Beneath the Mother Tree

by D. M. Cameron

  Ayla laughed. ‘You look like a little boy with his mother.’

  His face contorted as he turned to rest his forehead on the tree.

  She searched for the best way to say it. ‘You can’t carry the burden of her on your own anymore. There’s a mental health unit that comes to the island once a month. She…she needs help, Riley.’

  ‘She needs to…’ He swallowed the word and threw his head back to stare through the branches. The night so bright, he could have been standing in sunshine. A kaleidoscope of emotion ran across his face as he shut his eyes on the moon.

  Marlise wanted to fly toward the incandescence but her sisters, her daughters, were calling. She saw them in their billions, pregnant mothers-to-be rising out of the mangroves, entreating her to come. If only she could find Ayla. She could smell that gash on her knee but couldn’t get to her. Her darling mosquitos were frantic now, surrounding her. She had never felt such love, so wanted, safe and happy in this place where she belonged. Too tired and thirsty, she let them carry her in the pack. As they reached the swamp, they clustered around, hungry, wanting to suck from every part of her, obscuring her vision. She flew too close to the ground. There was mud on her legs. She tried to wipe it off but they were pressing down on her now, hurting her. No. Her body was on fire with their stinging betrayal. ‘Help,’ she screamed, trying to escape, flying into the sludge again. Her wings covered, she was trapped, falling forward, her face hitting the mud which slid down her throat and into her lungs.

  ‘Mammy.’

  Why had she called for a mother who had never been there? A memory of being held and rocked drifted through her. Her mother had almost been a child herself when she had borne her. This thought bubbled up through the mud and settled in her heart as forgiveness. Forgiveness. David? She sensed him there, standing in the shadows amongst the twisted roots, flanked by a pack of dogs, waiting with their low growls for David to give the signal. Would he? Or would he remember their love? David. Her voice was gone. She couldn’t move. Life was trickling out of her. The warm mud cooling now. From the depths of the earth, a horse was galloping toward her, the smell of revenge in its sweat. Her scream was stopped by the appearance of a little boy. Riley, as a toddler, one of the buckles on his red corduroy overalls had come undone. He was running to Lorcan who threw him into the air. Her little Riley laughed so hard she thought her heart would burst with love at the sound of him. Lorcan set him on the ground and he was running to her now, the buckle on his overalls flying free, arms outstretched, reaching for her, calling to her. No one could ever take that moment from them. This thought calmed her as she pressed his strong little body, squirming with life, against her still heart.

  22.

  Grappa felt as if he had stepped into a painting. Marlise’s naked body shone from within the mangroves, the blackness of the mud against her pale skin in the early morning light looked surreal. The waves lapped against her body, which, as he drew closer, he saw was swollen with mosquito bites. Every inch of her was bitten, even between her toes. Her hair, like tentacles, floated out from her head in the water. Her hair in his dream, he realised.

  The crowd of islanders standing quietly, whispering on the edge of the swamp, held their tongues as Riley pushed past. The swamp itself became still. No breeze and, curiously, not one mosquito. The murder of crows on the verandah rail twitched in the cloying septic smell.

  When Riley saw his mother lying face down in the water, the noise that uncaged itself wasn’t human.

  ‘Can’t touch the body, son.’ The boy was too powerful. He pushed Grappa off, making that unearthly bellow as he tried to turn the body over.

  When Henry Pickler – the know-all who was on the phone to the police – saw what Riley was doing, he screamed. ‘This is a potential crime scene. Step away from the body. I command you to step away from the body now.’

  ‘It’s his mother for Christ sakes. Show some compassion.’ Grappa grabbed the phone off Henry. ‘Constable, the woman’s son just turned up. He’s a bit upset. As you can hear. He’s touched the body.’

  Josh grabbed a sheet off the line under the old house and waded out to place it respectfully over the corpse. Grappa thought Josh was crying, but it was hard to tell as he kept his head low. Did Josh have something to do with the events of last night?

  Grappa was only half listening to the irate police officer. He could hear Henry big-noting himself, explaining to the crowd of onlookers that the police were on their way. They’d been held up because of a fatal shark attack at Big Island. A woman swimming with her dog off the point, where the sand bar drops away to the reef, was mauled by a pack of bull sharks. All that was left was her torso and no sign of the dog.

  Tilly, who’d discovered Marlise’s body, was sitting on a log, looking as if someone had slapped her hard across the face.

  The police officer was speaking in legal jargon now.

  ‘Yes, I understand constable, but it’s his mother.’ Grappa remembered his find this morning, his new bottle of scotch discarded in the pandanus forest, empty, with the cap still on. Ayla had said Marlise had been drinking straight from the bottle. ‘I don’t think it was suspicious constable. Looks like she was drunk, wandered into the swamp, got stuck in the mud. You know the scenario.’

  Every couple of years there was a fatality on one of the islands, someone wandering drunk into the mangroves and getting caught in the slippery deep sludge. But where were her clothes? What had she been doing out here naked? And what the hell had she done to the mosquitoes to make them swarm like that? The authorities were claiming a combination of factors to do with global warming: the recent heavy rainfall, the king tide and the unusually hot temperatures. But Grappa knew Marlise had been the final ingredient in the equation.

  ‘Constable? The tide is coming in fast. You might lose the body if it floats away – getting deep enough to swim in now.’

  The constable changed his tone and granted permission to move the body to the shoreline.

  Henry Pickler snatched his phone back, dropping it into the water in a rush to assert his authority, abusing Grappa in the process.

  Grappa saw Ayla arrive on her bike, her face riddled with anxiety. She began to wade out, petrified by the noise coming from Riley, but was blocked by Henry Pickler. Grappa signalled for her to wait. He placed his hand on Riley’s shoulder. ‘Cops said we can move her out of the water, son.’

  Riley struggled to stand with the body. Josh and Grappa helped him to his feet, Josh all the time fixing the sheet so it covered the corpse. Grappa felt a sense of fatherly pride as the now silent and stoic Riley held his head high to carry his mother’s body out of the swamp.

  The crowd moved away out of respect.

  Riley was almost at the shoreline when he saw Ayla. Violent, uncontrollable waves of shock registered through his body. She ducked out of Henry’s grasp and ran to Riley.

  A ragged old cormorant with a bald patch of missing feathers halfway down its neck landed on the balcony of the crooked house, causing the crows to fly off. Their spectral caws drooping in the listless air.

  Grappa thought it was uncanny, the old cormorant watching the proceedings looked like it belonged to the house, or the house belonged to the bird. He couldn’t make up his mind which.

  23.

  Riley stared at the wad of legal documents in his lap. Who would have thought there would be so much paperwork? The results of the autopsy confused him. His mother died of suffocation from falling face down into the mud, but it was the almost lethal blood alcohol level he couldn’t understand. As far as he was aware, she never drank.

  Ayla held their tickets out for the ferryman. As usual, Riley hadn’t seen the man approach. Life kept happening around him, from a distance, as if he were one step removed. Like the woman at the bank today, demanding answers, placing papers in front of him to sign. Riley blushed at the memory of his own ignorance. Luckily, Ayla had been there to guide and interpret. She had been his lifeline in the endless interviews with the
police. He knew, if it had not been for Ayla and the evidence from the rest of the island community, he may have been charged with his mother’s murder. The bruises on her throat and jaw, all proof of his anger and hatred. He held back the ocean of guilt by reaching for Ayla’s hand, grateful once again for her presence. There was something in the way she was staring uncomfortably ahead that made him aware of the conversation occurring behind them.

  ‘Weren’t you here the night of the mozzie plague?’

  ‘Nah mate, been in the Territory.’

  ‘She wandered into the mangroves, drunk. They found her dead the next day. Stark naked she was.’

  ‘Heard she was starkers.’

  ‘I saw her mate. Streaked right past me front door, arms flapping like a bird, not a stitch on. I ran and told Suze, but she wouldn’t believe me. Reckoned I’d pulled too many cones.’

  ‘Typical.’

  ‘That Mosquito Woman was a bit of a goer, quite the cougar. Heard one night she got on the turps and serviced all the barge boys.’

  ‘In one night?’

  ‘Except Grunter, wouldn’t touch Grunter apparently.’

  ‘Don’t blame her.’

  Ayla stood up. ‘Neville, I thought you knew better. Come on, Riley.’

  Neville turned. ‘Shit Ayla, sorry…didn’t know he was there.’

  As Riley followed her up the ladder onto the open-air deck, he heard someone murmur. ‘Mosquito Woman’s son.’

  He was impressed. She had already become a legend. They had even given her a name.

  Ayla put the documents in her bag. ‘Sorry. They’re a bunch of gossipmongers – disgusts me sometimes.’

  ‘They don’t mean any harm.’ He shrugged, touched by the warmth he had received from this tiny community since his mother’s death.

  Ayla sat down and sighed.

  From his far-off place, he sensed her frustration. ‘I’m sorry, Ayla.’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for…’ She took his hand.

  He tried to think of something comforting to say, but words had become foreign as he struggled against drowning in guilt. He wanted to explain how he had wished his mother dead, and now she was dead he was fighting to stay afloat as the words bubbled around him in the wrong order. It was easier not to speak.

  They waited for everyone to disembark before leaving the boat. As they climbed the hill the mood between them grew heavier. The guilt pressed down, making him stop when they reached the church at the top of the rise. ‘You go. I’ll be there soon.’

  As she turned the corner, he saw the little hop in her step had vanished and he wanted to cry.

  Staring once again at the plaque in the brick wall with his mother’s name on it, he tried to comprehend that she had been reduced to this.

  ‘Don’t know if I’d like to be stuck in a box in a wall. Would you?’ Aunty Dora’s voice at his shoulder made him jump.

  They both watched the plaque as if waiting for something to happen.

  ‘Why don’t you take her ashes and scatter them down in the mangroves? Have a private ceremony. Say what you need to say to her.’

  She walked across the road with Riley following. There was something comforting about Aunty Dora that made him crave her company. He realised as she continued to speak that she was the only one who talked to him openly about his mother.

  ‘I’ll never forget her standing her ground in that community meeting, passionately fighting for her mosquitoes. In my language, this island, Moondarrawah, means mosquito. Know what I reckon, son? I think the island claimed your mother. Maybe it recognised she belonged with the mosquitoes. She wasn’t at peace when she was alive. She’s at peace now.’

  They had reached the old lady’s front gate.

  ‘You been back there yet?’

  ‘Back where?’

  ‘The old Johnston house? The swamp?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Need to go back then. Make peace with the place.’

  He shut the gate behind her and watched her climb the stairs onto her front verandah. ‘What are you waiting for, boy? Christmas?’

  Riley ran down the hill and into the dirt road that led to the old house. The flap of the police tape kept time with the beating of his heart. The door was unlocked. At the bottom of the stairwell the smell almost disembowelled him. Something decomposing, rancid, flesh putrefying. He forced himself up the stairs, following the vileness to the cage of dead mice crawling with maggots. A symbol of everything secretive and rotten within his mother. He howled and kicked at the possibility she had killed David until there was a mess of stinking gunk squirming over the floor. He moved then, through the house, their possessions overwhelming him with memories of her fierce love, the way her beautiful face came to life every time she saw him. In the kitchen, her coffee cup sat on the bench, but she was gone and he could never explain that he hadn’t meant those last dreadful words. He crept down the hallway toward her room. The sight of her satin dressing gown folded him in half. He could never say sorry for hitting her. She had died thinking he hated her. As he picked the garment up, her smell flooded him with the memory of her voice.

  ‘Riley Smiley, time for sleep. Riley Smiley, not a peep.’ The ditty she had chanted every night of his childhood as she tucked him in. Even when he was older and lived in the tree house, she would walk out by torch light to say good-night. Sometimes they would sing the old rhyme together as a joke. Sometimes she would almost tell him what it was that haunted her.

  His heart tripped over itself. ‘I love you.’ He sobbed for all the times she had said that to him and he had answered with silence.

  24.

  Ayla stopped sawing to watch Grappa through the trees, down on the beach, searching the sand with a large magnifying glass, occasionally bending to pick something up. Collecting shells for the Nor folk, she suspected. When she told him about the vision that had come to her during the mosquito swarm, he had been fascinated.

  ‘They wore shells as hats?’

  ‘Yes. You know the circular mollusc shells shaped like little bowls?’ she found one in the sand. ‘Like this.’

  ‘How appropriate.’ His eyebrows raised in wonderment.

  ‘You know I didn’t actually see them. I had my eyes shut. It was my imagination.’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you? You see better with your eyes shut.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, taking in the whole world. ‘All an illusion, merely reflected light. Even the scientists will tell you that.’

  Ayla watched him move further along the beach. The last time she had visited the old fig, she had found a pile of tiny mollusc shells at the base within the folds of its roots. She had taken them and buried them in the sand, knowing he would be pleased to see they were gone, assuming the Nor folk had made use of his gift.

  The hammering behind her had ceased. She turned to see Jonathon, a pelican she recently disentangled from a plastic bag, had landed where Riley was working, demanding something to eat.

  ‘No, Jonathon. You can feed yourself now. Come on, out of here. This way. There’s a good boy.’ Ayla led the disgruntled bird down the beach track. He looked back one last time then waddled off to the water.

  Riley was leaning against the door frame, arms folded, watching her. ‘You have a natural way with animals. Your Mum’s right. You should go back to uni and finish your course.’

  ‘I will next semester. I’ve been thinking about the polar bears and what will happen to them when all the ice melts. I’ll have a better chance of helping them, if I’m a vet.’

  ‘When does the semester start?’

  ‘Ages away. I’ve missed the cut-off for this term.’

  He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Sit down a minute?’

  They sat together on a driftwood log.

  ‘I want to try and find my father.’

  ‘You’ve got enough money for a ticket to Ireland.’

  ‘I’ve got enough for two. We could be back before your semester starts.’r />
  She looked through the trees and beyond to the horizon, wondering how much ocean you would need to cross to get to Ireland.

  ‘I keep having this dream, I’m there playing my flute, and you’re there too, dancing.’

  ‘I can dance on the sandbar at Dead Tree Point. Don’t know if I could dance on the streets of Ireland.’

  ‘Just shut your eyes and pretend you’re dancing on the sandbar.’

  There was a dead butterfly lying on the end of the bench. He felt the softness of it.

  ‘Don’t.’ She stopped his hand. ‘Grappa always told me you should never touch freshly dead butterfly wings.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Look,’ she showed him the end of his finger. ‘See? Silver dust.’ She rubbed it on the inside of his wrist and it left a shimmering streak. ‘He said his Gran told him the Nor folk use the dust to paint themselves for celebrations. They need it. We shouldn’t waste it.’

  Riley rubbed his finger down the tip of her nose. ‘There’s Nor Folk Trees everywhere in Ireland apparently.’

  She imagined the spirit of her great-great-grandmother taking her by the hand and walking with her through an ancient green expanse, pointing out features of the foreign landscape, whispering local tales passed down through centuries.

  He pulled her to her feet. She laughed when he jumped onto the log and started to play an Irish jig.

  In the music, she felt her ancestors pulling her over the water, far away from the tea-tree filling her head with the scent of love for this, her heartland.

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, thank you Arts Queensland and Redland City Council for the Regional Arts Development Fund grant which enabled the birth of this work.

  Thank you to the phenomenal Nicola O’Shea for taking that initial ‘spew draft’ and restructuring it into the book it is today. I felt like I swallowed a mountain of knowledge working with you, which I am still digesting.