There’s Nico and Lute, that’s Nora with the coloured hair, said Tess.
And Tom, no longer in scything clothes, looking pretty scrubbed actually if you ignored the beard, arm in arm with Marta Boronski, her guitar slung across her back.
After the food there’ll be a show, Tess told the girls. Marta’s a singer.
Totes pretty! the girls said.
How she’s done her hair, sighed Aggie.
I first heard her sing the night I went hitch-hiking, said Tess. I mean I kind of discovered her. Just playing guitar in some crazy guy’s garden at midnight in the rain.
The girls stared, slack-mouthed. They said, Hitch-hiking? as Tess, nonchalant, clawed a fake itch on her forearm.
Marta had her head on Tom’s shoulder now, her fishtail plait looped across his back. She’d stayed in the town six weeks since catching that taxi with Tess. At first at the Red Lodge, and later at Tom’s after he’d advertised a room.
Tess did not tell the girls that Tom was related, that he was her actual uncle! A fact so fresh she was yet to believe it and could not even shape the word in her mouth.
Here comes Jackson G. Hodgins, and his twins, bounding in light-up sneakers. And June, on her white horse with a bag of easy tricks to teach the littlies, and later, a magic act she’d mastered after eight and a half months’ practice. She tethered her horse by the gate and the girls followed Tess over to stroke its creamy, spotted flank.
Stefan was the boss of meat. He stood, far out in the field so no sparks from the fire could catch, carving dark ribbons off the spit lamb, his knife arm sawing in long motions up and down. He looked so lonely, bent over like that, the smoke uncoiling around him. Tess hesitated, what to call him?
Two days ago he’d driven her into the mountains. When they arrived at The Hive, Tess said, Follow me. He’d do whatever she asked, out of guilt maybe, or love, or just to prove he was there and had been from the start even if he hadn’t fathered her. Together they climbed the long, steep track till they reached the clearing. Then Tess took her father’s hand and pointed ahead.
There, she said. Go and look.
But what if she hadn’t remembered right, and the bees had been an illusion? They might have swarmed and left, like they had a long time back, their mother said, when she lay in the burning grass and the bees flew above. Bees were programmed to react to fire – at the first scent of smoke they’d stuff themselves with honey and swarm.
Her father walked very slowly into The Hive. He put one foot directly in front of the other, his arms out like a high-wire walker, humouring her in some unfathomable way. Then he disappeared behind the nearest wall. She could hear them – but how many? Enough to make the air sing, and the scent of honey, real or imagined, to meander by.
It seemed ages till he reappeared, scratching his head, his eyes veined red.
You found it, he said, a hand on her shoulder. I should’ve known you’d be the one.
Tess felt his hand’s tremor, how he was tensing the sinews to keep it steady.
June showed me, she said.
From the Red Lodge June?
She comes here because of the graves. Tess pointed to where June’s mother was buried.
He’d come to her room when he’d returned from the orchards, after hearing how she’d hiked down that highway, how she’d swum a field that had become a lake, then broke the front door to find her mother and new brother on the kitchen floor. He’d sat on the edge of her bed and was quiet for a long and awkward time. And then said he was sorry he wasn’t the father she may have wished for.
But she had no wishes then, about fathers. Only wishes about mothers, sisters and silence.
Biology – some say it’s important. But I disagree, he’d said.
As they stood among the remains of The Hive he said he knew the girls didn’t like him killing the queens. So he’d decided to set up some old-lady colonies, maybe there was some wisdom in leaving them be. After a time, to his surprise, they multiplied. Up here, with only blossoms, no pesticides, without his interfering. They’ve done very well, he said.
Old-lady bees, said Tess.
OK, so I really hate to say it, he said. But Hodgins was right after all.
I’ve taken no honey, not a drop, he said. But I am so curious. What do you think it will taste of?
And together they circled the remains of that commune hall and stared at the mass of wild combs, and her father carefully prised one open with a stick, barehanded, no bee suit or helmet, no smoker. Calm, Tess thought. And she loved this fearlessness in him and knew it was a thing she’d loved for all time. He ran a finger across that glistening honeycomb then held it out.
Come on, he said. Actually I know you have impeccable taste. Try to guess. Which flowers made the honey?
She’d walked towards him, and then, without hesitating, he’d put his finger in her mouth.
Now, watching the city girls as the smoke rose and the toasty scent of baked lamb and burning wood drifted by, Tess felt suddenly sleepy.
That’s my father, she told them. From Germany.
She had no other word for him. She thought of that Ghost Mountains honey, those aromas you couldn’t distinguish. In wild places, her father had said, the bees weren’t discerning and their honey was so beguiling because you could not place its source, you could not absolutely say – that flower there is where the flavour came from. Somewhere else around these parts, her mother said, her real father existed.
Did you personally know that lamb he’s got? said Aggie, pointing to Stefan and the spit. Poor little thing with the stick up there! she said. And the five girls collapsed on the bindi lawn laughing and cringing.
We have cows, said Tess when she could breathe again.
Cows, bees and chickens, she said. Not sheep.
I’m definitely going vegetarian, said Kate, who’d never seen meat in animal form, only red isosceles defrosting under Cling.
When Tess turned back she saw a stranger, or rather, his shape, backlit by the fire. Tall and angular and talking very lively to her father. Something about how Stefan was leaning with his hands at his hips made Tess wary. She turned. In the distance was Stan, coming from the farmhouse with a tray of potatoes.
Tess pointed, and told the girls about his divining.
Can he really find water with twigs? the girls marvelled. Like some kind of wizard?
The slightest thing enthralled them. When it was time to eat they filled their plates twice over and said, yummo, de-lish, so Tess wondered what kind of life had armed them with so much capacity for delight.
They’d bagsed a picnic mat some distance from their teachers so they could discuss pashing and head lice and a pop star who, when Googled, could be seen doing pranks like farting in supermarket dairy aisles then filming the exodus of disgusted shoppers. They talked about sex, which Sachiko had had, and which she said was, like, forgettable. Though she remembered the feeling after, the secret pride and disappointment.
Tess told them about the mountain commune, that she and her mother were saved.
Are you religious? asked Aggie.
No, Tess laughed.
Why so funny? asked Kate, fingering the gold cross around her neck.
Tess held her breath, desperate not to break the spell. Just … oh … , she said, then pointed to Tom.
He was the one who carried me out when the commune caught fire. Up there, she pointed to the west side of the mountain.
The girls turned as one and blinked at Tess. You were seriously, like, in a bushfire? asked Kate.
I was only a baby. I was safe. It was my mother who got burned, Tess said.
You were rescued, that’s epic! said Aggie.
She did not tell the rumour about who’d started that fire. She did not say, as June had, the word arson.
Then Nora appeared. She’d shaved her head on one side and dyed the spiked regrowth purple. She leaned down towards the girls, her breath very piney, and took Tess’s hands.
Don’t f
orget the show, she said. June’s finally mastered the Vanishing Woman.
When, when? The girls leapt up.
Nine thirty, said Nora.
Your hair’s so cool, said Sachiko. Wish I was allowed.
Who’s vanishing? asked Tess.
Yours truly, Nora laughed, then sauntered off, her pockets clinking faintly.
D-runk, laughed Aggie, did you smell?
Nora passed through a rain of ash from the fire. Tess watched her talking to Stefan as she leaned against that stranger. Then tugged the man’s arm, very urgent. Red embers jittered above them like gnats in the night air. The three seemed to be arguing, or maybe celebrating – it was hard to tell through the ash and smoke. Their shadows strung out along the bladed field.
Evangeline was sitting far away so Asher would not breathe in smoke. When Tess took her over a plate of food she could hardly see her new brother, curled tightly in his sling. But could hear his constant sucking.
Why’s he so thirsty all the time? Meg, irritable from early waking, had asked in the early weeks. He’d been put to the breast nearly every hour back then.
Takes after me, Stefan had said, unsmiling.
Milk’s for lots of things, said Evangeline, eyeing Stefan. Not just food – it’s also comfort.
Grown-ups drink because of their childhoods, said Meg, staring hard at her father.
Who told you that? Stefan asked. No – let me guess – Nora?
He put the bottle down then and picked up his son. He rocked him in his arms and sang a song they’d last heard him sing beside Pip’s empty bed.
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf,
Der Vater hüt’ die Schaf,
Die Mutter schüttelt’s Bäumelein,
Da fällt herab ein Träumelein …
Their father had chosen their brother’s name. Asher Azha Müller. Asher for happiness. Azha, a star in the Celestial Meadow. Asher had dark frowzy hair and lapis-blue, wide-set eyes. Who does he look like? everyone asked, then held their breath as if scared the answer would be Pip. Tess wondered if parts of herself would float up in Asher, some traits that also belonged to her mother.
For a time Evangeline had gone peculiar from lack of sleep, dropping things in the kitchen and staring out the window. She’d mix cakes and forget to add the agave syrup, she’d wash clothes without powder and wear her T-shirts inside out. Tess slept in her parents’ bed, because her mother could not lift the baby after the surgery and their father was still on the couch. Farm life meant early rising, and no one could do that after tending to Asher all night.
Tess would wake when he started crying and though she was groggy she loved that moment when the boy was in her arms, and the rest of the Müllers sleeping deep. She’d walk him down the hall to stand in the glow from the glass transoms above the front door. His face in that green or sea-blue light full of unseeing wonder, the colours unknown to him yet, only her voice tethering him to the world. She’d pretend the boy belonged just to her, that she’d made him – some wizardry without sex or a father – and he’d rely on her for everything, he’d love her, having nobody else. But then she’d think of the sister he’d never meet, and who belonged, just as much, to him as to them all and she’d have a second’s guilt for selfish wishes and would say as much, aloud, to Pip, to the numinous dark beyond the front door, to the fields and cows, to the bees who were struggling each day to do what they were fated to, flying with their burdens of pollen. She pictured them swarming from the doomed hives to that higher place, where they’d made their purer community. Then, when hunger brought Asher’s cries again, she’d pass him to her mother, who fed him lying down, or tucked under one arm in the football hold. These nights, in her parents’ bed, watching this boy, so dear, so dependent, made Tess very homesick. Once she’d been connected like that, and now, nearly fifteen, she was drifting in another direction.
One night she woke to see her mother standing at the window. The weather had closed in for a week. At first, hail and its blue, mystical scent. The girls had gone out in it, pressing handfuls against their cheeks. They’d filled a bowl, labelled it for Pip, then placed it in the freezer. The next morning, an iron-coloured sky. The ground a tide of mud. They’d forged through it to school while their mother stayed behind with Asher, waving his fist at the door.
Tess watched as her mother rubbed a line on the window and said, Like a heavy mane across our eyes, rain.
What’s that? Tess asked, yawning and stretching.
It’s from a poem, her mother said. By a woman who lost nearly everything. Her name was Marina. She lived far from here, long ago, in a place with much more heartbreak.
I’ve learned it, she said. It’s a comfort.
Evangeline was still staring towards that empty cabin on Fox’s Lane. But just as suddenly she jerked the heavy curtain, blocking it out. They hadn’t forgotten who used to live there. After Asher was born Mr Parker had left town. He was the only other person Tess knew who read poems. Was it he who’d taught her mother the poems of Marina?
After the food and speeches, after Stan accepted the Mayor’s Award for his philanthropy, for bequeathing his land for regeneration, after the endless thank yous, it’s time.
June stands in a tuxedo. On stage, a wooden chair draped in navy velvet on a square of flokati. Some pop music comes on. Tess recognises it and the city girls leap up, whipping their hips and putting their hands in the air – a dance from TV and YouTube. After a minute June snaps her fingers. Silence descends, louder than any music.
I call this, says June in a grave monotone, the Vanishment.
There are coughs, giggles, a cork being popped. Seventy-three people from town and city, ranged on picnic rugs and quad-fold camp chairs, their breath starting to show as the damp rises from mountain and field.
Our willing participant, says June primly, then gestures stage right.
Nora trips up the stairs and on to the platform. She sits with bare knees pressed. Tess can see that her hands, even jammed between her thighs, are trembling.
Your honour, I beg mercy. I’ve done nothing wrong! says Nora.
Oh really? comes a voice from the audience.
Funny, Nora says. Can’t you see our magician’s concentrating?
June, scowling, pinches Nora’s arm.
OK, no ad-libbing! I forgot, Nora says as she straightens.
In just minutes, says June, I shall make this fine lady disappear!
Fine lady! Hilarious! Hurry up then, says the same voice. Get rid of her!
Who is that? Nora visors her brow and scans the crowd. Pete?
Tess hears whispering, feels the ripple of unease in the crowd. Nora looks fidgety and worried. Tess turns to search the dark for her mother, the name Pete a faint, disturbing echo. But maybe this is just part of the act, thinks Tess, part of the whole suspension. Obvi! as the city girls say. Adults are expert, after all, at all kinds of pretending.
June stands in front of Nora so all Tess can see are her bare feet. They look so vulnerable sticking out like that.
Behind the crowd, two policemen. Tess recognises one, from the time they’d come out to the farm. Their squad-car lights are trained on the Bakers’ field. The car, all lit up, looks ready for something. Had they been invited?
Nora is scanning the crowd. Who called the cops? she says.
But June interrupts with her Abracadabra! and then Nora’s gone. Just the shape of her body beneath the velvet cloth.
Tess whispers to the city girls; it’s bent wire beneath the fabric that gives the illusion of head and shoulders. June had told her all about it, as they rode the horse from mountain to valley. A magician needed also to be a sculptor, June had said, to do an expert vanish. It was not easy to do a false transfer or to banish the awkwardness in a limb that might give a trick away. Such tension was mostly caused by the magician’s guilt. And so she’d taught herself the difference between deceiving and convincing.
Peter – is that what Nora said? Tess glances desperately around but the
smoke has cast a thick haze in the dark; it’s turned the whole community illusory. She hears an engine, then sees the tail-lights of the squad car, heading for the access road.
A little later, Tess runs into the dark fields with Kate and Aggie. All the freshly planted saplings are backlit by the bonfire, their roots safely tucked underground. Meg has gone back out; she’s tamping dirt and hosing the last of them, taking special care with the spindliest trees.
Seeing her sister, so young, so serious, her fair hair gathered over one shoulder, her face smeared with ashes from the fire, Tess remembers how it was to be twelve. How everything comes running in, how breathless you feel all the time. Worse for Meg, she thinks, who’s developed early, whose breasts are already larger, whose blood came when their mother was in hospital with Asher.
Tess squeezes Meg’s shoulder, smells bonfire smoke in her hair. Kind of odd, she thinks, that they’re burning wood while planting trees that will provide some future fire with kindling. Meg has tied a tag on one sapling. There’s a drawing on it of a frail, narrow plant. Its limbs held up like a person surrendering, or praising: Hallelujah.
And then she sees the miniature handwriting – Meg’s Krazy Town writing. They used to compete to do the smallest – and Pip was always champion, her letters so tiny, like an ant had written them with its feet.
Beneath Meg’s sketch, two minuscule words. For Pip.
Tess straightens and looks at that mountain where her mother had taken her and Meg, after Asher came home. She’d showed them a tree, its huge roots protruding from the forest floor, its trunk covered in mementoes of Pip, a quandong with buttress roots, old and solid by the Repentance River, and Tess wondered, was this where she’d disappeared, going there to maybe think of Pip, the one they’d all loved without complication or error, the one Tess had rallied to distract and comfort till her final hour? Her mother had not cried but touched the tree and said it was like a poem with all its meaning privately unfolding.
The World Without Us Page 22
