Diamonds in the Mud and Other Stories (16 page)

I choose my time well. They are in the main room, meeting, greeting, some eating. Four of the more energetic, eager to test the tennis court, have gone in search of racquets. And I am at the door listening as the tennis players wander down to the court, loud, full of bravado.

On my arrival today I cased the joint and found that the sliding door ran soundlessly but opened onto the barbecue area, which offered little protection from watchful eyes. But if the timing was right, I could open that sliding door quite innocently, wander across the decking then, when the coast was clear, make my escape around the corner. The path would be hazardous, but the reward great.

‘Women against the men,' she says.

‘No. We'll play mixed.'

‘You're scared we'll thrash the pants off you.'

‘We just want to save you embarrassment.'

I can't see them but I recognise each voice – and the voices of the sluggish who have wandered out, glasses in hand, to take their exercise by proxy.

I step onto the decking, close the door, check over my shoulder then sidle around the corner, out of sight on the east side.

The house is new, and in recent weeks the rains have not let up. Mud, mud, glorious mud. Soon a garden will grow in this mud and offer many nooks, but today I find refuge on a rock, the wind in my face. It's a flat rock, conveniently placed between two larger, craggy rocks, a hard enough perch, but safe.

‘Literally stuck between a rock and a hard place these days, old girl,' I say to myself.

With the corner of the clinker brick wall directly before me and the boundary fence behind me, I have an excellent view should searchers come at me from the east, or a young tracker venture through the mud on the south side. I think not. I have already checked out that route. The mud is deep there.

It is a problem these days, finding places to hide. Some properties are wonderful, offering numerous niches behind large trees and in gardening sheds, as well as deeply mulched gardens – too easy to hide evidence there. It has become my practice never to leave evidence behind, but this is new terrain, as yet unfamiliar to me, so I am pleased enough with my rocky perch.

From the north I hear the twang of ball on racquet strings and the jubilant cry of ‘Fault'.

‘That was in.'

‘It was out by a metre.'

Another voice buys in. I listen and smile as slowly I lift an arm that grips the weight of a phantom racquet. Whoosh. I hit a winner. ‘Ace,' I murmur. ‘That was an ace, and no argument.'

It has been a while since I played that game. I had a deceptive serve. It looked easy, but it kicked. Could I still make it kick? I inhale, toss a phantom ball high, slice it with my racquet – and feel a wince of pain in my shoulder. ‘Better place that racquet back in your memories, old girl,' I murmur, flexing my arm.

Age is a killer – a killer of much. It kills the game – along with the joints and the waistline. Age sags the jowls, wears away the teeth. Still, there is much to be said for age. With age comes a peace, and the grand experience of those years we've left behind. Age may steal the running, but we become less visible, and sometimes even invisible. Having been so busily visible for most of my life, it is a fine thing to lose one's visibility. And . . . and I could still make my serve kick if I wanted to. It's the want I'm lacking. Age kills many wants.

There is little I want now. Except – I sigh out a breath and draw another.

Footsteps on the decking? They're too close. I shrink low, disappear into the rock. The footsteps still. I check the south side, see no trackers plodding through the mud. I lean back against my rock and inhale deeply.

They're all here today, that large house is alive with movement and children's noise. I have added to that noise. I bought a packet of those paper whistles that hurl abuse at the ears then curl up so innocently.

I recall blowing those whistles, curling them around my finger, and oh, the sadness when they became tattered and refused to curl any more. I remember my own small fingers removing the wire, and wondering at the inventor of these fine toys. I was surprised to find them in the two dollar shop, and admit purchasing them purely for myself. I needed to know if they still have that backbone of rusty wire, or has our overprotective society abandoned the wire and somehow created a plastic curl?

Everything is plastic now. Life is plastic. It bends around corners, it curls. The pipes from the bathroom are plastic; the sewerage runs in plastic pipes. They will last forever. In a thousand years, will an archaeologist dig carefully around a plastic circle, remove that pipe and wonder at its use? No more ashes to ashes, no more dust to dust. What a world we live in. Even our words are plastic these days, our truth is plastic – or elastic.

I remember a time of no plastic and no sewerage pipes, when we sat on a plank in the outhouse, a long plank, polished smooth by the many bare backsides that had perched over that unfillable hole, a dusty candle in a green enamel holder at one end and spiders in every corner. The candle lasted all of the years of my childhood for few remained in that smelly old lav long enough to bother lighting it. A not so sterile, sterilised world back then, smells were a part of life, spray-cans of perfumed deodorants not yet invented, and toilet paper a luxury item, rarely sighted. Newspaper sufficed at our house, newspaper cut to wipe size and threaded on string with a giant bag-needle.

‘Get the bag-needle and cut some paper for the lavatory, one of you kids.'

Small hands wielding large scissors with precision, they threaded that sword sharp needle with its curved, swan's neck and an eye large enough to take string. Today's children wouldn't be allowed near such tools.

Danger was accessible in my childhood. We feared snakes and mad dogs, bad men in cars, but little else. Sharp tools were kept in the middle drawer of the kitchen tallboy, with the folded butcher's paper, the used brown paper bags and the twists of saved string. Birthday presents came wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. No sticky tape back then, no plastic bags, no television. We had a radio but the battery was saved for the six o'clock news broadcast and for famous tenors on Sunday night.

Distant now, my childhood, just a scattering of disjointed memories, of outdoor lavs and paper whistles.

One small whistleblower has exchanged his whistle for a bottle. I hear him from his cot close by. A fine boy that one – will he sleep and dream of when he is a big man, not required to have a nap, while I sit outside his window and dream of when I was a child?

One whistleblower is behind the garage. With toys aplenty, he prefers the mud. I must watch out for this one. He has explorer genes, prefers nature's eternal playthings, sand and stone, puddles and mud. He will find a pathway to me, careless of his shoes and brand new jeans. This world has not conditioned him yet to fear.

I glance to the right, the left, overhead. Was that a raindrop, or an incontinent bird flying by? Rain will end the tennis match. Sharp eyes, busy bones, those players cannot sit still, the ones with the sharp eyes and busy bones always needing to do, do, do. Like me, perhaps. I need a reason to be still. That is why I sit here, in the wind, stuck between a rock and a hard place. That is why they are down there, hitting balls. They don't approve of my reason to sit still – nor do the experts.

Surely the world is a mote too heavily populated by experts who preach their gloom, their doom, death and destruction on every corner. I preferred the past when each man was responsible for his own decisions, when society was less controlled and each child capable of original and unique thought. Now they are conditioned early to become one with the bleating herd, all baaing in unison while attempting to wag their cropped tails. Give me the old woolly headed ewe who evaded the cutting band, who kept her long daggy tail and her horns that now protect her head when she rams it daily in frustration at brick walls.

I glance at the brick wall that hides me. It's built of clinker brick, rough to the touch, sharp, and would gouge my head should I attempt to ram it. In my youth, clinkers were the mistakes in brick manufacturing, the discards. They could be purchased cheaply. Now the brick factories make them that way – make them with uniform sharp edges. They are more expensive than perfect bricks.

‘It's forty–love.'

‘It's thirty–fifteen.'

‘It's not.'

‘We got the second point. It was in.'

‘It was out by an inch.'

‘Put your glasses on.'

Competition is not yet dead. From the garage I hear children's voices mimicking their parents.

‘I did not.'

‘You did so.'

‘I did not.'

‘You did so.'

‘Compete,' I whisper, and I look towards the dark clouds. ‘Let them learn to compete. Don't let my children be penned sheep, all bleating in unison.'

A drop of rain falls heavy onto my face, then a second onto my hand. I stand, bury the evidence, push it with my index finger deep into the mud. Then I walk to the corner.

Wrong way, go back! The barbecue is burning, the children waiting for a sausage. It's down the south side for you, old girl. It's through that mud for you.

The garage is empty. I remove my shoes, clean mud from them with a spade, and on stockinged feet I creep into the house, via the garage door, then fast into the toilet where I clean the last mud from my shoes with powder scented, floral toilet paper. Flush it away. Flush it down those plastic pipes. My hands washed with perfumed soap, I take a peppermint from my pocket, chew and suck on it greedily, needing its masking scent to work fast.

Shod again, smelling pure enough to play Nanny, I return to the party.

‘Where you been, Nanny?'

‘Just having a look around, my darling.' Elastic truth.

Perhaps I'll have another look around later – before I cut that cruel cake, stiff with too many candles.

In the beginning there was the sun and the earth, the wind and the rain and snow on the distant mountains, there was the cycle of the seasons and crops for all seasons. There was the singing of the birds, the lowing of the beasts and the laughter of children. And the people praised the goodness of nature, and daily gave thanks to it.

And a thousand seasons came and went, and over all of the earth there was a garden where every living thing flourished. And in time, there was abundance so the people built a strong storehouse in which to place this plenitude, and to the people that store became a great joy, and the sight of their excess produce moved them to give thanks to the great sun and the cooling rain and to all of nature's goodness.

But this storehouse was coveted by powerful men, born with the desire to govern all things. They sat for many days in conference, searching for a name for the provider of this goodness, for only by giving it a name could they harness its power. They named it God.

Now, with God locked inside that grain store, each year the powerful could demand greater offerings from the land. Was it not God who provided this plenty? Was it not His due to receive a fair share?

In time, the powerful named themselves priests of God, and they ate very well of these excess offerings and grew fat on them. But when the crops failed and the people wished to take a little of what they had stored, the priests locked themselves inside the storehouse – so they might better communicate with God and hear His new demands. He had many which the priests communicated to the people.

God was angered by his paltry storehouse, they said, and this is why the crops had failed. God decreed that one in four men must leave the fields and go to the forests to fell the trees. And God decreed that one man in four must go to the mountains and cut stone so a mighty building could be built, a temple fit to house their imprisoned God.

And the trees were felled and the birds flew away, and no bird-song was heard. And the land lay uncultivated and the yield of crops was small and all over the land there was hunger and the children no longer laughed and played. They toiled.

Thus it came to pass that over all of the land great temples were erected, but they were empty of Goodness and of God. Then the harsh winds came from the south, for there was no mountain to catch it or turn it away. And the winds came in from the north, but the forest and its protection was gone. Now the fertile fields became a desert, and the children wept and hunger swelled their bellies and there was much death and only the birds of carrion flew the skies. There was cursing of God amongst all of mankind, there was weeping and wailing and blame directed at the priests, who spoke to them from behind heavy stone doors.

‘God has been stolen by your enemies while you wail to Him, you fools,' the priests said. ‘Gather your weapons and march against those who have taken Him.'

So the people waged war on each other in order to recapture God. And there was blood over all of the land and the stench of rotting corpses. But the armies could not recapture Him.

Thus it came to pass that each group of men engineered from tales long told a version of his own God, and these they carried before them into battle. And the God grew thick and fast. The theory of nature's Goodness, of that first simple God, was long forgotten.

How different now the minds of mankind.

God demanded retribution. God forgave. God was black, and He was white. God rode in a golden chariot. He rode on a donkey's back. God demanded the sacrifice of youth. God turned the water into wine. And as each group of mankind now spoke a different tongue, so the names of their gods were legion – though their demands were much the same: ‘Kill thy neighbour,' He decreed. ‘Tear down the temple of your enemy. Strike him, smite him, rape his wife, murder his children until he submits and bows low before your God.'

Forgotten by all was earth's garden. No green was left upon the land. Forgotten by all was that first strong storehouse where the simple people gave thanks to nature's goodness. Bombs had levelled it and turned the fields to glass where no man might tread. All that had been good and godly was now buried deep beneath glazed rubble.

And many years passed, and the myriad gods of man showed him new excesses, feeding his needy greed to control, as man left the land to dwell in the dark cave of great cities where there was starvation and plague and grey cement covering the land. And in the sky an evil yellow haze blocked out the sun, and no rain fell upon the earth, and trees were only fables born of fairytales.

‘What is a tree, Mummy?'

‘It was a . . . it was . . . colourful birds nested in the trees.'

‘What's a colourful bird, Mummy?'

‘It's a . . . once upon a time there was . . . colour.'

Grey children fought with the grey rats in the grey rubble for a grey crust. Grey women walked the streets, selling their grey children for a glass of grey water. And the weeping was loud over all of the earth.

Then came the shaking of the earth and a rumbling from the rubble mountain, then from it gushed a fire, terrible to behold, and all over the land great gashes opened in the earth, and a terrible wind, raised up from hell, stripped the land bare. And grey buildings fell and were swallowed up by the earth and in the sky every mote of grey dust had collected from every corner of the earth until even the sun became grey. And the people could not see their enemies.

How can mankind wage war on those he cannot see?

There was much death before the winds stilled and the earth steadied, and from the heavens a cleansing rain fell on the new mountain range to the south.

Then it came to pass that in a sheltered corner, buried deep beneath the bruised earth, an ancient seed had swollen with moisture. Now it pushed its small green head up to greet the sun. And two small leaves, cupped in prayer, opened to a cleaner sky.

Two waifs, playing in the rubble, came upon the green thing growing there. They knelt beside it, staring in awe, for they had seen nothing like it before.

‘Who are you?' they asked. ‘Why do you wear the colour of fables?'

And God looked up at the waifs, and He shuddered, and his tender new leaves trembled.

‘I am but a small weed,' He said. ‘Please leave me alone.'