The Cloud Forest

by JH Fletcher

  About The Cloud Forest

  A sweeping historical saga and the story of a lost child, from the author of the bestselling View from the Beach.

  Two-year-old Jamie was lost in Victoria's Dandenong Ranges, presumed dead. But Jamie is not dead. Found by itinerant acrobats Bruce and Marge Mandale, he accompanies them on their travels throughout Australia. When he is ten he discovers the Cloud Forest, an area of temperate rainforest on the summit of Mount Gang Gang in tropical North Queensland.

  The Cloud Forest is a place of haunting beauty, but for Jamie it is far more than that. It is the Realm of Ultimate Desire, that place for which humanity longs and spends its life seeking. In it resides the dignity of the human spirit which we betray only at the cost of our own self-destruction.

  The forest weaves its lingering spell over the child and his descendants. A hundred years later another child enters the Cloud Forest and, through her actions, brings the saga to its conclusion.

  CONTENTS

  About The Cloud Forest

  Dedication

  Mandale Family

  Prologue

  Colin

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Charlie

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Arthur

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Jacqui

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Judy

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Epilogue

  About J. H. Fletcher

  Also by J. H. Fletcher

  Copyright

  This one is for Max

  PROLOGUE

  Shortly before Jamie’s second birthday, Dorrie and Lukas took the boy and went to camp for the summer in the Dandenong Ranges. The forest drowsed in the warm sunlight but at night the bush pressed close around the tent, a circle of darkness.

  Two days after their arrival Dorrie was working in the tent. A mile away Lukas was painting. The boy was outside the tent. Afterwards they thought that something — a leaf, a flicker of sunlight through branches — must have caught his attention. He made his way across to the circle of bush and disappeared into it.

  Some minutes later Dorrie came out of the tent with a couple of towels that she draped across the bushes to dry in the sun. She glanced around, saw no sign of Jamie, thought nothing of it. He would be around somewhere. For all his adventurousness, he never went far. She went back into the tent. Five minutes later she came back outside. Still no sign of him. Frowning, she looked about her.

  ‘James …?’

  Nothing.

  She walked a few paces. ‘Jamie?’

  Insects buzzed peacefully, otherwise the bush was still. The bland leaves closed their ranks against her. Her call disappeared, absorbed by the dead wall of silence.

  He is two years old, she told herself. Not even. He cannot have gone far. It is a question of finding him, that is all.

  She walked forward. When she reached the edge of the bush she parted the branches and stepped inside.

  There were bushes, trees, a confusion of leaves and branches interlaced into a wall of silence. Panic touched her.

  ‘Jamie!’

  The leaves cast the scream back at her. It was impossible to know where to look. She forced her way between bushes, around bushes, under bushes. She parted leaves, slipped and stumbled in ten thousand years of leaf mould.

  ‘Jamie! Jamie!’

  She might have been the first person to have penetrated these intricate thickets.

  Her mind envisaged Jamie’s tiny figure walking between the great trees. To which I dedicated him, she remembered.

  The trees have taken him. The thought, once rooted, would not go away. I shall never see him again.

  COLIN

  Die heil’ge Quelle selbst

  erquicke unsres Pilgers Bad.

  The holy spring itself

  shall refresh and bathe our pilgrim.

  Richard Wagner, Parsifal

  JUDY SPEAKING …

  When did I first hear of the Cloud Forest, the temperate rainforest of high tropics, nourished and cooled by the vapour that hangs permanently about the summit of the mountains? Long before the business of the lost paintings, the shapes — earth-red, white, black — drawn upon the wall of the stone gallery, preserved from sunlight and the corrosive eyes of men. Certainly it was well before I came to live here, in the shadow of the mountain; before I met Arthur Mandale and fell headlong in love with him; before Jacqui and her friend John Munda, or Frances or Betty. Long before Harley Woodcock and the greed that looked for a time as though it might set Goorapilly and the whole of this part of North Queensland ablaze.

  Everyone knows how it ended; the media took good care of that. A child nearly killed, accusation and counteraccusation, prominent people up to their necks in the whole sorry business: it was the kind of story the media loves. How it all started, though, is another story. You won’t have heard about that because it wasn’t reported; nobody cared. Yet, without knowing the beginning, how can anyone understand the end?

  Arthur always says it began on the day his grandfather decided to run away into the Cloud Forest.

  Jacqui, on the other hand, reckons it started much earlier, with Colin’s true parents and how they somehow managed to lose him in Victoria’s Dandenong Ranges.

  She’s right, in a way, yet there is no satisfaction in basing a story upon unknown beginnings. The fact is we don’t know who Colin’s true parents were, or how they came to lose him. Our ignorance of those facts puts the rest of the story out of balance, even those later events that we do know about. Yet the true beginnings certainly took place long before Colin ran away.

  My preference is to date the story of Colin Mandale and everything flowing from it — the events involving Charlie and Linda, Frances and Arthur and Bella, even Jacqui, John Munda and myself, Judy Shaughnessy, and what I have come to think of as the Battle of the Cloud Forest — to that day in the spring of 1892 when Bruce and Marge Mandale were making their way through the Victoria backwoods in the direction of Melbourne, where they planned to join up with a circus that was heading north.

  ONE

  1

  After all the waiting, all the drama, the baby had been born dead.

  Bruce Mandate had begun to think he would never survive it: not the birth itself, of course, not even the death, but the aftermath of the death.

  Marge had been beside herself.

  First off, he’d been sympathetic. Up the duff for nine months, then the performance of having it, twelve bloody hours it had been, only to find it had all been so much wasted effort … Enough to give anyone the pip.

  All the same, there were limits. A day or two he could have understood — he hoped he was a bloke who knew how to make allowances — but the fact was the kid had died and that was an end to it. No way could they bring him back to life, was there? They needed to get on, catch up with the others, yet Marge didn’t want to know. Ten days after the event, she was still performing as though she’d murdered it.

  Was stupid enough to
say so, or something close.

  ‘Wasn’t your fault, for cripes’ sake …’

  Done better to tie a knot in his tongue.

  ‘Kept going too long, that’s what it was. That new flying act you worked out was too hard.’

  So now it was his fault.

  ‘We’re a trapeze act, right? Flying’s our job, what we get paid for. If we’d packed up any earlier, we’da bin outa dosh weeks back.’

  ‘Money …’ As though he’d offered to cut her throat. ‘All you care about, isn’t it?’

  More tears on top of old ones, a regular saltwater fountain. Enough to make a bloke puke.

  ‘Give over, for God’s sake …’

  Might have saved his breath. He decided he’d treat himself to a breath of fresh air, give her a chance to get over it. Give himself a chance, come to that; he’d always had a bit of a temper, it was one of his weaknesses, and he could feel himself getting pretty ratty, the way Marge was carrying on. A turn outside the wagon would give him a chance to cool down before he started breaking things. He grabbed his pipe and tobacco pouch and took off before she could say anything else to stir him up.

  He knew right off it had been the right move. It was nice, outside in the air. He puffed his pipe, looking about him at the spread of timber-clad hills all round him. It was spring, the air still fresh; it made him feel good to see the tall timber climbing all the way up the slopes of the range to the top, the ridge so blue that in places it was hard to tell it apart from the sky.

  There were trees all around them. When Marge had tipped him off things were beginning to happen, he’d started looking for a place she could have the baby in peace. They’d fetched up in a glade a little way off the main east-west track through the forest; in the circumstances, he’d reckoned she’d need a bit of privacy. He’d chosen right, at that; in the fortnight they’d been here, Bruce hadn’t seen a soul. A wallaby or two, birds that seemed to screech all day and half the bloody night as well: apart from that, nothing at all. It was a nice, peaceful place: all the same, he was beginning to get antsy.

  The circus hadn’t waited for them. He’d never thought it would; old Gus Evans wouldn’t call a halt for the Last bloody Trump, never mind for Marge Mandale and her kid. The show was holed up at a place called Wattle Glen, somewhere away to the north-west, but they wouldn’t be there forever. Signor Corelli’s Great International Circus, which was what they called themselves, was on its way north: into New South Wales first off: after that, further north still. Gus reckoned there was a packet to be made up in Queensland and, if Bruce and Marge hadn’t caught up with them by the time he took off, he’d find someone to take their place. It wouldn’t be hard; they weren’t the only flying act in Victoria, not by a long shot. If that happened, they’d be stuffed. He’d first suggested pushing on a week ago but Marge hadn’t wanted a bar of it. Enough to drive a bloke dilly. They’d scraped a hole in the dirt, buried the baby at the edge of the forest, covered it over. What else could they do, for cripes sake? No point hanging around. But whenever he talked about making a move, she carried on like she was round the twist.

  Morbid, that’s what it was. He knew he’d have to put his foot down but didn’t fancy it; he’d never been a bloke for too much drama.

  To take his mind off things, he strolled over to talk to the horse, which was tearing away at the grass on the edge of the track. There were one or two flies, nothing to speak of this early in the season, and he stood watching the animal, listening to the soft, peaceful sounds of its great teeth ripping away at its breakfast.

  Mostly, he enjoyed his life. Enjoyed circus, the feeling of arriving in a new town, sitting up in the bandwagon with the rest of the boys, blowing his cornet and watching the people come running, the kids tagging on at the back of the procession as it made its way to wherever the advance man had picked out to pitch the tent. They were always welcome; most of these country places, the circus was the only thing that stirred the dust from one year to the next, apart from some crappy vaudeville outfit, maybe, or a travelling boxing booth. Nothing could hold a candle to the real circus, and the locals knew it. Some of the girls … There were tales he could have told about the days before him and Marge had got together; nothing since, mind. Hot little numbers, some of them, and the circus had never hung around in one place long enough for there to be any risk of trouble. He thought of the carbide lighting at night and the roaring sound it made, with everything dark outside the tent and the oohs and aahs of the crowd as he took the trapeze further and further out above their heads, swinging it in a great circle. The balancing trapeze, they called it, on account of the knobs he’d fixed up on either end of the bar, like weights to keep it even. Did the whole act without a net, too; break his back if he ever came off, but he’d never been afraid of that. Heights didn’t worry him. It was a great act; the spectators loved it, always gave him a good hand.

  No, they had to get back as soon as they could; he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if the circus left them behind for good. Wouldn’t know what to do for money, either; all very well Marge moaning, but they wouldn’t get far without it. He was damn near strapped as it was; barely enough to buy himself a wet, even if there’d been a pub nearby.

  No, he thought, Marge’ll just have to face up to it. We gotta move on.

  He watched the horse, still chomping. ‘Easy time’s over,’ he told it. ‘Gotta hit the road.’

  Might as well get it over with. He turned to go back to the wagon, paused in midstride as he thought he’d heard something. He turned and looked at the fringe of trees, spindly little things at this point, with plenty of open ground and the grass growing up between them. That was where the sound had come from.

  For a moment there, it had sounded almost like …

  You’re imagining things, he told himself.

  He waited, but now could hear nothing.

  He turned away, and it came again at once. Not his bloody imagination, then. He spun round and walked straight across to the gap in the trees where he reckoned the sound had been. And stopped, staring.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘What you doing here, eh?’

  2

  Through the grass, he could see the light. It was golden, bright, shifting to and fro as the wind blew. It made him laugh. He watched it, dancing, tried to snatch it with his hands. Always it got away. He laughed, hearing the sound of the laughter. The wind laughed back.

  The grass here was high, taller than he was. He walked into it, still laughing. It tickled him. It was laughing, too, he and the grass were laughing together. He couldn’t see the light any more, the grass was in the way, then the wind blew again, the grass whistled and parted, swaying, and there the light was. Dancing, like before. Another grab. Nothing doing. The naughty light.

  Behind him, he heard her come out of the tent. She was busy, holding white pieces of cloth, flapping them. When she did that, it sounded as though the cloth was slapping the air. She was singing quietly to herself. He heard the sound. It was comfortable, safe. It made him feel good.

  ‘Jamie?’ He heard her footstep on the grass. When she spoke her voice was closer. ‘There you are. Don’t go too far, will you?’

  He heard her voice but did not turn to look up at her; he, too, was busy. He wanted to catch the light before it got away again. The naughty light that danced and would not let him catch it.

  He crept closer. Snatched. No.

  Without looking, he knew that she had gone away again, had gone back into the tent. That was all right.

  The light danced. It had moved away from the grass now. It was on the leaves of the trees that were behind the grass. The trees were very tall, even higher than the grass. The trees were his friends, just as the grass was; he saw them every day. He reached out his hands. He touched the shiny leaves that quivered as he held them. He let them go and they sprang away from him. He laughed and took another step, reaching up his hands to catch them again. They wouldn’t let him, any more than the light had let him.
It was how they always played: dancing, laughing, letting him touch them then getting away from him again. He couldn’t reach them, so he touched the trunks of the trees instead. He would play with the trunks of the trees.

  It was no good. The trees wouldn’t play at all. Instead, they stood and looked at him. They were stiff and still. Again he saw the light. It gleamed and danced beyond the trees. He pushed after it, came through the fringe of grass into a new place. He stood, staring about him. It was different from anything he had seen before. It was still, quiet. Apart from the one spark of playful light, he could see only shadows.

  The world had changed. Now he forgot about the dancing beam of light. It was the shadows that called him. He walked towards them. They were all about him. He looked up at the trees, reaching high overhead. Everything he knew was gone but he was not afraid, was too interested in what he had discovered to be afraid. He forgot about everything but went on, sometimes walking forwards, sometimes backwards, feeling this new world that surrounded him. Walking backwards, a tree root tripped him. He lay on his back, looking up at the light far above his head. It was so far that he could barely see the leaves at all, couldn’t tell whether they were asleep or still playing.

  He looked about him but the spark of light had gone now. It didn’t matter. There were other things here, things he didn’t know. Everything was new. He turned on his tummy and inspected the root that had tripped him. He batted it with his hand, softly.

  ‘Bad, bad …’

  He could not give it a name; he did not know what it was or what it was called, only that it had tripped him. Again he batted it. The thing was moist and cool against his palm. He looked closely at it, seeing specks of green and brown and orange upon it. So strange.

  It did not move, or do anything. He got up and walked on, face turned upwards to watch the branches far above his head, the white brightness of the light between them.