Heart of the Grass Tree

by Molly Murn

  Pearl, what on earth! God, David. David.

  Pearl drives now as if the rain carries her along. As if she’s steering a boat and all she has to do is only what the water suggests. It’s a kind of surrender. From what? What from, David? And the cabin is so warm and dry and reassuringly cramped in. I really need nothing bigger than this, she thinks, to contain me. On the other side of the road, there is a car pulled over and someone waving her down frantically with a torch. The headlights shining back at her are so bright her eyes want to shrink back into her skull. She slows and a shower of grit sprays the bottom of the ute. It’s Uncle Jim and he’s dashing across the road, his oilskin gleaming in the high beam. She winds the window down.

  Jesus, Pearl, Caroline saw you drive right on past. Turn around and follow me back.

  I missed your driveway. How’d you know it was me?

  Nico.

  near Penneshaw

  The first sight of it is a swift kick to the guts. Diana grips the steering wheel tightly and swallows hard. It’s not just that the bare bones of her first childhood home are on show, its skeleton, but the olive trees and peach trees have disappeared. The dry stone wall is gone. The bank of geraniums, gone. The slate path, gone. Dad’s sprawling corrugated shed, gone. It’s all just a building site now, flagged and cordoned off. And somehow with the house so altered from the pristine version of it she carries in her deepest imaginings, and in her very tissue, the location seems wrong, strange, too. She’d never wanted to leave this home after her father died. All the pieces of him were here; his hands had touched everything—each wall, each stone, each plant, each corner—all bore his mark. Diana was worried that she would forget him or, even worse, that no other house would be able to protect her again because it had nothing to do with her father and his shelter. She was angry with Nell for wrenching them away from this place when he died. This had been the only home she’d known and it held remnants of her father. His brushstrokes and his hooks for paintings. His laughter and clomping footsteps. But Nell had other plans. She wanted to move deeper into the island; she wanted a wild beach—or so Diana thought. Nell never explained. One day they just packed up and moved.

  Diana slams the car door and ducks under the bunting. She flattens a shell necklace from Nell’s green box firm against her throat so it doesn’t get caught up. She ignores the warnings not to trespass. There are wooden planks through the mud leading to the frame of what was once the front door. She has to hoist herself up out of the crevasse left by the verandah to cross the threshold. The wide jarrah floorboards of the hallway have been removed. She wonders where they are now. Shiny things. Only the joists remain. Diana steps carefully onto the first joint, steadying herself against the dusty wall. It is dark inside and a corner of tarpaulin secured over the window lifts and slaps and lifts and slaps, like ship sails. And the remains of the house heave and lurch as if at sea. At the far end, the leadlight window holds kaleidoscopic patterns of light. She balances her way along the length of floor beams, and the space seems so narrow now. How did they ever live and dream here, in this tight box, she wonders. There is a trace of blue in the plaster of the hallway arch. She’d squatted on the floor by the ladder stirring the lovely thick paint and passing things up to Reg. Nell didn’t like the blue—ostentatious—but Diana had chosen it, and Reg agreed with her that there was something Hellenic about it that really made a dramatic feature of the hallway. Diana slips off the scaffold and her ankle gives way, mud snaking up over the edge of her sandals. She unstraps them and balances them carefully on the joists. Barefoot, she is better at picking her way along the vertebrae of the hallway. Light seeps in at the bottom corners of the foundation, and she remembers Nell complaining endlessly to Reg about bloody draughts and gaping cracks you could stuff with entire books. Entire libraries. There is a crack in the leadlight window. Diana runs her finger along it, and remembers a recurring dream she had as a child that the crack in the glass was from a bullet—the house under siege. This was long before Reg died. A portent, maybe? Sometimes she couldn’t tell if it was, in fact, a dream or something that actually happened—preposterous as that may seem—the stress in the stained glass so entangled in her memory.

  At the back of the house, the porch is still enclosed, the sleepout—her bedroom—still in place. Standing in the centre of it she can almost touch every wall with her outstretched fingers. A dog box, but she loved it. Her own private antechamber. She closes her eyes and there is her bed jammed next to her brown narrow desk, a straight-backed chair and the broom cupboard behind the door, which served as her wardrobe. Nothing much else in there—just a box of pencils on the desk and a row of feathers on the sill. Back then, we didn’t own much, she thinks. No one did. There are louvre windows missing like broken teeth. And there is Reg out the back in the workshop. Wood shavings curling at his boots. The whirr of his drill. Diana sinks to her haunches, and scrapes the mud from her feet. There is Reg falling from a ladder.

  She wonders whether things would have been better for her and Nell if Reg was around to see Pearl grow. Diana would have had an ally. She was on the outside of Pearl and Nell’s intimacy, their colluding, their whispers and raised eyebrows. Their matching eyes. Even now. Nell has taken something from Pearl which means Diana can never be close. She cannot forgive Nell for this. Cannot forgive Nell for the fuss she made when they took Pearl back again. Just two years old, Pearl could have easily forgotten that she had ever lived with her grandmother. But every month Nell came and got her for a long weekend. And when she was older, every school holidays. It hurt Diana that whenever Nell arrived at their front door, Pearl ran to her and wouldn’t let go, in those early months of transition. Even when it was a relief to have a break from looking after Pearl; she was that strung out with new baby Lucy. Even then she knew she had messed everything up.

  Diana takes a pencil from her handbag and holds it poised to the wall. Nell smacked her once for drawing on the hallway walls—she’d refused to stop when Nell asked her to, and she just kept on scribbling gloriously, frowning at Nell and terrified. This was one of the reasons they’d had to do a repaint. But Reg made light of it. Those walls have been looking shabby for years, Nell. Let’s spruce up. This is a good thing, Nell. She didn’t agree.

  On the sleepout wall Diana sketches a man’s hand curled around a child’s. She draws shells, seals, and a heart like a piece of glowing fruit. She draws a woman’s secret places. And blood. She writes the names of her parents and daughters and signs her own name and then stands to measure herself against the notches in the door frame. She is a full head and shoulders above the last date marked. The air coming through the rattling louvres is grassy and dry. She won’t ever stand in this room again.

  It was almost a full moon and hot when Marian, Red and I saw in the New Year together at Pelican Lagoon. Pearl had gone to live with Diana and David on the mainland just eight weeks earlier, and the house rattled empty without her sweet toddling presence. The days were long and undefined. Unpunctuated. I suppose my little silly heart was breaking. The expedition to Pelican Lagoon was solely my idea—I think Marian was hoping for a night in with Red. A night where Red didn’t write and the two of them could just really talk and get a bit drunk. But I was going out of my skin with the heat and loneliness.

  We pulled in at the edge of the lagoon, tyres skidding in the shale. The white quartz ground of Pelican Lagoon, pitted and scooped, shone like a moonscape. Red grabbed Marian’s hand and I followed them, weaving a path through the spinifex and low-lying clumps of spear grass and saltbush. The air was hot, body temperature, and it made Marian feel like making love, she announced. Twenty years of marriage before Red and she hadn’t known at all that sex was her thing, she once confided in me. We found a clear patch between the scratchy rocks. Marian poured more sparkling into the metal cups she kept in her glove box. The cups lent a dusty metallic taste and the champagne was on the verge of too warm, but it was a beautiful amber colour, and I gulped it down. The lagoon riffled slowl
y and everything seemed so very loud—the oyster-catchers skimming the edge of the water, too hot to sleep, and skinks disturbed the undergrowth. Red laid her head in Marian’s lap. And I thought of the weight of little Pearl squirming in my lap, reaching up to twist my necklace in her fingers. I was heartbroken.

  So, Nell, plans for the new year? Red asked.

  Oh, the usual. I’m going to paint more and drink less.

  That’s what you said last year, Red pointed out, kicking off her Birkenstocks. I’d given up drinking when Pearl was nearly born, and I’d stopped painting altogether—it still worries me a lot that in order to paint I need to drink.

  Actually, I’m going to write more, I said.

  There was a pause and no one said anything. I’m writing a story and it’s taking everything out of me.

  Oh really? Red said.

  It’s about here—the island. This place.

  And I realise, now, that I’ve been trying to write this story for the whole of Pearl’s life. She is the living embodiment of my growing story. But it’s only now that the right words will come. This is my hope.

  Red was silent for a moment and then levered herself up on her elbows. You’re going to have to tell me more about this writing of yours, Nell.

  Not much to say. Just gathering my thoughts, really. This was true.

  Red gulped her drink.

  Well Marian and I are going to Morocco next month. That’s my news.

  Marian let out a small sound. What? Red, how? Marian knocked over her cup of champagne. You didn’t tell me.

  I wanted it to be a surprise. Red stood to avoid the wet seeping across the picnic rug.

  But what about your book? You’ve gotta finish your collection by April.

  I’ll finish it in Morocco. I’ve already booked the tickets. Red grinned.

  I was so thrilled for them, I sneezed and wet my pants. Just a little. Gosh. Wow. That’s wonderful news. So you’ll stay with Amelia?

  Amelia was Marian’s daughter. They hadn’t seen each other in four years, and Marian had never met her now two-year-old granddaughter, Aza. Amelia went travelling in Morocco after finishing her degree, fell in love with Abdul, and only came home briefly to pack up her house in Adelaide and break Marian’s heart. Morocco of all places, she’d said to Amelia at the time. All those years Marian had been Adam’s wife, raising their daughter and son. Sometimes it was as if that former life never existed. Both children lived abroad with families of their own and her marriage was now just a washed-out dream. We often talked about this. It was just an inventory of images, like photographs, Marian told me. And I was sad for her.

  Did you speak to Amelia? What if she’s busy then?

  I’ve spoken to Amelia, and everything’s fine.

  Marian was overwhelmed and I went off to pee.

  Crouching low, I held my pants out of the way and watched piss clumping in the dirt spectacularly. I was reeling. With all this talk of grandchildren, I felt like I’d lost somehow not only my son, my daughter, but now, my granddaughter? Granddaughter. I mouthed the word and it came out strange. Pearl. Something inside lurched, in my miwi. I wobbled and piss sprayed the ground and my bare feet, splashing them with dirt. Christ, I said, when it finally petered out; I hiked up my trousers and faced the lagoon. The night Pearl was born had been a full moon like this one. Diana held on to me until my upper arms were bruised with her thumbprints. We both cried at the little wet thing that slipped out of her.

  In the moonlight, the lichen-smothered rocks pulsed white. And the she-oaks were unusually still—not whispering and whooshing ghostily as they usually did. The lagoon itself pinched the island into a bottleneck, marking its narrowest point—just a kilometre between the north coast where the lagoon spread its great pelican wings, and the furious south coast that faced Antarctica. I’ve always felt its ancientness—these islets in a hidden lagoon of an uninhabited island, situate upon an unknown coast—my favourite words of the explorer Matthew Flinders. Place of bones and souls … nor can any thing be more consonant to the feelings, if pelicans have any, than quietly to resign their breath, whilst surrounded by their progeny, and in the same spot where they first drew it. Alas, for the pelicans! … I named this piece of water Pelican Lagoon. Marked territory. I shivered. Pull yourself together, Nell, I said aloud and, tugging at the amber beads around my wrist, Pearl’s teething beads, I meandered my way back to Red and Marian. They were smoking, and the smell was thick and high in the bridge of my nose.

  Marian opened up the cake tin, hoping the smell of chilli-laced chocolate would bring her back to herself after taking in such a lungful of marijuana, she explained giggling. She hadn’t smoked in years, and it took all her effort to keep her worry down in her groins. I told her it was best to actively resist anxiety. I was an old hat at this. Red passed me the joint and my throat burnt as the smoke went down. Before long all my gestures felt vastly exaggerated like I was a great big flourish of a woman. It was strong dope.

  Well this year—after Morocco, of course—I’m going to get some hives. Keep bees, Marian announced and then asked us if she’d spoken too fast. Or too slow.

  My mother kept bees, I told them.

  Did she? I’ve never really heard you talk about your mother, Nell. What was she like? Red asked, dismissing Marian’s bees.

  Mother. Bright eyes. Bright silver hair. A sort of drawn look—pale around the mouth, flushed cheeks. She was the most loving and most ruthless woman I’ve known, I said.

  We gobbled up the brownies, and the chocolate left a film along the roof of the mouth. Spiced. I lay back on the rug, sending out a silent wish to Diana. Please be gentle with me. Red stood over us on a stand of granite and beneath the cloths of heaven, read aloud her new poem … seeds polished shiny as hope … and at midnight we stood in the shallows of the lagoon holding on to each other for dear life. I let my feet sink into the sludge and wondered whether it was ever peaceful to be a mother.

  Tiny nocturnal creatures scuttled in the undergrowth and unseen things splashed in the water; it was absurd to be a human and so brash in this place of animals. This brightening midnight lagoon. I made a promise, a new year’s wish, to not give up on Pearl. I would do better for her sake. I would write Maringani and William one day, not only for Sol, but also for Pearl.

  1823

  Vivonne Bay

  William sits squished against the bulk of his father. The hold is loaded up with sealskins, blood mixing with the swill of water that sloshes around the bottom of the boat. Metallic stench of death. William tucks his feet up under himself to avoid the blood. His feet are already pickled and white from being wet for so long. He begins to pull at the puckered skin on the bottom of his big toe and peels off strips. Emue nudges his hand away and takes his feet into her lap. William turns to see what his father’s reaction might be, but Anderson is too busy guiding the cutter in the fading light to notice them. Emue pats the bottom of her shirt against William’s feet to dry them and then wraps them in a wallaby skin, which she takes from around her shoulders. It is dry because she does her sealing naked, keeping her clothes and animal skins bundled into a tight ball on the boat. She holds the pelt firmly in place and beneath the pressure of her hands William can feel the blood in his feet starting to circulate and reach his toes again. He is shaky with exhaustion and would close his eyes as he leans against his father but has to remain alert so that he can whisk his feet away from Emue as soon as Anderson turns in their direction. Emue belongs to Anderson.

  William looks up at Emue but she is staring out into the distance. He can tell she is tired because her normally very straight shoulders are slumped forward slightly and her bottom lip hangs from her top as if closing her mouth requires too much effort. William can barely make out her features in the encroaching darkness, but he feels calmed by watching her.

  About eleven baby sealskins lie on top of the adult ones. William knows that Emue doesn’t like killing the pups but Anderson forces her to do it because the fur on the
pups is softer than velvet and gets a high price. She shakes her head and clicks her tongue and sings to the seals after she has clubbed a baby or a mother seal.

  Emue unwraps William’s feet and presses his toe back. He winces a little and she glances at him and lowers her gaze as if to tell him not to touch the skin of his toes now. William grins at her, pulls his feet from her lap and tucks them under himself.

  Who is my mother? William addresses the back of Anderson’s head.

  Anderson doesn’t answer. His massive shoulders stiffen. William is used to getting no response to this question but continues to ask it anyway, although today he is too spent to push it any further. He wonders, again, why his father will never speak of her.

  He strokes his foot along the fur of one of the seals, thinking how, just hours ago, it was warm, alive, pulsing with blood. As Anderson rows the boat towards land, William wriggles his way past Emue and crouches at the bow, chewing the quick around his nails. The gamey smell of the skins makes him feel like retching. He wonders if he will ever get used to that smell.

  Later, back at the hut, William sits with his feet so close by the fire they itch. He feels like nothing will make his feet warm again. The men’s voices are loud but strangely comforting as their conversation swells and crashes around him. In the distance he can hear the women singing. He hopes he can fall asleep to the men talking and the women singing and not be interrupted by the grunts and moans of his father with Emue.

  Anderson lets one of Emue’s dogs, the pale one, lick him between his toes as he lies on his side watching Emue. She is making shallow vertical and horizontal cuts in a wallaby skin that has just been scraped clean over a log. The scores make the skin supple so that it can be sewn into a cloak. Emue folds the skin over at each of the lines and then begins rubbing it with a blunt piece of flint to soften it. Anderson likes her thin fingers—the way the skin doesn’t crack and look raw from overwork like the skin on his own hands, but is oiled, shiny and creased with fine, fine lines. For a moment he imagines her hands splayed across him, her dark fingers pulling gently at the small knots in the curls of his chest hair. But it is never that tender. She has no desire for him. Anderson winces at the slow throb spreading deep within him. He is lying down, headachey from a night on the rum, and crosses his legs, squeezing his thighs together.