Ora's Gold Page 8

  ‘What are you studying?’ I wonder how old he is.

  ‘Marine Biology. Second year this year. How about you, Mystery Molly?’

  He must be a few years older than me. This guy is tricky. It’s maddening. He’s asking as many questions as me.

  ‘I’m kind of in the middle of deciding. I used to live in New South Wales, and I finished high school last year. I didn’t get great results.’ I’m sounding like a drop-out.

  ‘What about the stuff with your aunt?’ he asks. He’s clever.

  I pause, deciding whether to plunge in. He knows some of it already from the note, and I find myself wanting to tell him. All this time alone up here has shown me that I do like talking after all. I’ve also realised how much I miss Lucy, and how I’ve abandoned her recently. I’ve been so busy missing Mum and Holly and trying to get to grips with all the birthing drama.

  But four months of enduring Dione’s secret women’s business without telling a soul has been long enough.

  ‘It’s hard to know where to start,’ I say.

  The impact of all that’s happened rises up, hot and lava-like inside me. My lower lip starts to wobble. I can’t believe I’m about to cry. I widen my eyes, struggling to dispel the tears that are forming.

  ‘You know when you do something really challenging, like a long day’s hike or a marathon maybe,’ I say, ‘and you don’t realise how hard it is until you stop?’

  He nods slowly.

  ‘Well, there’s maybe a moment or two when you have a bit of a freak out, but you just keep going. But at the end when you finally stop, your whole body aches and you know you couldn’t walk another step even if a bushfire was tearing up behind you?’

  ‘I sometimes feel like that after swimming.’

  ‘That’s how I feel right now. Just really, really tired.’ And then this huge sob wells up from my very depths and before I know it, I’m crying. He moves close, wrapping his arms gently around me. My first impulse is to push him away. It’s been years since I’ve cried in anyone’s arms. I could struggle out of his grip but I don’t. He holds me a little tighter and I lean into his chest, briefly registering his musky scent. I’m making his T-shirt wet with tears and snot, but I’m past caring. His warmth and strength are comforting.

  He sits quietly, holding me. I can’t stop wailing. It sounds so bad, demented, like a strangled cat.

  After a long while, I’m cried out and completely self-conscious. My hair and body are covered in six days’ worth of camping and I feel completely exposed.

  He gently lets go of me and, still without saying anything, urges me into my sleeping bag. I curl up into myself, burying my face. I feel his hand briefly on my shoulder and he says something about making a fire.

  Once he’s zipped the tent back up I stretch out on my back and let out a heavy sigh. Did I just drop my bundle or what? I squirm and move myself into a ball again, full of embarrassment. I don’t even want to think about what just happened. I’m staying here all night. And maybe he’ll stay out there by the fire. That’d be best.

  14

  Middle of the night

  Before I wake, just for a moment, there’s this lightness. I’m home, Holly’s in her room and Mum and Dad are in theirs, all still asleep.

  I sit up with a start and then the dragging feeling is back in my chest. I hear movement outside and listen intently. It must be Jake.

  Jake.

  The gentle cracking and popping of a fire makes me want to go out there. I sit up. Lie down again. I want to go out. No I don’t. Yes. No.

  Before I delay myself with any more thoughts, I’m unzipping the tent and moving out towards the warm flames. When I see him I think about retreating, but he beckons me forward.

  ‘The ground’s wet but my jacket’s big enough for two.’ He sounds cheerful. I grab my jacket as well.

  The sky has cleared and there’s a fresh chill in the air. The stars are out in all their glory. I feel like I could sit really close to him and he wouldn’t mind, but I put my jacket down next to his instead, my frantic urge for control re-emerging.

  ‘How’re you doing?’ he asks.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, looking into the flames. ‘Thanks … for before.’

  He keeps looking at the fire and nods. ‘No worries.’

  The silence extends. I want to start talking but I don’t know where to begin. There’s so much swishing around in me, some of it has to come out. I look at him, then back to the fire.

  ‘Do you remember before you went away, at the beach …?’ I struggle to find the right words.

  ‘When you got saved by the lifesaver?’

  I wince. ‘She overreacted. I was fine.’

  We look at each other briefly, then turn back to the flames.

  ‘Well, the night before that … I’d just witnessed my first birth with Dione.’

  It’s his turn to pick his jaw up off the floor. I nod and take a deep breath. ‘She’s an undercover midwife, fighting this secret, stupid war that she should’ve let go of years ago.’ He lets out a long whistle as he absorbs my words. I want to tell him about the birthing centre too. It’s not a good idea, for his safety or mine, but the floodgates are open now, and I can’t stop.

  ‘Maybe I was thrashing around a bit in the water, but I was really upset.’ I need him to understand. ‘Dione didn’t want me around—she was so taken up by “her work”—and my dad is a lost cause. And my mum and my sister are—’

  ‘Hang on,’ he touches my wrist briefly. ‘Does your dad live here too?’

  ‘No! My dad lives in the middle of nowhere in Victoria and has forgotten I exist, which is kind of ironic because he’s already—’

  ‘Ora,’ he interrupts me again. ‘Could you please slow down? And … start at the beginning?’ He raises an eyebrow and I look away.

  ‘That would mean starting way back when the world went crazy and people lost their rights and forgot how to grow food. And water became a political commodity and the earth got depleted because the corporations were taking over …’

  His shoulders are shaking and when I look at him he’s laughing. I can’t believe it! I start to get up.

  ‘Stop,’ he grabs my arm.

  ‘You’re laughing at me.’ I pull my arm free.

  ‘No, please. I’m not.’ He’s looking at me, waiting for me to look back, but I stare hard at the fire. I will not cry again.

  ‘It’s just that …’ he pauses. ‘You either don’t say anything or you talk so fast I can’t keep up.’

  I still can’t look at him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ora. Can I … Would it help if—’

  I blow out of my mouth slowly. This is not going to be easy.

  ‘Just don’t patronise me, okay?’

  He’s quiet, then nods briefly.

  I swallow and take a breath in. ‘My mum and my sister died when I was thirteen. Me and my dad moved to Victoria a few months later—from the rainforest hills—for his job. He’s a doctor. A new start, and all that.’ I look at him briefly.

  ‘We went to this crappy country town where the land was flat, the sky grey and no ocean for miles. The kids hated me. They called me ‘Feral’ because of my hair, and because I didn’t have the right clothes. They thought I was weird because I loved animals instead of boys.’

  I pause, expecting an interruption, but he nods, so I go on.

  ‘There weren’t any birds in that place, which says it all … Well, maybe a crow or two, and an owl at night, once.’

  He’s still not interrupting, so I keep going.

  ‘Dad started working at the hospital whenever he could—which was most of the time. I watched him morph from this big, solid giant with a heart to match, to a shrunken shell that I didn’t recognise, like he’d been taken over by an alien that sucked out all of his greatness.’

  Jake smiles, but it’s a sad smile.

  ‘Even the shape of his face changed; it got tighter, and his lips got stuck in this permanent line. Maybe I’m exaggerating, bu
t “heart the size of a pea” sums him up pretty well.’

  ‘He seemed to just forget I was there.’ I lean forward and put some wood on the fire. When I sit down, we’re shoulder to shoulder, and his arm feels warm against mine. I look down and see that I’m sitting on his coat … I must have moved closer.

  ‘I tried cooking his favourite dinners, keeping the house tidy, that kind of stuff, but it didn’t work. Then I tried the “Look at me, I’m depressed” routine, but he didn’t notice any of it. The lights were on but no one was home. So I gave up.

  ‘I was there almost a year and a half … months and months of drawing, I must have filled a hundred sketchbooks. Trees, mostly. I had to copy animals out of books. Escaping into novels helped, too. Mostly, though, I felt as bleak as the landscape. When kids from my old school got in touch, I never replied, except to my best friend Lucy—I didn’t have anything to say. In the end I stopped drawing and just vegged out and watched movies.

  ‘Then, Lucy’s mum rang out of the blue and before I knew it, I had a holiday planned at their place.’ I fall silent. I’m thirsty after talking so much. ‘I ended up staying with them for over three years. When they moved to New Zealand a few months ago, I moved in with Dione.’

  He leans closer and says, very quietly, ‘Shit’, which feels like the appropriate response.

  We sit silently for a while.

  ‘Do you miss your dad?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I say. ‘But he changed so much … we just stopped being a team, you know? Like somewhere along the way he dropped the ball. Maybe I kept reminding him of Holly and Mum. Maybe I kept him soft when all he wanted was to be hard.’

  Jake reaches out, putting his arm around my lower back, and squeezes me gently.

  I like the feel of his arm.

  ‘How about you?’ I ask. ‘What’s your family like?’

  ‘Two sisters.’ He takes his arm back. ‘Kate’s still at home with Mum in Queensland. They moved there two years ago. And my big sister, Jenny, lives with her partner in the city.’ He pauses. ‘So what exactly has Dione been doing then? What did you mean, “Birth war”?’

  ‘It’s safer if you don’t know.’ I wanted to tell him so badly before, but the less he knows the better.

  ‘Was she involved with Little Tom’s birth? They’ve never told me what happened.’

  I need to change the subject. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘How old do you think?’

  ‘Forty-five?’ I smile.

  ‘Ha!’ He bumps against me, making me lose my balance. ‘I’ll be twenty-three next week, thank you very much.’

  ‘And do you live near the beach?’

  He nods. ‘I’m renting with a mate. I moved back in after I got back from America.’ He pauses. ‘My Dad’s a lost cause too.’ His lips purse, only slightly, as he gets lost in the flames for a moment. Then he sits up straighter and does my changing-the-subject trick. ‘So what’s it like living with Dione? I can see why you spend all your time at the beach. She must be a bit of a fruitcake.’

  The expression makes me laugh.

  ‘It’s one of Mum’s,’ he smiles. ‘So …?’

  ‘She’s a mixture of grace and grit. When I first moved in, she was all grit—except unlike Dad, she was only pretending, which is bloody good ’cos I was ready to give up on my family completely. She’s got a big heart and we get along fine, so long as we avoid the birth stuff.’ I know he’ll think it’s dumb, but I say it anyway. ‘We play a lot of Scrabble.’

  ‘Scrabble?’ He chuckles and looks at me in a puzzled kind of way. ‘You’ve got to get out more Ora, you really do.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m a fruitcake?’

  ‘Possibly,’ he grins.

  I yawn, then shiver. The fire has died down and we’ve used all the wood.

  ‘It’s going to be an early start,’ I say, yawning again.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says, standing, and pulling me up.

  I turn, avoiding his eyes, and stomp off into the bushes, saying over my shoulder, ‘Bush wee.’

  When I get back into the tent he’s lying under his jacket. I climb into my sleeping bag and he beckons me closer.

  ‘Could you come here a minute and warm me up?’ He shudders. ‘Grrhh. You might have organised some better guest accommodation.’

  I jab him in the ribs. ‘Don’t be rude about my tent!’ I say, and before I know it, I’m lying next to him.

  ‘It’s freezing up here.’ He shudders, pulling me closer.

  ‘You should have brought your wetsuit,’ I say, unable to believe I’m nestling into him in response.

  But this feels right, even if it is kind of quick. I don’t care about anything outside of this tent right now. I listen to his heart beating below my ear and enjoy the feel of his swimmer’s chest under my hand. He smells clean and musky and herbal all at once. I smile in the darkness.

  I think back to this afternoon and see his eyes and his lips. His lips … I want to kiss him. I savour the urge, enjoying the desire. I take some deep breaths and relax my whole body against his. He’s warm, and comforting.

  ‘Thank you for trekking up here and risking the SIF,’ I say, still not quite believing my luck.

  ‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ he says with another squeeze of my shoulder and a yawn.

  It takes me ages to fall asleep.

  15

  Flight

  A raven’s caw wakes me. The sun is high. Jake is sound asleep, lying on his back. I still can’t believe he’s here. But there’s this gnawing tension beyond the zip of the tent adding an urgency to the atmosphere. I study his features, taking in his nose with its straight and determined line and his long, dark lashes. His mouth is full and relaxed in sleep, tempting me to lean up and over him. I pause for a few seconds, then lower my lips onto his.

  I watch as he stirs into wakefulness. He smiles and kisses me back. Our eyes meet briefly before I close mine and sink into the feel of his lips. Our tongues meet tentatively, just the tips, but soon they’re probing softly and moving together. I slide over, still in my sleeping bag, until I’m lying on top of him. I have never been so daring.

  A new kind of hunger is pushing at me, dancing between my hips, making me want to push into him. He’s just lifting his arm to my sleeping bag when a distant sound brings us out of our bodies, wide-eyed, back into daylight.

  A dog. Or a few dogs? Far away, barks rolling up the mountain, breaking the quiet.

  ‘Shit,’ he says.

  I scramble out of my sleeping bag, my body moving ahead of my thoughts. Every cell is in flight mode—I need to get away. My boots are on before I know it. I fling on my jacket. Jake is rushing too. I unzip the tent and grab my backpack, moving into the annex. We lock eyes for a split second.

  ‘I’ll head for the creek bed,’ I say, making it clear I’m going alone. The authority in my voice surprises me. Jake is right behind me. No time for goodbyes, just a look—panic, desire, sorrow, rolled into one.

  I’m off up the track behind the tent, tripping through the thick undergrowth. I can still feel his lips on mine. The track is almost non-existent. I race over the ridge and down the other side. Dione’s instruction is all that drives me. The creek bed, the track, the town. My lungs heave for air, my gasps tearing my throat. The ground thumps through me as I barrel down the hill.

  The dogs sound further away once I’m at the bottom of the ridge. I send up a silent prayer that I’ll get away—Jake, too. I can’t go fast along the creek bed—the rocks and pebbles make me stumble. I trip, and almost fall.

  Crazed dogs! They sounds too close—at the top of the ridge.

  Not a chance. The thought forms in my head and I run faster. I hear men shouting. Their excitement hits me between the shoulders, and adrenaline pumps through me, thumping in my ears.

  The dogs are closer now, though the men sound further away. Perhaps the dogs are off their leads? I surge forward, picking up the pace. Frenzied barks, too close, hunting me. Everyt
hing goes into slow motion as I spin around. Two Rottweilers charge me, paws slapping stones. Snarling. Teeth. Wild eyes.

  The dogs separate, working together, one behind me, the other in front. I lock eyes with the dog in front. It’s rabid. A long, low growl tells me it’s about to attack.

  ‘Freeze!’ The shout from a few metres upstream jolts through us both. The dog whines momentarily, then snarls again. I tear my eyes from it and look up. Two SIF men rush towards me, and white fear surges through my body.

  ‘Gotcha!’ One grabs my arm roughly, like he’s won a prize. The other is rewarding the dogs, which have morphed into family pets, wagging their tails. He looks up with a mean twist to his mouth.

  ‘Ora James,’ he says, shaking his head slowly.

  I am trembling violently. My breathing has slowed and I cross my arms over my chest, protecting myself. I need to stop the shaking. I want Dad. I’m alone in this wilderness out here—me, the dogs, and two clowns from a nightmare. They are power happy, coming down from the high of the chase. I am something to play with.

  The dogs are on leads now. One of the men shoves me forward. Everything slows. I brace myself.

  ‘Start walking.’

  Hope touches me briefly; they are not going to hurt me. He shoves me again.

  ‘Get moving!’

  I begin to retrace my steps. For the moment, I am safe—they’ve had their fun. The ridiculousness of my situation overwhelms me. I have no words.

  This was never my battle!

  How did it come to this? Will they hurt me? Torture me? Tears blind my eyes, and I brush them away furiously.

  We tread a steady path back up the ridge, down past the tent. Jake and I were here only moments ago. The officer in front gives the corner a kick, ripping the canvas near the tent peg. He might as well have kicked me.

  Sobs of fear and fury escape my throat, and the dog behind me growls.

  ‘Move it!’ The handler shoves me hard. No sympathy for the wicked. I am made of sterner stuff than this. Aren’t I? My legs feel so weak, like they’re going to crumple underneath me. I want to bury myself in the leaves and soil, feel the earth meeting me in a welcoming embrace. My mother.