by Di Morrissey
‘I think it would have been perfectly obvious. I hope nothing is missing.’
Harriet peered into the box Odette was still clutching. ‘I don’t believe so. So there, nothing is lost, no damage is done. Let’s just forget the whole thing.’
She turned and walked briskly away. But damage had been done. There was a rent in the thin fabric of their relationship. Odette realised how unsentimental her aunt was, while Harriet considered Odette’s clinging to the past unhealthy. As was so often the way, neither could appreciate the other’s viewpoint. Odette found it difficult to explain her feelings to her unbending aunt.
Horrie the photographer ambled over to Odette. ‘Been picking up a few bits and pieces, eh? I don’t know what you women find to buy at these things. I reckon it all gets donated back the next year.’
‘Horrie, please get a picture of some of the Ladies’ Committee counting money or something, and that will be the lot. I’ll see you later.’
Odette headed outside, tied the box onto the carry basket on her bicycle and pedalled away, blind with anger. Head down, feet pumping hard, hands gripping the handlebars, she rode straight to the blacksmiths looking for Zac. The old smithy was sitting on the stump of wood by the door, rolling a cigarette.
‘Morning, Mr Cameron. Is Zac around?’
The old man finished rolling the thin paper over the plug of tobacco, licked its length and stuck it down, smoothing it between his fingers. He put it in his mouth and felt in the pocket of his leather apron for matches before answering. ‘Nope.’
‘Oh. Isn’t he working today?’
‘Nope. It’s Sat’dee.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
Odette waited for another ‘nope’. But lighting up and inhaling deeply, the old man replied, ‘River. Said he was going for a swim. He called round to check there wasn’t anything to do.’
Odette smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Mr Cameron.’
She knew where Zac would be and she rode there, her fury now reduced to a burning hurt.
She found him with his feet dangling in the water, strumming his guitar. He stood up and came to her as she leaned her bike against a tree. ‘You look upset, little one.’
‘I am. Oh, Zac. You wouldn’t believe what that aunt of mine did.’ Odette poured out the story of finding her mother’s cherished possessions in the jumble sale. She pointed to the box tied to her bicycle. ‘At least I got them back.’
Tears of hurt rushed to her eyes. The years with Aunt Harriet seemed a fragile and lonely bridge between the sudden dismantling of her loving life when her parents died and her life now. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘Don’t be shy of sentiment, Odette. That was an invasion of your privacy and you have every right to feel upset. But standing up to her has put you in control of your life. You challenged her and she backed down. You’ll see, things will be different now.’
Zac took her hand and led her to the river bank, sat her down and pulled off her sandals. ‘Put your feet in the water, it’s calming. And I’ll sing you a song.’
He began to sing to her and Odette lay back in the grass, closed her eyes and felt the tension flow from her body. He finished and sat quietly.
Odette opened her eyes. ‘What was that called?’
‘“Letting Go”. You can’t go forward in this life till you let go of a lot of the baggage of the past. Some things are good to keep. The rubbish . . . discard it from your life, Odette. Travel light in this world.’
‘You mean I shouldn’t be dragging around boxes of . . . junk?’
‘Not at all. But you don’t always need tangible objects to keep a memory alive. Feelings and memories are always there, and easier to carry. Keep the happy ones and let go of the sad ones. Think of the special memories you’ve got tucked away . . . of people and places.’
‘Mmm.’ Odette opened her eyes again, the sun warm on her face.
‘Tell me some.’
Odette’s eyes were still closed and her voice sounded far away. ‘Lots of times with my parents. Even though they were such a close pair. I never realised how unusual they were. They were totally devoted to each other. They didn’t need other people. I find it hard to think of them as separate people. They were always a pair. I hope I can love someone that much one day.’
‘And places?’
‘Oh, that’s easy. Zanana and the rose garden. It was this magical old house on the river where I used to go and play. There was this Indian House there . . . and a boy I played with . . . just thinking about it I can smell the roses and the fragrance in the Indian House . . . I’d forgotten that till a year ago when I had a cake of soap that had the same smell — sandalwood. Oh, Zac, that place was so special. But so sad and empty. I wonder what’s happened to it. I hope it hasn’t been pulled down. It would be terrible if it was lost.’
‘I’m sure it won’t be lost,’ said Zac reassuringly. ‘I’ll write you a song about Zanana and the roses one day.’
Odette sat up and impulsively hugged him. ‘Talking to you always makes me feel good. Thank you.’
‘How about a swim? It’s hot.’
‘I don’t have a swimsuit.’
‘Neither do I. Close your eyes, modest maiden.’
Shyly Odette covered her face with her hands. She heard the rustle as he undid his belt and, peeping through parted fingers, she glimpsed the length of Zac’s back and bare brown buttocks as he dived into the water. She watched him swim about in the pool in the centre of the river, splashing and diving, until he was finished.
‘I’m coming out.’
She closed her eyes as he pulled on his trousers, then in the next instant, his cool, damp body was flung on top of hers, wrestling her gently back on the ground. She shivered at the shock of his wet bare chest on her skin, the dampness cooling her through her blouse; but she shivered too from some deep, untapped core of pleasure.
Unselfconsciously he shook his head of dark curls at her, sparkling droplets of water falling on her face. ‘Feel cooler now?’ he laughed.
She nodded and he lay still and smiled at her. Odette reached up and hugged him tightly. His face close to hers, he licked the drops of water from her face.
‘Sweet little Odette.’
‘Why do you call me little all the time?’
‘Because you’re still like a little bird, you need protecting. And I’m bigger, stronger and older than you.’
‘Not so much older.’
‘Aeons. I’ve lived many lives before this one.’
‘Stop teasing me, Zac.’ She tightened her arms about him.
‘I never tease.’ Gently he unhooked her arms and rolled off her. Picking up her sandals he buckled them on her feet. ‘Let’s go for a walk through the Brush.’
Holding hands they headed along the river’s edge to the acres of rainforest still surviving close to the town. They followed a small track into its cool dark interior. The near impenetrable canopy closed the sky from view and in its dark, dripping silence, they felt alone in some primordial world. They drew closer together like two lost children in an alien land.
Zac stopped and looked at an ancient, massive carabeen tree, its soaring trunk covered in lichen. Thick ropes of vine bound around it, spiralling upwards, lost to sight in its leafy density.
‘This looks like a magic tree,’ he said.
‘Magic?’
‘Yes. Walk around it three times repeating a wish and it’s bound to come true.’
Odette laughed. ‘All right, I will.’ Stumbling over the buttress roots, she circled the tree murmuring to herself.
Meanwhile Zac stooped and dug a handful of muddy earth from under the rotting leaves and shaped it into a round ball. Then, stripping some dry papery bark from a nearby tree, he took a box of matches from his pocket and soon had a small fire burning.
Odette watched him curiously. As a thin plume of smoke rose from the little fire, Zac tweaked a red-gold hair from Odette’s head and a dark one from his own curls of g
lossy shoulder-length hair. He put the two hairs inside the mud ball and dropped it into the fire. Silently they watched the steam rise from it as the water evaporated in the heat.
‘I suppose you’ll tell me in a minute what you’re doing?’
‘Yes, in a minute. Be patient, little bird.’
As the fire burned down Zac nudged the little ball out of the fire with a stick and scratched a small hole in the ground. He rolled the ball into it and covered it. Taking Odette’s hand he placed both their hands on the little mound and said softly, ‘Earth, fire, water, air — those whose spirits rest here are joined for the everlasting passing of the moons and sun’.
A slight quiver ran through Odette as Zac drew her to her feet.
‘There, now we are bound together for ever more.’
‘Really?’
‘If you want to believe it.’ He smiled impishly at her. ‘Or dismiss it as gypsy mumbo jumbo.’
‘What does it mean, Zac?’
‘Nothing bad, Odette. Just that we’ll be friends forever.’
‘That’s good. But you didn’t need to use some spell for that!’
Zac didn’t answer but made a funny face at her and skipped ahead. Chasing after him, Odette didn’t dismiss his little ceremony. Deep in the core of her being she felt bound to Zac and the idea made her profoundly happy.
Odette continued to see Zac regularly. He seemed content to stay on in town working at the blacksmiths, saying with a wry grin that it was the longest he’d stayed in one spot.
Aunt Harriet thoroughly disapproved of her niece’s friendship with ‘that gypsy person’. She had recognised him from Odette’s article and lectured her about ‘their thieving habits’, pointing out that although he was ‘a good-looking fellow, they have silver tongues, so be careful, Odette’. Odette had merely shrugged, recognising the oblique warning that he might make sexual advances.
‘He’s my friend, Aunt Harriet, and I shall continue to see him.’ Calmly she went to her room. Aunt Harriet’s mouth had tightened and she went into the kitchen to make tea. Odette was becoming too independent for Harriet’s liking and she wasn’t quite sure how to deal with this new Odette.
Zac and Odette went for long picnics, they went swimming, he borrowed a horse and taught her to ride, he sang to her, and they talked for hours on end. He was opening mental doors, making her think and expanding her horizons. Zac had intelligence and knowledge that didn’t come from a formal education but from the wisdom of generations of a global culture that spanned centuries. Gradually her friendship with Zac became the most important thing in Odette’s life.
New Year’s Eve arrived. In the Clarion’s office, beer bottles and sticky glasses left wet rings on copy paper, newspapers and notes spread across desks tops. Ashtrays overflowed, and soft half-eaten biscuits with perspiring cheese were abandoned on curling paper plates. The office party had come and gone. Everyone had left for their evening’s festivities.
Fitz leaned back in his chair, his feet up on his desk, a glass of foaming beer in one hand, cigarette in the other. Odette swept a small sea of paper plates and crumpled serviettes off the editorial desk into the wastepaper basket.
‘Leave that, Odette. Take off and get ready for whatever party it is you’re going to tonight.’
‘That’s okay, Mr Fitz. I don’t have any plans anyway.’
‘No plans? On New Year’s Eve? Waiting to see what turns up?’
She strolled over and leaned against the door jamb. ‘Frankly, I don’t like New Year’s Eve. I went to a party last year and everyone just hung around getting drunk, waiting for midnight. There was a sort of desperate gaiety about them all . . . like if you don’t have a good time on New Year’s Eve, you never will.’
‘Yeah. My sentiments too. Where’s your boyfriend?’
‘Out of town — I don’t know where . . . and he’s not really a boyfriend.’
‘Well, probably a good thing. Boyfriends can get in the way of a career. Don’t you rush off and marry the first boy in town who woos you, Odette. You’ve got bigger rainbows to chase. Marriage isn’t a means of escape.’
‘Oh, there’s no chance of that, Mr Fitz!’ laughed Odette. ‘I can’t wait for the day I leave here. I’m just not sure how I’m going to do it.’
‘What was your life like in Sydney? I gather you aren’t too close to your aunt here?’
‘No, not really. I never knew her. She’s my father’s sister. My only relative, so I didn’t have much say in things after my parents died.’
The editor held out a paper cup. ‘Beer?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
He motioned her to take the seat opposite, passing the slopping cup of beer to her without taking his feet from the desk. ‘So you’ve got no roots in the city, no special place that means something to you?’
Odette sipped the beer. Zanana flashed into her mind. ‘I would like to go back to Sydney . . . There is this place . . . this house . . . it was a special place. I’d like to see it again.’
‘What sort of place? Who lived there?’
‘A big old abandoned mansion called Zanana. I don’t know much about it or the people who lived there. Now I’d love to do a bit of research into its history. I explored it once with the caretaker’s son. I remember him so vividly. We shared some magical experiences there. I wonder what became of him. Yes, in a way it really has been a special place to me,’ she mused.
‘Sounds like a good story.’
‘Not for the paper. It’s more fiction — a mystery romance.’
‘You want to write fiction? I thought I was training you to be a reporter.’
‘I’ve always scribbled stories. Got a drawer full of half-finished epics.’
‘Join the club, kid. Scratch a journo and underneath you’ll find a frustrated author. We all want to write the great Australian novel.’
‘No, I want to be a really good reporter. I think it’s far more . . . important. I mean, you can reach people, tell them what’s really going on. What’s the expression? — publish and be damned. You can inform people, expose phoniness and, well . . . give a little praise when needed.’ Odette gulped from the paper cup in embarrassment.
‘Lofty ideals. Not always easily met in the publishing world, my dear.’
‘You try.’
‘Who am I? A small country newspaper. A backwater broadsheet, making ripples in a very small pond. Ah, once, Odette, I shared those same sentiments. I worked on a big city paper. Was chief of staff one night. A story broke, I ran with it. A massive round-up at an illegal gaming school. Prostitutes involved, several politicians and leading business figures. In the morning the whole story had been reduced to a couple of paras with no names. I kicked up a stink and got put on the subs’ desk for my trouble. Sometimes it’s hard to be a white knight.’
‘What had you dreamed of doing?’
The editor looked sheepish. ‘What the hell . . . I’ll tell you. I wanted to run a big paper, maybe even a couple of papers. Start my own chain. But then I looked at the big players who were doing just that. They were running an empire, building up a dynasty, sure. But you know, they’d become businessmen; they weren’t newspapermen any more. So I figure I’m better off. I’m my own boss; call the shots as I see them. I’m fearless, often foolhardy, but free. And I have the joy of what keeps you going in this crazy business . . . the thrill of creating something new with every edition you print. Whether I educate, inform, expose or entertain, no one can take away the smell and the sound of a printing press and the feeling when you pick up that first paper as it rolls off the line, even if it is only a country rag. Ah . . . listen to me. Pass the beer.’
Odette felt a surge of affection for the old newspaper man.
‘But you’re still in there fighting, Fitz. The Clarion mightn’t break major national issues, but you’re fighting for people and for what’s right in our little world here. If we don’t stand up for what we believe in in our own backyard, what hope has the country got?’
‘David and Goliath, eh? Sometimes you wonder if it’s worth the effort, Odette. You wonder if the scratchings you make on the surface of issues matter at all in the long run. Personal beliefs in integrity and justice end up wrapped around the vegetable peelings. And the big wheels can just run right over you when it comes to the crunch anyway.’
‘A couple of grains of sand can stuff up a powerful engine.’
Fitz laughed. ‘You’re right. Have another beer.’ He topped up his glass and lifted it. ‘Here’s to grains of sand . . .
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.’
‘William Blake?’
‘Ten out of ten. I see why you got an A in English.’
‘Happy New Year, Fitz!’
‘And many to you, Odette. Cheers!’
Odette wished she did have something special to do that night. She’d turned down invitations to parties in the hope Zac might appear and suggest they do something together, but lately he’d seemed preoccupied and had told her he might be busy for a day or so out of town. She wondered where he’d gone.
Aunt Harriet did not intend to see in the new decade of the sixties and went to bed with a cup of Milo and a book. So Odette wandered about the small house as the last hours of the year ticked away in an empty kitchen where a cold teapot sat by leftover Christmas cake under a square of beaded gauze. She sat at the kitchen table, her chin propped in her hands, her elbows sticking to the plastic tablecloth in the heat. She thought about Zac. Instinctively she knew the time was coming when he would be moving on. She would miss him, and hoped he wouldn’t disappear from her life. And where was her life going in the coming year? A sadness enveloped Odette, she closed her eyes and soon felt herself drifting.
She opened her eyes. She was standing in the garden at Zanana. The trees were frosted silver in the moonlight, the outline of the mansion silhouetted against a starry sky. She turned and went towards the sunken garden where the water was clear and mirror smooth. Huge plate-sized water lilies strangely bloomed in the night, the sundial was bright and shiny, the perfume of roses hung in the air and the grass smelled newly clipped. The gardens looked lovingly tended, the house freshly painted.
