In World City

by I. F. Godsland

  Dion was settling back into himself though. He desperately wanted just to talk to her, but there was going to be some work to do first. He looked around as if he had all the time in the world – which in a sense he had – and, seeing a clear area at the base of a tree trunk, he sat down and leaned himself against it. “What if you are?” he mused to himself, “What if you are?” He looked up directly at her. “Because if you are, you better be getting worried. It’s end of the day coming and you don’t want to be stuck out here at night.”

  In fact, the forest after dark was Dion’s favourite place. His grandmother had taken him out overnight a few times. She had shown him how to move without being able to see and how to be fearless. ‘All you got to know, Dion, is what’s making them sounds you hear. You get to know those sounds then you better able to hear the sounds you don’t know what is. You know? – The important sounds.’ Dion had never heard an important sound, but he had heard sounds that would have paralysed him with terror had his grandmother not casually said what night bird or small hunting animal it was. ‘This forest safe as houses in the middle of the night, if you want it to be, Dion,’ his grandmother had said to him. Dion came to feel its safety and used that security to spin tales that made his friends’ hair stand on end. He thought he’d try one on this beautiful girl. He said, “It gets dark out here – dark ‘n dark – and there’s things come out in the dark. You know there’s someone goes missing most weeks and is never heard of again. Mostly, they’re people who get stuck out here after dark.”

  Dion looked at the girl. She was listening to him. He changed his mind. He didn’t want to scare her, like he enjoyed scaring his friends. He just wanted to talk. So he said, “Anyway, I’ll make sure you get back to where you want to be. I know this place. But you got to tell me your name. I told you mine. Now, you tell me yours.”

  “Miranda,” she replied – readily enough, he thought.

  “Okay, Miranda, now where you from? You got to tell me that, else I won’t know where to take you.”

  “I don’t really know what place I’m staying in. I haven’t been out much.”

  Dion noted with some pleasure that now it was this Miranda who felt she had to give an account of herself.

  “So what does it look like, this place you’re staying in? Smart, I guess. You’re not in that fancy hotel up from Massacre, are you?”

  She shook her head, “No, it’s a house on its own. It’s quite big for here. It’s got a fence round it.”

  Several items of information fell into place in Dion’s mind. “Hey, I know who you are,” he announced, delighted. “I bet you’re Mr Whitlam’s daughter. That right?”

  She’d not been out much. A big house with a fence round it, close enough for her to get lost from. Dion might not know much about what his father’s business was, but he knew its geography and had made it his business to find out where this Whitlam who was causing so much upheaval in his life was staying. Dion had been past the entry gates on his bicycle.

  Seeing her nod, he went on enthusiastically, “My dad works for your dad. Maybe you met him? Mr Lefevre’s his name.” He saw the look of recognition. This was good. This was something they could talk about. “My dad’s taking us to Europe because of what he’s done for your dad here. How long you staying, then, Miranda? Come on, let’s get moving. You’ve come some way. You tell me about it while we walk.”

  As he led her into seemingly impenetrable banks of vegetation and then through the free space that would open up between the trunks, she told him about the house she had lived in before her father had moved to the island, and what it had been like moving, and what their new house was like inside, and what she did with herself all day. Dion was especially interested in the amount of time she spent looking into computer screens and tried to quiz her on everything she could access. But he could feel her withdrawing as he probed deeper. In fact, he could feel her withdrawing from him with every question he asked. She was ready enough to give a straight, factual account, but there was something held back in her, something tied off. When he talked to people he expected to be either talked back to or told to shut up. But this was different; this wasn’t one thing or the other.

  They scrambled through the undergrowth for about thirty minutes, panting, talking, Dion making most of the running. He found himself getting increasingly frustrated. For all her beauty, this girl was damn hard work. Dion took a leftward tangent away from the path he knew to be the fastest way back to Whitlam’s place. They still had time and there was a place he wanted to show her that could maybe get her out of herself.

  “Is that water I can hear?” she said, in the first spontaneous sign of interest she had ventured.

  Dion was encouraged. “Sure it’s water. You thirsty? It’s good water – straight from the top of the mountain.” He quickened the pace slightly as he pushed a way for them through the undergrowth. The sound of running water grew louder and, instead of the accustomed unbroken wall of green, lighter patches could be seen between the branches ahead of them.

  “There, look,” Dion announced. “Cool enough for you?”

  Miranda was already pushing ahead of him, clambering over the low rocks that flanked the pool the mountain torrent poured into. She knelt down and, with cupped hands, took great splashing mouthfuls of the cold, clear water. Dion came up beside her and took a few gulps himself. Then he lay flat on his stomach and, elbowing his way out over the water, he let his whole head drop beneath its surface. He held his breath as long as he could, then levered himself up, shaking his head vigorously.

  “You’re making me wet,” Miranda laughed, holding a hand up to stop the drops flying in her face.

  “Best way to cool down,” Dion said, “Get your head under. All the heat goes out through the top of your head.”

  He nodded towards the water encouragingly, but Miranda looked awkward and a little nervous. Dion realised it took a certain amount of strength and skill to be able to do what he had just done. “‘Fraid of falling in?” he questioned. “Don’t worry, I’ll hold onto your feet.”

  Miranda laughed. “No it’s not that. I just don’t like the thought of putting my head under the water.”

  “Well, go for a swim then. I’ve swum here plenty of times. You got to jump in all in one go. Takes your breath away at first, but after that it’s great. I won’t look if you want to take your clothes off. Seriously, I won’t. I want you to enjoy this place. It’s my best.”

  Miranda rose slowly to her feet and looked around, as if she hadn’t heard him. Using her hands to steady herself, she climbed a little further down the slope, where the stream poured out from the pool and over rocks into a series of channels and small cataracts. Dion clambered quickly after and came up beside her. Miranda was kneeling on a flat rock, staring into the clear, glassy surface of the water.

  “Wait, I’ll show you something,” Dion said and ducked into the undergrowth. He cast around in the foliage for what he wanted: a long-stemmed plant with a little tassel of leaves on the end. Finding it just where he expected, he snapped off a stem and rejoined Miranda.

  “Look. Watch the end of it,” he said, dipping the tassel into the water. He lowered the feathery end of the stem carefully to just in front of a small cleft in the rock and held it there, letting the current agitate the leaves. There was a sudden flurry of silt from the rock crevice as a good-sized crayfish shot out and gripped the tassel. In almost the same movement, Dion lifted the stem and held the crayfish up in the air. It wriggled furiously but refused to let go.

  Miranda giggled in nervous excitement. “What a funny animal. I’m glad I didn’t go for a swim with all those around. They might have nipped me.”

  “It’s a crayfish,” Dion said. “They don’t live up in the pool there. They just go where the water’s running fast, like here. They’re great to eat, fresh cooked, like crab. We’ll put this one back though. Maybe it’ll get bigger still and I’ll eat it next time.” He noted carefully the crack in the rocks it had c
ome out from.

  “Are you sure there aren’t any up in the pool?”

  “Dead sure. You want to swim? You do, don’t you. You look hot as hell. Come on, I’ll go behind that rock there and you tell me when I can come out. I’ll just have a sleep or something.”

  Dion didn’t wait for any answer. He simply went behind the rock and lay down against it, facing away from the pool. He put his hands behind his head as a cushion against the hardness of the rock and, through half-closed lids, gazed unfocused into the patterns of green and sunlight. There was a brief silence then he heard the soft rustle of falling clothes. “Don’t forget,” he called out, “You got to go straight in. Don’t even put your toe in else you’ll never make it.”

  Somewhat to his surprise and pleasure he heard a sudden splash and a loud squeal. He hadn’t thought she had it in her.

  “It’s so cold,” Miranda screamed out between squeals and gasps.

  “You gotta move,” Dion urged from behind his rock, “Swim about. Get your arms and legs moving.”

  There was a sound of furious splashing and the gasps began to fade. Then there were just ripples he could hear.

  “You okay?” Dion called out.

  “Hmm.”

  She sounded okay. Dion let his gaze unfocus still further.

  ‘Breathe,’ his grandmother had told him, ‘Just do your breathing. You do that and only that and then you get to hear and see what’s really there. Not what you want to be there, or what you looking for, or what you don’t want to be there, all that. Just what’s there.’

  Dion breathed like he’d done so many times since his grandmother started telling him things. And, like so many times before, as he breathed, the sounds around him became clearer; and the sensations in his body, and the patterns of light, and the shapes of leaves he could see through his half-closed lids. He could begin to feel the slight variations in the warm breeze that played against the skin of his face. He could begin to pick up the subtle changes in the scents those variations in the breeze carried: the green smell of hot leaves in the late afternoon, the slightly danker smell of moist earth from around the pool, the tang of spray and vapour from the water tumbling over the rocks. He could hear the occasional ripple from the pool as Miranda kept herself floating. He imagined her floating on her back, gazing up through the leaves that reached over the pool, looking into the wide blue of the late-afternoon sky. A bird whistled from close by and Dion felt an overwhelming sense of having been there before. He knew this place, knew that bird, knew the patterns of light he could make out through the fronds of the tree ferns. He knew the sound of the water splashing over the rocks and the sounds of the ripples from Miranda floating in the water. This was his place. This was where he knew his feelings were completely his own, where he could live forever.

  Then there was the sound of a dog barking and bodies crashing through the undergrowth. Dion was crouched on his feet in an instant, caught between a need to see who it was, and to keep his word to Miranda not to look. “Someone coming, Miranda,” he called. “You better get out. Shout when you’ve got your clothes on.”

  Whoever it was arrived before Dion got the all-clear, so he was stuck crouching behind the rock.

  “I was just having a swim,” he heard Miranda say in response to gruff, anxious questioning.

  A man’s voice said, “Your father’s been worried sick with you gone so long. He sent me and the dogs to track you down. What was it you were thinking of, Miranda? If you want to go off, you need to tell someone. And you don’t go off on your own either. This is a wild place. There’s no knowing what there is around here. Now, give yourself a rub down with this and get your clothes back on.”

  Dion left what he judged a reasonable time for her to get dressed then emerged from behind his rock.

  The shock and anger from the big white man and the furious barking of the dogs froze him.

  “What the hell are you doing here, you filthy little nigger boy? What’s he doing here, Miranda? Did you know he was here?”

  And she said, “No, I didn’t know he was here.”

  6

  Miranda’s father invited her to join him for an evening meal. “I need to let you know something of what’s going to be happening shortly. Hold off from your usual snack and then we’ll be able to talk over dinner. I’ll make it early – I’ve got Lefevre coming round for a drink later – some things to sort out before he leaves tomorrow – and early means you won’t get too hungry.”

  Miranda hoped this was the first sign of their return home.

  She and her father sat together at a small, round table – not like the long table in the dining hall back home which, when her mother had been alive, they had sometimes eaten at together as a family. Physically, this was more intimate, but Miranda felt herself to be in an even emptier space. And the time was later than she was used to eating. And her father began talking immediately. She felt hungry and tense.

  “This move hasn’t been easy for you, has it, Miranda?”

  A shake of the head.

  “All the same, I’m impressed by the way you’ve coped – the complete change from the life you were used to, then that criminal attack on the education net, and that stupid incident with Lefevre’s boy. You’ve been very grown up in the way you dealt with it all.”

  Miranda wanted to say what a struggle it had all been. Yes, she had coped. She had coped with this horrid island he had brought her to. She had coped with what came through the screens he had provided her with. But before it broke out into the open, her gathering storm of resentment was deflected by the arrival of the food, and she was able to think more about how she had coped than about how difficult it had been.

  Her most difficult moment – the one in which she had felt closest to letting her guard slip – had been when Lefevre’s boy had appeared like a resurrection of the dead boy on the invaded screen. Then, just for a moment, her concentration had lapsed and she had allowed a part of the wildwood in too close. Lefevre’s boy had got round her defences somehow and it had taken the sudden reappearance of Donnell to bring her back to her senses. Recalling the boy’s shocked look as she denied him, she could still feel the contempt for him curling protectively around herself. The boy’s face had looked the same as the face of the boy on the screen when he first saw the hooded men. At least Lefevre’s boy had not shouted out when she denied him, and he had kept quiet when Donnell started hitting him. All he had done was stand his ground long enough to say, ‘I’m Dion Lefevre and I done nothing wrong,’ then slip Donnell’s grasp and disappear into the trees. That, she could hold in some regard. The boy had coped like she had coped. He might have been okay. But her father was sending the family away to Europe now.

  And would they be following? She gave her father an enquiring look.

  He said, “Anyway, it’s almost over now, Miranda. There’s just one more thing to do, and after that we go back.”

  “What do you have to do?” Miranda asked – her first words for some time. She was suddenly anxious at this suggestion of a condition on their return. “Are you sure we’re going home?”

  “I’m sure – no need for you to worry. But we just have one more thing to get through. There will be three people arriving shortly – and this is important: they are coming to me. I am not going to them – they are coming to me – all the way to this little island. That’s how much of a hold I have over them now. Our being here, Miranda, has been part of the way I have gained that hold over them – I have made them understand how much they need to do what I say.”

  Her father moved his chair back from the table and cradled between his palms a glass he had been drinking from. He said, “Some time before we left, I found myself under a sudden and totally unjustified attack. The circumstances are complicated. I’ll just say that there is a man who works for me who had ideas of his own about how things should be done, and these ideas were simply not part of the work I had in mind for him.”

  Miranda’s father paused and look
ed at her steadily, backing up his judgement with a damning silence. He was about to continue, but Miranda, interest aroused now she had some food in her, asked, “Which project was that, Daddy, and what did you disagree over?” She wasn’t going to let her father tell it all his way.

  Whitlam smiled tolerantly. He said, “Financially, it was actually one of my lesser interests. In fact, it was one of my least – a research institute in Basel. You see, most of what I work with, Miranda, is about buying and selling things so I get the maximum return the market will bear. But I have allowed myself other interests. You remember that old stretch of forest at the back of our house. That brought little return, but I believe it still has possibilities. You see, with some things you know exactly what to expect – like this island, for example. You know exactly how it can be developed and you know exactly what it’ll bring in. But something like that stretch of old forest that has had things growing in it for thousands of years, that might just contain something with a use that has not even been thought of yet. Just think of the untapped genetic information there must be in that wood. Hundreds of thousands of years of adaptation have gone into it. There must be things still to be discovered in there.

  “And I also have my institutes. People tell me they’re run by dreamers, mere thinkers who imagine they’re in some old-fashioned, ivory-tower university. People tell me I need to ship in proper project-management practices. But, you tell me, did project managers ever discover anything new – anything genuinely new? No, they’re paid to achieve a result that people already know can be achieved. I’m interested in what people don’t yet know can be achieved. That’s why I have always tried to cultivate things with an element of the complete unknown in them.”

  Miranda found it difficult to make sense of much of this – what was maximum return and what was this market that had to bear things? But the unknown that was the wildwood was something she could understand completely. Of course things dwelt in there that could come out entirely unexpectedly – like in her encounter with Lefevre’s boy. She wondered why her father didn’t see the jungle that surrounded them in the same way. Perhaps it was just too big, too much in the way. The wildwood at home had fences round it and was a site of special scientific interest. Here, it was the jungle that did the surrounding. Perhaps when there were enough holiday homes and golf courses on the island, part of the jungle could be fenced off and declared a site of special scientific interest. Then it might be safe enough to pay some attention. Still, Miranda nodded her understanding, encouraging her father to go on.