Liar Bird

by Lisa Walker

  Crawk.

  Well, it was even harder than I thought, as it turned out, René — trusting Mac.

  Hours passed.

  Mac pulled some sleeping bags out of his backpack and we wrapped them around us to keep warm. He also passed us each a drink bottle. I didn’t think I’d be thirsty, but for lack of anything else to do, I did sip at it occasionally. Mac had put some strong-tasting energy supplement in it. It wasn’t bad.

  The rain eased, but didn’t stop. Mountains came and went in the mist like they were playing a slow game of grandma’s footsteps. Simon’s nervous energy — unable to find an outlet — congealed into a grumpy boredom. Every now and then he sighed loudly and drank from his bottle.

  It’s amazing how time passes, even when you’re doing nothing. Slabs of time vanished, unaccounted for. I spent the period between one and two o’clock watching a cloud and mentally humming ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’. It was restful — a bit like one of those meditation retreats where you’re not allowed to speak for ten days. It had been a long time since I’d done nothing for so long.

  I fell asleep at one point, curled up on the groundsheet, and woke to find Mac scribbling in a notebook. I raised my eyebrows in a question, but he just put his finger to his lips, slipped the pen inside the pages and stuffed the notebook back inside his backpack.

  It was getting darker by that stage — we’d been there all day.

  Simon had sat bolt upright the whole time, his hand on his camera, hood pulled over his head. At one point I noticed him nodding his head. I figured he was listening to his iPod, but he turned, frowning, as I made a rustling noise and there were no headphones in his ears. Mac passed around a couple of muesli bars, but no-one ate them. Simon unwrapped his and played with the foil wrapper. The waiting must have been getting to him. He gulped at his drink bottle again.

  There’d been bird noises all around us the whole time: one, a tinkling bell; another, a whip cracking; another, a lovely up and down warble. Mac would have known what they all were. I jumped slightly as a brown bird with long tail feathers burst into the clearing.

  ‘Liar bird,’ Mac breathed in my ear, his voice barely audible.

  I turned to him — was he having a go at me? ‘Liar bird?’ I whispered back.

  He nodded. ‘It mimics noises. Anything.’

  I smiled. Liar bird. So it wasn’t only people who pretended to be something they weren’t. The liar bird fussed around for a while, pecking at invisible bugs. Finally it spotted us and scuttled into the bush, its tail dragging behind it.

  Then, all of a sudden, everything happened. We’d been sitting there so long with nothing to do and then — whoompa — action stations.

  The sun, not that we’d seen it, had well and truly set. In the clearing there was just enough light to see my hand in front of my face. Beyond that it was shadows.

  It was that almost-dark where you fool yourself into thinking you see things. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Is that a tree, or a person? A rock or a kangaroo? It was that kind of dark.

  The bushes rustled. A few sticks broke. Simon tensed beside me. The arm that was holding his camera twitched.

  The rustling came closer — I thought I saw something move. A lighter patch appeared between the leaves. Next thing a flash went off — Simon had taken a picture.

  My eyes were still seeing spots when two dog-like creatures bounded across the clearing. They were only there for an instant, before disappearing into the forest on the other side. The stripes on their backs were the last things to vanish. I was oblivious to anything else. It was them. Time expanded — I felt like I was floating in the moment. Like Mac had said, it was only a few seconds but it felt so much more.

  After they’d gone I looked around. I expected to see Simon all flushed with Post-Headline-Rapture. Instead, he was sitting there with this look on his face — even in that light I could tell there was something strange about him.

  And Mac? I don’t know what I’d expected him to look like. Pleased? Guilty? Horrified? But Mac wasn’t there anymore. He’d vanished while I was absorbed with the tigers.

  At first I thought he’d followed them. I didn’t want to call out — to scare them away if they were still there. I thought he’d be back any minute.

  It took me a long time to realise he wasn’t coming back.

  The whole time I was waiting for Mac, Simon just sat there, looking shell-shocked. I whispered, ‘What’s up? What happened to Mac? Did you get a photo of the tigers?’ But he didn’t reply. I didn’t take much notice of him — I was too worried about Mac.

  Try to trust me.

  How can I, when I don’t know what you’re doing, or why?

  Then, about the time I realised Mac wasn’t coming back, Simon suddenly came to life.

  It was definitely the worst night of my life.

  Simon — I didn’t have a clue what was wrong with him — went totally berserk. Okay, maybe berserk is overdoing it; he was basically harmless, but extremely annoying.

  There we were, sitting in the middle of nowhere after two — supposedly extinct — Tasmanian tigers had just run past and what do you think he says? Not ‘I’m getting on the phone and downloading these pictures to the Herald’. Not ‘yeah baby, this is going to make my career’. No, the first thing he says is —

  ‘Cassie, you look hot in that swimsuit.’

  This, after he’s already told me I look like crap. I looked at him sideways, pulling my dressing gown together. ‘Are you all right?’

  Simon pulled his hood down over his eyebrows and smiled. ‘Never better.’

  ‘Did you see where Mac went?’

  Simon glanced around at the bushes, then turned back to me. An even bigger smile spread over his face. ‘It’s just you and me, baby.’

  I tried to keep him focused. ‘Where’s your camera? Don’t you want to email some shots to your editor?’ I looked all around, but couldn’t see his camera. ‘Camera?’ I said. ‘Where is it?’

  Simon gazed around vaguely and shrugged. ‘Had it a minute ago.’

  ‘Simon. Where’s your phone?’ I wanted to make a call. Get the helicopter back up there.

  Turns out they don’t fly in the dark, René, but I didn’t know that at the time.

  I found his phone in his jacket pocket. His hands were all over me while I looked for it. He was like an octopus — a brain-damaged, sex-crazed octopus. After all that there was no reception. Wouldn’t you know?

  ‘Cassie, Cassie, why don’t you fancy me? You know I’ve always had a thing for you.’

  It might have been flattering if he hadn’t been slurring his speech in a way that suggested a man with too many whiskies under his belt.

  ‘Have you taken something, Simon?’ It didn’t seem all that likely — not his usual professional style. Picking up his water bottle, I sniffed it, but could only detect the same fruity smell as my one. I considered taking a sip, but decided against it.

  ‘Ever since that first day at university,’ Simon mumbled, ‘when you came in, in your miniskirt and ugg boots. You had earrings. Right up your ear. And you were wearing … a Led Zeppelin T-shirt.’

  I shuddered. ‘Guns N’ Roses.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Point is … you were hot. You were so angry, all those protests you used to go to. Mmm, you were so hot when you were angry.’ He leaned over towards me. ‘You’re still hot. Don’t you fancy me a bit, Cassie? Cassiiiiiie,’ he wailed, resting his head on my shoulder.

  ‘Jesus, Simon. Pull yourself together. It’s not that you’re unattractive, but we’ve never got on, you know that. Anyway, like I’d fancy you, after you stabbed me in the back in Sydney.’ I wriggled away from him.

  ‘I only did it to get your attention.’ Simon placed his hand on my leg and looked into my eyes. ‘I did get your attention, didn’t I?’

  I pushed him off. ‘You’re joking. You ruined my career just to get my attention?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ Simon nodded happily. ‘Do you still wo
rry about globalisation, Cassie? I do. I worry about the world market and the way it squashes the underdogsh. The poor underdogsh. What about the workers, ey, Cassie?’ He shuffled towards me and slumped onto my shoulder again. ‘What about the workersh,’ he mumbled as he attempted to grope my breast.

  I elbowed him sharply and he pulled himself upright. ‘Yeah, I do worry about globalisation, now you mention it, Simon.’ I thought it was best to humour him. Globalisation — now there was something I hadn’t thought about for a while … People and planet before profits; the banks have blood on their hands. Those slogans used to roll off my lips very easily.

  But that was before Dad left home and Mum had to take on extra cleaning just to get by. It was at that stage I realised I didn’t have time to stuff around. If there were going to be ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, I was throwing my hat in the ring with the ‘haves’. Switching from journalism to PR, I left the protests behind with my ugg boots. People with Volvo-driving, Chardonnay-sipping North Shore parents, like Simon, could fly the flag for me.

  Giving Simon another jab with my elbow, I looked around the clearing. Where was Mac? I couldn’t believe he’d just left me here, stuck on this mountain. Maybe he’d fallen over a cliff, or been bitten by a snake? Prising myself away from Simon, I pushed my way into the bush, calling out for him.

  It was disorientating in there; the bushes were so thick. I thought I was going in a straight line, but then I came across a prickly vine with a piece of my dressing gown on it. I’d been going around in circles. Maybe I should just dig a pit and wait for Mac to fall in it? I followed the traces of my dressing gown back to the clearing.

  By the time I got back there Simon had started singing.

  Do you know that song ‘Cassandra’ by Abba?

  Crawk.

  No, it wasn’t one of their big hits, might not have made it to your frog-pond.

  In between verses he’d lunge at me and I’d push him off. It was like being on an all-night date with some randy, deranged man, with no way of going home early.

  Things got worse after that, as I should have known they would. He decided to do a striptease, pulling his Gore-Tex jacket down over one shoulder and then the other. It came off, and then his shirt. He danced around for a while with no shirt on. It reminded me a lot of my university party days.

  ‘Are you hot for me yet, Cassie?’

  He did have a nice body — sort of wiry and smooth. Given a different time, place, mood, mutual history and life, I might just possibly have been interested. ‘No, not yet, Simon,’ I called.

  He took this as encouragement — the bottom half started coming off.

  And, well, I saw more of him than I really wanted to.

  I won’t gross you out with the details, René.

  After a couple of hours — thank God — he passed out. I still didn’t really know what had got into him. Although — I eyed the water bottle — I had my suspicions.

  I stayed awake all night, waiting for the chopper, waiting for Mac, keeping an eye on Simon to make sure he didn’t jump me. Eventually I put on the clothes Mac had given me. There didn’t seem to be any point in keeping up appearances anymore. My dressing gown went over the top. I covered Simon up with his Gore-Tex jacket to keep him warm. He looked pretty sweet, sleeping away.

  Chapter Eighteen

  He’s a psychopath

  I’d never been as pleased to see anything as I was to see that helicopter appear the next morning. I hadn’t slept at all, just laid under the tarpaulin as far away from Simon as I could, listening to the rain patter on the plastic. And always there was the back beat: Where is Mac? Why did he leave me here? It was just inexplicable.

  Of course he could have been lost in the forest. The fact that I would have preferred that probably said something bad about my character. But I didn’t think he was lost; not Mac. He was too at home in the bush to disappear by chance. No, I’d been dumped. A cold lump settled like porridge in my stomach. Why?

  I knew men did that: sleep with women, then spit them out. But it wasn’t how I’d read our, admittedly brief, relationship. There’d been something real about it; hadn’t there? He couldn’t have faked it all. Could he? Talk about ‘Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover’ — just leave her on the hill, Bill … Paul Simon, 1975. Before I was born, but my mother had the record.

  As the helicopter rose up through the mist I prodded Simon awake.

  ‘Caffè latte,’ he murmured as he opened his eyes.

  ‘We’re going,’ I called above the noise.

  We climbed in, balancing on the hovering struts.

  ‘Where’s the third one?’ yelled the pilot.

  Simon looked at me blankly, as if he’d just realised there were only two of us. ‘What happened to Mac?’

  ‘Don’t know — disappeared,’ I yelled, pulling the headset on. ‘Can you circle around to see if we can find him?’

  I scanned the forest as the helicopter swooped around the mountain. Below the peak it was a dense and impenetrable mass of green. He could have been there, but there was no sign of him.

  ‘I’ll have to make a report for search and rescue,’ said the pilot into his headset.

  I nodded, but somehow I knew they wouldn’t find him. He didn’t want to be found. The helicopter dropped me off on the hill near my house. The floodwaters had gone down and only a few deep puddles stood between me and Frog Hollow now. I splashed through them, making a beeline for my bed, shedding dressing gown, Mac’s clothes and boots and my swimsuit as I went, collecting my iPhone on the way.

  Mum had left me a message a couple of days ago. ‘Cassie? Are you there? Cassie?’ There was a pause. ‘I’ve been doing a ritual for you. With the frog goddess. It’s supposed to help with fresh starts. I wanted to know if it was working yet. Call me back.’ I pressed ‘end’ and placed the iPhone on the floor. ‘I don’t think so, Mum,’ I murmured.

  The helicopter swooped past outside just before I closed my eyes — Simon had collected Chris. Pulling my Mac-smelling pashmina over me, I breathed deep.

  It could only have been a few hours later that my phone rang, waking me. I ignored it the first time, snuggling deeper into bed. It stopped, then rang again. Whoever it was, they weren’t going away. Plucking my dressing gown off the floor, I picked up the phone and staggered out into the kitchen. I needed a drink.

  ‘Lo,’ I croaked.

  ‘Can’t believe that bastard pissed off with my camera.’ Simon was back to his old self. ‘Why’d he take me up there if he didn’t want me to get a picture? We’ve still got a story, though. I need you to stand by me with an eyewitness account, okay?’

  ‘Um …’ I wasn’t sure where I stood. I hadn’t had time to work it out. It was so confusing. On one hand, I’d thought Mac had wanted to keep the tigers secret, but on the other, he’d taken Simon up there … I thought we’d been in it together, but then he’d left me stranded in the forest with a lecherous Simon … Why did he do that?

  ‘Cassie,’ Simon snapped. ‘I need you to stand by me.’ There was a note of threat in his voice. He was reminding me that the ‘failed PR queen meets feral pigs’ story was still an option.

  ‘Um —’ I was about to say more but he cut me off. ‘There’ll be media all over the place today.’

  I headed for the bathroom, the phone pressed to my ear.

  ‘The story’s broken, my phone hasn’t stopped ringing. It’s a pity I didn’t get the photos but Chris is up there now — we might get lucky. It’s still a fantastic story — the ranger who’ll stop at nothing to keep a secret, et cetera, et cetera. Our eyewitness accounts of the tigers leaping from the bushes, eyes blazing — reporter tells how he was minutes from death, that kind of thing. I’ll do something for the Herald first of course, but we’ll be able to on-sell this all over the place. I’m hiring Harry M Miller.’

  ‘But, no photo, Simon. I mean, people have sighted thylacines before …’

  ‘That was just punters, Cassie. This is you and me, the Herald j
ournalist and the PR queen. And, sorry, but your reputation is only going to help here. You’re not the normal greenie wacko people expect to see these things. That adds credibility.’

  ‘Oh.’ As I passed the hallway mirror an apparition startled me. Who was that white-trash hurricane victim? It took a couple of seconds to realise it was me. My highlights had grown out, leaving a dark runway down my part and my face was a makeup-free, washed-out blur.

  Crawk.

  No, René, this isn’t my usual look. Well, all right it is now, but it never used to be.

  And it wasn’t just my face. My velvet dressing gown was crusted in mud and torn where the vines had seized it. I half-heartedly picked out a few spiny seeds that had attached themselves in clumps. The person in the mirror wasn’t Cassandra anymore — I’d reverted to Cassie, or even Cass.

  ‘You know he doped me?’ Simon’s words cut through my reverie.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He doped me.’

  ‘Get out of it.’ I was trying to convince myself as much as him.

  ‘My water bottle, it had something in it. Vodka maybe, disguised by that raspberry shit. Knocked me round a bit. Haven’t drunk for six months so my tolerance is down. Got a shocking hangover.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Actually, I did.

  ‘I can think of a very good reason. He was hoping I’d pass out before I saw the tigers. But seeing as that didn’t work, my camera’s gone, therefore there’s no evidence.’

  ‘But … what about me?’ The words burst out of my mouth before I could stop them. Moving Pictures, 1982; Shannon Noll, 2006. Pathetic. Why hadn’t he taken me with him? was what I’d meant.

  Simon laughed. ‘You’re well out of that one, Cassie. You should call the police if he makes contact.’

  Contact — that would be nice. ‘Uh, I don’t know if he really doped you …’ My protest sounded lame, even to myself.

  ‘Come on, don’t try to stick up for your boyfriend. He’s run out on you now.’

  I winced.

  ‘Guess I just passed out, huh?’ Simon continued. ‘I can’t remember anything after the tigers running past. I know I got a photo, but that bastard took it.’