by Steve Low
It was the smell that really got to me. I have found that of all the five senses, the sense of smell is the most potent stimulus of nostalgia. Of course there is music. Certainly music can be very evocative, perhaps the equal of smell. But this time, there was no music. Rather, it was the reek of decaying beech leaves strewn upon the pathway. It was the odour of spongy deep green moss, the stuff that clung to the trackside boulders in the shadows. The potency varied. Sometimes it was soft and fragrant, while at other times it was pungent, almost nauseating, like an outdoor latrine on a hot day.
I let Graham drift ahead, allowing myself to dwell inside my memory-bank. I imagined the straight back of Richard, a few paces behind his father. And some distance behind him, just ahead of me, Isobel, the burnt sienna hair bouncing off her shoulders, her fertile mind probably racing ahead in time to the time when she would be free. Thus, I let the returning memory flood right through me. I didn’t try to suppress it at all. I let it consume me - burn a hole through me, right to the core. I wanted to plumb the very depths of nostalgia, and then as a result, perhaps move on quickly - like a double bottom in the stock market. The innocence of her youth, the curvature of her profile, the unblemished skin, the bounce in her step. Once upon a summer’s day, she was really here, moving dreamily along this very segment of track. Now she was only a strand of thought, randomly evoked by the smell of some rotting leaves and a pungent bank of moss.
I came out onto an open grassland. Years before, freehold ranchers had run sheep there until the environmental lobby had risen up and sent them packing. The years of grazing had forever changed this tract of valley floor. Instead of Beech forest, the track upon which I walked was like a baked clay ditch, bisecting tinder dry grass-flats. Pockets of flax, wind seeded thistle plants and old burnt out tree stumps dotted the landscape. Unprotected from the heat of the sun, I hung my head and pulled the brim of my sunhat down over my forehead. A familiar warm wet area was developing where the backpack rode against my shirt. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of Graham’s orange sunhat, far ahead, rising and falling with his gait. He was a good three or four minutes ahead of me. Although crossing the grass flats was tedious and uncomfortably hot, I had my memories to help pass the time. I was thinking of Julia in the arms of a dashing young lawyer - the ripped away man in the photograph wearing the white suit. The vision pleased me so much that I found myself smiling.
“What are you grinning about?” The voice shattered my daydream. Graham was sitting on a fallen tree-stump. Behind him, the track entered the forest, a dark hole in a wall of shimmering green. The trek across the flats was over. The promise of a cooling umbrella of leaves, lay ahead of us.
“Nothing much,” I said, perching onto the same log, but some metres distant from Graham. Nowadays we both seemed to need a large personal space when in the company of each other. We snacked on milk-chocolate and raisons. Graham rested against a walking-stick he had fashioned out of a fallen branch. I watched the swollen red face discreetly, the ruddy jaws working slowly on a slab of chocolate. I wondered if he ever thought much about Julia’s ex-lover, somewhere out there in the world. I imagined that he almost certainly did, and that those kind of thoughts made him grumpy. I was momentarily tempted to say, ‘I know about the philandering bastard old-boy.’ Naturally I didn’t, or rather I could not. All those years of avoiding controversy! Graham had trained me well. His hand in my upbringing, was now providing him protection from an embarrassing airing of my run-away thoughts.
The break over Graham rose to his feet, staggering under the weight of his camel coloured backpack. “Ïnto the woods,” he said and he lumbered on towards the dark opening, his boots squeaking on the sun baked clay. I sat for a few moments, allowing him to draw well ahead. I wanted to wallow on in nostalgia uninterrupted. I wanted to conjure up my picture of Julia, young and happy, her eyes alive in the company of the handsome suitor. For a whole year, 1953 – the year of the Coronation, the year Hillary stood upon Everest – that was the time of the secret love affair.
I burst out into sunlight. A corrugated meadow lay before me. The lime green tussocks shimmered under a fanning wind gust. A bumblebee hovered. The river sparkled. I left the track and crossed to a shallow gully, stopping above it to gaze into the hollow. I could almost convince myself that the grass was still flattened - that our bodies had only just arisen - that Graham had only just appeared above us and we had broken from our clasp, to run, me to the riverbank, Isobel to the woods. I turned to look at the stand of forest into which she had entered. Of course, even after fifteen years, it was indistinguishable from its former self. Native forests don’t change much over fifteen years. But people do. For a moment I imagined the youthful Isobel re-emerging, her shiny hair catching the last rays of a setting sun. But of course it was now 1985 and Isobel was quite different now.
Graham was waiting at our old campsite. He was sitting on a log, the same old gnarly log he’d sat on preparing sausages all those years before. He was munching on Julia’s sandwiches. And as he proffered one in my direction, his face unturned from its navel gaze, all I could think of was how little Graham had changed as a person. Still there was the bluster – the reverence of medical science – the astonishment at the ways of the younger generation. The enigma of Francis Urquhart and Julia’s love for him was on the tip of my tongue. But when I looked at him again, he was smiling. He was smiling at me and my words jammed in my throat.
“This is the life,” he said.
I nodded dumbly and returned a weak grin. I was feeling humbled. This was my father, apparently enjoying himself in my company – despite my unwanted career move. I coughed and stood up, walking away a few metres, as if noticing for the first time some sub-alpine plant. I castigated myself for succumbing to feeling grateful for a few seconds of paternal warmth. But here it was again – all these years later – an example of how the remote outdoors seemed to bring Graham off his lofty perch.
An hour later we were crossing the Travers River, a hundred metres downstream from the John Tait Hut. The river was running low, not much more than knee height. We crossed independently, barefooted, our boots held aloft above the freezing water. It was a stark contrast to the river conditions we would encounter twenty-four hours later.
On the other bank there was a grassy ledge – beyond that, a wall of native bush, rising abruptly into the eastern sky. I sat on the damp grass of the ledge, sand-flies attaching onto my skin, as I rubbed life back into my freezing toes. I felt a stirring of resolve. The next few hours would be tough. There was no track up the mountain, just an energy sapping slog up through loose earth, fallen branches and seeded undergrowth. For every step forward, there was going to be a compensatory manoeuvre backward, as a foot smashed through a brittle branch, or slipped on the friable ground.
We had to climb in sight of each other, in case one of us should slip and become injured. And there was always a possibility of the lone climber becoming disorientated and lost. Everywhere there were ribbed trunks of beech-trees, becoming more stunted with altitude, but useful to grab hold to maintain balance. Such was its density, there w as little to see beyond the bush canopy. Occasionally, if there was a small breech in the greenery, I would catch a glimpse of the craggy tops across on the west side of the valley. Overhead, gaps with hazy afternoon sky, were like scattered marks of paint, under an over-painting of multilayered greens.
It wasn’t long before Graham’s chest was heaving with oxygen debt, the rush of air an audible oscillation as he ascended up behind me. If I halted in my climb and listened, I would hear the sounds of his tortuous ascent – the breathing, the snapping sound of breaking wood, the crumping sound of breaking earth.
Surreptitiously I studied the crimson face, blanched by the rigors of endurance. This was the very man, who had set the trap . . . to catch out Julia - to get a measure of revenge.
We breached the bush line at five o’clock. My spirit soared, like an eagle on a rising thermal. My view abruptly unobstructed, I scrambled up a pel
t of snow grass, seeking a few more metres of height. Stopping, I turned to face the western skyline, the stunted beech trees now a ragged line, well below me. And there they were, a triumvirate of soaring peaks – Travers, Cupola, Hopeless. As a child I had idolised them, the big three of the valley. Our valley! My valley. Now of course I had them in perspective. Hadn’t I seen the mighty Himalaya? But the dreams of youth have a permanence that cannot be suppressed.
A nostalgia that was buried for years, now had come to life again. Below me, way way below, the river was snake like, broken up in places by slashes of sparkling white rapids. And from the steep hanging wooded slopes opposite, there came a muffled roar of falling water – the sound of a concealed waterfall, the noise phasing in and out like a short wave radio signal.
From below came the crashing sound of someone struggling up through loose undergrowth. Graham had reached the bush-line. We found a small plateau and set about pitching the tent and lighting a fire to. I had some trouble getting the fire started. Momentarily the initial flame would flicker and die before popping back into life. This flickering happened in machine-gun like bursts, until a more solid fire took hold, folding itself around the larger pieces of wood. Blue smoke poured forth into the crisp night air, the colour indistinguishable from the fading hue of the sky behind. I was concentrating on the flame, an avenue of escape from the bombast emanating from my companion. Graham was tired after the climb. It had been at the limit of his endurance and consequently he was irritable. He fumbled about amongst the cooking utensils, unearthing the frying pan and billy. Someone would have to go and find water, he announced. I volunteered immediately. He was quite clearly anergic and I was eager for some solitary time away from him.
I travelled north along the bush-line. Because our campsite was on a promontory, I had to traverse quite a distance to find a gully that carried any fresh water. The light was fading fast. The air was remarkably free of the flying beetles and sand-flies that dominated dusk in the valley. It was too high for them - too cold. I scrambled down into the gully. It took an age for the billy to fill – the water flow in the creek not much more than a trickle. Two paradise ducks flew overhead, crying out as they ascended the valley. I raced up the side of the ravine in order to follow their progress. Soon the diminishing dots were lost amongst the background of silent rocky peaks.
The return journey was slow, for fear of spilling water. As I got close to the campsite, Graham was not discernible in the low light. “You make Geoffrey Boycott look like a greyhound.” his voice greeted me. Ah, that was him, the familiar voice at the door of the tent. I ignored the comment and set about dividing the water into separate containers - some for vegetables, some for dessert, some for coffee. I ripped open a packet of freeze dried vegetables and tipped the contents into the designated container. Graham switched on a torch, illuminating the frying-pan containing half a dozen sausages. I felt pleased to see them there. I was getting pretty damned hungry. He squatted down by the fire, the light from the flames dancing across his face. Soon the oil in the pan was sizzling and popping. I went over and placed the pot containing the vegetable mix onto a glowing patch of embers beside the sausage pan.
“So it’s been a good year for you,” he said, his eyes fixed on the pan.
I was taken aback. I wasn’t expecting much interest in my affairs. Perhaps Julia was right. The mountains were going to be good for him. I did nothing more than acknowledge his statement. I didn’t want to provoke him into some judgemental rant.
“Have you a contract with a record company?” he asked.
“No, but the door’s open, so to speak. Once you’ve published successfully, then they’re more likely to be interested in your work.”
He said no more for a couple of minutes. I stirred the vegetable mix. Bits of ash and bark were floating on the surface. I heard him clear his throat. “Mind you,” he said, “It can’t be hard to write those pop tunes. There’s nothing to them. Three minutes of noise.”
Once again, words hung between us, this time like an unexploded fire-cracker. I could have let the taunt slip by without a response. I could have let it disintegrate amongst the crackling and hissing of the night fire. But I didn’t.
“No that’s not right,” I said. “Getting a song published is extremely difficult. There are hundreds of talented composers all competing in the marketplace . . . And the reality is . . . a classical piece is merely a whole lot of three minute songs run together. There’s enough melody and harmony packed onto an album like Sergeant Pepper to put many a classical score to shame.” I used Sergeant Pepper as an example because I knew he had been exposed to it.
He laughed and reached behind to pick up a piece of wood - a long dead branch. He snapped it across a knee, the abrupt retort sounding across the promontory like a gunshot. “That’s an insult to all the great composers,” he said feeding the two halves of his anger into the fire. “If you think the Beatles or any of those other hairy fellows compare with Beethoven, Bach or Mozart, then you are completely deluded.”
“Actually all the classical composers were hairy fellows to,” I said. I don’t think he’d ever thought about that because he seemed unable to respond. I knew all about his monocular view of music. I pressed on, seeming to have the advantage. “No, I’m not deluded,” I said. “These composers are merely living in different times, with different fashions and a different marketplace. Obviously with ten times the population, there must be much more talent around now than there was in Beethoven’s time. It’s ludicrous to think that all the great music was composed two hundred years ago.”
“Utter baloney!” he announced. “Where is all this great music? I haven’t heard any.”
“It’s the production you don’t like. You don’t like the rhythm, the electric guitars,
the heavy bass. Those things aren’t the composition. The composition is the melody and the harmony.”
“I know what the composition is,” he said, sounding annoyed.
“Those sausages are burning,” I said, my voice plump with antagonism.
He looked at me for a few loaded seconds before whipping the hot pan away, poking at the resisting sausages with a spatula. When they were all unstuck, he ladled them onto the two plastic plates. I went over with the vegetable mix. I had little idea whether it was ready or not, but I felt we needed a diversion - to be occupied with eating. His face was getting a really petulant look. I tipped some of the steaming mix onto each plate, his torch beam angled through the steam cloud like a searchlight. “So,” he said at last. “What was your song worth?”
I sensed a trace of amusement in his voice. What he meant was, ‘how much do they pay you for a piece of garbage, this thing that one could knock up in half an hour.’ I was careful with my answer. I explained how the royalty was a percentage of each unit sold. Therefore my income was related to the total number of units sold. “It could take years before sales dry up – especially since the song is included on an album.”
He had lowered himself onto a round boulder near the fire and was spooning the mixture into his mouth. The fire flared up momentarily and I could clearly see his facial expression. There was sanctimony written all over him as he spoke. “So meanwhile you can just sit on your bottom and do nothing. Well it’s an easy life, I’ll grant you that.”
What a man I thought. I’ll play your game. “Yeah it is easy, it’s great,” I said. I knew that casual affirmation of an easy life would annoy him.
He paused in his eating, his fork stopping halfway between plate and mouth. “Well, fabulous if you’re happy with a life based around creating frivolous entertainment,” he said. “You could have had a career in a hallowed profession saving peoples’ lives. But no, you walked away from that. Good God, you were almost there – one exam away.” The fork moved upward, depositing food into a satisfied mouth. He munched away seemingly anxious to swallow the food so that he could continue the sermon. “At least Richard stayed with the game. He didn’t specialise, but he’s s
till in the game. But you were on a specialist program, almost there, and you through it away.” He waved his knife and fork in the air to emphasise his incredulity.
The resurrection of Richard was unexpected – the exposure of the son who had become an enigma for Graham. To go into that area would be interesting. Richard had almost certainly not fulfilled the promise Graham had seen in him. Richard had been earmarked as the surgeon in waiting – the one to follow directly in his surgical footsteps. Richard, when I had visited him in Australia, was so much at peace with himself and the past. In the outback he had acres of land. His backdrop was very much scattered eucalyptus and dusty fields. We had swum then fished for cat-fish in a languid river that bisected his property. Richard looked much the same as he did in the sixties and was of similar disposition. But he’d drawn a line in the sand. He’d rejected Graham’s world and was now a different person with a mind of his own.
I tipped the remnants of my meal into the fire. The residue hissed amongst the glowing embers. “So, Dr Davenport has spoken,” I said. I turned my face away to hide burgeoning laughter
“It’s Mister Davenport actually.”
“Oh of course! Mister Davenport! What a basic mistake. Surgeons are not mere doctors are they. They’re much more holy than that.”
He laughed uproariously at that and stood up to tidy up. At least he wasn’t malignantly ramming his beliefs down my throat. He did seem determined nevertheless to make out that I was a failure. To him, his specialist medical degree was everything. And it was quite an achievement. Yes he could claim that. But as a human being? He was still at elementary school. Where was his humility? Patience? Tolerance? Empathy? You name it, he didn’t have it. I looked back into the soft glow of the fire. I could sense him moving about, tidying up the campsite before bed.
When he came back to the fire his mood had changed. He was suddenly magnanimous. He was sorry he had run down my achievement. He was pleased I had picked myself up off the canvas and achieved something at last. It couldn’t be easy living in the shadow of a medical family. All he wanted was for me to appreciate was the greatness of medical science. We were all dwarfed by its magnificence. It was an absolute privilege to be a small cog in the great wheel. Sure, I had missed the boat somewhat. The opportunity to climb aboard had been there. But not everything goes to plan. I wasn’t to feel belittled. He merely wanted me to see what was possible. Medicine! It was the past, present and future.
I listened to his monologue with growing incredulity. How could one person be so narrow? I wanted to grab him by the lapels of his oilskin and shake him. Wake up man! The thought of doing it, almost had me laughing out loud. I couldn’t help but to bait him some more. He was sitting back down on his rock, a smattering of dying embers all that remained of the fire’s former glory.
“It’s good that people are trained up to look after the health of the community,” I said. “But the actual job itself – surgeon – anyone with moderate intelligence and dexterity could do it.”
I watched his face transform – he was speechless, incredulous. I carried on.
“That’s the difference between what I’ve done and what you’ve done. Only a small percentage of the population have the talent to write music whereas just about anyone could do the work of a surgeon.”
My words untapped a speech that he’d been dying to unveil all evening. It was myself and my generation who copped it. The sixties' youth were blasted for diverting a whole generation away from self discipline, and from service to the country. The failure of the Vietnam War was our fault. Then I was roasted for lacking spine - for giving up competitive sport at an early age - for following a music culture that revered idleness, sex and drug taking - for failing to carry forward the family medical tradition, after getting into a position to nail a specialist qualification. Finally, I had failed to keep Isobel away from the tentacles of the drug culture despite living in the same city as her when she succumbed to temptation. This last assertion was astonishing and also ludicrous. So absurd it was, that he finally succeeded in getting under my skin.
“How the hell has Mum put up with you all these years? All those years of putting up with your big surgeon’s ego. Mind you, she took a bit of time out didn’t she.”
He began a strange movement about the lips. They were pouted, but pulsing in and out like the gills of a goldfish. His decorum was completely gone. He picked up a flaming log and hurled it down the slope. It was completely dark by now and the impact of the missile with the tussock slope produced a spectacular eruption of flaming sparks.
“I won’t have that brought up,” he shouted. “How in hell do you know about that?”
“You’re a nut case,” I said getting up. I began to walk away from him around the slope to the north. Behind me he seemed to go berserk, hurling the half burnt timber from the fireplace down the hill. I stopped to watch. The rush of air across the flying debris set some of them flaming, bathing the promontory with orange light. When the timber had run out I carried on. I could hear him ranting away in the dark but the words were indistinct. I figured we were going to have to spend the night apart. There was no way either of us would tolerate the other’s presence that night.
I walked for ten minutes or so, eventually coming upon the gully where I had obtained water earlier. I crossed this creek and kept going. When the light from the camp fire was hidden behind the crest of the ridge, I dropped down into the depth of the forest. The forest floor was pitch black and uninviting, with a plethora of tree roots making for an uneven surface. Eventually I found a small knoll that had a flattish surface. I began collecting dry moss and lichen, the latter obtained from the bark of trees. When there was sufficient for a comfortable mattress, I lay down to sleep. Fortunately it was a reasonably warm night otherwise I would have had to go back to the tent. Even so, it wasn’t a totally peaceful sleep. I was annoyed with myself for getting into the row with Graham. He wasn’t going to change so what was the point? I awoke many times and I gave up trying to get back to sleep at five o’clock. I unwound from my foetal position and climbed out of the forest. The eastern sky was already awash with a pink glow. I climbed straight up the grassy slope above me. After gaining some two hundred feet in altitude, I sidled around to the south eventually coming to a point directly above the campsite. I settled down there for a while, watching the morning sun paint the mountain tops across the valley. I would have to go down and face him eventually.
Chapter 5
