by John Marsden
She began tickling Argus, who rolled over and over, giggling and fighting her off. ‘Careful, you’ll wake the baby’, he protested. They rolled into the shallows of the lake and the tickling turned into erotic fondling — within minutes they were making love in the warm water, their bodies caressed by the rippling waves. The few clothes they had been wearing were floating around them; they had to keep pushing them away. But soon they were too intent on their own engulfing feelings to notice any distractions.
When it was over they lay in the shallows, mesmerised by the water.
‘Oh,’ sighed Adious, ‘I don’t think staying with my aunt is going to be a lot of fun.’ Argus gently disengaged himself, rolled over on his back, and lay looking up at the few light clouds. He thought vaguely that a poem about voyages would be a good thing to write: about voyages across oceans and into the shallows of a lake, about voyages away from harbours and to the dark green side of the moon, voyages into Adious and into himself. He hauled himself out of the water and onto the sands, so that he could dream without drowning, and drifted away on his own weather-beaten ship, a colourful junk of patches and pictures and strange sailing people. Remembering a woman he had helped bury on a beach, he began to form words in his head.
A vessel, fresh-launched, knows nothing
Of how the sea behaves.
All that it has, and all that it learns
Comes from the wind and the reef and the waves.
Fresh-launched, the vessel does not know
How even a harbour harbours graves.
A voyage that never leaves shelter
Is one for the weak and the small.
The strength a ship has, comes from its fight
To weather the rips and the rocks and the squalls.
Such a vessel, straining onwards,
Need not fear the deep pitfalls.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Autumn had taken its first discreet initiatives as Argus trudged up the long white driveway that led home. He was tired, but his eyes scanned every detail keenly. Everything was the same, and yet everything was not the same. That walnut tree there, it still stood, and was indisputably the same tree, but a branch was missing from its lower limbs, and a ladder leaned against its trunk. Some work had been done on enlarging the dam in South Austin, but it was unfinished, and it looked as though the job had been waiting quite a time to be completed. Argus found the paradox, of familiar sights that had become unfamiliar, disconcerting. It was rather like a reunion with an old friend who had gained weight, changed his hairstyle, and now dressed differently. Such a person could never be a stranger, but could never again be the same old friend either.
Argus also found the condition of the fences worrying. His father had always told him that a farm could be judged by its fences, and here they were in a shabby state. Repairs had been made, and holes patched, but not with the high standard of workmanship that Argus had come to take for granted.
He had sometimes considered the possibility that he might return to find his parents infirm, ill, or even dead, but this had been a hypothetical dilemma, a mere daydream. Now the daydream merged with the reality and his anxiety heightened. He increased his pace, but knew it would be a long half-hour before he would reach the house.
It was in fact a little under twenty minutes before he came to the familiar cluster of buildings. He was impressed by his own speed and realised just how much he had grown in strength and fitness and vigour. The walk to the road had once seemed to him a major expedition: now it was a thing of no consequence. But that was something to ponder over; for the moment there was the sight that he had hungered for. In front of him was his dog, Dusty. Dusty began to bark at the apparent stranger then took a tentative step forward in an apprehension of delight, then another step as his face began to open in a beam of joy. His wonderful dream was confirmed and he leaped about in an ecstasy of barks and yelps, performing acrobatics all over and around the boy. Argus dropped to his knees, trying in vain to hug the dog, but Dusty’s delirium of delight could not be contained for a moment. Argus’ face was slathered with Dusty’s tongue as the dog kissed him and butted him and fell all over him in a madness of love. It was a full five minutes before Argus finally found the ruthlessness to get up again and walk on towards the house, with Dusty at his heels, under his feet, or scooting around him in circles of joyful abandonment, still whining to himself in a frenzy of happiness.
Perhaps it was Dusty’s noise that brought Argus’ mother out of the house. At any rate she was suddenly standing on the path waiting for her son. Argus had a moment of feeling remote and alienated, then experienced a rush of warmth and love. He took her in his arms, and was staggered to see that he was now considerably taller than she was. He was amazed too to see her frailty, the greyness in her hair and the gauntness of her face. He felt a boniness in her body that had not been there before. She was trembling as they hugged but otherwise retained the calmness and dignity that had always been her hallmark. They walked together up the path. ‘Your father will be glad to see you,’ she said quietly. ‘He hasn’t been very well.’
In the cool dark of the house, smelling older than Argus had remembered it, the boy found his father sitting asleep in an armchair. His hair, for so long a proud silver, was now grey and wispy. In the relaxation of sleep his face sagged. Argus woke him gently and it took the old man a confused moment to realise what was happening.
‘Ah,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve come. I knew you would.’ He staggered to his feet and embraced his son, who found that he towered over this parent too. He also found that he had to support his father and after a moment he lowered him back into the armchair.
‘A glass of wine, mother,’ the man said. ‘A glass of wine for the traveller.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Argus was surprised, thinking about it later, to realise how quickly the three of them settled into their new relationship, with little apparent effort. There was an atmosphere in the house of sluggishness, as though the old people had been in a long sleep before he came. As Argus moved with energy and vigour through the rooms, he could feel the dormant air being disturbed, ripples emanating from his body and becoming waves. The still rooms stirred into life again.
Argus’ parents were content to concede everything to their son. When he spoke they listened deferentially. Meals were served when he was hungry. When he was tired and went to bed they followed almost straight away. It was forbidden for Argus to talk about his journey until after the telling of the seven stories. His parents, traditionalists, kept to this rule; Argus quickly became reacquainted with routines on the farm. And he learnt of the changes which had occurred since he went away. His father had been ill for a long time with pneumonia, and still had little strength. Ranald, the neighbour who often worked for his father, had come as often as he could, but that was not often enough. His mother, quite a bit younger than his father, had not been ill but seemed to Argus to have aged quickly too. Argus found himself working from dawn till after dark, bringing the farm back into condition. Yet his pace was tempered by regard for his father, who accompanied him everywhere, trying to help. Argus felt that his own energy and quickness were somehow an affront to his father, an implicit insult. He forced himself to slow down, to seek his father’s counsel, to include him in the work, even though he was often impatient to be getting on with it, and sure of what needed to be done.
As word spread that Argus had returned from his journey, neighbours began to call, bringing customary gifts of food. In talking with them and asking them questions Argus realised the wisdom of the rule that the journey must not be discussed with anyone until after the telling of the stories. The rule reminded the traveller, filled with the importance of his own adventure, that the experiences of the people in his home district were important too, even if they were less glamorous. It reminded him of his place in the scheme of things. While Argus had been coping with love and danger and death, these people, his neighbours, had been growing their crops
, tending their cattle, raising their children and mending their fences. In other words, they too had been coping with the whole cycle of life, which included, in the natural course of events, love and danger and death. Argus saw that in many ways his journey had been unnecessary, for all the things he had encountered and learned, could have been learned here in the valley. Yet he also knew that he needed to leave the valley and make the journey in order to come to that realisation.
After he had been home a week his father went away for a few hours, and upon his return handed Argus his summons. He was to appear before the Council of the Valley, in a week’s time, for seven consecutive nights. Though the summons did not say so, Argus knew that if he passed this, the great test, on the eighth night there would be feasting and a dance, to which all the people in the valley would come, as he himself had gone to others’ feasts when he was younger.
He left his father and walked away, up to the steepest and most distant paddock, Yardley’s, to check on a heifer that Ranald had told him was down. He was excited and nervous, yet aware of a strange feeling of detachment. Thinking it through, he realised it was because the importance of the test was not as absolute as he had once believed. Supposing he failed, what then? In the first instance there would be the embarrassment, not only to him but to his parents. There would be painful silences with friends and neighbours, for the embarrassment would often lie in the subjects which could not be raised, rather than in what was actually said. He would be excluded from the privileges and responsibilities that went with the status of adult in the valley. Certainly, as time went on, and he aged, he would be accepted as an adult anyway, but without any ceremony or sense of pride. And the position of elder would be forever closed to him. There was a boy further along the valley, Suraci, who was known to all the children as brash and shallow, a braggart. He had been away for only a short time, a few months, and had returned as cocky as ever. Argus was never told what happened when Suraci appeared before the Council — he was not entitled to know — but there had been no feast for Suraci. From then on the boy had changed completely, and had crept around the valley like a shadow of a bird on water.
But Argus knew that for him it was different. If he failed the test it would be through circumstances outside himself, and he would feel no shame. He did not need a Council of senior men and women to tell him whether he had achieved maturity or not. He knew that he had, though he would continue to gain wisdom, and to mature, through all the days of his life. And his mood was affected by the fact that he did not plan to stay in the valley long. He was anxious to go back to the town of Conroy, where he had left Adious with her aunt, and to return with her and Jessie to their own small holding. Though his resolve to do this had been weakened by the illness of his father and by the state in which he found the farm, it nevertheless remained his major priority. And when he did leave the valley, he wanted it to be with honour and dignity. For this reason the telling of the seven stories was important to him.
He could find no trace of the heifer in Yardley’s, so instead he sat on the ridgeline and looked out over the farm. It was an attractive sight, and one that filled him with love for his home and his parents who had raised him here. He knew that he could not call himself an adult if he were to walk away from his responsibilities to them. Yet he also knew that if he stayed on the farm and took its management over from his father, then there would be a part of him that would never grow up. There was no malice in this. It was just the way things were, and a lot of it was to do with love — the love of parents who wished to protect their son from hazards and mistakes. Argus was clear enough about all the emotions involved but unclear about how they could be resolved. He sighed, stood up, and jogged off down the hill to check a blocked pipe in a gravity-fed water trough. All these small jobs! Every day was full of them. Would the time ever come when he could walk away from them and go back to Adious and Jessie?
Chapter Twenty-Four
On a cool autumn night, with the dark sky bewitched by stars, Argus stood in front of the Council to begin his first story. Between thirty and forty men and women were present. He knew them all, by sight or by name, and felt himself to be among friends, even though the atmosphere for this important occasion was serious and formal. His parents, both members of the Council, were debarred by custom from attending. There was dinner, a few short speeches, then Argus was introduced by his father’s brother, Fahey. He stood, nervously cleared his throat, and began:
The First Story
‘IN the days long ago there lived on the earth a creature called Slither. Something like a lizard, something like a snake, he had a body of immense length, so long that he did not know where it ended, and he had no idea how long it might be. His body stretched out across the plains behind him. On a clear day he could see where it disappeared through a gap in the mountains. Sometimes he would amuse himself by shrugging his shoulders and watching rocks crash down the mountains five minutes later, as ripples from the movement reached the narrow defile.
‘For all his great size Slither was extraordinarily dextrous. It was nothing for him to tie his body into interesting knots. One of his amusements was to make these knots as complicated as possible and then to have the fun of unravelling them. A few times, however, he scared himself by tying knots so difficult that he began to wonder if he would ever get them untangled.
‘When he was young, Slither stayed in the same area, eating the leaves and bushes that formed the main part of his diet. He ate quite a lot, because if he went for very long without eating he began to get signals from a distant part of his body that it was hungry and wanted nourishment. Before he was very old he had eaten out most of the plains on which he lived and was obliged to move on. He travelled as smoothly as he could but it was inevitable that the passage of his body across the countryside caused a lot of disruption, especially as it took him years to pass any one spot. He travelled across oceans, which was easy for him, as most of his body was still waiting on the shore when he reached the other side. And he hardly noticed the tidal waves that he generated as he made the crossing.
‘One day, when journeying in a new continent. Slither came across a remarkable discovery. It was a giant barrier that crossed his path from east to west. Slither had never seen anything like it. In size it resembled a mountain range, yet it was made of materials that were not like any mountains he had ever seen. It was a kind of scaly substance, made up of many colours, and quite beautiful when the sunlight was reflecting from it. It was firm to touch but gave when prodded. At times it seemed as though a trembling movement would run right along it.
‘Slither became fascinated by this remarkable barrier. Though he could have slid over it quite easily, he chose not to. He looked to the left, where it disappeared into the west, and he looked to the right, where it disappeared into the east. He decided to follow it to the east, to see where it led.
‘That was the start of a long pilgrimage by Slither. It was a strange time in his life. He ate hardly at all, and his body — as much of it as he could see — became scrawny and thin. He did not even notice the countryside that he was passing through, and would not have known at any given moment whether he was in jungle or grassland or forest. He did much more damage to the land and its inhabitants than ever before because he had become careless about the way in which he travelled. He was obsessed by his quest, to explore the full length of this strange phenomenon that he had found.
‘As he slid along beside it, Slither did notice that the mountain range — if indeed that was what it was — was becoming smaller and meaner and less attractive. He began to feel that he might be disappointed in what he found at the end of this rainbow. But even though he was getting weary and dispirited he pressed on.
‘The time came when Slither felt that he was approaching the end of the search. He had an instinct that there was not long to go. At the same time, he began to feel that there was something very familiar about the part that he was now journeying beside. He could not place exactly w
hat it was, but there was something about it that he felt he recognised.
‘At last came the moment when all his questions were answered. After a few hours of exhausted sleep one night Slither woke at the first shadowing of greyness in the sky. He moved off again straight away, travelled a very short distance, and then, as the sun rose, found himself looking at his own emaciated neck. The barrier he had been travelling beside all this time, was his own body, and he had been depriving himself of everything to do this. There was now only one comfort for Slither — that at least he had recognised in the end what his obsession had been. Otherwise he might still be absorbed in his fruitless journey.’
Argus sat down quietly, as he had been taught. Some minutes of murmured discussion among his audience followed, but, as he had been warned, no looks or comments were directed towards him. In time his uncle rose, and gestured for Argus to follow him. Fahey led him out of the meeting place, and walked him home across the soft wet paddocks, saying nothing to him, except for a parting admonition to be ready at the same time the next night. Argus went to bed and lay for a long time looking out of his window, at the stars that so brilliantly punctured the sky.
