a dinner catered by the disparate dishes brought along by well-meaning wives. They ate and drank and after nightfall the barely coherent groom and his moonshine-fired bride clambered into their buggy and trailed spent paint tins, lit firecrackers and a scarecrow depicting them hung by the neck with rope over the ridge and into the matrimonial night.

Chapter 13: Life on the most unexpected scale

In the days before she left the valley for the city, Margie left me the pages of the meticulous chronicle she had kept of the history of our hidden valley, burying them at my feet- a grand monument to the people who transformed the landscape to eek out there lives in its loam. From its pages I discovered the story of my death and the effects of it on my family and the community. I think the best way of telling you the story is to start from the beginning, from where I left off. And for the most part I will rely on the voice of my sister. She was the one that was there, so she is the best one to tell it.

Dad was up on the hill, as he was every day, helping Mr Monroe clear his land. All of the men did this, moving from one property to the next while we waited for the crops to grow. Those of us not of age spent our days learning to read and write and helping our mother around the house- doing chores and staying out of the way.

One morning Albert and Henry disappeared. Mum and I couldn’t find them anywhere. Not even by Cooee-ing. Before they went missing I had been sure they were up to mischief. That something was going on. I often wonder, to the point of convincing myself it’s true, that I somehow knew what they were planning. But I am sure that I was just being an over-suspicious kid. Still there is something that nags at my mind. That if Mum had listened to me, or if I had been more adamant, things would have turned out differently. Or even that I should have watched over them more closely, or been more of a ‘good’ big sister. I know I shouldn’t blame myself, but I can’t shake the feeling that I am in some way responsible. Then again, everyone else in the community, Ma and Dad included, probably feel that they are the ones responsible, too. Especially poor Albert.

Anyway, it turns out that Albert and Henry had wandered off into the bush trying to reach the men who were working there. Dad says that the first he knew of it was seeing Henry standing there, in the bush, right beneath where the tree was falling. As far as I know, Dad was the only one to see him.

Mr Enfield and Mr Monroe were running away from the tree they had just felled, while the rest were milling around talking or eating lunch by the fire. Dad doesn’t know why he looked up when he did. He’d witnessed a hundred or more falling trees over the previous months. But he did look. He says the image of Henry standing there is burned into his mind, and that now, almost a decade later, he still wakes in the night to dreams in which his son is standing there beneath the falling tree.

Dad let out a shout- Mr Craig likens it to a curdling, cracking scream- heard way above the sound of the crashing tree. The men looked at him, standing there like a statue, staring towards the fallen eucalypt. He recoiled from the shock and charged off into the bush, shouting Henry’s name to the wind. Mr Craig says that the rest of them look around at each other confused. They thought Dad had lost his mind. They had seen him engrossed by the soap trees on the first journey in here, and that impression of Dad had stuck with them. To them it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before he lost his mind out here in the middle of nowhere.

They followed him, more curious than concerned. Dad was trying to lift a thick bough through sheer force of will. One by one they saw the small, thin frame pinned under the bough. With mouths open in horror they lent their shoulders, their chests, their legs to the effort, heaving at the monumental bough with all of their might to lift the mere inches required for Henry to be dragged clear.

No one noticed Albert until Henry was pulled clear. Only his head was visible above the log he had been hiding behind. He had turned white and his arms hung limp, in shock. Mr Craig doesn’t know how Albert’s legs were holding him upright. He came over slowly, tentatively. Mr Elliot intercepted him and prevented him from seeing the worst, but even now Albert cannot speak about what he saw. It’s as though those few moments have been completely erased from his memory.

Everyone there knew straight away that there was no chance of saving Henry’s life. Dad cradled and rocked him in his arms as he wept, and the men slumped against fallen tree trunks, holding their hats, holding their faces in their hands, or just staring off into the distance. As Dad kneeled in the dirt cradling his son the men came one by one to pay their condolences with a soft hand on the shoulder, before dispersing to pack away their equipment and prepare the cart, leaving him there to spend those final moments with his son in peace.

When the time came they huddled around my father, offering their sympathy and taking Henry’s body and placing it on top of a layer of shirts they had spread out over the deck of the cart. They made their way down the well-worn path towards the creek in silence. Mr Elliot held onto Albert as Dad held fast to Henry’s shoulder.

Back at the house, Ma and I had searched for the boys in all the usual places around the house. I heard the creak of the axles of the convoy before I could see it. I called Mum and we walked up the track towards the noise.

As they emerged from the bush, something about their demeanour told Ma what had happened. She dropped the apron from her hand into the mud and sprinted towards the bleak procession. I had never before seen her run, and I’m sure I’ve never seen her run since. It was a physical expression borne of fear and anguish. A mother’s intuition told her the worst; she already knew the outcome.

I cantered behind, still confused. I must have known something wasn’t right from her extreme reactions and the ashen faces appearing out of the undergrowth, however my child’s mind didn’t yet realise the full extent of this event.

The horses and carts stopped as Mum neared. The sad eyes of the men set upon my mother and they watched in mournful silence as she hurried past. No one said a word, but tears stung even the severest face.

She started sobbing. Great suffocating sobs escaped her throat, but she didn’t slow down. She collapsed against the wheel of the cart. Dad was huddled over the benign shape of their son. His eyes to meet those of his wife and they shared a moment laden with all of the misery in the world. Dad lowered Henry into Mum’s shaking arms, stepped down from the dray and held her tight. The broken heart of the world passed between their bodies as they cried; together, yet further apart than they had ever been before. They were their own universes of sorrow lamenting their cursed lot.

Mr Elliot lowered Albert from his horse and sent him towards me. Albert’s face was white and slippery streaks outlined his cheeks. He ran to me and buried his head in my armpit. I held him under my arm as I watched at our parents. It was at that moment I became aware of the world, and learned exactly what pain is.

Henry’s body was laid out on the table in preparation for its last rites. His wounds were cleaned-, the water stained forever red in the bucket- and his body clothed in his Sunday best. Once the adults had finished hiding his wounds as best they could, Albert and I were paraded past to pay our final respects. Albert, silent, placed his palm to Henry’s forehead in a simple act of grief and horror. Tears erupted around the room and Albert hid his in the crook of his arm, turning into the lap of our mother beside him. Something in Albert had broken and he would never be the same. I whispered my goodbye still numb with shock before rushing quickly out of the suffocating air of the room.

The whole community staged a silent vigil in their homes giving us time as a family to grieve. In bed Dad drank the tears of his wife and pleaded with the almighty that this act might soothe their pain and return the world to how it had been. The soft sobs of his wife coiled alongside him must have burned his heart to ashes. He must have felt powerless to soothe her broken heart.

So that is how I died.

But I was not buried in the anonymity of the cemetery in town, but on the slope of the ridge above the house in a humble mound overlooking the valley.

Albert was apparently the one to suggest a tree as a tombstone. He reasoned that as it was the death of a tree that took my life along with it, so it should be a tree that should find a new life in me and become my memorial. My resurrection. So, a week after my body was returned to the earth, my family took a morning off to traverse the ridge to the gully beyond to select a suitable memorial.

Amongst the grove of patina-skinned Karri, with the sickly sweet scent of Boronia saturating their pores, they retreated into their own worlds. With heads bowed and minds reflective they scoured the muddy floor in search of the perfect specimen.

            Mum called out through the undergrowth. She was obscured behind mossy logs and creepers. At her feet stood, unassumingly, a tender seedling. It was exposed, vulnerable in the heavy grey clay, on the fringe of an animal path along the foot of the gully. It appeared as though one errant footfall would put paid to its fight for survival. It trembled softly with the weight of eight feet sinking slowly into its mud as hey all craned in for a better look.

            With a decisive grunt Dad plunged the shovel into the grey clay. He repeated this ritual on each side of the sapling to loosen the hold of the earth before lifting it free from its bed. He placed it in a bucket and the four of them sidled back up the ridge lost in their own worlds. The usual incessant banter and nonsense was suppressed. Even Margie and Albert reached a truce in their sibling bickering.

            Dad placed the bucket alongside the mound that harboured my remains and etched out a divot directly above my heart. Gently he fondled the stem and leaves being careful not to damage its delicate frame. He wiped mud from its feet and lowered it into the earth. Together they all knelt and gently tamped the cool earth. Their fingers caressed the course dirt, burying their hands and turning the loam over in wonder. They wondered how they had never noticed its potency. Some mystic life-forced flowed through it. It gave life on the most unexpected scale. It connected us together, the tie that binds, the glue that holds.

            In their own time they rose to their feet and wiped the grit from their palms and from under their nails, embarrassed by the cloying spirituality of their actions. They stood in stoic silence as if waiting for some unforeseen magic to occur. Then as if ashamed by its failure, turned and sat on the semi-hollow husk of a log at the perimeter of the clearing.

Chapter 9: Gone Bush

The men were up on the hill above the Monroe’s place next door. Over the autumn and into the winter they had churned up the flats and ploughed fertilizer through the grey earth. We had bought seeds and had planted the first crops of onions and potatoes, and while they were content to slowly dig their way into the soil and reach, yawning, into the sunlight, our attention turned to the imposing hardwoods as the rains hit with the full fury of winter.

While the older kids- the teens- were expected to pitch in with the men, those of us still snapping at legs were restricted to the homes. The ridge was a place for grown-ups. We would grumble and grizzle against the injustice of it all every morning as Dad ate his toast and drank his black, bitter tea. We assured him we wouldn’t get in the way. We would help. We could stack broken limbs, chase rabbits, or just watch quietly from the sidelines. We wouldn’t get bored, we wouldn’t be a nuisance. We would be saints, angels. We wouldn’t raise so much as an eyebrow out of place. If only he would let us follow him.

And every morning Dad would pat us on the head and tell us “Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Once you’ve grown enough to reach my nipples.” And we’d stand, Dad, Margie, Albert and I, with our backs to the wall as Mum sized us up to check if, during the night, we had miraculously grown enough. And every morning would end the same- with Dad lifting us up in turn to kiss us goodbye. He’d pick up his tucker box and thermos and whistle off on his horse. We would watch and listen as he disappeared once more into the bush.

So we had to stay around the house, helping in the garden and the kitchen, and tend to the sheep and chickens scratching around the house. In the mornings we would tend to our chores and the reading and writing lessons Ma assigned us. The afternoons however were practically our own. We would make mud pies in the garden, or try to control nature by damming the creek with whatever we had at our disposal- rocks and sticks as foundations, broken reeds, mud and slime to fill the inevitable cracks and crevices. As our wall rose, so too did the weight of the water behind its barrier. It rose faster than we could build, flowing over the top and dislodging our reinforcements until we had to concede an altogether inglorious defeat. But rather than wallow, immediately started plotting the build of a bigger and better dam as soon as the creek dried up over summer. Ma would watch us through the kitchen window and smile to herself at our antics.

All day we would listen to the distant thunder of sharpened metal biting into wood and the rhythmic whir of steel teeth eating back and forth through dense-grained timber. They served as sirens- calling to us, luring us. And we’d pause in whatever we were doing and wish that we were all grown up and able to go with our father to do the things that we most wished to do. To lift and grunt and heave and thrust and swing and sweat. We wished to be men. The monotonous thuds rolling through the bush resonated inside us until they were too strong for us to ignore.

One morning in the height of that first winter Albert and I were sitting in the middle of the chook pen simultaneously terrifying the hens, trying to bathe the chicks, and preparing mud pies to feed to the sheep, or, if we were sneaky enough, Margie. Before long the hills began to reverberate with that heavenly score drifting down on the cold westerly wind. Every now and then the earth shuddered with the shock of a great jarrah or marri separating from its stump and crashing into the mud below.

Albert looked around before leaning in to whisper something in my ear. He suggested we go exploring. See what the men got up to when they were out of our sight. It could be a reconnaissance mission. I retorted that we weren’t allowed. That Mum, or worse Dad, would have our hides if they found out. We were used to being scolded by Mum, but Dad was an entirely different proposition. If you got bellowed at by Dad you knew you were in trouble.

Nevertheless, it didn’t take much for Albert to convince me of the merits of his plan. He was older, persuasive, and quite naturally I looked up to him as someone wiser than I. He knew that I was just as curious as him and that all he had to do was to keep at me and eventually I would cave.

We knew we would have to slip away quietly, but would also need supplies. Albert used his cunning to concoct a plan. I would distract Mum, while Albert would slip into the kitchen and procure some biscuits and cake. Our biggest challenge would probably be distracting Margie and throwing her off the scent or else she could ruin our plans quick smart.

As if by intuition, Margie squinted at us from her swing beneath the gnarled Redgum tree. Her eyes bored into us, stripping us bare. She watched us suspiciously, waiting for us to slip up and give away whatever treachery we plotted, looking for any evidence at all so she could run inside and tell Mum that we were up to no good.

Acting like nothing was wrong, we stalked around the woodpile searching for the perfectly shaped weapons to take with us in case we were ambushed in the forest. We leant our rifles and pistols against the chicken-wire fence and stood whispering, trying to concoct a plan to distract Margie, but when we looked over to the swing she was gone, the wooden seat gently rocking back and forth from the bough.

We cursed her out a bit, called her names like dummy, pest and loser. We knew she’d try to wreck our plans. She always tried to wreck our plans. But we decided to go ahead with it anyway. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

As the butterflies set to flight in my stomach I circled the long way around the house so as not to arouse any undue suspicion. My heart pounded in my chest and my breathing got faster and shallower until I was nearly panting. My skin flushed and my palms started to sweat. I knew I was doing something very bad. Lying to Mum was about as bad as it could get. A crime punishable by the words: just wait until your father gets home.

I took a deep breath, trying to still my heart and compose myself, and turned the corner of the house and stepped up onto the veranda. I practised my tummy-ache face, and pushed the door open.

Damn. Margie stood directly in front of me, waiting. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me accusingly. The baubles in her plaits dangled either side of her face staring at me like a second pair of all-seeing, all-knowing eyes. Oh, why couldn’t she have confronted Albert? Why did it always have to be me?

“Wodarya up to,” she hissed more as a declaration of guilt than a question.

“Nothin’. I gotta sore tummy an’ needa see Mum.” I wanted to boldly push past her, but my legs were rooted to the spot under the intensity of her glare. I swallowed hard, hoping she would buy the lie.

“Do not.”

“I dooooo! Lemme past”, I whined.

“Don’t believe you. I seen you two running ‘round the yard. You’re up to somethin’.” She paused as if summing up her options. “I’m gonna to tell Ma.” She turned on her heels and marched through the kitchen, down the hall and into Mum and Dad’s bedroom to where our mother was folding washing. “Maaaa! Albert and Henry are up to somethin’. Henry sez he’s got a tummy ache, but I reckon he’s lyin’.”

“Oh why are you so suspicious all the time, Margie?” Ma sighed. “Come here Henry.” She ushered me past Margie, who refused to give up any room, bumping me with her shoulder as I squeezed past. “What’s wrong?” She placed the back of her hand against my forehead.

“I don’t feel well. My tummy hurts.” I put on my best hangdog expression. My tummy gurgled. So this is what it’s like to lie?

“Hmmm, you don’t feel hot…” Margie grinned at me menacingly and I shot her a look of hatred. “When did the pain start?”

“A while ago.” I said. “I didn’t want to disturb you.” *gurgle, gurgle* At this rate I would give myself a real tummy ache from the stress.

“Hmmm. You should always let me know if you feel unwell.”

“But he’s fakin’ it!” Margie implored.

“That’s enough, Margie. Here, take your clothes to your room. Now, Henry. Have you done poo’s today?”

Margie huffed out of the room with clothes in arms as I put some thought into the question.

“Ummm. Can’t remember. Ahhh, no?”

“Hmmm. That might be it. How ‘bout you go to the toilet and see if you can do poo? Okay?”

I nodded, trying not to giggle at Mum saying ‘poo’. I bit my lip, embarrassed, and left the room quietly. My mind returned to the final goal and whether Albert had enough time to get in and out with supplies. I panicked and made a bid for more time, turning back to Ma and Dad’s room.

“Ma? Thanks. I love you.” I flashed her my most charming and innocent smile. As I look back on it, it could seem to an outsider that I didn’t mean it; that I was just stalling for time. And I guess I would have to concede that in part this is true, but I know that I actually did mean it. Here was a woman that would love me unconditionally forever. And I would love her the same. And even then I knew that I would remember this moment forever.

“Awww, come here.” She held her arms wide and I came to her, hiding myself in her bosom. “I love you, too.” She hugged me for what felt like too long, intensifying my guilt at firstly the lie, and secondly the fact that I was about to betray her trust. My tummy gurgled and I could hear the sound reverberate off the walls. Tears of shame welled in my eyes. I swallowed the bitter pill. As she let me go and wiped a tear from her own eye I knew I would never feel this bad again in my life.

“Go do poos.” She had a smile on her face as broad as all of the oceans of the world.

I left the house quickly, suffocating on the guilt trapped between the walls and roof. I needed air. I ran to the chook shed and leant with my backs against its slats. I tried to steady my heart and breathe normally, but I could only suck air in short, sharp bursts, panting like a dog. I felt my head go light and the world start to spin and blur. All the light in the world condensed into a solitary point before my eyes and then there was nothing.

I came to with Albert shaking my shoulder.

“What are you doin? I’ve got supplies. Let’s go.”

I blinked against the slow jolt of consciousness. My brain pounded against the sides of my skull as if it were trying to escape. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. All my thoughts were muddled. I sat up and leaned against the chook shed. My fingers moved to my temples and I groaned.

“What’s goin’ on,” I croaked.

“Wodya mean ‘What’s goin’ on’? We’re goin’ bush. I’ve got the supplies.” He lifted a hessian sack as proof.

“Oh. Yeah.” I rubbed my face.

“Come on. Get up. What were ya doin’ sleep’n in chook poo for?”

“Huh?” I looked down. My entire left side was caked in muck. I smelt like the long-drop. “Awww, shoot.”

“No, shit.” He giggled at his subversive use of a swear word and I joined in weakly, not wanting to look square.

I slowly got up leant against the wall and started wiping muck from my clothes. A sour taste coated the insides of my mouth. I needed water.

“Hurry up, would ya! Do you want us to get caught, or somethin’?”

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’. I just need a drink.” I staggered to the water tank and took a long drink from the tap.

My bowels started to groan and I remembered the lie. The guilt rose again and acid rose up into the back of my throat and my breakfast sprayed out of my mouth and over the leg of the tank-stand. A feeling of relief flooded over me as I glibly accepted the punishment for my sins.

My insides tried to turn themselves inside out. I rushed to the toilet, dropped my pants and aimed my bottom towards the hole as fast as I could. I launched a fluid line and groaned in pain and relief. I grinned at the irony of taking Mum’s advice, albeit unwillingly.

Albert hissed something at me from outside and I responded with a moan. He resorted to throwing rocks at the dunny. The musty air inside the bathroom rang as he took to throwing stones against the iron sheeting.

Once I was certain that I’d evacuated all that there was to possibly evacuate I emerged, beaten, from the loo. Albert stopped mid-throw and dropped his stone.

“Jeez, you look awful!”

“Mmmnngmm”

“You gonna be ‘right?”

“Hhhgn. Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe we should wait till tomorrow. You look really awful.”

“Nah. I’ll be fine. C’mon. Let’s go.” I walked back towards the chook shed as confidently as I could manage and Albert trotted to catch up. I didn’t want to appear to be some kind of sissy, especially with so much at stake. My legs wobbled like cold custard, but I kept up my stoic pace.

“You sure?”

“Yeah sure.”

“K then.”

        We picked up our supplies and our guns and headed up the hill away from home. We hadn’t specified a route, but were led through the bush by the sound of the axes marking time ahead of us. We picked our way between the trees, giving a wide berth to the prickly leaves of the Banksia and long spines of the Blackboy, and the ticks we knew to be hiding within their foliage.

            The canopy pressed down on us like ominous green clouds gathering for the apocalypse. Knotted brown arms grappled at us as we passed. We’d been in the bush before, but never without our parents, and this loneliness bred a menace feeling that clung to our skin and pervaded our pores. The silence sounded so much denser when we were alone.

            As we clambered over rusty ironstone outcrops any noise amongst the leaf litter became the quick-snap slither of unseen snakes. Each crackle would stop us in our tracks and thrust our hearts into our throats- never mind that it was winter and any self-respecting reptile would be burrowed up somewhere safe and dry. We felt certain that the incessant throbbing in our chests would bring them sliding from the rocks to sink their glistening fangs into our flesh. Our skin crawled. We took to whistling to still our hearts and divert our attention away from such fear.

            We were men, doing manly things, so we had to act like men- we couldn’t just abandon our plans because we were scared. And after all that I’d been through- the lying, the fainting, the vomiting, the diarrhoea - there was no way I would conceding defeat. I’d already invested too much in this plan. Besides, if we retreated we would get into trouble for disappearing. We both thought it better to get in trouble for something we actually did rather than something we set out to do and failed.

            So on when trudged, picking our way through the undergrowth, led ever onwards by the woodsmen’s song. Albert visibly shivered as a cool and calm breeze washed our skin. We held the sour breath of the bush in our lungs.

            We reached the bluntened razor of the ridge above where our house would be amongst the knotted gums below. Sap of the deepest red seeped from a wound in the side of a broad Marri formed a sluggish river coursing through the crevices of the brittle brown bark. A small bug lay embedded within the red amber, suspended in the very moment of death. I prodded at it for a while with a twig, pulling fine threads of tree-blood from the wound into a web. Curious, I pressed a finger into the goo, coating it with the tacky red gum. I tried wiping it off on my pants, but only succeeded in spreading a thick smear. And still my finger was coated. Before long my hands and face were coated also. Once it touched a surface, it stayed there. Albert swore at me and delved into the sack to grab a handful of biscuits.

            “Here you go. Lunch.”

            “Tah.” I gave up on cleaning my hands and took the offered biscuits, being careful not to taint my food.

            “We’re ‘bout half way, I reckon.”

            “Mmmhmm.”

            “Be there in half and hour.”

            I allowed Albert his commentary, but I was more concerned with keeping the sap out of my food. I sucked crumbs from my palms and watched two lines of ants marching in and out of their home next to my foot.

The throb and whine from the workers intensified as we picked our way along the ridge. Each thwack bounced between the trees, raising the alarm of the advance of man. They shook and whispered, agitated. Every component of the bush could sense the danger and realised the threat to its survival- that eventually it would be their turn to meet the sharpened splice.

            Normally our focus would have been pulled by any number of things and we would have forgotten all about our plans, but on this particular occasion we were relentless. It was our mission, our destiny, to meet up with the men, and we weren’t going to let any old stray roo or balled-up echidna distract us from our objective.

            We drew closer and the rhythm grew louder. It was as though a symphony was being composed. The clamour of the axes and saws provided the counterpoint to the trills and chatter of the bird and the swishes of the wind dancing through the leaves. It sang to us and sent waves of chills crashing up and down our spines.

            We knew we must have been close when we came across evidence of the men’s activity. Bands of bark had been stripped from the trunks to expose their flesh. The leaves at the tips of the branches were withering brown; the wounds wept with the blood of giants. We poked at the glistening beads of eucalyptus and revelled in its heavenly scent.

            Finally we caught sight of the men. They swung their axes with power and precision and their singlets were stained a deeper blue around their collars, chests and armpits where the sweat ran in torrents. Two axemen worked each tree, their swings staggered to maximise efficiency and each impact of forged steel sent shards of red flying through the air. Other pairs stood on opposite sides of a tree, each bracing against the push of the other as they grunted into their sweet, whirring cadence. Flecks of pulpy red mud were spat from the wound with each pass of the saw. Our nostrils burned with the rich, sticky scent of freshly cut wood hanging in the heavy air beneath the canopy.

            We watched from afar, each daring the other to be first to emerge from the shadows. We had come to join the men, but were scared of those final steps into their realm. We crouched behind a rotting and mossy log and waited, watching, but we couldn’t just crouch there all day amongst the rot and bugs. I was the one who finally succumbed. A combination of Albert’s goading, my desire to be a man, and sheer bloody-mindedness lifted me. My Legs drifted of their own volition as if on clouds. I would like to say I strode purposefully into the clearing, but I was more like a mouse assessing the safety of a room. I placed each foot carefully, trying not to break any spring-loaded sticks lest they give away my position. Albert hissed something at me, his head peering over the log, urging me on with a stiff wave of his hand. I looked ahead apprehensively, caught between my desire to stay out of trouble and my desire to prove myself. I hesitated mid-stride. Caught in the glare of a million eyes.

            “TIM-BURRRRRRRR!” The war-cry. I looked up. Most of the men had already adjourned to the far side of the clearing, while Matt Elliot and Bob Enfield scampered away in running crouches from their tools at the base of the tilting tree. The Jarrah twitched on its stump and its arrow point wavered ever-so-slightly from its aim towards the sun. It lost its precarious balance and gained its terrible momentum.

            It all happened so slowly, yet even now I am unsure of the exact order of events. I was paused between steps, the tree was barely moving, merely reclining, slowly easing towards the floor. Time slowed to less than a crawl. The air gasped. The canopy traced a prefect arc through the sky, scything through the limbs of its neighbours. It swept towards the ground in its rolling arc, Matt Elliot and Bob Enfield scurried away, my eyes aligned with my father’s. His face instantly turned ashen, his mouth open, his eyes dying. I don’t know how long we were locked like that, but in that terrible instance we were rooted in terror. Our eyes remained locked. I didn’t bother looking up. I knew what was coming. And then it came.