The Beginner's Guide to Living

by Lia Hills

  But what if I fail?

  17. Is it possible to find something to live and die for in words on the page?

  Yellow house. Taryn answers the door, wearing a dressing gown.

  “Will.”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “Come in.”

  At her room, I linger by the door, remembering the last time I was here.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I had my first exam today.”

  “I know. And?”

  “When I finished I got thinking about what’s important.”

  “Will.”

  “Do you need some time, is that it?”

  She shields her eyes with her hand. “You have no idea.”

  “But, I do. I’ve been a shit…”

  “It’s not just that.”

  “Then, what?”

  “I can’t tell you, not with exams…”

  I enter her room. “Forget exams. What is it? Tell me.”

  “My period’s late.”

  “What?”

  “By four days. I’m never late.”

  “But how?”

  She raises her eyebrows at me.

  “I mean … I thought you were on the pill.”

  “You know I am, but I was sick a few weeks back. After the party.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s that got to do with it?”

  “The pill doesn’t work properly if you throw up. I read it in the instructions last night. And we didn’t use a condom that one time.”

  She jerks a tissue out of a box by her bed as I remember that day, thinking that there was something about the way we were together that always made me feel we were immune. “Who knows?” I said.

  “Nobody yet, except you.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Wait. Hope it’s a false alarm.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “I don’t know, Will.”

  Taryn leans back on the bed. She buries her face in the duvet, careful not to lean against me. I go to touch her but her body says no. “My parents will be home soon and I don’t want them seeing you here. I told them we’ve stopped going out for a while. There’ll be a million questions, and I can’t handle that right now.”

  “But…”

  “Please, Will.”

  I put my hand on her head anyway and suddenly she’s beside me. “You know I still love you?” she says.

  I nod as I realize it’s true, for both of us, but if I say the words, they’ll hang there, they won’t go where they should. “You call me,” I say, kissing the top of her head.

  18. Can one life replace another?

  Nobody’s home. Dad’s meant to be here, it’s his turn to cook. Adam’s at some thing. Don’t know if I’d tell him anyway. There’s nothing to eat in the fridge. Nothing in the cupboard either, except a package of chocolate and peanut cookies and a can of chickpeas. What kind of meal is that? What’s happening in this house? Why hasn’t Dad done the shopping? Or Adam? I can’t be expected to do it, I don’t have a license yet, and I’ve got exams. Anyway, where the hell is he? What kind of father…? Jesus! I can’t be responsible for bringing a life into this world when I have no idea about my own. Dad must be working overtime. He said he wouldn’t tonight as it’s the day of my first exam. Said we could talk about it over dinner. Wonder if it’s a boy or a girl? Guess it doesn’t make any difference. Will we get rid of it? Does it even exist? I wish Mom was here because I reckon I could tell her, especially since … Whoa, that’s what I call radical therapy. We finally have the kind of relationship we should’ve always had. Now that she’s dead.

  * * *

  Memory.

  My mother’s naked body. I’m almost thirteen. She pulls a towel to her chest, says, “It doesn’t matter,” but it does. Her body seems older than I remember it, less sure of itself, not wanting to be noticed. It has hair on it, a triangle above her legs. I shudder. The place from where I came.

  * * *

  My next exam’s not until Tuesday. I need to get the hell out of here. I stick a note to the fridge with a fish magnet: I’m fine. Don’t come looking for me. Will.

  * * *

  Taryn.

  Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

  I will meet you there.

  Rumi

  ♥ Will

  * * *

  FOUR

  MYSTIC ON THE FRINGE

  I DON’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I took the train out to the end of the line, maybe when I was a kid. The sun’s going down, sloping in the window—it’s been a long day, and it isn’t over yet. In my backpack, a bottle of water, a lighter, a couple of bread rolls I found in the freezer, Mom’s camera, my notebook, a shirt, a spare pair of boxers. A book about a French philosopher titled Foucault for Beginners. In my pocket, thirty bucks. The train’s got a few suits in it, probably heading home after Friday drinks. Maybe that’s what happened to Dad. In the next seat, a guy and a girl seriously into each other’s tongues. They couldn’t give a damn about their audience but all I want to do is to stare down the suburbs as they race past. Try to imagine Taryn being here, but when you’re pregnant you can’t sleep rough. Pregnant. Shit, that’s a big word. Besides, this kind of thing you have to do alone. I read that somewhere but some things you don’t need to read about, you know they’re true.

  * * *

  The station is lit up. A bunch of kids are waiting to catch the train to the city, making a lot of noise but I can’t be bothered looking to see why. I’m hungry but I need to save the two rolls for breakfast. Hope it doesn’t rain. The forecast could be wrong. I could also be attacked by a serial rapist or a feral cat. Lucky I brought my coat.

  Some of the shops are still open, cheerful lights, clumps of people sitting outside bars. I go into a fish-and-chip shop and order a hamburger. There’s nobody I know, don’t know why there would be, here on the outskirts. I study my sneakers. I should’ve worn my hiking boots. Should’ve, should’ve, should’ve.

  They call my number and I take my hamburger and sit at one of the round metal tables outside. There are four kids about my age at the next table. One of the guys nods at me. I nod back, watch traffic as I eat. Where do they all go?

  The national park’s not far up that road. Ten, fifteen minutes’ walk. I’ll finish this hamburger and then I’ll go, make a bed out of branches and leaves. I remember thinking about this stuff when I was a kid, how I’d survive if I got stuck in the bush, what I’d eat. Problem is, I haven’t got a clue what will kill me and what will keep me alive. I’d better get some food from the supermarket across the road before I head off. How many mystics went to Safeway before they set off into the wilderness? I guess I’m blazing a new path.

  19. How many mystics does it take?

  It’s night by the time I find the track—I forgot to bring a flashlight and my lighter’s not much use. The moon’s full but beneath these colossal trees it barely takes the edge off the dark. At least everything’s dry. There’s nobody around, but there’s noise: distant cars, wind in the trees, night sounds. I try to imagine this track during the day, in full sunlight, how it wouldn’t threaten at all, but I can’t—every rustle, every snap, seems like an omen, a reminder of how I’ve messed things up.

  Everything reduced to one question: where the hell am I going to sleep?

  * * *

  I am lying on my jacket about twenty meters off the track. I put some dry fern on the ground under me—I know it’s a national park and you’re not meant to pick anything but there seemed to be a lot of stuff moving on the ground, and, well, sometimes necessity outweighs the rules. It’s about survival now. I try to calculate how many spiders there would be in a square meter of bush but I know nothing about the mathematics of spiders. The moon is bright above my head, too bright, but at least I can see. I’m about two Ks from civilization but it feels like the rest of the world has slipped into another realm.

  * * *

  Memory. />
  Family picnic. I’m about four. Dad and Adam are kicking a football around a clearing between the trees and Mom’s asleep in the sun. I go exploring, pick my way through parched scrub, the scent of eucalyptus expanding in the heat. I hear a rustle in the leaves and follow it, hoping it’s a lizard and not a snake, but I soon lose its track. I can’t remember which way I came. I listen out for my family but hear only the sounds of trees. By the time I find my way back to the picnic, nobody’s there. I wait, the trees rising higher and higher, till I hear them calling, their voices like invisible bush creatures carried on the wind. I stare at the impression of my mother’s body in the grass.

  * * *

  Warm fog: 6:30 a.m.

  After a five o’clock wake-up, I burned leeches off my leg, singed some hair while I was doing it, and ate my two rolls. Finished half of my water. Then I heard people go past on the nearby path and hunted down a couple more leeches and burned them off.

  This is not what I expected, but, considering the sum total of five minutes I spent thinking about it before leaving, I shouldn’t be surprised. One should plan for spiritual enlightenment. At least bring a flashlight.

  I’m still hungry, but only because I have a finite amount of food in my bag. Maybe I can find something to eat in the bush. The Aborigines ate berries but I can’t see any around here. Maybe they preferred possum; I heard enough of those last night, like chain saws, screaming in the dark.

  A woman with long gray hair comes striding down the track. She looks about Mom’s age, maybe older, magpie eyes, a dried leaf stuck in her hair.

  “Hello,” she says.

  “Hi.”

  I pull my backpack higher on my shoulder as she points to a bush in front of me. “That’s coprosma quadrifida. Prickly currant bush. You here alone?”

  “I’m just going for a walk.”

  “You’re not lost, are you?” she asks, looking at my sneakers.

  “No.”

  “Well, be careful. You never know who you might run across out here.” She taps her walking stick on the ground, hesitates a moment, before marching off down the track, not bothering to dodge a patch of mud.

  There are too many people in this forest. I tuck my jeans into my socks and look for a break in the trees. There’s a gap between two giant gums that could be a path. I head for it. It’s quite open except I have to climb over logs to follow it, and there are big holes, probably from wombats. The ground is littered with bark. My foot snags and I trip, fly headfirst toward a log, which I somehow avoid and land hard on my shoulder instead. I lie still, my face in a pile of eucalyptus leaves. I can hear the sound of cockatoos, wind, the creak of giant trees. I sit up and flex my shoulder, stretch the neck of my T-shirt to take a look at it, stripes of blood lined up against the white of the graze. That bark is lethal.

  The track heads down steeply. I have to hold on to trees, steady my feet against roots. The last of the Band-Aids tears off my knuckle, making it bleed again. A couple of times there seem to be two possible directions, so I go with instinct. I can hear the trickle of water, probably a creek. I follow the sound. The bush becomes denser, somber—ferns reach around each other, lean into rocks, the ground springy, water dangling from tiny moss fronds. The smell of rotting and things growing.

  The creek keeps disappearing under shelves of moss but I follow it upward, trying not to touch anything as I make my way. This place is primeval; there are hardly even any birds, no screeching cockatoos. They don’t belong here. It’s hard to stay close to the creek, it’s so overgrown, fallen logs trapped between rocks as I climb a ridge, my shoulder aching, and work my way back down. Up ahead, a rock face, though it looks more like the wall to a dam. So much for the lost world.

  I scramble around the side of it, grab hold of roots and branches and haul myself up. Barely visible through the trees, there’s a small jade lake sitting in the sun. Pitched beside it, a domed gray tent.

  * * *

  Memory.

  Camping by a river. Mom hates camping so she usually doesn’t come, but this time she decides to join the boys. Dad and Adam have gone looking for wood. I’m staring at the river, how fast it’s moving. I spy a tiny blue wren tracking me as it jumps from branch to branch. I edge toward it, remembering what Mom taught me about how to get close to a bird. With the mind of a cat. I get close but at the last minute it darts away. By the river’s edge, the sun is hot on my feet—I want to dip them in the water, to see how cold it is. I stick one toe in, then my whole foot, the sand slipping beneath me, the river strong, my body following my feet. A shout and a pain around my throat. It’s Mom, she’s got me by my T-shirt and she’s dragging me out, yelling at me for going so close to the edge. Her arms wrapped around me, so tight I can hardly breathe.

  * * *

  I can’t see anybody around. The lake’s small, maybe thirty meters wide, completely overgrown around the edges, hard to tell how deep. Overhead, a pair of rosellas dip their way across the sky as a guy walks out of the trees at the far side of the tent.

  “Hello,” I say. He walks toward me, drops something by his tent as he goes past. He’s bald, and tall, and coming for me. I step back.

  “Saul,” he says, wiping his hand on his trousers and holding it out. I hesitate before shaking it. His grip is strong. Something moves in the bush. “Sssshhh,” he says, crouching down.

  I squat too, follow his eyes to see what would make such a solid guy go for cover. He’s wearing a khaki shirt with dirt on one shoulder and there’s a shadow where his hair would be if he let it grow. Another rustle. Below us in the bush is a large brown bird. I smile.

  “It’s a lyrebird,” he whispers.

  “I thought lyrebirds had big tail feathers.”

  “That’s a female.” He cocks his head to the side as she moves through the bush. She scratches at the ground with her feet, looking for food, and makes a noise like a cockatoo. Saul turns to me, his face too close. “Hear that? Great imitators, lyrebirds. She can copy any bird in the bush, even do a good version of a chain saw.”

  “What is this place?” I ask, as the lyrebird moves away and we both stand up.

  “People call it the secret lake.”

  “Not very original.”

  “I guess not. I shouldn’t be camping here, but you won’t turn me in, will you?”

  He raises his eyebrows, the only hair on his head, but I can’t tell whether he’s making fun of me or not. I go over to the edge of the lake. The water’s tea-colored from above, not jade, its surface stagnant, littered with leaves and a white feather.

  “I come here sometimes, to get away. Nobody knows I’m here.” He pulls up the bottom of his trousers and starts checking his legs. They have no hair either.

  “Looking for leeches?”

  “Yeah, little bastards. I’ve got some salt.”

  “Burned mine off with my lighter.”

  “Did you sleep in the bush last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You always this talkative?”

  “No, I’m usually the silent type.”

  “What’s your name?” he asks, rolling down his trousers.

  “Will. So, what do you do up here?”

  “Think.”

  “About what?”

  “Oh, you know, the meaning of life as we know it, what it’s all about.” He laughs. “Monty Python fan from way back. I take off once a year for a week,” he says, undoing the fly on his tent.

  “You always come here?”

  “Sometimes. I’ve got a few spots. I’m a computer programmer,” he says, as if that explains everything. Maybe it does.

  “My mother died.”

  Saul squats by the open fly, his back to me, and pulls out a plastic tub. “I’ve got some tea. Would you like some? It’s already got the milk mixed in. I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  He hands me a cupful and pours some into the lid
of the thermos for himself. “So, how did she die?”

  “Got hit by a drunk driver getting out of her car. She was going to a doctor’s appointment.”

  “When?”

  “Nine weeks and two days ago.”

  He stares at me for a moment, his forehead creased with parallel lines. “Does anybody know where you are?”

  I have no idea who this man is, he could be a psycho. I’m sure plenty of computer programmers are half-mad. Maybe he’s not even a programmer. “I left a message saying where I was. I’m going back tomorrow night.”

  “You can stay here if you like, I’ve got plenty of food.”

  “Maybe.”

  He points up the hill to a patch of sun among the trees. “I’ll be up there if you need me. I’ve found a good spot to do some reading. If you decide not to stay, it was nice meeting you, Will.”

  He pulls a book that looks like a novel out of a bag in his tent, and heads off into the bush.

  A ripple spreads out from the middle of the lake.

  * * *

  What I write in my notebook by the water’s edge:

  [1]

  You can’t see the wind but you can see what it does, its movement through leaves and grass. Like the larva that’s dangling in front of me by an invisible thread.

  I know it’s there, that thread, even though I can’t see it—logic tells me it is. Or is it a question of faith? In science? In the way the world’s supposed to be?

  [2]

  Ants work around me on the log. When you squash them they smell like piss. Do they think I have an agenda or a purpose?

  Am I good or evil according to the philosophy of ants? Or are they just waiting till I die, so they can pick me to the bone?

  [3]

  A fallen log covered in moss. The living grow around the dead in order to survive.

  [4]

  All things reach for their piece of the sun.

  [5]

  Why, in nature, does everything become a metaphor?