Nest (21 page)

‘Next month – but it’s a long way.’

‘You’re the only family I have left, girl,’ Aunt Sophie said. ‘I can drive a few hours.’

Jen smiled. ‘You’re all I’ve got, too,’ she said.

‘Have you caught up with any of your school friends?’

‘Glen,’ she said.

‘What about Phil?’

‘He’s still in Sydney, apparently.’

Her aunt chewed on her cheek. ‘You know, I was thinking. It’s not too late for children. If that’s what you want,’ she said. ‘You could adopt. I was only talking to someone the other day who—’

Corellas were making a racket in the palms outside. ‘I’m having one last shot at looking for Dad,’ Jen said.

‘I see.’

‘Well, the police are. Around this new child,’ she said.

Aunt Sophie stepped to fetch the cupcakes from the sideboard. ‘That’s just ridiculous. It was ridiculous then. I mean, I hope they find him, but …’

‘I guess they need to follow everything up,’ Jen said. ‘I’ve been talking to Dad’s old boss, Sam Pels. Still runs that mill, you know.’

‘Still?’

‘Did you know he helped Mum out?’

‘She didn’t mention it.’

Jen frowned and scratched a mosquito bite on her arm. ‘Did you ever hear Mum or Dad talk about a Stan Overton?’

Aunt Sophie dropped the plate, which clattered and broke into three pieces, sending cupcakes rolling about the tiled floor.

Jen squatted down to gather up the cakes. ‘These will be fine,’ she said. ‘Your floor’s always clean enough to eat off.’ She pulled a plain plate from the shelf above and set the iced cakes out in a circular gathering.

Her aunt picked up pieces of crockery – a handmade plate with a green glaze. She started to cry.

‘I’m sorry about the plate,’ Jen said. Perhaps it had been a gift.

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘My fault.’

The kettle burbled and steamed, then switched itself off. Jen poured hot water into the pot. She stepped around Aunt Sophie, busy with the dustpan, to fetch milk from the fridge. ‘You okay?’

Her aunt nodded. She stood, stepped on the pedal bin’s lever and dumped what had been a plate, and crumbs, inside. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I’d better find the brandy.’

Jen turned the teapot and tried to keep her eyebrows where they belonged. It was ten-thirty in the morning.

Aunt Sophie disappeared into the pantry. There was a clanking of bottles. Had she become an alcoholic?

‘Even better,’ she said. ‘Calvados.’

Jen placed the pot, cups and plate of cakes on the table. Waited.

Aunt Sophie plonked the bottle and two liqueur glasses between them. ‘I bought this to bake some flash dessert,’ she said. ‘It’s made from apples. Quite a nice one, apparently.’

Jen’s stomach lurched. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘No,’ her aunt said. ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake.’ She filled the glasses with pale browny liquid. Her hand was shaking. ‘I really wanted to look after you. Do the right thing,’ she said. ‘When your mother couldn’t.’

‘But you have. You did.’

‘No. I didn’t.’ She slugged back the calvados.

Jen sipped at hers, hoping it would settle her stomach. And the drumbeat in her ear.

‘Stan Overton was, for a time, my lover.’

‘You’ve never mentioned him.’

‘It was before you were born.’

‘Mum never mentioned it either,’ she said.

‘No,’ her aunt said. ‘I don’t imagine she did.’

‘I thought …’

‘You thought what?’

Jen filled their cups with steaming tea, trying to restore some order to the morning. ‘I’ve never known you to have a partner,’ she said. ‘I thought maybe you and Maeve …’

Aunt Sophie snorted. ‘Well, she’d be a better prospect than any of the fellas I’ve chosen, but no. We’re good friends is all.’

‘So what happened with Stan?’ That required calvados midmorning on a Tuesday.

Her aunt refilled her glass and topped up Jen’s. ‘He had an affair.’

‘But why would he …’ Jen lifted the glass, felt its weight, and sculled it. She was in one of those moments, again. She could feel it all around her, pressing in. The pieces grinding together with the magnitude of tectonic plates. The drink was strong and sweet. Her skin prickled. She slid her glass out to the middle of the table. ‘With Mum.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m not …’

‘I think so,’ her aunt said. ‘Your mother was pretty sure.’

Jen watched her refill the little glass.

‘Stan was in the area – I forget why. He saw you with your mum down on the coast. And figured.’

Jen blinked.

‘Carol wouldn’t see him. She was scared, I suppose. So he asked around. Must have gone looking for Peter.’

‘And that’s why Dad left?’ Because he wasn’t her father at all.

‘It was the dishonesty of it, love. He said he felt tricked.’ This time her aunt sipped at the liqueur. ‘He was angry. But I thought he was going to stay. And I managed to convince Stan to leave you all alone. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know Peter loved you.’

‘And no one ever felt the need to tell me any of this?’

‘Carol said she would. And I thought, when she was better …’

But she never really got better. The second slug of calvados had a whole lot more flavour. The warmth it gave Jen’s otherwise cold body was welcome.

‘I’m sorry my mother did that to you,’ she said. ‘And left you to clean up the mess.’

‘Oh, Jen,’ her aunt said. ‘I offered to take you. I wanted to have you. You were never a burden.’

‘I need to go,’ Jen said. ‘I need to get home.’

‘Please don’t rush off so upset.’

Jen stood.

‘Jenny,’ her aunt said. ‘Should you be driving right now?’

‘I’m fine.’ She took her keys from the hall table and let the screen door slam behind her.

J
en parked in the driveway. She slammed the door of the Hilux and went straight to the shed. She scooped up her tent and her pack – ready to go, with swag, cooking gear and survival kit. She threw it all in the back of the ute and stomped down to the house.

She used the bathroom, snatched up her toothbrush and paste. Filled her water bottle, and the spare. Gathered together what food she had: apples, rice, a tin of tuna, half a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheddar cheese, tea and a box of fruit and nut bars. A slab of leftover cake. Stale but sweet.

The keys were in the back of the cutlery drawer. She held them up to the light to remember which was which, and locked the house behind her. Last, she dropped everything in the box on the back of the ute and secured the cover.

She headed up the mountain, taking the corners a little faster than she should. Tree trunks rushed by, mailboxes marking hidden driveways. At the top, the tree cover gave way and the road turned to follow the ridge. She glanced out, when she could, at the ocean sparkling below. At all that bright and busy life.
Something rattled around in the back, something not secured. A water bottle perhaps.

She turned inland, towards the old hippie town that still had its working heart, tolerating the tourists rather than deigning to rely on them. She passed through without stopping, veering around a senior citizen attempting a reverse angle park.

Once out the other side, there were more houses than there used to be, an estate where there had just been pasture, ficus groves and forest – all the tree-changers bringing suburbia to the country.

The road wound deeper inland, down and around, narrowing to enter forest groves. She passed cottages in the hills, smoke clouding out their chimneys and hanging over the valleys. The air had cooled, and her blood calmed a little.

She turned off the main road and crossed a creek, the Hilux’s cabin pitching and lurching, and accelerated up the pitted gravel slope. She pulled up in the car park with a screech. Ignored all the council signs, gathered up her pack and gear and loaded herself up like a snail. A penitent headed into exile. She took the less used path, heading out the back of the falls. She walked, one boot in front of the other, further into the forest, until she could breathe.

It was a weekday, and school was in, so she figured she was most likely alone. She climbed up onto a rock beside the path and roared until the gully was filled with her rage.

She woke by the river, pink light brightening behind the trees. The kookaburras began their telegraph chorus, passing their gossip and joy along the line until Jen could no longer hear it. This was the cue for the rest to start, the whipbirds and cuckoos,
wrens and robins. The fire she should not have lit was almost out. She sat up in her swag, pushed sticks and leaves into the coals, leaned in and blew until there was a flame.

It had been too long since she had done this. She had made all sorts of excuses: her drawing, the exhibition, the boy, the birds, the house. Of course she had been afraid of going without Craig. Not afraid of being out here alone – but of feeling the terrible space he had left. She had reached the point where the pain was manageable, just so long as she didn’t disturb anything.

Jen unzipped the bag and extricated herself. A breeze tickled her bare skin. She padded naked over the sand to the river’s edge to fill her billy, then fanned the fire’s flames and rigged up the rack to boil the water.

She watched a kingfisher swoop from overhead, sharp-beaked and craning forward, to snap something up from the water’s surface.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s perfect.’ Mist hung over the slow-moving water. She ran down the beach and threw herself in, gasping as the water gripped her ribs. She splashed out to the middle like a child, in a rough dog paddle, then backstroked upstream, into the dawn sky, pinky-orange giving way to pale blue.

The kingfisher darted from tree to tree along the bank, as if following her progress. Her skin was yellow under the river water, muted. Far from pretty. She breaststroked back, watching her arms. An idea began to form for a picture. She had stayed at a bed and breakfast in Copenhagen once, where the host – something of a celebrity and a member of local government – had a life-size full-length nude portrait hanging in the foyer, in full view of the breakfast table. Jen had never
understood Scandinavians, though she was fond of their part of the world.

Something shifted under her foot, a turtle perhaps. She felt like fresh fish for breakfast, cooked over coals. A decade-old hunger. The effect of fresh air, running water and sleeping outside. Without a proper line and hook, though, there wasn’t much chance of a catch, and she was too hungry to wait. Toast and tea would have to do.

She walked from the water, dripping. A full complement of birds were up and about now, singing in the day. The water gave their voices a resonance, the backing track for their vocals. She plucked a leaf from the low-hanging branch of a flooded gum and held it in her teeth while she squeezed out her hair and wiped herself down with her squidgy towel. She threw a handful of tea into the billy, and the gumleaf.

She sliced bread for toast and flicked it onto the grill, wiped out her mug. Kept her thoughts on what her hands were doing. Everything was better in the open air.

She prepared for her walk American style: water and food for forty-eight hours, fleece-jacket and a light bedroll. The first time she had hiked alone in the States, in the Sierras, she had set out on a nine-hour return trip above the snowline with a pocket water bottle and an apple, attracting a few looks along the way. Those she passed on the trail all carried full packs, bear spray, spare clothes, EPIRB, tent – the lot. She had thought them ridiculous. Stupid Americans. As she realised later, after she had passed the mangled haunch of a deer beside the trail, and plunged thigh-deep into snow, leaving her wet and cold, they had rightly thought her a naive
tourist. She had assumed she could drink from the river, or suck on snow, but there had been signs about bacteria, so she didn’t take the risk. On the return trip, a snowstorm had come in – light flakes swirling around her and dusting the branches as if in a fairytale – giving her energy just when she had been beginning to flag, but if she had been higher up it could have ended differently.

There were no predators in these mountains, and there would be no snowstorm, or even rain, but she had come to enjoy being prepared for anything. Knowing she was self-sufficient for a few days allowed a freedom that was not a feature of everyday life.