The Cloud Forest

by JH Fletcher

  Jacqui had had about enough of him by now and would not look. ‘You’ve really made up your mind you want us to be late, haven’t you?’

  And pushed on, deaf to his protests.

  They only just made it. They were halfway across the paddock when they saw the plume of dust trailing behind Judy’s bright red car, as lively and cheerful as herself, as it came up the track towards the pick-up point.

  ‘Good!’ Jacqui said.

  While John was more sulky than ever. ‘There was a cave,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t have killed us to have a look at it.’

  ‘I didn’t see it.’

  ‘I called out but you wouldn’t stop.’

  ‘We can look for it next time.’

  ‘Always supposing we can find it.’

  ‘A tracker like you? Of course we’ll find it.’

  John was not so easily talked round. ‘I’ve half a mind to go back there, see what I can find by myself.’

  Jacqui knew he wanted her to get mad at him for saying he’d do such a thing without her but she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. ‘Go ahead. If that’s what you want to do.’

  Cross faces all round as they climbed into the car but Judy, wise in the ways of kids, said nothing.

  ‘Talk about miracles!’ Betty said when they got back to Frances’s house. ‘You managed not to fall off a cliff, then.’

  ‘Of course we didn’t.’

  Jacqui could be lofty, when she chose. There was a time when she wouldn’t have dared say such a thing with Frances within earshot, but her aunt was a lot softer these days, maybe because she no longer had Jacqui to put up with every day of the week. She’d forgotten about Judy, though.

  ‘You be careful, young lady.’

  While John, fidgeting and wishing he was far away from this house full of women, was no help at all.

  ‘Did you see the yeti?’ Frances asked them.

  ‘We may have heard it,’ Jacqui hoped.

  ‘There was a cave,’ John said. ‘Maybe it was hiding in there.’

  ‘We’re going to look at it next time,’ Jacqui told them, and him.

  ‘A cave?’ Betty was having none of that. ‘You keep away from caves, you hear? Start poking around in the dark, next thing you’re lost, never find your way out. That what you want, is it? Fall down some hole in the ground, never see neither of you no more?’

  ‘We’ll take a torch,’ Jacqui said.

  ‘I think you should leave caves well alone,’ Judy said with the decided air of a grown-up who had made up her mind. There were times when Judy, bright and lively though she was, came across as older than Frances. Older than old, sometimes.

  Jacqui said nothing, which she had discovered worked pretty well, mostly.

  ‘You hear me?’

  ‘I hear you.’

  But she hadn’t promised, had she? And provided Judy didn’t push it, she wouldn’t, which meant they were free to do what they liked. Perhaps John was right and there had been a yeti inside the cave. It made her sorry there hadn’t been enough time to check out whatever John had seen, but Judy would have nailed them, sure enough, if they’d kept her waiting. This way they were still in with a chance for later. Provided no one made her promise anything.

  ‘John and me are going outside,’ she said.

  ‘Not for long,’ Judy said. ‘We’ll be going home soon.’

  ‘Watch out for snakes,’ Frances said.

  But they went anyway. With any luck, the grown-ups would have forgotten all about caves by the time they came back.

  ‘Snakes aren’t going to trouble me,’ John said.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘The snake is my totem. That’s what my name means. Munda means snake.’

  Jacqui thought it was very grand to be called snake. She practised a few variations to herself.

  Jacqueline Taipan … Jacqueline Tiger …

  Somehow it didn’t sound the same.

  ‘What would my totem be?’ she asked him.

  John had not forgiven her for refusing to look at the cave. ‘You can’t have a totem. You’re white.’

  It didn’t seem fair.

  ‘Maybe we should call you pussy cat,’ said John. ‘Jack Pussy Cat.’

  She didn’t think much of that. All the same … ‘Cats can kill snakes.’

  ‘Not this one.’ He grinned at her, pleased to have found a way of annoying her. ‘Jack Pussy Cat! Jack Pussy Cat!’

  And took off through the grass, voice raised mockingly, while she chased furiously after him.

  4

  They had intended to go up the mountain again the following weekend but it rained first thing. By the time the clouds had cleared it was too late so they went to the beach instead.

  ‘Look …’

  They sank lower in the grass and watched the rhythmic movements of the two naked white figures that lay entwined on the edge of the sand.

  Jacqui wanted to ask what they were doing but thought she knew or at least ought to know, so kept quiet and watched while the figures wriggled and tumbled and thrust, and eventually lay still.

  John laughed.

  ‘Sshh!’

  Too late. Hot and angry looks and a frenzied grabbing for clothes.

  ‘Let’s get out of here!’ Jacqui hissed.

  Away they went, belting across the dunes, laughing at the release from tension now that they were spying no longer.

  There was a house further along the beach. It was set back from the sand, with a big stone wall all round it. It was a grand house, modern, with windows that scowled at the sunlight.

  ‘I wonder who lives there,’ said John.

  ‘That’s Harley Woodcock’s place. Frances’s stepson.’

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  ‘You haven’t missed a thing,’ Jacqui told him. ‘Harley the pig, that’s what I heard Judy call him once, when she was talking to Arthur. Said he was giving Frances a hard time.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Dunno. But I don’t reckon she likes him much either.’

  ‘How do you know what Judy called him?’

  ‘Little jugs have big ears. That’s what Arthur says.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means I listen to what grown-ups are saying.’ She was not in the least ashamed of it; it was the only way, if you wanted to find out what was going on in the grown-up world; they would never tell you, otherwise.

  ‘If Frances is your auntie, why don’t you stay with her?’

  ‘Because I stay with Arthur and Judy.’

  ‘But if she’s your auntie …’

  Jacqui didn’t understand what he meant. ‘Frances is my mother’s sister. Arthur is her brother. That’s why they had me here to live with them, after my parents died.’ She looked at him, puzzled. ‘Like Betty’s your aunt, too. The sister of your father or your mother. Isn’t she?’

  ‘More like a sort of cousin, I suppose you’d say.’

  ‘Why call her auntie, then?’

  ‘Because she brings me up.’

  ‘But why —’

  ‘It’s the way we do things.’

  From his tone of voice Jacqui understood that John was not going to talk about it any more. There were blackfella ways and whitefella ways and nothing to be said about either of them.

  It seemed a funny way of doing things, to have an aunt who wasn’t to bring you up instead of your parents, but she didn’t want to fight John about it. Instead she thought of something else to keep them occupied.

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ she said.

  She thought it would be fun to carry out a raid on Harley Woodcock’s surly-looking house.

  ‘Not a real raid, of course. Just a pretend one.’

  Like the dances that had been real and also pretend, they would be redskins raiding the fort the cavalry had built in the Indian territory.

  ‘If he’s as horrible as you say …’

  ‘That’s why we’re doing it.’

&n
bsp; There would have been no point making the raid if the house had been empty or Harley a kindly man. It had to be scary enough to be exciting or it wasn’t worth doing at all.

  They made their way to the entrance: big, wrought-iron gates standing open. They spied through them and saw a long driveway leading to the house. A silver Porsche stood outside the front door.

  ‘He’s at home, all right.’

  There were a number of trees and shrubs inside the grounds. They were too close to the sea to grow really well, but they were big enough to give them the cover they needed for their raid.

  ‘What’ll we do when we’re inside the gates?’ John asked.

  ‘We’ll case the joint.’ She’d read the phrase somewhere.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We’ll run up to the house, slap the wall by the front door and then get the hell out of it.’

  That was another phrase she’d read; Arthur might favour the classics but Jacqui, with the rest of the school to help her, was more broad-minded.

  ‘Quick!’

  Through the gates they went, sprinting for cover under the nearest bank of shrubs.

  ‘Pow!’ Jacqui was kneeling up, peering between the branches. ‘Pow!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That sentry. Didn’t you see him? I got him with my bow and arrow.’ She spun round. ‘Pow!’

  Another one bit the dust.

  Dead sentries apart, it seemed that no one in the fort had spotted them. They left the first line of defence and moved on to the next, scooting quickly across the open ground to plunge onto their fronts beneath a cluster of wattle trees that trailed their pointed leaves limply in the salt wind.

  ‘How do we get away?’ John asked.

  ‘We run out the gate, spring on our pintail horses and ride off.’

  ‘Pintail?’

  ‘It’s a type of horse.’ She spoke confidently but was unsure whether she’d got the name right.

  ‘It’s a duck.’

  ‘It’s a horse!’

  Something else not to be discussed.

  ‘I can’t ride, anyway.’

  ‘Neither can I.’

  Lucky they were only pretend horses, in that case.

  Another dash. They lay panting beneath some mixed shrubs that included …

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Sshh!’

  … roses.

  It was a bit too close to the house to shoot any more sentries. Jacqui lay still, working out how far it was to the front door.

  ‘I’ll go this side,’ she said. ‘You go that. We’ll both slap the wall and then …’

  Get the hell out of it.

  ‘Your side’s nearer than mine.’

  ‘It’s not!’

  ‘Course it is! Much nearer!’

  ‘Then you go this side and I’ll go that. If you’re chicken about it.’

  ‘I’m not chicken!’

  They leapt up and ran and, through confusion as to who was doing what, collided with each other and fell sprawling on the patch of open gravel immediately outside the front door. As though on cue, the door was flung open.

  Steps crunched; a voice spoke, as harsh as the driveway.

  ‘What the hell do you kids think you’re doing?’

  Harley. Jacqui risked a glance to confirm who it was, then looked away at once. Her knees were stinging with gravel burn. Never mind that; she’d got them into this, now she must get them out again. Words formed in the air before her.

  ‘We were coming to ask if there were any jobs you would like us to do for you. Tidy the garden, maybe. Wash some dishes …’

  Anything, even dishes, so long as it kept them safe from this man whose teeth — twice as many as a normal man, surely? — became more pointed and threatening as he drew back the lips over his gums.

  ‘You want to help, why are you sprawling all over my garden?’

  ‘We tripped.’

  It was the truth, but her answer did not seem to please him. ‘You think you can come in here and raise merry hell on my property? I’ve been watching you. Oh yes. Digging around in the bushes …’

  ‘We weren’t,’ she said.

  He stepped forward, hand raised. She cringed, then he lowered his hand again.

  ‘You’d like me to do that, wouldn’t you? Give you an excuse to tell the police I’d assaulted you? Well, tough luck, mate. I won’t touch you. Now, clear off out of it, you hear me? Come back and I’ll have a word with the police myself. There are laws against trespass, you know.’

  He stood over them while they dusted themselves down. Jacqui saw that John’s knees were bleeding too. Harley frogmarched them to the gate.

  ‘Scat!’

  Jacqui had hoped he hadn’t recognised her but his next words dashed any hopes of that.

  ‘Tell my stepmother I said she should keep you under better control.’

  They ran without further argument. When they looked back from the edge of the dunes, Harley had gone back into the house. They heard the dull thud as he slammed the door behind him.

  ‘I’ll come back tonight,’ John said. ‘Burn his stinking place down. Him inside it, any luck.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ she told him.

  5

  Who would have thought four scraped knees would cause such a fuss?

  ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Playing.’

  ‘Did you ever see such kids?’ Betty demanded, although whether of Frances, the house or the air, no one could be sure.

  There was antiseptic and a cloth to dab it on with, and the treatment hurt more than Harley’s gravel. Frances fiddled around with a pair of tweezers and that was the worst thing of all. Not only because of how it stung.

  ‘Gravel?’ She held a fragment up to the light so her feeble eyes could inspect it more clearly. ‘Where have you been to pick up gravel in your knees? The nearest place I can think of that’s got a gravel drive …’ She stopped and looked at them both. ‘You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.’

  ‘It was a cavalry fort,’ Jacqui explained. ‘We were Indians and —’

  Frances was not interested in Indians or cavalry forts. ‘Did he catch you?’

  Jacqui, too, inspected her knees. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘In the drive, that was all. We didn’t do anything. I mean,’ she said righteously, ‘we didn’t break into the house or anything.’

  Although the thought had crossed her mind.

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘He told us to get out. Said there was a law against trespass.’

  ‘He said scat,’ John said.

  ‘He also said …’ And Jacqui stopped.

  ‘What?’ Frances’s voice was ominous; now was not the time to play games with her.

  ‘He said you should keep us under better control.’

  ‘Cheek of the man,’ Betty said.

  ‘It’s his property,’ Frances pointed out.

  ‘In the drive? What harm they doing?’

  ‘Even so …’

  ‘Even so nothing! That letter he sent you … I’m surprised he’s the nerve to open his mouth.’

  ‘This town is full of weird people,’ Jacqui said.

  Frances smiled. ‘That’s a very sweeping statement. Who do we know who’s weird?’

  ‘Well, there’s Harley …’

  ‘Harley ain’t weird,’ Betty said. ‘He’s bad.’

  ‘There is no call to say such a thing,’ Frances told her.

  ‘Never trust a grabber, that’s what I say.’

  ‘He’s done nothing to you.’

  ‘Because I got nothing he wants. If I had, it’d be a different story. You need to keep your eye on that man,’ Betty said. ‘This is his house, remember. He’s already written to remind you. Why should he do that, ’less he’s planning to turn up one of these days and put you out in the street?’

  ‘What nonsense you talk!’ Frances said crossly.

  ‘Isn’t this your own house?’ Jacqui
was interested by what Betty had said.

  ‘My husband left the house to Harley. But Harley agreed that I could stay here as long as I liked. He told me so himself.’ If it’s any business of yours, her tone said, crosser than ever.

  ‘That was then,’ Betty said. ‘You told me yourself: he give you nuthin in writing.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ Frances said, clattering plates in the sink.

  Jacqui thought that Frances’s snip-snap way of speaking, so unlike her usual self, might be because she feared that Betty was right.

  ‘Where would you go if he chucked you out?’

  ‘That is a hypothetical question.’ She saw Jacqui’s expression. ‘Hypothetical means it won’t happen. And chuck is not a word ladies use.’

  Jacqui thought of pointing out that she was a child, not a lady, but in view of Frances’s mood decided she’d better not.

  ‘Why can’t ladies use it?’

  ‘Because it’s slang.’

  ‘Darn right,’ Betty said.

  ‘You were telling us,’ Frances said, ‘about all the weird people, as you call them, in Goorapilly. You have so far mentioned my stepson. Who else did you have in mind?’

  Jacqui hadn’t expected to be taken up on what she had thought the most harmless of remarks. She thought as hard as she could.

  ‘Jeff Toms,’ she said. Surely no one could argue about that?

  ‘You think Jeff Toms is weird, do you?’ asked Frances in a dangerous voice.

  Uh oh. ‘Everybody says he’s around the bend,’ she said defensively.

  ‘And who is everybody?’

  ‘Brett Shaughnessy was saying only the other day that Jeff Toms should be in the loony bin.’

  ‘And since when do we take any notice of what Brett Shaughnessy says?’

  It was obviously Jacqui’s day for sticking her foot in her mouth. She decided it would be safer if she kept her mouth shut, so she did.

  ‘I want you to listen to me carefully,’ Frances said. Her voice was sharp no longer but serious, with a note in it that might be pain. ‘Jeff Toms is my friend. He is not a lunatic, whatever Brett Shaughnessy says. He went to Vietnam to fight in a war that our government said we should be fighting. That war ended up by hurting him, as it did many others.’

  ‘Was he wounded?’

  ‘In a sense he was. Not his body, but his mind.’