Walking the Boundaries

by Jackie French

  ‘There’s a pool just over there,’ said Meg. ‘Come on.’

  The flat rock was warm around the pool, as though it stored the sun from yesterday. The pool looked very black in the early morning light.

  ‘You get a fire going,’ ordered Meg. ‘I’m going to start on the yabbies.’

  ‘How?’ asked Martin.

  Meg sighed. ‘What do they teach you in that brilliant school of yours? How to hunt roos with a rolling pin?’

  ‘Not how to make fire with a bit of bone, anyway,’ said Martin.

  ‘Just like last night,’ instructed Meg impatiently. ‘Get lots of little twigs and grass, and prop them into a tall pile, then put the coal inside. Any one-eyed idiot could do it.’

  ‘Who’s an idiot?’ Martin grabbed the bone from her hand. It felt hot, and he nearly dropped it. He moved his hand down to the end where it was cooler, then stomped over to a clump of gums to look for twigs.

  Dry wood, dry leaves, some shredded bark — he piled them carefully. He’d show her. He wondered how long it had taken her to learn to make a fire — more than one night, he bet. Probably that Nellie person had shown her, along with the ‘secrets’ she was so proud of. He tipped the coal out into the twigs.

  Nothing happened. Blast! The coal would go out, and they didn’t have another one. How would they start a fire now? They’d have to eat cold food — if they could find anything — and Meg would lose her temper again, or laugh at him, which would be worse.

  A thin finger of smoke started to wriggle out of the pile of twigs. It grew fatter. Something sparked, and died, then sparked again. Suddenly a flame leapt into the air, and began to eat the twigs. Martin tossed on more, and watched them feed the flame.

  Bigger twigs, a large branch, some hunks of casuarina washed up by the flood, just beginning to dry. They hissed and sent up steam, then the fire caught them and began to burn their bark. It was a wonderful fire now, a giant fire, the best fire in the world . . . Martin glanced over to Meg in triumph.

  She wasn’t watching. She was crouched on the bank of the pool, intent on something floating in the water. He went over to her.

  The string that had held her swag together was floating in the pool. Suddenly the string jerked. Meg pulled it back, fast, then hurled it out of the water.

  Something was on the end of it. It wriggled on the sandy grass. It was like a prawn, but bigger, with giant nippers and a pointed head. A yabby. He reached down to pick it up.

  ‘Careful!’ cried Meg.

  ‘Ouch! It bit me!’ Martin dropped it in surprise.

  ‘Of course it bit you. You’re a wonderful clever boy, for a fool. What did you expect a yabby to do? Sing you a lullaby? Leave it alone and let’s get some more.’ She grabbed a branch and poked the yabby under one of the blankets. There were more there, Martin saw, crawling and quarrelling in the dark water. ‘Here,’ said Meg. ‘You have a go too.’

  She passed him a bit of string. Some of last night’s possum was tied to one end.

  ‘What do I do now?’

  ‘Just throw it in the water,’ explained Meg. ‘The yabbies will do the rest. Even a halfwit goanna could manage it.’

  Martin hurled the string across the pool. The water swallowed it, dark ripples spreading where it splashed. He held onto the end of the string, feeling silly.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Wait,’ said Meg, throwing hers out next to his.

  Suddenly the string jerked.

  ‘Pull!’ yelled Meg. ‘Fast! Before it gets away!’

  Martin pulled. Something was on the end! A yabby! He hauled it out onto the bank proudly.

  ‘How many do we need?’ he cried excitedly.

  ‘Lots!’ grinned Meg. ‘Yabbies are good tucker!’

  The light grew stronger as they fished. The pool turned pale silver-blue instead of black. The ripples shivered as the breeze tongued down towards the gorge. The pile of yabbies grew under the blanket.

  ‘Hey, look!’ yelled Martin. ‘Snake!’ He pointed into the water.

  ‘That’s not a snake,’ said Meg. ‘It’s an eel. Eels are good to eat too. Haven’t you ever had one?’

  Martin shook his head.

  ‘What do you eat then?’ demanded Meg.

  ‘I don’t know. Spaghetti, I suppose. Pizza.’

  ‘How do you catch a pizza?’

  Martin considered. ‘It’d take too long to tell,’ he said finally.

  Meg shrugged. ‘Well, don’t tell me then. Shout it to the kookaburras, I don’t care.’ She stood up. ‘I’m going to heat some rocks.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To cook the yabbies,’ said Meg, as though that explained it all.

  Martin watched her, keeping one eye on his yabby line, as she tossed some small rocks into the fire, then gathered the yabbies in the blanket. She started to carry them over to the creek.

  ‘Hey, you’re not letting them go again, are you?’

  ‘’Course not,’ said Meg, as she dumped them into a puddle of water in the rock above the main pool. ‘Hey, keep an eye on them, will you? If any try to get out just shove them back in again.’

  She ran back to the fire and began to poke at the rocks with a green branch, scraping them out onto a platter of bark. She ran back again as the bark began to char.

  ‘There!’ she said, throwing the hot rocks into the rock pool. The water hissed and bubbled. The yabbies were still, killed in the sudden heat. Even their colour was changing.

  ‘Breakfast!’ said Meg, satisfied.

  The yabbies were delicious — like enormous prawns but better, thought Martin. Much better. Juicier, thicker, fresh as the water twisting through the rock, tasting of sunlight and creek. He leant back and watched the dark curve of a bird balance in the sky. Even the rock felt smooth, like a giant egg left to hatch in the sun.

  ‘Wedge-tailed eagle,’ said Meg, following his gaze. ‘It’s looking for breakfast too. I think it has a nest up in the cliffs.’ She stretched. ‘Come on. I need a swim.’

  Martin sat up. What about swimmers? He didn’t have any. Surely Meg didn’t have any in her swag.

  Meg was shrugging off her clothes. She had strange garments underneath it. Bloomers and a camisole — a bit like shorts and a tank top. She tugged at the straps of the camisole, as though she was going to take it off, then glanced at Martin. She left the straps where they were, and ran to the pool. Her legs flashed long and pale, and she dived in.

  Martin took off his shirt slowly, and then his jeans. He stepped up to the pool gingerly in his underpants. The water looked cold. He supposed it was safe to swim. What if the yabbies bit him . . . or the eel?

  ‘Come on!’ yelled Meg. ‘It’s wonderful!’

  Martin slid into the water.

  It felt like cold silk. It felt as thick as cream. He’d never felt water like it. His toes numbed and he began to swim.

  His skin started to tingle as he warmed up. He floated on his back and watched the sky. The clouds were like marshmallows, thick and white. When he rolled over he could still see them, reflected in the pool. It was like flying as well as swimming. It was like being balanced between two worlds.

  Meg was on the bank now, tossing more wood onto the fire. He watched the smoke rise lazily into the air, drifting through the casuarina needles, evaporating into blue. The world had lost its shape; it was colour, green and mist and sunlight . . . He shut his eyes.

  SEVEN

  Fire!

  ‘MARTIN! MARTIN!’ It was Meg’s voice. She was yelling from the bank.

  Martin opened his eyes, then blinked again. Something was wrong. The sky was the wrong colour. It was grey, not blue. The sun was an orange haze. The air was thick with smoke. It ground into his lungs, choking him, making him cough.

  ‘Martin! Please! Where are you?’

  Martin began to swim to shore. It was hard to see the bank. He couldn’t see Meg at all. Then the smoke swirled away and he saw her outline.

  ‘We’ve got to run! Martin! Hurry!�
�� She shoved his clothes at him.

  ‘What is it? Is it the campfire? Where did all that smoke come from?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was watching the fire. I think I must have gone to sleep. Then when I opened my eyes the fire wasn’t there anymore, and the smoke was everywhere! We’ve got to get somewhere safe!’

  ‘Where? Where’s the fire?’

  Meg was shaking. ‘I don’t know. I can’t see anything! I don’t know where the fire is! I don’t know how it all came so quickly!’

  ‘Then how do we know where to go? We might just run right into the flames.’

  Meg shook her head. ‘The fire will find us wherever we go. It must be big.’ She chewed the end of her plait, trying to think. ‘The wind! The wind will be pushing the fire. We have to run from the wind!’

  ‘Why don’t we just stay here? We can get into the creek when the fire comes.’ Martin struggled into his jeans.

  ‘No!’ Meg was nearly crying. ‘Don’t you know anything about fires? Do you have chicken guts for brains? The creek’s too small, too shallow. The top of it will boil — the trees will catch alight on either side and fall on us. We need a clearing, something to shelter us . . . We need to get back home . . . it’s green around the house . . . we can fight the fire back in the paddocks . . .’

  ‘Your home?’ Martin was startled. What would Meg’s mother and Nellie think of a stranger from another time bursting into their house?

  ‘Come on!’ cried Meg. ‘Down the ridge! It’s the quickest way.’

  She grabbed Martin’s hand. They ran through the trees. Meg’s bare feet padded on the bark and tussock. Martin’s Reeboks were louder as he stumbled in her wake. Along the creek and up the next hill, along the boundaries of the ridge. The smoke washed and eddied round their faces, snapping at their heels. Even the birds were silent, as though they’d fled or their throats were filled with smoke. A burning leaf fluttered through the air, balanced on the smoke. It was hard to breathe.

  ‘Up here!’ panted Meg. ‘Then we can go down the ridge. It’s the easiest way!’

  ‘Meg! Look!’ Martin halted.

  The ridge opposite was in flames. Spears of flame hurled into the sky like catherine wheels, a bright wall of red and black. The heat was so intense even the smoke had lifted. The valley in front was clear.

  ‘No!’ Meg’s voice shook.

  Martin took her arm. ‘It hasn’t got to the valley yet. We can beat it! Come on!’

  ‘That’s not it. Martin . . . look down there!’

  Martin peered through the smoke into the clearer air of the valley. ‘I can’t see anything. Just trees and the cliffs and the creek. It’s all right!’

  ‘No, it isn’t!’ Meg’s voice trembled. ‘We should be able to see the house from here, and the paddocks with the sheep. There’s nothing there! Nothing at all.’

  ‘But . . .’ Martin shook his head. It couldn’t be . . . ‘Things must have shifted again. We can’t be in your time . . .’

  ‘Maybe it’s yours,’ said Meg hopefully.

  ‘No. Ted’s house is in the same place. It must be another time. Before either of the houses were built . . .’

  ‘Then where can we go? The fire’s going to leap the valley!’

  ‘I don’t know! We have to run. Maybe we’ll find a cave . . .’

  ‘There aren’t any caves,’ sobbed Meg. ‘There’s nowhere . . .’

  ‘We can’t stay here. Come on!’

  They began to run again. The fire whispered at their backs. It was getting louder now, a snicker, then a roar. The smoke was black. It tore into their throats and made their noses raw. Black leaves like burning bats floated through the air. Grey shadows hunched where once there’d been green trees. Tiny fires started to spark and flicker as the wall of flame grew close, islands of colour in a world of smoke.

  Martin could hear Meg’s breath like giant sobs in her throat. His throat felt like he’d swallowed coals. His chest hurt. His legs ached with a pain he’d never felt before.

  Meg screamed. Martin glanced at her. Her hair was smoking! A burning twig must have caught in it! He beat at it frantically with his hands.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Martin panted. It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. His hands hurt.

  ‘Yes . . . no . . . Martin . . . I can’t see where to go . . . the smoke’s too thick . . . the fire’s too fast . . . We can’t outrun it . . .’

  ‘We have to try,’ gasped Martin.

  ‘No! We have to shelter . . . dig a hole . . . even a wombat hole . . . Oh, I wish I could remember more of what Nellie told me about fires . . .’

  ‘We’ve nothing to dig with . . .’ choked Martin through the smoke in his throat.

  The noise came suddenly — footsteps, running purposefully through the terrified trees, over the patchy grass that cowered before the fire to come. A dark face swam before them, obscured by smoke. It was as though it had been called by their fear.

  ‘Munni! Barabanay!’ The voice was harsh from smoke. ‘Goolai!’

  ‘Who . . .?’ panted Martin, squinting through the thick air.

  ‘Goolai!’ cried the voice again.

  ‘Meg, who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What is he saying? Can you understand him?’

  ‘He said run . . . follow him . . . Come on . . .’

  ‘You’re sure you understand?’

  ‘I think so . . . it’s not quite like Nellie talks . . . Martin, we’ve got to follow him . . .’

  ‘But where’s he going?’

  ‘I don’t know. Martin, we’ve got no choice . . .’

  ‘Gurung-gurung, yanguu!’

  The figure vanished in the smoke again. Meg and Martin plunged after him, trying to see . . . a leg . . . a shoulder . . . a dark foot brown against the grey. It was as though they followed a shadow, darker than the shadowed air.

  The roar grew steadily behind them. Small fires stung their eyes. There was no air . . . no air at all . . .

  Suddenly a hand came out of the smoke. It grabbed Martin and pushed him down, then pulled Meg in after them.

  ‘Dhugga ngunna, naii!’

  The air was sweeter closer to the ground. Martin breathed in the scent of damp and sweat. They were under a rock ledge. The sand was soft and damp. Something was thrown over them — a blanket . . . fur . . . a skin . . . many skins sewn together. The three of them huddled together.

  He could hear the fire eating at the trees outside. He could hear the others breathing, feel their sweat cold against his arms. He could feel the cool of the sand on his legs and the rock at his back and the heat that buffeted them through the skins that covered them.

  THEN IT WAS OVER. The world was quiet, a strange quiet that he’d never heard before — just the fire in the distance growing fainter, fainter, the crack of burning limbs falling to the ground, the faint breath of wind panting at the sky . . . and nothing else . . . no birds . . . no rustle of the leaves as they wandered with the breeze . . .

  The skins slid off. The world had colour now. The grey was gone, as though the fire had eaten up the smoke as well as all the green. Tiny tongues of flame licked the burning trunks and branches on the ground, and that was all.

  The world was black and red.

  ‘Kanbi yarra bunye yanguu.’

  Martin looked up at the person who had saved them. He was tall, some years older than Meg and Martin, seventeen perhaps or more. His face had a black trace of beard. His black hair brushed the top of the cleft where they had sheltered. A bone poked through the bottom of his nose. Martin stared at it. He wondered if it hurt.

  The youth was looking at Meg and Martin as though smoke had prevented him from seeing them before. He grinned at them. His teeth were long and white.

  ‘Thank you . . .’ began Martin.

  The youth shook his head. He was wearing skins looped back and front on a bit of string around his hips. His feet were bare like Meg’s. The toes were very wide. He held Martin by the shoulder, and began to
inspect him closely. ‘Yalu wirrinya, duggururgurak gooung . . .’

  Martin brushed the hand away. ‘I don’t understand . . . Who are you?’

  The youth fingered Martin’s buttons. He shook his head. ‘Wunda . . .’ He poked at the zip on Martin’s jeans.

  ‘Hey, get your hands off,’ ordered Martin.

  ‘Ganni . . .’ The youth looked affronted.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. You saved our lives, but . . . oh heck, Meg, can you understand what he’s saying?’

  Meg shook her head. ‘A little. He doesn’t speak like Nellie does.’

  The youth’s sharp eyes were on them. The whites looked bright against his smoke-dark skin, with flecks of red from the cinders blown against his face as he’d led them through the flames. He seemed to be trying to understand their speech. He put his hand back on Martin’s shoulder, and patted it three times, then hit his own chest three times as well.

  ‘Wullamudulla,’ he stated.

  Martin shook his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he repeated.

  ‘Doon tunderstunt . . .’ said the youth slowly. He tapped Martin’s chest. ‘Doon tunderstunt?’

  ‘He thinks it’s your name!’ cried Meg.

  ‘Hey, Meg, how do you say “no”?’

  ‘Gurragan . . .’

  ‘Gurragan, gurragan,’ said Martin desperately. ‘I’m Martin — my name’s Martin.’ He tapped himself on the chest as the youth had done. ‘Martin. Martin. Martin.’

  ‘Martin,’ said the youth. He grinned again. He tapped his own chest. ‘Wullamudulla.’

  ‘Wallamal . . .’ began Martin.

  Wullamudulla’s grin grew even wider. ‘Wullamudulla. Wullamudulla.’

  ‘Wullamudulla,’ repeated Martin. ‘And this is Meg.’

  Wullamudulla glanced at Meg, then turned back to Martin. He spoke slowly and carefully, as you might to someone you liked who wasn’t very bright. ‘Dhuniung, bubal . . .’

  Martin glared at Meg. ‘You’ll have to try to talk to him.’

  ‘If I can,’ agreed Meg. ‘I think he’d rather talk to you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, because I’m a girl,’ said Meg, as though that explained everything.

  ‘Well, he can’t talk to me. Or I can’t talk to him. Meg, you’ve got to try. Ask him where we are.’