Blue Skies (15 page)

He said he would be back by lunchtime the next day, and that we would try to get away first thing on Sunday. He had spoken to his mother about having Angelica for the day and she was only too pleased. Everything was arranged. He was really looking forward to it, he said.

I phoned Gloria at her school. The person who answered said she wasn't there. She hadn't come in today, and the boy wasn't in his class. He supposed that one or other of them was ill, though if that was the case, it was odd she hadn't telephoned to let them know. I said that it was difficult for her, living in such a remote place, to get to a phone. He said he supposed that was it, and hung up.

As I wheeled Angelica along the narrow dusty footpath that ran beside the main road down to the small local shop and garage, I wondered what had happened, and wished I hadn't left. I decided to phone the school again on Monday. I bought everything I could think of for the weekend and wheeled Angelica back home under a covering of cans, egg cartons and cheese. Her eyes squinted through at me, slightly crossed and confiding.

Her Daddy was home in time for lunch the next day. He brought with him several bottles of wine and some olives from the Reffo shop near his work.

After lunch, he set about a few Saturday afternoon chores. He oiled the pram and the door. Then, since he didn't have a lawn to mow or a car to wash, he suggested we go down for a swim. I wouldn't go, not wanting to see the beach smothered under a Saturday mob.

Next morning I woke and James was not in bed. It seemed very early. I could hear him in the kitchen. I went out to find him cutting sandwiches. I perched on the stool and watched him. He stuck a mug of tea in my hand.

‘We're making an early start,' he said. ‘So when you've got the strength, go and get dressed. I'll get Angelica ready. I've nearly finished here.' He was talking so much he cut himself.

We pushed Angelica round the corner and left her face down and dopey on his mother's bed. James took the car keys from her handbag and we left.

We drove fast down the coast road to catch a small ferry to an island just off the coast. I hadn't been there before. It was narrow, straggly, bleak, bushy and scarcely populated except for a few clusters of battered wooden holiday shacks. The beaches were long and magnificent—James was sure I would like them.

On the ferry we stood side by side looking over the rail at the water, as it churned out from under the boat in a murky froth. The day was warming. A spicy eucalyptus breeze blew in our faces. We smiled happily at each other.

It wasn't far. The ferry backed into its place. James knew the island from childhood visits and drove to a beach he remembered as being isolated and endless. It still was. We took the car as far as we could down a dirt track and staggered over sand dunes to the sea.

‘When they filmed
Dr Zhivago
,' said James, ‘they used millions of tons of salt to make the snow.'

‘What about
Lawrence of Arabia
?' I asked. ‘I wonder what they used for that.'

‘Sand, I suppose,' said James.

We had reached the top of the front line of dunes. James put his finger to his lips and fell flat on his face. Wriggling forward on his stomach like an Indian, he peered over the top of the ridge, and turned and beckoned me to join him. We lay side by side looking down and along. The beach raced away into the distance on either side, its farthest limits—if they existed—out of sight, veiled in soft sea mist and flying surf spray.

‘Terrific, isn't it?' said James.

‘Terrific,' I said.

We whooped and hollered our way down, sliding knee-deep in sand, and falling and rolling over and over down to the beach. We swam far out beyond the breakers to where the sea was deep and blue, body-surfed back in and fell choking at the water's edges, noses, eyes and mouths streaming salt foam. We raced each other back up the beach to the soft, dry sand at the top and lay baking in the sun, wet sand sticking to our skins. As we dried out, the sand became dust-fine, leaving us with a light-golden sugar coating, like doughnuts on a bakery shelf. We lay close, pleased with ourselves. I wanted to tell him about my terror on the hill that afternoon. I tried to, and lay very still, expecting him to laugh.

But he didn't. Instead he said, ‘Let's have lunch.'

‘It's too early for lunch,' I said. ‘We'll be starving again later on.'

‘I packed plenty of things. We'll have lunch twice. Once now, and then later.' He went back to the car to get food and some ale from the Esky fridge box. He seemed a long time. I slept. He came back. He had been trying to pick up the latest cricket score on the car radio.

As we ate, James told me that there had once been an Aboriginal settlement in this place. Aborigines had been rounded up by soldiers and a bricklayer missionary. They were put out here so as not to bother the white settlers as they seeped out across the state forming tiny townships with pretty and exotic names: Flowerdale, Baghdad, Jericho.

‘They built houses for them, I think, or huts or something. Bits might well still be standing.' He tried to work out how long ago it would have been but couldn't. ‘I've a vague idea of where it was, though. We could drive there and see if there are any signs of it left. It might be interesting.'

The sun was high and beginning to redden our bodies. We left the beach and drove to where James thought the reservation had been. Not far from the track we found an overgrown pile of broken pale-orange bricks. We walked round, tracing with our feet a large rectangle roughly twenty feet in length. A short way behind this, deeper in the bush, there were a few smaller squares, outlined on the ground in the same crude bricks. They were hard to see, half-buried in the soil, worn down on the surface, woven up in wiry growth. Tall trees met overhead and the sun came through in uneven blots. There were more piled heaps of smashed bricks. The fleshy weed with luminous bright pink flowers, called ‘pigface', rose out of the surrounding earth, crawling over the crumbling mounds and binding the old bricks tightly together. Some other plant grew there. Bright green curly tops poked out of the ground, some in close clumps, some standing alone. Curious, I pulled at one. It came out quite easily. A poor, water-starved turnip hung on the end. I showed it to James. He cut it open. It was fibrous and woody. It kept its sharp turnip smell.

‘How about that?' said James. ‘They must have had some sort of a kitchen garden here and these bloody things just kept going somehow. Just kept on coming up for over a hundred years.'

That was all we could find—the wild turnips and broken bricks strewn about the ground in lines and piles. It was a silent place, damp and gloomy. A musty dead smell hung thick as mist. I had expected something more dramatic: sun-warmed, ivy-covered grey stones oozing romantic history, a monument to a dead race with a souvenir shop attached. But there was nothing left. Just a small sadness and boredom.

We left to find another beach on which to have another lunch. We collected some interesting shells but threw them away when we got back to the car. Reaching the ferry in good time, we waited in a lengthening line of day-trippers impatient to return. Beer cans piled up along the roadside.

We agreed that we had had a good day.

On Monday morning I phoned the school. The same man answered. Gloria and the boy were absent again. The school had still not heard. Did I, he wondered, know anything, since I kept phoning. I said I didn't, and hung up.

Next day I phoned again. No, they were still not there, but one of the teachers, who was friendly with her, planned to drive out after school to see what was happening.

I took Angelica to her grandmother's. Her cold was much better. Mother-in-law was so glad that James and I had enjoyed our picnic. She felt he looked the better for it.

I caught the bus to town, and in the shiny new State Library I took out the one book there was on Tasmanian Aborigines.

On the bus going home I decided to give up Tuesdays.

There was nothing to do with them.

I collected Angelica.

Next morning I phoned the school. There was no news of Gloria; and the other teacher hadn't been able to go after all, though she planned to go today if she could get away on time. There was a lot of excitement at the school today, the man confided. Somebody had scrawled something on one of the school fences during the night. Was it obscene? No, he said, he didn't think so. Someone had written

THE TIGERS OF WRATH ARE
WISER THAN THE HORSES OF
INSTRUCTION

in white painted capitals, and signed it William Blake. The police had been called in and had spent the morning going through the school rolls. The headmaster was of the opinion that it was the work of some disgruntled parent, although he conceded that such fancy phrasing was a bit odd. Unfortunately there was no pupil at the school called Blake and records showed that there never had been. It was a puzzle he said. And a shock. The school have never suffered from any type of vandalism before. I agreed that that sort of thing could be a problem, and wished him luck with it.