The World Beneath

by Cate Kennedy

  The hut site was on the edge of a rainforest and in the shelter of Du Cane Gap, and the tent platforms were scattered throughout the nearby forest, but it still felt exposed to Rich, the wind outside the hut pouring like liquid ice. There had never been a less inviting prospect than trudging out into that darkness and crawling into his tent, but he couldn’t stand the alternative either, of turning back inside and staying in the hut with all the others. He felt a sudden unexpected wallop of restless fear, a blast of claustrophobia and agoraphobia rolled uneasily into one.

  Stupid. Ludicrous, really. It was just exhaustion. Out there were hundreds of square kilometres of uninhabited wilderness, this hut floating in it like a tiny ship in space, the only human light and warmth for light-years around. And yet both options felt oppressive. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere comfortable or familiar, nowhere he didn’t feel trapped. His agitation bit at his core.

  He stepped reluctantly back into the cabin and leaned against the wall surreptitiously watching Sophie, chatting with the three jovial women from New Zealand. She was telling them something, and laughing. He watched, hungrily, the animation on her face, the shy grin that transformed her features.

  ‘I actually brought my phone recharger,’ she was saying, covering her eyes with her hand at the thought. ‘I thought there’d be power points! In the huts!’

  The other women nudged her, laughed along with her, sipped glasses of port. Port! he thought in sullen, irritated disbelief. They’d lugged a bottle of port all this way.

  ‘The thing is,’ Sophie went on, and he was brought up short again by the new, relaxed warmth in her voice, the confiding familiarity in it, ‘the one other time I went camping, with my school, there were these cabins and there were power points you could plug into.’

  ‘That’s a fair enough assumption, then,’ said one of the New Zealanders in that odd clipped accent.

  ‘Yeah, but look where we are!’ Sophie giggled. They all rocked back in their seats and one of them started telling Sophie, leaning over like they were best friends, about the time Naomi here — she prodded her friend, who smacked her back, laughing helplessly — once took a hairdryer with her when they went camping.

  ‘I thought we’d be staying in a caravan park!’ Naomi protested, wiping away tears of hilarity. ‘Anyway, you — you — took that reading lamp! And a travelling iron! I saw it!’

  He watched the four of them, Sophie included, shaking with laughter, and let black annoyance fill him. It wasn’t that funny, for godsakes.

  He wandered aimlessly to a bench seat, on the edge of another conversation. His ankle was killing him. It sang with pain, hummed with a bright, ringing note of it, clamouring for his attention.

  Out there, behind him and separated only by this thin layer of timber, was the chill, the hostile dark, a buffeting wind throwing that smell of freezing wet earth into your face.

  He could hear it now, smacking the door with gusts that could knock you off your feet.

  Nothing out there for him. Just his tiny tent snapping with wind on the platform, the foam bed-roll hard as a rock. Darkness that seemed to resent you even being there.

  And the alternative was in here. The chatter, the exhausting one-upmanship, the carefully worded travellers’ tales; the prospect was almost worse than the implacable blackness outside. He got up again, tongue between his teeth at the pain, and pretended to study a map on the wall, as if he’d developed a sudden avid interest in topography. Worse came to worst, he could read the messages in the logbook. Even that seemed to be used as an outlet for frustrated poets. He flicked through the most recent entries.

  Here were Russell and Libby’s details, and underneath, in small letters, a Latin quote: solvitur ambulando — it is solved by walking.

  As if they were an institution that had its own motto, or something. Nothing was solved by walking, he thought flatly; it was inflamed by it, rubbed and irritated and endlessly chafed by it. Time wounds all heels, he felt like writing. Sophie was right about one thing — he did hate everybody on this walk.

  Some people were already climbing into their sleeping bags on the platforms. They looked like bodies on the shelves at a morgue. What was he doing here? Why was he putting himself through this? Why were any of them lugging their belongings on their backs from hut to hut in this glacial wilderness, like a contingent of urban refugees?

  ‘Hey Rich,’ called Libby, waving at him from a table in the corner. She and Russell were talking with a bearded guy Rich had already briefly met, who claimed to be a photographer but only had a couple of digital SLRs with him. Unwillingly, Rich waved back and moved over there.

  ‘Have you met Paul, Rich? He’s a photographer as well.’

  ‘Yeah. Hi again.’

  ‘He’s taking photos of fungi in the park. So he’s one person who’s pleased it’s so damp.’ Libby laughed. ‘Have a piece of cake, Rich. This is the last of it now — we’ve rationed ourselves all this time.’

  He took a piece of cake and bit into it. The taste of something real and rich, rather than the reconstituted starchy stuff he’d been eating, exploded deliciously in his mouth.

  ‘Thanks. So why fungi?’ he said to the bearded guy.

  ‘Oh, it’s a commission. Part of an exhibition planned for next year at the Wilderness Gallery here. A few of us are doing different seasonal flora of the park, so as you walk through it will be like the passing of the four seasons ...’

  He talked on as Rich swallowed down the mouthful of cake with difficulty. It had turned dry in his mouth, a thousand crumbs that threatened to choke him.

  ‘Great,’ he managed to say.

  ‘What about yourself ? I noticed you had a fair bit of equipment with you. You working on anything special?’

  He nodded. ‘Oh, yes, a couple of things. Some one-offs here and there.’

  ‘I notice you don’t use a digital camera.’

  He didn’t need this. Not at the moment. He couldn’t summon his usual energy to start a sparring match about this.

  ‘Yes, I’m still a traditionalist, I guess. The day digital cameras can deliver the quality of resolution I want in my photographs, I’ll consider buying one. Until then I’ll just depend on my own skill.’

  ‘Right.’

  Good. Point taken, discussion over. He took another mouthful of cake and chewed balefully.

  ‘Isn’t it great to see Sophie having such a good time?’ Libby said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I mean, it’s lovely seeing her so happy and animated now that she’s met a few people. She seemed a bit out of her depth at first, but she’s really come out of her shell now, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And such great ideas about everything! She was telling Russell and me today about her website.’

  ‘Was she?’ he said, smiling on. He brushed some crumbs carefully off the pine tabletop in front of him.

  He remembered his mother doing that, brushing up crumbs after dinner into her cupped hand, and then one night his father and him both watching, blank-faced, as she brushed and brushed at crumbs that weren’t there; her eyes roving over the tablecloth getting more and more anxious, as if invisible crumbs stretched as far as she could see.

  ‘And I thought she meant a science project,’ Libby was saying, ‘but she said, no, it was actually a weekly blog she does. She told me all about it.’

  Those prescription painkillers must be messing with his head, he decided. Because he felt, with a wave of desolate, lonely envy, the stinging pressure behind his eyes of imminent tears. Hold it together, he rebuked himself.

  ‘Will you be spending any more time with her after the walk, Rich?’ said Russell.

  ‘No, she’ll be flying home, I’m afraid, back to her mum’s. We’ll have a day at Narcissus waiting for the ferry. Make the most of our time together.’ Like they confided everything, strolling hand in hand. Like she’d taken the time to tell him about her web thing, rather than some stranger she’d just met.

&nb
sp; ‘Straight to Narcissus? You’re not doing a side-trip to Pine Valley?’ asked Russell.

  Rich shook his head.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. It’s a perfect time for the fagus, up in the Labyrinth. Acres of the stuff.’

  ‘That place,’ said the photographer called Paul. ‘God, you can’t take a bad photo up there.’ He shook his head reminiscently, peeling an orange, the dense citrus smell of it filling Rich’s nostrils. ‘Friend of mine — not even a pro photographer, just a rock climber I know — he was doing the south peak of Mount Geryon and just snapped a shot off, you know, with his compact digital, and later it was on the cover of Wild magazine.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s dramatic, alright. And Pine Valley’s beautiful; this really ancient forest of pines and mosses and creeks. And the new hut there’s lovely,’ said Libby.

  Rich looked at the three of them. ‘And you’re all going, are you?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And it’s not actually an official part of the Overland Track?’

  ‘Well, it’s kind of the connoisseur’s part of the track, I reckon,’ Russell said. ‘A lot of people are a bit over it by now and just want to get into the home stretch to Narcissus. They don’t want to tackle the extra few hours on a side track if they don’t have to.’

  ‘So nobody goes there?’

  ‘Oh no, quite a few people go. But it’s two hours down to Pine Valley Hut then another six clicks or so into the Labyrinth, and plenty of people reckon they’ve done the track without it. Done the recommended walk, I guess, and secretly just wanting to get back to the comforts of home.’

  ‘It’s not a soft option. But I personally wouldn’t want to miss it,’ added Paul. ‘I love that isolation. Beautiful. Everywhere you point your camera.’

  Rich sat nodding. He still had five blue bombers left — he could eke them out. Walk up to this place tomorrow, stay at Pine Valley Hut tomorrow night instead, then back on down to Narcissus, catch the afternoon ferry, and straight on a bus to Launceston.

  ‘You can do the Labyrinth as a day walk, but there’s nothing like taking your tent in there and camping beside one of those lakes,’ Paul went on. ‘I got some shots there once — man! Sensational. Dawn breaking over this valley of ghost gums, mirror images of rocks in these crystal-clear little lakes, and in the middle my one solitary red tent, lit up in the sun like a tiny flower. Nobody else around for miles.’

  Or stop for lunch at Pine Valley Hut, he thought, take another painkiller, do the extra six kilometres, and show Sophie what real wilderness camping could be like. Their last night out here. The welling pressure of emotion behind his eyes was subsiding now, thank God. He wouldn’t think about the kilometres of walking, he could get himself through that. Impress upon her that he wasn’t the kind of man who just stayed on the beaten track and did what everyone else did. Whatever else she went away thinking about him, it wouldn’t be that he was ordinary. The idea took form in his head; shimmering, possible.

  ‘I took a great series like that once,’ he said now to the others. ‘Upriver on the Franklin, back in ’83.’ He paused, seeing it register in their listening faces, and gave a rueful, reminiscent grin. ‘Just managed to get a roll finished,’ he continued, ‘before I got arrested.’

  Sixteen

  Pencil pines. King Billy pines. Celery-top pines. All good for the article. (For over 60 million years, these ancient and unique forests have flourished in the rugged remote grandeur of Tasmania, tucked away and almost forgotten at the bottom of the world. And a photo of a King Billy Pine in close-up, still beaded with dew.)

  ‘You’ll love this,’ he’d said to Sophie. ‘We won’t just do what everyone else does, we’ll go on a special side-trip. Russell and Libby are going. Are you up for it?’

  She’d wanted to see it on the map. Had to confer with Russell and Libby first, her new best buddies, couldn’t just trust him to do something spontaneous and fun. ‘OK,’ she’d said finally.

  And now they were actually on the track, meandering through forest which he had to admit was pretty primordial and beautiful, there was no way she could be disappointed. (Deep tea-coloured creeks cascade by the carpets of moss and lichen, tinted by tannin and icy-cold. Photo of brilliant green moss, a long exposure on the water so it had that silky Dombrovskis look.)

  They’d skirted the Narcissus River on the way down to the Pine Valley turn-off and then as they made their way through the forest, there it was: the suspension bridge. He’d got a shot of Sophie standing precariously in the middle of it — he’d caught her smiling — and then alongside Cephissus Creek, where the track had been made to wind naturally around the creek’s contours. Hobbit land. Fantastic. Huge tree ferns shook dew down onto them (him turning up his collar, pretty paranoid about leeches now), moss-hung beeches and myrtles and pineapple-fronded pandani, all with fingers of dim, arcadian light pouring through trying to reach that understorey — it was all perfect. Much more like what he’d imagined.

  ‘Beautiful, eh?’ he said to Sophie.

  ‘It sure is.’

  ‘Glad you came?’

  A grudging smile, like he was forgiven. ‘Yeah, I’m glad.’

  He walked with his camera ready round his neck, pointing and shooting, changing lenses, waiting for other walkers to get out of his shots and for the light to change. (It’s the smell of the forest that strikes the walker most intensely — the rich fertile scent of fallen leaves on the forest floor creating a heady freshness ...)

  They came to the hut in the forest, bunk spaces already claimed with packs and sleeping bags, food caches hanging from hooks in bags.

  ‘Lot of people seem to be already here,’ he said as he cut up the last of his cheese for lunch. ‘It’s going to be crowded tonight, Sophie. Maybe we could camp ...’

  ‘You can never predict how many people are going to be at each hut,’ commented Russell. He was ensconced on the verandah, reading. He and Libby were planning on climbing the Acropolis tomorrow, he said, so today was a rest day. Rich didn’t know how he could get around in the ridiculous thermal leggings he had on. What a buffoon.

  ‘I don’t mind camping,’ Sophie said, surprising him. ‘I really like waking up and being outside rather than in a hut.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Russell. ‘There’s still some nice platform spots left.’

  ‘Well, OK,’ he said, feeling vaguely irritated. ‘We’ll probably just get on up to the Labyrinth, then, while the weather’s so clear. Got your daypack organised?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She lifted the one she carried.

  ‘Barometer’s looking good,’ volunteered Russell. ‘Although you never can tell with Tasmania.’

  The guy was carrying a barometer. Soon, thought Rich, shaking his head, he’d pull out a deckchair and a beach umbrella.

  ‘Well, we’ll see you back here later this afternoon,’ he said to Russell and Libby as they filled their water bottles at the tank.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll mind the house, Soph,’ said Libby with a grin. ‘See you back here for cards.’

  ‘You’ll love it up there,’ Russell added. ‘We’ve been up three times over the years and it’s sensational.’

  He felt a smooth relief as he and Sophie finally set off down the track past the hut’s helipad. He had her to himself now. Nobody else to distract her.

  ‘Once when I was in Guatemala,’ he began lightly, ‘haven’t thought of this for years, but our conversation yesterday reminded me, I met this American guy at this beautiful lake. It was a phenomenal place, all these volcanic peaks and blue water, and he had this plan to set up a tourist attraction where he’d sell hang-glider and ultralight flights to backpackers, like a sort of adventure tour thing.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Well anyway, he’s got it all lined up, and he’s wondering how to market it, so he asks the locals: “What do you call those birds up there, the ones that circle up high in the sky on the wind?” And the locals tell him: “Zopilotes, señor.” So he goes ahead and designs his hang-gliding
brochure with the slogan: “Soar with the zopilotes.” And the locals can’t stop laughing, because he’s thought they were eagles, you see — but the birds he’d pointed out, the zopilotes, were actually vultures. So he was inviting tourists to come and soar with the vultures.’

  Rich laughed as he turned back to see Sophie’s reaction.

  ‘Soar with the vultures!’ he repeated in an exaggerated American accent. She glanced at him distractedly, a dutiful little smile. Not even listening.

  He remembered seeing the admiration in her eyes when he’d changed lenses to take that photo the other day, and before that, when he’d talked his way into the museum vault in Hobart. The eager way she’d watched him handle it, and take charge. She’d respected that expertise. That’s what he had to get back again.

  ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,’ Rich was calling to her now, gesturing, crouching with his camera and taking a shot of the paths curving away from them. ‘You know that poem?’

  They were already at the two turn-offs past the hut; the one that went up the Acropolis, the one to the Labyrinth.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Great poem. “The Road Less Travelled.”’

  ‘I’ll be sure to check it out. Mum will have a thousand copies in her bookshelf, I’m sure. Or on one of her inspirational desk calendars.’ She paused. ‘With a photo on it pretty much exactly like that one you just took.’

  He snapped his lens cap airily back on his camera, eyebrows raised.

  ‘You see?’ he said. ‘It’s like I told you, there’s an eternal spring of cynicism inside you, but I am no longer buying into it.’

  He was smiling though, as he said it, a lofty, theatrical smile, and she couldn’t help a smile escaping her own lips in return. He hadn’t been so bad, really, on this trip. She’d be home in a couple of days and she could think it over more and get some perspective, and sure he hadn’t turned out the way she’d imagined, but he was alright, if you just turned a blind eye to what a try-hard he was.