by Di Morrissey
Jessica looked away again. ‘Yeah. Nice husband, sweet kids, interesting careers, family acceptance.’
Sally’s heart ached for Jessica. Eight years of marriage and now this had happened. Separation. Divorce. Although she didn’t know the details, Sally could feel the pain and sadness, anger too, radiating from her dearest friend.
‘Has this been coming for a while, or did you just wake up one morning and decide to leave?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Bit of both. I knew we were in trouble, but I pushed it to one side. I could’ve walked out, but I buried it, ignored it. Hoped things’d get better. Blamed myself.’
‘Don’t ever do that. It always takes two. Maybe you should have stood up to him. Called him out. Suggested counselling, all that kind of thing.’
‘Easy to say. Easier to shut up and just keep on keeping on. I didn’t want my parents saying, “We knew this’d happen.” Maybe I’d have got round to a decision quicker if you’d been there in person to talk to. I’ve really missed that.’
‘I’m sorry, Jess. I know it’s not the same on the phone –’ began Sally, but Jessica waved a hand.
‘It’s okay. It’s hard. I’m hurt, he was being a bastard and my work was suffering.’ She gave a small smile. ‘Now, I wake up in the morning and I’m alone. I had to fight him for a fair share of all our stuff. But you know what? I feel good now that it’s over. Calm. Scared, but the black cloud has gone. God knows what I’m going to do with my life, though.’
‘You have a great job at the lab. I’m sure the uni will support you taking leave and stuff.’
‘Probably. But I quit.’
‘What! Jess, you didn’t quit your bloody job? That’s stupid! Why?’ Sally hit the brakes and pulled onto the shoulder. ‘What the hell for?’
For the first time, Jessica looked slightly cheerful. She smiled at Sally’s shocked face. ‘That got you going, hey?’
Sally dropped her head onto the steering wheel. ‘God, Jess. Don’t say stuff like that, you really shocked me. That’s not funny.’ She sat up, looked in the wing mirror and pulled back onto the empty road.
‘It’s true though, Sal, just the same.’
Sally glanced at Jessica’s face, calmer now, her shoulders and body seemingly relaxed. ‘I don’t get it. Have you got money? You’re divorced, on your own. Will you be able to manage?’
‘I’m not sure. But I needed time out. I needed you, Sal. Us. I want to go back to you and me against the world, babe.’
Sally paused. ‘Oh, Jess. You can’t go back. We can’t be kids again – we have . . . responsibilities . . .’ She broke off and they drove for a while in silence. ‘Hey, do you remember when we played hooky one sports day and climbed almost up to the peak through those massive trees? God, some of them might have been a thousand years old . . .’
Jessica nodded. ‘Hell, yes. And we found that man with the axe . . .’
‘Yes! I don’t know who was more shocked and scared . . . him or us! Man, did we start running. Must’ve been an illegal logger.’
‘I remember feeling like I was running underwater, nothing was working properly, and everything was kinda green, and those massive tree buttress roots. You wanted to hide in them.’
‘Each one was the size of a room or a hut. I jumped in one and there was a paddymelon sitting there dozing. It bounded off like a crazy thing.’ Sally started to laugh. ‘You just kept zigzagging, flying like a maniac down the hill through the trees.’
‘You were squealing like some crazy creature. Remember the birds taking off in the canopy? We shook that mountain, girl!’
‘And then we came to the ledge, the stream . . .’
‘And the cave!’ they shouted in unison.
Both fell silent for a moment.
‘Have you been back there at all?’ Jessica asked.
Sally shook her head. ‘No way. And I wouldn’t want my child exploring up there.’
‘We did some mad and fun things, didn’t we?’ said Jessica quietly.
‘Stupid. Crazy, wild. Like a lot of kids, I s’pose.’
‘No. No, Sal. We did some really crazy things. I miss that.’
‘We’re s’posed to be grown-ups now,’ Sally said, chuckling. ‘That’s all behind us. I don’t know that I want my daughter finding out about some of the silly things we got up to!’
‘Why?’
‘Why do you think? I don’t want Katie sneaking off and doing stupid stuff.’
‘No. Not that. Why should it be behind us?’ Jessica leaned over and grabbed Sally’s arm. ‘Why don’t we get out there? Have a crazy adventure, live a little, go wild, just the two of us! Like we used to!’
‘You’re nuts. You’ve been stuck in a lab in a white coat for too long.’
‘Yes, I have! I want to go and see the cave again. See if it’s still . . . as special as I remember. I’ve never told anyone about it, have you?’
Sally shook her head. ‘No. No, I haven’t. I wonder if anyone else has been there? It wasn’t easy to find. Anything could have happened, a rock fall or something. Maybe we can’t get in there now, anyway.’
‘Well, let’s go and have a look. Could you play hooky, Sal, and let Toby run the farm for a day?’
‘Of course,’ she said quickly, defensively.
‘You’re not afraid of the cave? After the last time we were there?’ Jessica paused. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t remember? Have you blocked it out?’ Her voice was light, teasing.
‘Oh, you mean the time you saved my life? That mere bagatelle? I’m struggling to recall . . .’ Sally frowned, and then they both burst out laughing.
But Jessica’s laughter stopped, and she dropped her face in her hands.
Sally reached over and touched her, trying to keep her eyes on the road ahead. ‘Oh, Jess . . . Wait, let me find a place to stop.’
Jessica leaned her head back against the seat, her eyes closed, a tear slipping from beneath her eyelashes.
‘Oh, damn, there’s never anywhere to pull over when you need to,’ muttered Sally, and then noticed an empty farm stall and drove up in front of it. She turned off the engine and reached over to Jessica. ‘What is it? You can tell me. Please. C’mon, let’s get out.’
Sally put her hazard lights on and by the time she’d hurried around the car, Jessica had tumbled from her seat and was sitting on the verge, her head resting on her knees as she wrapped her arms around her legs.
Sally sat down on the grass beside her. She put her arms around Jessica’s shoulders as they shook with muffled sobs, and she waited.
Eventually Jessica drew a long breath and straightened up. ‘Sorry. This has nothing to do with you. Us. The cave . . . It’s just . . . I’m thirty-three, with no partner, no job, no home. What have I got? I feel like an old knitted jumper that’s unravelling.’
‘Everyone has unravelling days, when you think even one more small tug will send your whole life spiralling out of control. When you don’t think you can hold it together a minute longer, Jess. I do too.’
‘You? Don’t tell me that. It’s difficult enough with my mother being worried and looking wounded because I didn’t “confide” in her. Like, what could she have done? And now my perfect friend with the perfect life tells me she unravels too. About what? Tell me about something horrible in your life and make me feel better.’
Sally gave a bit of a smile. ‘It’s all relative, isn’t it? I was glad you seemed to be leading such a stimulating, interesting life, even if it was with the obnoxious Hardy,’ she said. ‘I sometimes feel I’m trapped in a backwater, albeit a beautiful one, with the perfect family. But something’s missing. Look, we don’t have to wade through all this right now. Let’s get home to Arcadia, enjoy the view, play with Katie and the dog, share war stories, have a glass of our neighbour’s vino.’ She leaned over and gave Jessica a quick hug. ‘I’m so gla
d you came. It’s always been you and me, against the world, babe. Right?’
‘Yeah. Right.’ But Jessica’s response was flat, a rote reply.
As Sally helped her friend to her feet, her heart ached for her.
*
As they cruised through the landscape surrounding Burridge township, where Jessica had spent her childhood, she was struck by the familiar and the memories she’d thought were buried, which now resurfaced. She noted the new additions to the town where, under other circumstances, she would have loved to stop a while, linger and explore. For the moment, she just wanted to curl up in a safe haven and let the world pass her by.
The original 1880s hotel, which she recalled as seedy and faded, had been revamped, no doubt with a trendy website to promote it to the tourists. Along the waterfront were smart cafés, a wine and oyster bar, a maritime museum, and the marketplace, set up for weekend markets of local produce, handicrafts, knick-knacks and antiques, it seemed.
The old cattle yards and apple storage sheds were still there, if, apparently, leading a different life these days. The sheds had become a co-op, and a sign at the yards advertised a coming rodeo.
‘Oh, my gosh, even here! Look at that.’ She clapped her hand to her forehead in mock shock.
A group of Chinese tourists, selfie sticks angling their phones at their eager smiles, posed before the town’s symbolic old apple tree, a relic from and reminder of the town’s glory days. An enterprising stall was selling every kind of food made from apples, while baskets of fresh apples were being picked over by the visitors, who were taking more selfies of themselves pretending to bite into real fruit with stalk and leaves attached.
‘Yes, Chinese tourists are mad for Tassie. Real food and all that. You see them stopping whenever they see a live animal or fruit on a tree, and they take a zillion selfies. They’ve never seen food on the hoof, or not wrapped in plastic in a supermarket,’ said Sally. ‘If they can afford the best meat, milk, produce and fruit at exorbitant prices in Chinese stores, you can bet it comes from here – clean and green and safe. That’s us.’
Jessica was looking forward to spending time at Arcadia now that the farm belonged to Sally and Toby. She knew it so well from the days when Sally’s parents had run it, mainly as an apple orchard. Sally and Toby had embraced the new gourmet food products that Tasmania was becoming well known for, and were experimenting with boutique crops including truffles and saffron.
‘Is that how you label your products? “Clean, green and safe”? Surely you need more exciting brand names? Sun Gold, Dawn Sun Saffron. And for the truffles, Black Gold, White Passion? That sort of thing? They’re a valuable and exotic crop, right?’
Sally smiled. ‘Sure they are, and rare, and hard to protect from thieves! Marketing them is the easier part. My mother has grand ideas of add-on products like oil and salt and dried truffles, but we have enough trouble just meeting the demand from restaurants and chefs.’
‘Is there any competition?’
‘It’s on the way. We’re lucky we had an eight-year head start. It’s a contentious subject. There’re a lot of food producers doing well all over Tasmania who’ve moved from the mainland. And it’s pushing up prices for the locals. You know, land, property. Talk to Toby, but be warned, he gets a bit riled about it all. Even though it will hopefully benefit us in the long term.’
‘I can’t imagine Toby “riled”.’ Jessica managed a smile.
‘Oh, he’s a calm, gentle sort of soul, I agree. But he’s poured a lot into this new enterprise. In fact, there’s a TV mob interested in coming to film what we’re doing.’
‘Gosh, from what I’ve heard, the island is crawling with film crews and foodie experts,’ said Jessica. ‘Flavour of the month, eh?’
‘Sadly, most of it is due to climate change.’ Sally sighed. ‘The mainland vignerons have moved here in a big way. Getting too warm in some states to grow cool-climate wines and, by mainland standards, housing, land and businesses are ripe for the picking here. Sleepy ol’ Tasmania, wake up, we’re being sold off to the highest bidder! And it’s not just Aussies . . .’
‘Not a lot of other countries let foreigners, especially government-owned corporations, buy your land, water and birthright,’ said Jessica bitterly.
‘The world’s changing, Jess. But not all for the better. It’s not like when we grew up. Jeez, I sound like my mother.’
‘Aha! But look where we grew up, Sal! Here! How lucky is your Katie? I see kids in the city who have hardly any idea of farming and live animals. A petting zoo, something at school one morning, maybe a community garden on the verge if it’s that kind of neighbourhood. But really, for most kids, food comes from a supermarket, end of story.’
‘There’re a lot of people and groups working to change that, although it’s a hard yard to hoe,’ said Sally.
‘You guys are farmers who get your hands dirty. I was married to someone who wouldn’t dream of doing physical work; who wanted to be George Clooney and Roger Federer rolled into one . . . the fancy coffee, the watch that can navigate to the moon, the trendy stubble and Armani suit, all the trappings but none of the talent and certainly none of the social conscience.’
Sally burst out laughing. ‘And none of the humour. Hardy-the-try-hard. Honestly, Jess, you’re better off out of it.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m just pleased the divorce is done. He kept trying to dredge up stuff over the property settlement. He was trying to wear me down.’
‘So he could walk off with everything.’
‘That’s right, but somehow I summoned up the strength to fight for what was mine,’ Jessica said. ‘And really, the most important thing for me now is that I’m free, Sal.’
Sally glanced at Jessica and could see the pain in her face. ‘You’re free as a bird! No mortgage, no bonds. A lot of people would envy you, Jess. Clean slate, the world’s your oyster.’
Jessica shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that. But, hey . . . speaking of oysters, there’s an oyster bar. Let’s stop and have oysters and champagne.’
‘Hold on just a bit longer,’ Sally laughed. ‘Toby has a bottle chilling, and we mightn’t have any oysters, but Mum will want you to try some of her cheese.’
They drove down the road and pulled up at the old wooden gate with a sign announcing Arcadia swinging off it. Jessica jumped out and opened the gate for Sally to drive through, then closed it and got back in the car. They headed up to the house, which sat comfortably atop the hill like an elegant old lady, her skirt of roses spread around her. As the car slowed they saw Toby marching through the front garden with Katie on his shoulders, waving excitedly, and Jasper the dog running around his legs.
As they got out of the car, Katie ran towards them, shouting joyfully, ‘Aunty Jess, Aunty Jess!’
‘Hi, gorgeous girl! Look at you!’ Jessica swept up the little girl with her bobbing blonde curls into a bear hug. ‘Gosh, you are so grown up. I haven’t seen you for ages and ages.’ Jessica smiled as Toby leaned over to give her a kiss. She could tell that Toby and Sally had been talking about her to Katie, reminding the girl of the ‘aunty’ she hadn’t seen in years. Jessica gazed around the cottage garden and rose beds she remembered so well. Down the hill was the tangle of dark trees of the Far Forest, which looked as secretive and mysterious as ever. But where there’d been empty fields there were now orderly cultivated rows of trees and long beds covered with a pale purple haze.
‘Goodness, you’ve done heaps of planting,’ said Jessica. ‘But so much of the Old Farm still looks the same.’
‘We call that area up there where we have most of the crops the New Farm. Come and see what we’ve done to the house. We have a great new entertaining area,’ said Sally.
‘And I have a treehouse,’ exclaimed Katie, taking Jessica’s hand and skipping beside her.
Jessica paused at the front door with its leadlight glass panels.
The house presented a formal welcome; had it a thatched roof it would have looked at home in the English countryside. As she reached for the handle the door was flung wide and a beaming Mollie stepped out to embrace her.
‘Jess, dearest, how wonderful you’re here at last. It’s been far too long. Come in, let’s sit on the terrace. Tea, coffee? Is it too early for a G & T?’
Arcadia, 1935
Stella sat at her painting table, staring from her window at the grove of trees at the bottom of the hill. She’d put the finished sketch of the masked owl to one side, and she was at a loss as to what to start next. She hated to admit it, but she was still rattled by the horrible drawing in her notebook, which she had put in a bottom drawer of the big desk. Before she’d done so, however, she’d added a sketch of her own.
Carefully, including as much detail as she could recall, Stella had drawn the face of the man who wore the deerstalker hat and carried a staff. As she thought of other details – his clothing, or the scar on the side of his face next to the straggly moustache, she added it, before putting the sketchbook away with a shaking hand.
Maybe she should show it to her husband? Or Mrs James? Someone . . . but something held her back. Stephen would be appalled if she called the police. People such as the Hollands didn’t get into situations where the plump old sergeant had to be called and the townsfolk would know and gossip.
She had stayed in her studio all the next day, but on this morning, seeing the sun shining outside, she jumped to her feet and announced to the room, ‘Carpe diem! So here I come.’ She picked up her field glasses and camera and called to Mrs James that she was going out for the morning.
‘So you’re feeling better, Mrs H?’
‘Oh, it was nothing. I just felt like a quiet day yesterday,’ said Stella.
Mrs James just smiled, thinking about what her husband had told her.
Stella strode across the field with her chin lifted, jauntily swinging her bag, just in case she was being observed. Look at me – defiant, strong, fearless. Well, she hoped that was what her demeanour portrayed to any onlooker. If her husband was to be believed, women were not generally considered to be brave. And if she was honest with herself, she was still a little spooked; the thought that maybe she was being watched, that someone knew where she lived and had threatened her by drawing her death and that of her little owl saviour, still deeply disturbed her.
