Storyland

by Catherine McKinnon

  All that is left of the house is some wooden posts, one wall, a stone fireplace and some steps. Kristie stands on the steps and stares the same way Jonathan sometimes does when he is in his office trying to remember a word, and it’s like the word is hiding in the air somewhere, and if he stares long enough he might see it.

  ‘The old cedar house was still here when I was a kid,’ Kristie says.

  ‘What happened to it?’ Isha asks, going to stand in the stone fireplace that is as tall as he is.

  ‘Weather,’ says Kristie. ‘My mum used to sit on this step for hours while we played.’

  ‘Why is it called the Hill of Peace?’ Isha asks.

  Kristie shrugs. ‘It’s peaceful.’

  She jumps down from the step.

  ‘We haven’t got time today to stick around,’ she says. ‘Come on, let’s hurry. I’ll bring you back another day.’

  We hike up through the trees to the rocky part of the escarpment. There’s a big rock, taller than two men standing on top of each other. Kristie slips behind it.

  ‘Spooky spooky,’ she says.

  We follow her and we are in a rocky corridor. We walk along and see caves. Three of them. I run ahead of Kristie and go into the first cave. It’s cold and dark. Isha and Tarak race towards the back of the cave. Soon, we can’t see each other’s faces and have to feel our way along the rock. Tarak pikes out first, then Isha.

  ‘I’m the bravest,’ I say, when I come back to the light.

  Kristie is bent down in front of the second cave. She is wrapping the stone axe in the plastic bag. Inside the bag is an envelope that has Mum written on it. Once the axe is tightly wrapped, Kristie flicks on the torch and walks to the back of the cave and puts the package on a narrow shelf that has bits of broken glass on it.

  We come back outside the caves and Kristie says we’ll go into the third cave next time we come. We walk back down to the skeleton house without speaking.

  ‘How come you put the axe in the cave?’ I ask, when Kristie stops at the clearing.

  She has got something in her eye that she just needs to get out.

  ‘It’s my running away insurance,’ she says.

  ‘Running away from what?’ I ask.

  Kristie puts her glasses back on and turns to us and says really fast, ‘Listen, if anything happens to me, you three know where that axe is, right?’

  ‘What could happen to you?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing probably, but if it does, just in case, I want you to do something.’

  I get scared then because what does she mean.

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ Isha asks.

  ‘I want you to tell my mother about the axe,’ Kristie says. ‘No one else but my mother.’ She takes a bit of folded paper out of her jeans pocket and gives it to Isha. ‘That’s her phone number. Don’t lose it.’

  Isha holds the piece of paper like it’s a precious jewel.

  ‘Why don’t you give the axe to her now?’ I ask.

  ‘For a start, we’re not talking to each other. But also, that axe is valuable, and I might need to sell it.’

  ‘Is it your axe or Ned’s?’ I ask.

  ‘It was my uncle’s,’ Kristie says. ‘I could sell that axe and go anywhere I wanted in the world. I could even afford to take you guys with me.’

  ‘Would you take Ned?’ I ask.

  ‘Not if I was running away from him.’

  Maybe Kristie and Ned had a fight about the canvases. I wish now I hadn’t told Ned about them. ‘Are you leaving Ned?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. It’s complicated.’

  ‘Why is it complicated?’ I ask.

  ‘I can’t really go into it.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘Why, why, you ask a lot of questions,’ Kristie says, and she lights up a rolly.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t know, Bel. Some things are hard to talk about. Maybe you could write about that when you grow up. How there’s a lot of shit in the world that we don’t ever talk about. We just pretend it isn’t happening.’

  Maybe Ned did tell her what I said about the canvases. Kristie told me not to trust him. That is why we had to keep where we lived a secret.

  ‘Like what isn’t happening?’ I ask.

  ‘Enough,’ says Kristie. She puffs on her rolly.

  ‘I can’t write about something if I don’t even know what it is.’

  ‘I thought you were going to write novels,’ she says.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then make shit up,’ she says.

  ‘What if you don’t like what I make up?’

  ‘Do you have to question everything?’ she asks.

  ‘No more questions,’ Isha snaps at me.

  Kristie gives him a thank-you look and that makes me mad.

  ‘Maybe if you didn’t lie to Ned, you wouldn’t have to leave him,’ I say.

  Kristie gives me a where-did-that-come-from? look.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Bel, you don’t know what you’re talking about, so keep your mouth shut for once in your life.’ Kristie drops her rolly on the ground and stomps it out.

  I don’t say anything.

  Isha makes sideways eyes at me.

  Kristie stares at the sky for a long time. We all stand there, hardly moving at all.

  ‘Human beings are fucking dumb animals that think they’re smart,’ Kristie says. ‘They’re so fucking dumb they don’t even realise how fucking dumb they are.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Isha.

  I kick at stones on the ground.

  Tarak says, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ very softly under his breath, and that makes Kristie laugh.

  She looks at me again. I push the stones into a pile with the tip of my shoe.

  ‘Bel, you have to learn when to ask questions and when not to ask,’ Kristie says. ‘It’s like you’ve got no social radar or maybe too much social radar, and it can be funny but it can also be fucking annoying.’

  Tarak opens his mouth wide and then shuts it.

  No one moves.

  A hare runs across the clearing.

  ‘Sorry, Bel,’ Kristie says. ‘But I’m having a bad day.’

  I stop moving and stay really still. But I keep staring at my feet because I don’t want to look anyone in the face, which is like a coward’s way out of things or what an echidna does.

  ‘So, I’ve let you know about my other secret spot and it can be your other secret spot too,’ Kristie says, in a pretend happy voice.

  I still don’t look at her.

  ‘Can we bring our dad here?’ Tarak asks.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a secret then, would it?’ Kristie says.

  ‘No,’ Tarak says.

  ‘This place is not for dads, or for anyone else,’ she says. ‘This is just for you three, a place to come when you need to feel safe. It’s a forgotten-about place and we leave it that way.’

  Kristie hurries off along the path. We follow behind her, like we’re on a safari, or like we’re soldiers in a war zone, only we don’t have guns, or like we’re prisoners or slaves who don’t have chains.

  I don’t ask any more questions.

  The wind through the grass is making a sound like the shush shush of the sea.

  When we get to the car Kristie stops by the door and says to me, ‘Friends again?’

  I nod my head but don’t smile.

  She takes off her glasses and I see her eye is swollen and bruised black. She lifts up her shirt and I see big bruises across her stomach.

  I start to cry because now she looks like one of those battered women on the television news. Isha and Tarak just stare.

  Tarak tries to touch one of the bruises. ‘That’s really big,’ he says.

  ‘This is why I might run away one day,’ Kristie says to me. ‘You made me show you this, Bel. I didn’t want to show you. Ned did this to me, right? This is why you can’t trust him.’

  I can’t work out how she got so bruised from Ned.

  ‘Is it from s
ex?’ I ask.

  ‘No Bel, not from sex. From being punched. You get that? From getting hit.’

  ‘I get it,’ I say, but I can’t stop crying.

  We all stand by the ute not looking at each other.

  ‘Hey, listen, Ned is not all bad,’ Kristie says after a long silence. ‘I wouldn’t be with him if he was all bad. He loses it, but he’s usually sorry after. And mostly, I know how to get out of his way before it happens, so don’t worry about me. But you’ve got to listen to me when I say there are things we can’t tell him. You know I trust you, Bel.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘And you too, Isha and Tarak. You all know how to keep a secret, right?’

  ‘Right,’ says Isha.

  ‘Never tell Ned about this place,’ says Kristie. ‘Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ says Tarak.

  ‘One day I might go away and he might come looking for information on me. Ned stores information, and one day when you least expect it, something you’ve told him will come back to haunt you. That’s why you have to stick to your story about living on Wyndarra Way. I don’t want him pestering you or your parents. Got it?’

  ‘Got it,’ I say.

  But I find it hard to look at Kristie, because what if she got hit because of the canvases that I told Ned about? It’s good she doesn’t know it was me that told him, because she trusts me, but it’s also bad, because she shouldn’t trust me.

  Kristie gives me a kiss on my forehead, and I put my arms around her waist. I only hold on gently, because of her bruises. I hear hear

  Nada

  2033 & 2717

  hear birds.

  Hello Nada. Come in. Sit. You said you liked birds in our last session so I found this audiomem of ext—

  Is it a whipbird?

  Yes, excellent. You are making excellent cognitive progress.

  I am Nada.

  Yes. You are Nada. Very good. Your memory is stabilising.

  I think so, yes.

  Nada, I want to publicly membank what we say to each other today for our Storyland Project.

  Ah.

  If you don’t wish to be publicly membanked you have that right. If you choose not to participate your treatment here will not be affected. Nada, may I membank?

  Nada nods her head.

  Nada, I can’t go ahead until you say yes. You must verbally agree. This is a contract.

  Yes.

  Thank you. I’m membanking now. Do you remember the countdown?

  Ten. Nine. Eight.

  And if you want to stop at any time raise your right hand. Can you raise your right hand?

  Nada raises her right hand.

  Very good. Are you ready to go back to where you left off during our last session?

  Left off? But I don’t, no, I don’t remember where I left—

  No need to panic. You’ll remember when I count you down. Hypnosis is one of the methods we use to manage the telling of difficult stories.

  Difficult?

  I will be here with you, prompting, clarifying. That is what I do.

  Oh.

  This is your personal membank. It’s what is past, not you breathing now, so no need to feel fearful. We do not need to fear the past, only understand it.

  I’m not frightened but you’re making me feel like I should be.

  Look, there. What do you see before you on the vismem?

  Is it a tree? Oh, oh, yes, our … our fig. I told you about our fig tree.

  Yes, Ficus obliqua or small-leaved fig, I found the exact tree in our archive. I want you to look at it then shut your eyes and I’ll count you down.

  Yes.

  Good. Ten. Nine. Eight. You’re going back to that time, the time when you remember the tree. It stood very near your home. Seven. Six. Five. You’re going back to that time and place. Relax and let your mind sink into that time and place. Four. Three. Two. You’re nearly there. One. You are there. What do you hear?

  A beating sound.

  What do you do?

  I switch on my torch.

  What do you see?

  The dripping dark around us, like the forest has slipped into the house. I shine the light on the window. A moth – pattering, pattering – against the glass. I watch its shivery dance. Then thump. A flash of claws. An owl snatches the moth. Grey feathers in the torchlight. Then whoosh. Gone. I hear myself breathing, reach out and put my hand on Ben’s hip. His skin is hot. I can feel his hipbone. He’s lost too much weight.

  Silence.

  Ben. Lost weight.

  It worries me. As soon as it’s light, I dress and go to the kitchen. I cram water, food bars and my inhaler into a small backpack. Esther walks in, sleepy. She stands on the other side of the breakfast counter.

  Esther?

  My niece was staying with us when Frank hit. After, there was no way to get her home. I stare at her for too long, thinking about how to get her back to my sister safely. My sister will be panicking.

  ‘Have I grown horns?’ Esther asks.

  ‘Ben is worse today,’ I say. ‘I have to get him some Marsoral. I’m hiking to the medical centre. I can find out about food drops while I’m there.’

  I zip up my backpack. Begin to rub on repellent.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Esther says.

  ‘You’ll slow me down.’

  ‘What if I can ring Mum from the medical centre?’ she says. ‘What if they’re evacuating from there?’

  Evacuating?

  Most people had already been evacuated. When the first cyclone warnings came Ben and I drove down the mountain to the lookout. We got out of the car and stood staring across rooftops to the ocean. Waves were running along roads and crashing through houses like they were cardboard cut-outs. Electricity poles were the new driftwood. And the sea kept coming. But our house is on high ground. We thought we’d be safe. After all, this was not the first cyclone we’d been through. We did the usual stock-up of food, boarded up the windows in the house and sheds, took the blades out of the ceiling fans. We stored away all the outdoor furniture, the potted plants, the wheelie bins – anything that might blow away in the big winds. Only we underestimated Frank. Everyone underestimated Frank.

  At first there were howling winds – a constant whooshing, then a clashing and clanging as the winds knocked bits of tin from the roof. The power went out. We heard a loud crack and then a thump as a tree crashed down. Then a second tree fell. Neither hit the house. We were bunkered down in the TV room in the basement. Every now and then we’d run up the stairs to check the house for damage. There were leaks and we found buckets and bowls to put under them. One small window in the bathroom, one that we hadn’t boarded up, shattered. I taped plastic over it. Everything seemed to be holding well. We had torches and food and alcohol down in the TV room. We played board games. The rain, when it came, was like stones pelting the house. Horrible. We tried not to think about it. And then, something strange, a piercing scream. Not human. It was as if the earth itself was in horrendous pain. I’ve never heard anything like it – on and on this scream went and it hurt our ears. Everything began trembling, just this violent trembling. Followed by a rumbling and banging that went on and on for hours. So loud. Like standing next to a fast-moving freight train. It was like a hellish nightmare only it wasn’t a nightmare it was real. There was nothing we could do. We were at the mercy of nature and nature was in a rage. Esther, Ben and I sat close together. We’d never experienced a cyclone like it. We held onto each other because we thought it was the end, the absolute end. At one point we even said our goodbyes, hugged and cried. It felt like we sat there for hours but who knows how long it really was.

  And then, all of a sudden, stillness.

  The commotion had stopped.

  We looked at each other.

  Was it over?

  We couldn’t believe it.

  Everything was so quiet.

  We crept out from the TV room, uncertain still, and slowly climbed the stairs. We opened the door from th
e basement into the kitchen not sure of what we’d find. All there. Our house still standing. I thought, Oh, maybe everything will be okay. But as soon as we went outside – it was like a giant had crossed the land and stepped on everything in sight. We walked down the road to check on the Castelli family. Most neighbours had evacuated but the Castellis stayed. They had the same cyclone plan as us – stock up, bunker down, wait it out. Their place was like a smashed-up toy house, just bits of roof sticking up through the rubble. We searched through the wreckage, calling their names, over and over. Couldn’t find their bodies.

  Everywhere we looked – roads torn up, lumps of bitumen and concrete strewn in the paddocks. Branches and tree trunks where roads used to be. Houses, cars, powerlines, all smashed. Shocking. Only four houses on our side of the mountain survived: Steve and Gina’s – their farm is two properties down from us; Tom and Bill’s – their place is about a kilometre to the south; the Canberra couple’s weekender – next door to Tom and Bill’s; and our place. Everything else destroyed. Gone. No way to drive up or down the mountain. No phone, no mobile, no internet. No idea of what was happening elsewhere. For all we knew, we could be the only people on the planet.

  Those seven of us who had survived got together. We were all in a daze. Steve and Gina got us going. Nothing to do but start the clean-up, they said.

  It kept raining, the rivers were flooding – the entire village down in the valley was under water. Unbelievable. It was all so disturbing. I had seen this kind of destruction on TV: seen footage of cyclones ravaging towns further north, or in other countries. I should have known it would happen here one day, but somehow I didn’t. Three days into the clean-up two rescue workers arrived in a helicopter to check the damage. They reported horrific sea surges. Said it was chaotic but everyone was doing their best. Warned us about the MARS virus. They explained about the emergency clinic, how it had been set up in the school on the other side of the mountain. They told us we’d need the vaccine, Marsoral. Said they’d return with an oral dose for us all, as well as emergency food supplies, enough to keep us going until order was restored.

  Often, in the days after, we’d see rescue helicopters in the sky, but none landed.

  Soon, we said to each other, soon they will land here. There must be more needy areas. And none of us had MARS. How could we have it, we’d only seen the rescue workers.