Arcadia

by Di Morrissey

  ‘Thank you. Are you waiting for a boat?’ Stella replied.

  ‘I’m shipping out some items on the ferry,’ he said.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not always on time. The captains are friendly fellows and they do like to chat at each stop, or help people, which slows them down,’ she said.

  ‘So I’ve noticed. It’s one of the nice things about a river. It seems a bit of a backwater but it’s a connected community, if rather strung out between stops.’

  Stella smiled. ‘We like it that way. It’s our highway, our link to each other, yet we have our own special piece of the river.’

  ‘You live here then? It’s a rather secret world tucked up away from the wild sea.’ He returned her smile and she noticed his intense blue eyes.

  ‘Yes. I’m not a local, though. Your family has to have been here a generation or two before you can actually say you come from this area.’ She laughed. ‘My husband is the local doctor; he’s been here quite some time.’

  The man’s face clouded for an instant, but then he quickly smiled and said, ‘Well, you’re lucky, I wish I lived here. I live up north-west.’

  They both gazed at the calm, silent river as the old ferry boat chugged towards them, slicing through the glassy surface, ripples radiating in sharp lines towards the bank.

  Then he straightened. ‘Good morning to you, Mrs Holland. I had better see to my cargo.’

  She watched him walk away, feeling faintly disturbed: how did he know her name?

  Hobart, 2018

  Hobart was chilly, and an icy wind whipped around Constitution Dock as Sally and Jess headed to Salamanca Place.

  ‘It’s a bit touristy now, but you can always find something to take home for pressies,’ said Sally. ‘Mum loves the local lavender products and leatherwood honey. Katie wants a backpack . . .’

  ‘This is day one, Sal, we can’t start stocking up on gifts already! We didn’t come to Hobart to shop.’

  ‘Salamanca is fun even if you don’t buy anything. We can still check out the shops, and there are some good places to eat. If we were here on a Saturday we could go to the markets.’

  ‘Hey, look at that ketch, she’s so beautiful!’ Jessica paused to admire a classic boat berthed at the dock. ‘Wow, it’s the May Queen. She’s been restored. Amazing.’

  ‘She’s 150 years old.’ Sally read the small plaque. ‘The oldest trading ketch in Tasmania. Restored by the Maritime Museum. She was built down our way.’

  ‘Huon pine . . . wouldn’t it be great to sail in her?’ Jessica sighed. ‘There’s something about the classic old boats, they’re so graceful. Wish your Charlotte-Ann was bigger, then maybe I’d rent her off you to live on.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ Sally stared at Jessica as they walked across the cobblestones towards the old waterfront buildings.

  ‘A girl can dream, can’t she? In fact, you and I could go on a voyage . . . an adventure.’ Jessica grinned.

  ‘We’re already on an adventure, remember?’ said Sally with a chuckle. ‘Anyway, where would we go, and why do you think we could suddenly live on a boat and sail away somewhere?’

  ‘Well, why not? Couldn’t we share a tiny cabin and face the dangers of the southern seas?’ Jess asked teasingly, knowing Sally was the better sailor.

  Sally shrugged. ‘The explorers Bass and Flinders did. Two young Englishmen in their twenties, best friends, sailed a tiny wooden sailboat around most of Van Diemen’s Land to discover if it really was an island. Could we cope with months at sea, cooped up in a boat like the Norfolk? The Tom Thumb?’

  ‘Were they gay?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Matthew Flinders wrote letters to his sweetheart, later his wife. I’ve read them. Such a beautiful love story. All those long years apart, and then he died the day after he finished his book on the journey to Terra Australis. There’s a fictionalised version of his life, My Love Must Wait, written yonks ago by Ernestine Hill. Mum has it.’

  ‘He died young, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah. Forty. He was imprisoned for years on Mauritius. He never tried to escape. Silly man. Duty and discipline and all that.’

  ‘Different breed of men then. Well, Hardy could never have been called the principled type. Toby is a good and decent man, though. You’re lucky. It’s been nice getting to know him better.’

  ‘Do you think it’s luck, Jess? Finding someone to team up with forever, have kids with, trust to look after you, all that sort of old-fashioned stuff?’ wondered Sally as they headed towards the row of galleries and boutiques. ‘He thinks he’s pretty lucky finding me,’ she added.

  ‘He is! You’re both lucky. Maybe that’s the knack, knowing it’s a two-way street. Then you tend to look out for each other. A shared life.’ Jessica paused, then walked into a leatherwork shop.

  ‘Hey, look at these bags!’ said Sally. ‘Let’s find Toby a present!’

  *

  Later, after what they agreed was an excellent Italian meal at a café beside the parade of shoppers along Salamanca Place, they put the locally made leather satchel-cum-­briefcase Sally had bought for Toby in the back of the car. They also loaded other gifts and treats, ‘necessities’ as Jessica called them, which they’d bought for their trip – wine, handmade chocolates, spiced salt, grissini sticks and lavender soap.

  ‘What’s this?’ Jessica lifted up an envelope with Jess and Sal scrawled on it.

  ‘That’s from Mum. She said she left something for us in the car. What is it?’

  ‘A CD.’ Jessica turned it over and burst out laughing as she read the sticker on it. ‘Mum’s fave road music. Oh, no! Did she make this for us?’

  ‘Eeek, no way! It’ll be all 80s and 90s stuff. What a riot.’

  ‘Let’s wait until we’re out of radio range and desperate,’ suggested Jessica as she put it in the glove box. ‘Okay. Let’s go to the Botanical Gardens and find someone who can help us.’

  *

  They parked outside the large wrought-iron gates of the beautiful old gardens overlooking the wide Derwent River. The young man in the small information booth just inside the entry was busy handing out brochures and answering questions.

  Standing by the information board that showed a large map of the gardens was an older gentleman. He had a lanyard around his neck that read Guide, and was giving directions to a couple. As they moved off, he turned to the two women with a smile and said, ‘Can I help you with something, ladies?’

  ‘Yes, please. We want to see if a plant we have can be identified. It’s a rather old specimen,’ said Sally.

  ‘Fragile, she means. We found it in an old diary,’ explained Jessica.

  ‘Really? How exciting. You’ve looked it up on the internet, have you?’

  ‘We tried, but it was hard to search for as we don’t know its name. We’ve brought it in for someone here to look at. Isn’t there a plant identification and collection unit here?’ asked Jessica.

  He nodded. ‘It’s in the nursery section on the other side of the gardens. C’mon, there’s a bit of a lull, I’ll take you over. Hop in.’ He pointed to the golf buggy parked nearby and turned back to the man in the information booth. ‘Roly, I’m taking these girls over to the seed collection lab. Back shortly.’

  Sally nudged Jessica as the older man reached for a walking cane and walked awkwardly on hobbled feet supported by bulky shoes.

  They walked slowly beside him to the buggy.

  ‘Put your seatbelts on please, ladies. It’s required by law.’

  ‘I’ll sit in the front with you,’ Jessica said. And seeing his name on the lanyard around his neck added, ‘Hi, Terry. I’m Jessica and that’s Sally in the back.’

  As they drove, Terry rattled off the Latin botanical names of various plants, giving them a bit of history of the beautiful gardens.

  ‘Second oldest in Australia, original
ly land was occupied by the Muwinina people. When the governor later claimed it from an ex-convict, it became known as the Colonial Gardens.’

  ‘I can imagine strolling around on a Sunday in my crinoline,’ said Sally.

  ‘Driving in a carriage,’ decided Jessica.

  ‘Oh, wow, look at the fernery!’ exclaimed Sally as they passed the lush misty miniature rainforest with its cascading waterfalls. ‘It’s fairyland.’

  Terry braked. ‘Hop out and have a look, take a photo.’ He began to list the names of the giant ferns and pointed out the tiny delicate plants the size of a finger.

  Sally laughed. ‘Terry, you seem to know the Latin name of every plant in the gardens!’

  ‘How long have you been here?’ asked Jessica as they got back into the buggy after taking photos on their phones.

  ‘Oh, I’ve had a bit of an interest for a long time.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve only been a guide for the past six years. When I turned eighty I thought I’d better get a proper job!’

  ‘What! You’re eighty-six?’ said Sally. ‘How did you learn so much about plants? Was that your work?’

  ‘I was an amateur botanist, I guess. Now, over here is the Tasmanian Seed Conservation Centre. We’re a partner in the International Millennium Seed Bank Project, which holds our island state’s collection of seeds and rare and threatened plants. They’re also conserved in the nursery garden. The Subantarctic Plant House is here too. I collected some specimens myself on a field trip to Macquarie Island one year,’ he added proudly. ‘Here we are. If you want a ride back, ask someone inside to give me a call. But you should walk back, take your time. I can recommend the restaurant.’

  ‘Thanks, Terry, you’ve been very kind.’

  ‘Where are you girls visiting from, anyway?’ he asked as they got out of the buggy.

  ‘We’re locals. Well, from down south a bit,’ Sally replied.

  ‘Good luck with your plant. I’d be quite keen to know if you’ve found something of interest.’

  ‘We’ll let you know,’ said Jessica. ‘What’s your phone number?’

  ‘Would you? That’s kind of you. Hang on.’ He fished in his pocket for his mobile phone. ‘I have to look up my number, never remember it.’

  Jessica punched the numbers into her phone as he read them off.

  ‘Good luck, girls.’

  ‘Thanks, Terry,’ Sally said. They watched as he whipped the buggy into a U-turn and zipped away along the wide path. ‘Can you believe him? How fantastic at that age!’

  ‘What’s wrong with his feet, do you think? Doesn’t seem to have slowed him down, if he was able to trek around Macquarie Island,’ commented Jessica. ‘You have the diary in your bag?’

  Sally patted her shoulder bag. ‘Yep. Let’s hope someone is around to help us. Maybe we should’ve made an appointment.’

  ‘How long could it take to check out one flower?’ said Jessica.

  *

  ‘So how did you find us?’ asked Denyse Briggs, the botanist, after she had introduced herself. ‘Not everyone ventures this far into the gardens.’

  ‘Oh, Terry, the guide. He drove us here after a bit of a tour,’ said Jessica.

  ‘He seems very knowledgeable,’ added Sally.

  Denyse smiled. ‘Ah, yes. Good man, Terry. Amazing bloke, and how he gets around, not only at his age but with his legs and feet the way they are. Nothing slows him down.’

  ‘Yes, he mentioned he’d hiked around Macquarie Island,’ said Jessica. ‘Do you know what happened to him?’

  Sally winced at Jessica’s blunt question, but the botanist gave a small, philosophical shrug.

  ‘He was one of thousands of children who contracted polio during the big epidemic here in the late 1930s. The world’s second-largest polio outbreak, he told me. Way before the Salk vaccine came along. He hasn’t let it stop him, though. Now, let’s see this plant of yours.’

  Sally carefully took the diary and the small plastic bag of seed samples from her bag. She opened the diary and handed it to Denyse. ‘It’s probably been in that book for years. We’ve only just found it,’ said Sally. ‘My grandmother did a painting of the plant’s setting too.’

  ‘Interesting. I doubt it would have been growing in a domestic garden,’ mused the botanist as she examined it closely. ‘Oh, and seeds too. Hmm, may I take this out?’

  She took a pair of tweezers and delicately lifted the faded bloom and rested it on a clear sheet of glass, adjusted her glasses and studied it for a few seconds.

  ‘The family genus could be known; the leaves are unusual, and it has a large bulb. The flowers will help to identify it. Pressed plants are the mainstay of herbaria, and the history of plant identification is tied to herbari­um specimens – that’s when a species is designated a type speci­men when it is described scientifically. Our Tasmanian Herbarium has some of the original speci­mens collected by Joseph Banks when he and Captain Cook first explored Australia, or the Great Southern Land as it was then.’

  ‘Wow, really? And what about these seeds?’ asked Sally.

  ‘It’s not always possible to identify something from seed. It would be interesting to have a soil sample, that’s where all the action happens. One option would be to grow the seed, but a lot of native plants have complex dormancies so even though they germinate readily in the wild, it may take a lot of different treatments and sometimes years before we can germinate a species in the lab.’

  ‘We do have pictures, well, a painting, of this plant growing in a small remnant forest on our farm. Would that help?’ said Sally.

  ‘Indeed it might. Can you email a photo of it to me, please?’

  Sally nodded and made a mental note to ask Toby or her mother to take one.

  ‘So what do you do to identify this? Trawl through the internet or old books? Sit and look at images of plant samples?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘The time taken to ID something varies – often I’m familiar with the plant or know what genus it belongs to, so it doesn’t take long. Sometimes I know the family and work back that way to the genus and then the species. I use various websites and books and keys where appropriate. I find that there’s often a run on a plant, so when it is first brought in it may take me about half an hour to ID it and then someone else will bring it in a few days later and will be really impressed that I can immediately say what it is.’ She laughed. ‘But it’s time-consuming,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll need to keep this specimen for a few days while I work out what it is. It will be well looked after. Is that okay with you? I’ll give you a receipt.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Sally. ‘We’ll be interested to hear what you discover about it. Thank you.’

  They stood at the front desk as Sally gave Denyse her details, address and phone numbers.

  ‘We’ll be in touch as soon as we find out anything. Oh, hi, Dan.’ The botanist smiled as a casually dressed but very handsome man walked in. ‘These ladies have brought in a mystery plant. You might want to have a look if you have time. Dan is one of our top botanical specialists,’ she explained.

  He grinned at Sally and Jessica. ‘We like mystery plants, surprising how often they turn up. Where’s it from?’

  ‘The old forest on our farm in the south-east,’ said Sally.

  ‘Always interested in anything from old-growth forests. Did you happen to bring some of its soil or material where it was growing?’

  ‘Oh, we didn’t collect it, it’s years old. It’s from my grandmother’s time,’ said Sally.

  ‘Sounds interesting, especially if Denyse couldn’t recognise it straight away! Are you staying in Hobart?’

  ‘No, we’re on a short holiday,’ said Sally. ‘Taking some time out.’

  ‘Road trip. A girls’ adventure,’ Jessica said, grinning.

  ‘How cool! Have fun,’ said Denyse, handing a receipt to Sally. ‘We’ll let y
ou know if we have any luck and we can mail your specimen back to you by registered post.’

  ‘That makes it sound like some nasty disease!’ said Sally with a laugh.

  The girls walked back to the grand entry gates and Sally stopped. ‘Let’s take a selfie – to mark the start of our big adventure.’

  They stood close together and smiled. ‘I’ll put it on Facebook with the line, “Our very own road trip to reveal long-lost plants, visit Chrissie and Paul, and see what we can discover at Shelter Bay.” Toby can show it to Katie. She’ll love it,’ Sally said.

  ‘Okay, let’s hit the road,’ Jessica said as they got back in the car. ‘Right, so what’re we playing first?’

  ‘Not Mum’s music!’

  ‘What, you don’t like Graceland, Paul Simon, or Shania Twain?’ Jessica laughed. ‘Let’s go with Mia Dyson.’

  ‘Fool!’ they both called in unison, as Jess hit play and Sally pulled out onto the road, heading for the Brooker Highway.

  Later they traded places to share the driving, but after a while they decided it was time for a coffee break. In the main street of a small town they saw a sign outside an old house advertising that it was a bookshop and café, so they pulled over.

  Opening the front door, they were amazed to find that every room of the stone house was filled with bookcases, except for the kitchen and the lounge, which had been converted into an informal tea and coffee room. A pot of soup simmered on the stove and next to it was an appetising row of freshly baked scones. There were extra tables and chairs in the lounge room plus a long sofa in front of the fireplace. The owner sat behind a counter that was smothered in books save for an antiquated computer and credit card machine. He looked up over his glasses.

  ‘Looking for anything in particular, ladies?’

  ‘Not really, but I’m sure we’ll find something,’ said Jessica. ‘Do you have new books too?’

  ‘More or less. What are you after?’

  ‘Actually, do you have any books about native Tasmanian plants?’ said Sally suddenly.

  ‘Hey, smart thinking,’ said Jessica. ‘Like old botani­cal books?’