The Memory Tree

by Jennifer Scoullar

  Sarah kept stroking the traumatised animal until Matt took her small hand in his. ‘We have to go. Get back in the car.’

  Sarah stared at the motionless possum. She looked like she might cry.

  ‘Please – get back in the car.’

  ‘I thought you were going to help him.’

  ‘I am.’ Matt waited a little longer. When Sarah showed no sign of leaving, he went to the jeep and returned with a rifle. Matt briefly raised the animal by its bushy tail, confirming it was male, then shot it in the head. The possum toppled from the stump to rest on a bed of withered leaves. Matt covered it with a screen of myrtle branches.

  Sarah had turned pale.

  ‘It was the kindest thing,’ he said.

  Back at the jeep, the sound of approaching machinery ripped through the silence. A yellow bulldozer roared into view and pulled up behind them. A sticker on the window said Fertilise the forest. Bulldoze in a greenie. A burly man with a bushy grey beard and a sour expression leaned down from the cabin. ‘Do you think you own the road, Matt? Get out of my way.’

  ‘What a charming man,’ said Sarah.

  ‘That’s Ray, Penny’s uncle. Not exactly my greatest fan.’ Matt pulled the jeep aside to let the dozer pass, acutely aware that Ray’s rescued devil, Lazarus, lay dead in the back.

  Ray glared at Sarah suspiciously as he pulled alongside them. ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Dr Deville. A scientist from UCLA.’

  Ray snorted like he didn’t believe it. ‘How’s Pen? I haven’t seen her this week.’

  ‘She’s fine, Ray. You heading for the coupe?’

  ‘What does it look like?’ Ray gunned the engine. The dozer lurched off down the rutted road with Matt following behind in escort.

  Chapter 10

  Ray bumped past Matt’s jeep and lit a cigarette. He’d promised Penny to cut back on his smoking, but was already onto his second packet for the day. A profound sense of failure, of letting her down, added to his dark mood. He shouldn’t be driving this dozer. He should be in his truck heading up the highway with a load of logs for the Hobart mill. But the protestors had held things up for weeks now, blocking the chainsaws and preventing trucks from being loaded. So his Kenworth rig lay idle, although he still had to make the payments. His best mate, Charlie, had wangled him a few hours work on the bulldozer, for which he was grateful, because the bills were piling up.

  There’d been nothing but trouble in the forest lately, even before the protest circus came to town. Breakdowns, accidents, injured men. Some folks blamed the greenies, but there wasn’t any proof. It could be just a string of terrible luck, like the local sergeant said. Worst of all was what had happened to young Scott Marshall. A fellow log truck driver, he’d been crushed beneath a tonne of timber when his load somehow came loose. It had hit Penny hard when Scott died. They’d been at school together. Friends right from kindergarten, all the way through. They’d even dated for a while.

  That was before Matt came along. After their whirlwind marriage, Penny became the target of nasty gossip, accused of gold-digging – of throwing aside her local lad to marry the son of the wealthiest man in Tasmania. Hills End was a close-knit community, and Matt did himself no favours in the popularity stakes by keeping to himself the way he did. Ray had tried reaching out, but Matt wouldn’t go on the fishing trips or join the other blokes down the pub on Friday nights for a beer. He wouldn’t even go to the footy.

  Even after twelve years of living in the town, Matt remained somewhat of an outsider. He wasn’t quite the catch everyone had thought him either. He had no money after all, due to some sort of row with his dad. That park ranger job of his paid diddly squat. The way Pen told it, she earned more than he did. But Ray wouldn’t hold that against a man. Truth be told, he didn’t earn much himself these days, what with younger men happy to drive day and night – even if they were a hazard to themselves and everyone else on the road.

  Ray had long ago learned to accept Matt, even though he didn’t much like him. If Matt made Penny happy, that was all that mattered. What bothered Ray lately was that Penny no longer did seem happy. She complained that her husband was avoiding her, shutting her out. Ray had dismissed her concerns at first. ‘Sometimes a man just needs some space, love,’ he’d told her. For all his misgivings about their marriage, he’d never doubted Matt’s love for Penny. But Penny had been miserable for weeks now, and Ray was getting worried.

  Just who was the girl in the jeep with Matt? She was a pretty little thing – a scientist, he’d said. Penny had mentioned a visiting lady scientist. Could she be part of the problem between Penny and her husband? Ray frowned and changed gears as he approached the logging coupe. A flush of anger passed through him. If Matt was betraying Penny in any way, God help him.

  * * *

  Matt pulled into the coupe behind Ray’s dozer. Police cars had formed a cordon around a row of logging machinery, and a few officers stood talking together by their vehicles.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Matt. Sarah got out and followed him anyway.

  ‘Hey, Matt,’ called a middle-aged policeman. ‘Thank God you’re here.’

  Matt turned and glared at Sarah before introducing her. ‘This is Sergeant Nick Byrne. Nick … Sarah.’

  Nick acknowledged her with a nod. ‘Well, Matt, better get to it.’

  A pale sun was sinking below the treetops. Matt and the sergeant took off in a police car, leaving Sarah standing there. They were heading towards the forest margin on the far side of the clearing, where razed ground met standing trees. Giant logging machines stood parked by the road, great gobs of mud plastered in the broad tread of their monstrous tyres. A neat painted sign on the back of one said Please don’t damage this bulldozer. Other signs weren’t so polite. The bush crew formed a circle nearby, swapping stories and stamping feet. Hard hats and steel-capped boots. The forest here smelled of oil and diesel, cigarettes and sweat. The men took turns staring at Sarah. One of them wolf-whistled. She moved close to an officer.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asked him.

  ‘Another bloody greenie up a tree.’

  A logger yelled a lewd remark and blew Sarah a kiss. She went back to the jeep and locked herself in, straining to see what was happening at the edge of the coupe. The same logger pursed his lips and made an obscene gesture. Sarah wriggled across to the driver’s seat, turned the key, let out the clutch and drove off down the perimeter track until she reached Nick Byrne’s car.

  Matt and Nick stood talking next to what must have been the tallest tree in the world. Its massive bole was covered with carvings. High in the canopy, almost too high to see, was a platform strung with banners. Sarah got out of the jeep and approached the two men. They ignored her.

  ‘Says he won’t budge unless you go and get him,’ said Nick.

  Matt peered up at the great tree.

  ‘There’s a gale warning tonight,’ Nick added. ‘If he won’t come down, it’ll serve the mad bugger right.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get him.’ Matt walked to the jeep and pulled out climbing equipment – ropes and pulleys and cinches.

  Sarah looked from Matt to the top of the tree. Its sheer trunk soared impossibly high. ‘You’re not—’ she started.

  Matt smacked the tree. ‘Don’t worry. Me and Pallawarra here, we’re old mates.’ He selected some gear and put on a helmet and gloves.

  ‘This tree has a name?’

  Nick guided her away with a hand on her shoulder. ‘He’ll be fine. Stay out of the way. He needs to concentrate.’

  Sarah stood open-mouthed as Matt looped a sling around his body, then around the trunk, and clipped in another strap. He bounced back twice into the sling, braced himself and was suddenly two metres up the trunk. For the life of her, Sarah couldn’t quite make out how he’d managed it. He continued to scale the tree, making swift progress. She couldn’t imagine the sort of upper body strength it took.

  A cry rang out, making Sarah jump, and a rope snaked down from abov
e. Matt grabbed it, and his ascent quickened. Ten minutes later, as the watchers held their breath, he clambered onto the platform sixty metres above the ground. Sarah exhaled and turned to Nick, who was rigging up a bank of portable floodlights. ‘He made it,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t count your chickens. I’d rather go up that tree than come down it.’

  Daylight dimmed and dimmed again. Swirls of mist fell to earth, hiding the canopy, and dusk consumed the searchlights. A hush fell on the watchers below. Police and loggers melded, staring into the sky, all rendered blind by obscuring cloud. A young logger lit a cigarette and offered it to Sarah. She hadn’t smoked in years, but accepted it for some reason and took a bottomless breath. The familiar acrid sensation deep in her lungs still retained its power to soothe.

  A freshening breeze caused her cigarette to burn brighter. She shivered. A man removed his coat and draped it over her shoulders. She recognised him. It was Penny’s uncle, Ray, who’d been driving the yellow dozer. She pointed up the tree. ‘Shouldn’t somebody call Penny to tell her what’s happening?’

  Ray shook his head. ‘I’ll not drag Pen down here just to see what a mad bastard her husband is.’

  ‘Ray’s right,’ said Nick. ‘Matt’s got nine lives. Why worry Penny?’

  Sarah turned to speak to Ray but he was no longer there. Upon some invisible signal the loggers were retreating to their machines. Their glowing cigarettes hovered like fireflies in the gloom. Sarah dropped her own cigarette and stamped it into the earth. If she was Matt’s wife, she’d want to know.

  Chapter 11

  That precious, familiar calm. Tree climbing. Different from rock climbing. Trees lived. Even mighty Pallawarra gave with the wind. He moved. Matt moved too, away from the people and cars and the ravaged earth. He moved into another dimension. For the first time in a long time, Matt focused on the moment. On his breath, his feet, his fingers. A meditation. There was no choice. Any slip was death.

  The darkening forest lay in mysterious degrees of light and shade. The more Matt looked at the tree, the more he saw the tree. Its position, its size and form – its unique structure and balance. He saw through its bark-dangled camouflage.

  Now light rain began falling, deepening the colours. The auburns and browns, the greens and golds, the glistening mottled curls of stringybark streamers. Birds of the upper canopy had fled, leaving the forest unusually silent. Except for the sound of a strengthening breeze, like the seashell psalm of a distant sea.

  With a loud tearing noise, a sudden gust ripped at a long piece of bark beside him. It peeled like a bandage from a healed wound, revealing the creamy porcelain perfection of trunk beneath. Sailing out on the current, the four-metre ribbon began its journey to the forest floor. Once upon a time, it might have caught in a forked branch with others of its kind, all gathered like lovely tassels on a giant Christmas tree. It might have floated further afield to help weave a blanket for the fragrant understorey of sassafras and myrtle. It might have taken months to find its final resting place on the ground, providing food and board for lichen and moss and tiny creatures of the leaf litter. But now there was nothing to break its fall. It reached earth in one long drift, destined to provide sustenance only for the foresters’ fires.

  Matt hoisted himself up onto the canvas-covered platform. A tall, lanky man with bleached blond dreadlocks watched him with amused eyes, from under a football beanie. Drake. He was lying at ease on a treeboat, a type of hammock climbers used to enjoy picnics or naps high in tree canopies. Anchored cables – emergency escape routes – disappeared into the forest. A dented exercise bike, hooked up to a generator, stood strapped to Pallawarra’s giant trunk.

  ‘It’s about time you got here.’ Drake took a drag on what looked like a joint, then offered it to his visitor.

  Matt shook his head. ‘What are you playing at, mate?’

  ‘Just trying to get your attention,’ said Drake. ‘We’re overdue for a chat.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the phone have been simpler?’ Matt regretted those words as soon as they were out. Drake had used the phone. He’d texted him, called him, left messages. Plenty of them. It wasn’t Drake who’d let their friendship lapse. Since Theo, Matt had let a lot of things slide.

  He put that unwelcome thought aside and took a look around the roomy treetop camp. An impressive set-up: fridge, laptop, satellite phone – all the comforts of home. Quite a feat, to get all this up here unseen.

  Drake followed Matt’s gaze and gestured around them with a flourish. ‘Hauled the platform up two months ago. Ken Murphy from the mill gave us the timber and second-hand steel. We hid sections in the bush and dragged them up, one by one, at night. Six radial supports, six floor sections.’ Drake stamped his foot and smiled. ‘See that? Solid as a rock.’ He pointed to the roof. ‘Gutters funnel rain into that poly tank.’ He stroked the rough tree trunk with the tenderness of a lover and his expression grew grim. ‘Pallawarra here was our tipping point. We planned to ramp up the campaign when the logging crews reached him. Truth is, none of us expected it to happen so soon.’

  ‘You lot don’t have much of a presence on the ground.’ Matt peered into the gloom. ‘Nothing but loggers and cops down there.’

  ‘Just wait until tomorrow.’ Drake clipped himself into a harness and sprang back once to test the rope. ‘Aren’t you ever going to talk me down from here? I’m freezing my arse off.’

  Matt smiled and used his phone. ‘We’re on our way.’ A faraway cheer and faint staccato applause drifted up through the branches.

  ‘You know,’ said Drake, ‘more people have stood at the top of Mount Everest than at the top of this tree.’ He saluted and kicked off. Mist closed fast around him. Matt took one last look at the dark canopy, then followed his friend back to earth.

  Chapter 12

  The sergeant was talking to the first man who’d come down from the tree. Even at a distance in the dusk, Sarah could see the man wasn’t Matt. About the same height, but slimmer and with a rope of pale hair. Instead of Steve Irwin khaki, he wore tatty jeans, a heavy homespun jumper two sizes too big and a black-and-white beanie. The man shook the sergeant’s hand, then strolled towards her. Sarah looked past him to see Matt make a neat landing. The man blocked her view and extended his hand, forcing her to pay attention. He took off the beanie. A halo of dreadlocks swung free, revealing a rainbow headband.

  ‘Drake Logan.’

  ‘Dr Sarah Deville. UCLA.’

  Drake arched his eyebrows, shook her offered hand with his right and cupped it with his left. ‘You are an uncommonly beautiful doctor.’ His eyes held hers for a long time. Then, like some sort of overgrown Mad Hatter, Drake pulled an enormous antique fob watch from his pocket. ‘Goodness gracious, look at the time. You will be my guests for dinner. A night of fine food, finer conversation and a welcome to country.’

  He behaved like the matter was settled. She had to admit he had a certain style. Good-looking too. Very. At the airport, Sarah’s sister had made her customary tick-tock body clock remark, and then gone on and on about the hunks Sarah might find Down Under. Her sister was right. Most of the young loggers could have been male models back home. Not to mention Matt, who was absolutely her type. Sarah had lost interest in Los Angeles men. The pale, bookish academics at the University, wedded to their intellects and egos. Or the self-conscious gym junkies, all spray tan, body wax and hair product. They couldn’t hold a candle to the simple rawness of these Aussie men. Penny had certainly had some talent to choose from.

  Drake took a swig from a flask at his belt and announced that dinner would be at seven. Sarah checked her phone. Six forty-five. How on earth could Drake produce dinner by seven o’clock? They were in the middle of a forest, at least an hour’s drive from Binburra, and by all accounts he’d spent the last twenty-four hours up a tree. ‘Are you a magician?’ she asked him as Matt strode over.

  ‘Not a magician,’ said Matt. ‘But he’s quite the performer. An artist too. A bullshit artist. How’d you talk y
our way out of this one, Drake? I expected the coppers to cart you off.’

  ‘I simply made a pledge not to climb Pallawarra. Nick knows my word’s good.’

  ‘He does, but don’t expect the same from the city coppers.’ There was a grim set to Matt’s jaw. ‘As from today, this is an exclusion zone. You’re trespassing, along with us and everybody at Camp Clementine. Word is that tomorrow they’re bringing in a show of force from Hobart. Private security as well.’

  Drake shook his head. ‘I don’t need advice from you, Matt. What I do need is a lift’ – he paused theatrically – ‘and to know more about this delectable young doctor.’ Sarah surprised herself by blushing. ‘Why haven’t we been introduced?’

  Matt grinned. ‘Righto. Dr Sarah Deville, meet Dr Drake Logan.’

  Now it was Sarah’s turn for raised eyebrows. Drake took her hand, kissed it, then snapped shut the giant fob. ‘Hurry folks, or we’ll be late for cocktails.’

  They piled into the jeep and bumped back past the police and heavy machinery. A small group of loggers were having some sort of a powwow with the officers. A few cries of piss off and you need your heads read followed them down the track. In a mere ten minutes, a crudely painted sign in the headlights announced their arrival at Camp Clementine.

  ‘This protest camp is in the centre of the area to be logged,’ said Drake. Sarah peered out the window, but couldn’t see much in the dark. Drake plucked the watch from his pocket again and shrieked. He dived out the door, extracted Sarah, and hurried her off in the direction of a camp fire. Somewhere nearby a generator throbbed. Sarah crossed the threshold into the flame-lit circle. Silhouetted forms turned into people, sitting and eating by the fire, speculating quietly about the size of the force they might face in the morning.

  ‘We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which we gather today,’ said Drake solemnly. ‘We pay respect to their elders – past, present and emerging – and to the Lia Pootah and Palawa people, who are the custodians of this land.’ Then Drake cuckooed loudly, declared the hour, and magically pressed a plastic glass of red wine into Sarah’s hand. Vanishing for a moment, he reappeared with a paper plate full of golden-brown samosas, all delicately poised on a steaming mountain of jasmine rice. Drake slid a curled gumleaf of dipping sauce onto her plate.