In the Shadow of the Trees (10 page)

‘I’d read a lot about you, of course,’ he said, ‘but you’re not in the least what I expected.’

‘Oh? In what way?’

‘Well, for one thing, I thought you’d be a lot taller.’

That’s when I took a swipe at him and knocked the remains of my beer all over the table.

After I’d cleaned up the mess and said goodbye to Maggie I found him waiting outside, staring at the wall. I went to see what was so interesting, and found he was looking at a brightly coloured poster tacked to the boards.

‘Wow, a gypsy fair,’ I said. ‘What’s that all about then?’

‘They’re travellers. Go all over the country.’

‘I’ve never seen them before.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t. Not in a big city. But in country places, where they can bring their vehicles through and find a field to set up, they make a regular annual visit. They’re mostly people who’ve got tired of the pace of life, trying to find a different way of being. There’s all sorts of stalls and craftsmen, you know, handmade things. You’d enjoy it.’

‘I guess I would. How come you know so much about it?’

‘Well, I travelled along with them for a bit. Got to know a few of them. Friends like.’

‘You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?’

I drove back with Liam sitting uncomfortably beside me, staring
straight ahead. The few animals looked up as we passed but mostly we were ignored.

‘Sullivan doesn’t seem to do much about the place. Does that leave a lot of work for you to do?’

‘Hardly any. It’s more like the station’s a hobby, only he pays someone else to do it for him.’

‘So what do you do all day?’

‘Oh, there’s always some jobs that need attending. I’ve been fixing up fences and sorting out the sheds. There’s lots of old tools there, not been used for years,’ he said.

‘What about the animals?’

‘Just a few sheep and cows. Some hens behind the house.’

‘Don’t they have to be milked or sheared or something?’

That almost made him laugh. ‘Nothing has to be milked. They’re beef cattle. All they need is health checks and feeding. I call in Harry if there’s any of them looking troubled. And the feeding’s something they take care of themselves most of the time, as do the sheep. It’s just a matter of moving them from one paddock to the next. When the sheep need shearing or dipping, Sullivan calls on one of the lads from over the way to give a hand. Joseph, he’s got a good pair of sheep dogs. Put you two to shame, don’t they, Bramble?’

Bramble leaned over from the back and licked Liam’s ear. She nearly fell off the seat as I turned onto our track, up and over the hill and into the pines.

‘But you must know something about the animals to be able to look after them.’

‘I do. I used to work on farms during the holidays.’

It was purely on impulse that I swung off the track, turning right and onto the edge of the pines. I seemed to have come this far with Liam and there was part of him that I felt I could trust. I tend to trust people on impulse. It’s an instinct that usually backfires on me, but I figured that if he understood my work maybe there were other things he would understand.

‘Where are we going now?’ he asked.

‘Come on, there’s something I want to show you.’ I jumped down from the truck and found the path through the trees to the clearing.

‘Ah, the gravestones. Yes, I have come across them.’ He stood over Jane’s marker.

‘I thought you probably had. But have you read them? I mean really looked at them, the dates?’

‘Can’t say I’ve given it much thought. They were all young, I suppose, but I would think life wasn’t easy in the early days. Lots of people didn’t make it.’

‘It wasn’t that long ago, not really. Well, not for Jane, anyway. And why were they buried here? There’s a cemetery just up the road. I’ve had a look round. Plenty of Sullivans in there, some of them a lot older than these. Michael Sullivan’s there. He was the first to come from Ireland. Anne was his wife. Yet they buried her here.’

‘Well, she died a long time before him.’

‘Yes, that’s just it. Three women. All married to Sullivans. Three successive generations. All three had just the one son. And they all died when they were about thirty. Don’t you think that’s odd?’

Liam was quiet. He went on looking, moving from one stone to the other. ‘I grant you,’ he said eventually, ‘it is strange.’

He bent down, tracing his finger over the letters of Anne’s name. Then he moved over to the other graves and studied them for a while. ‘Someone’s been cleaning these up.’

‘Yes, that was me. I felt someone ought to do something for them. It’s like they’ve all been abandoned. There’s no one that cares about them any more.’

‘And what about the flowers? I suppose it was you put those there? Why that grave in particular?’

‘That’s Anne. I sort of…Well, it may sound silly but I feel I know her. It was hearing about the way she died. She was out
here, up in the hills somewhere. It was a horrible death and she was alone. And then Mary followed her. They say she died looking for Anne’s ghost. I don’t know about Jane.’

‘And as a consequence you feel you have some kind of rapport with Anne?’

‘I told you it sounds silly.’

‘And you’re sure that’s all it is?’

‘Of course. What else?’

‘It’s a grim tale right enough. Easy to get caught up in it. Tell me, why did you bring me here?’

‘I thought you might know something, you being from Ireland. I mean, is it some sort of Celtic tradition, burying young women in the backyard?’

‘No. I’m sure the holy fathers would take exception to that.’

And then something happened in his face. It was as if another idea, or a memory, had invaded his thoughts, throwing his mind into conflict.

‘Yes, what is it? You know something, don’t you?’

‘I don’t
know
anything. It’s just…well…the name Sullivan. There were stories.’

‘What sort of stories?’

‘No I can’t say, I don’t recall exactly. Besides, you’ve got an overactive imagination and I won’t be feeding it on half-remembered scraps.’ He moved back to Anne’s grave and examined the stone again, then the others. ‘You say you found Michael Sullivan? What was the date on his stone?’

‘I think it was 1913. But I worked out he was quite old by then. Apparently he emigrated from Ireland when he was a young man.’

Liam shook his head slightly and stood looking at the ground.

‘You do know something. Tell me, for God’s sake.’

‘I’m not sure. I’d need to ask. There is someone who might know, but he’s halfway round the world.’

‘Could you phone him?’

‘It’s not that easy, not the sort of thing you can deal with in a long-distance phone call. He might have to do some research. I wish I had access to the Internet. As if anyone around here would have a computer.’

‘You’re not going to believe this.’ I started running toward the truck. ‘Come on. Back to my place.’

Of course, talking him into it wasn’t that easy. He put up endless objections while I set up my laptop on the table. I could see he was itching to get his hands on it so I let him scan through the set-up and programs. He seemed to know what he was doing. It was quite new and still had a sheaf of techno-babble leaflets with it, which Liam studied with great intensity. I think, in the end, it was the technology that won him over.

‘OK, I’ll ask. I have this friend who has access to collections of old local folk tales. But that’s all they are, mind you—tales, rumours thought up by superstitious people who created mysteries to feed their own fears.’

‘Like me thinking the Sullivan women were all victims of an axe massacre?’

‘Yes, something like that. What I’m saying is I might have remembered it wrong—there may not be anything. Even if he finds something it would have been a long time ago, nothing to do with here and now. And more than likely it’ll be a load of nonsense.’

‘Yeah, right. I’ll control my imagination.’ But you want to know too, I thought, don’t you, Liam Connors? You know there’s something going on here.’

He accessed the email program, clicked the mouse on the new mail icon, then sat pulling at his beard and staring at the blank message window.

‘Well, go on then.’

‘Look, this friend. It’s a bit delicate, you see, my contacting him. And it would be better if it were kept private.’

‘Well, who around here is going to want to know about your friends in Ireland? Oh, I see. You mean me. Fine, I’ll go and make us some tea.’

From the kitchen end of the room I could see the concentration on his face as he watched the screen. His eyebrows creased together like the wings of a dark bird and his hair stuck out in wild tufts where he had raked his hands through it. I had to admit he was looking less like Rasputin and more like Albert Einstein. For a two-finger typist he was fast, certainly no stranger to a keyboard. Meanwhile I was clattering mugs and making a fuss of opening a box of teabags.

Just as the kettle boiled he said, ‘Right, now, it’s in the out-box. We need to plug into a phone line to send it.’

‘Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.’

‘No problem. There’s a phone at the woolshed. Leave the tea, we’ll come back for it.’

A few minutes later we were at his place listening to the dialup tone. I stood behind him, making a great show of averting my face from the screen. He hesitated, seeming on the brink of a fatal decision, then, with a sigh of submission, he took hold of the mouse. I happened to glance over just as he clicked on the send button and saw the message window vanish.

‘There,’ he said, as the screen went black, ‘it’s all done. I’ll switch off. I don’t know how long it will take to get a reply, if we get one at all. Better leave it two or three days.’

Back at the cottage we drank our tea and talked of other things. At least I talked, mostly about art, which seemed a safe subject. He wasn’t really listening, though, deep in thought, as if already regretting what he’d done.

After a while he left and I was alone with the laptop.

Yes, I know you’re not supposed to read other people’s mail, but it was my computer. To be fair, it was at least an hour before
I switched it on. Even then I looked up some old notes I’d made about various wood merchants and checked some exhibition dates before I took a quick glance at the email program. I thought I ought to check the sent items box to make sure the message had been sent. There was nothing there. But it was there, I’d seen it. And I saw him send it. He must have deleted it. I clicked on deleted items. That, too, had been emptied. Whatever he’d sent, whoever he’d sent it to; the retained copy had been wiped off without a trace.

C
HRISTMAS
came around, as did Jason. In fact they both arrived unannounced at the same time, so I was thrown completely off balance.

Badger had come home swathed in bandages. Bramble was naturally overjoyed and expected him to play as usual. It took a lot to convince her that he was confined to quarters with Liam. Obviously her visits to the invalid had to be restricted but, as she had moved in with me, it was easy for us to drop by the woolshed. Liam and I soon fell into a routine of morning coffee and afternoon beer. It was all part of the rhythm of the day and Bramble knew when it was time to bully me into taking a break.

Liam and I talked, mostly about the dogs. He seemed to know a lot about animals and their behaviour, which, I suppose, was only to be expected from a farm labourer with an intimate knowledge of the arts and computer technology. Once or twice I persuaded him to play a tune for me. It was then, through the music, that I was allowed a glimpse beneath the carapace. What I saw there was something tender, something that knew kinship with pain. But mostly we both worked hard at keeping it all very light and superficial. Often he would take Bramble out with him
while I was occupied. Badger slept the day away in the woolshed, allowing his body to heal. And I worked.

The second piece had made its beginning. The first had been about the consciousness of trees. The new sculpture was about something else, that other energy of which I was becoming increasingly aware. Small eyes watched me all the time. There were thousands of creatures roosting or burrowing on the hillsides and around the lake. I was an intruder on their territory, some large and terrible danger to their perilous lives. But that wasn’t it.

At first I thought it was the trees and welcomed the sensation as a sign that I was on their wavelength. It wasn’t until the second piece was under way that I realised that what I was tuning into was more individualised and specific.

And I sensed that it was growing more aware of me. All this probably sounds crazy now. I can only put it down to the creative process. I was exhausted, yet I had never experienced such a need to work: my mind was driven and my body forced to follow. I suppose it was a sort of obsession, but all I could see at the time was my work.

This was the most important thing I had ever done and I could not let go. So I cut and carved and witnessed the changes my hands brought about. I tried to make sketches as usual, but they seemed to get in the way. Whatever was happening this time, it was at a subconscious level and being transferred straight to the tools. I felt like a channel, as if a window inside me had opened up and light was pouring through. The only way I could understand the vision was by shaping the wood.

And I waited for the Watcher to make itself known. It was there in the day when I walked through the bush. It was there at night and, in some ways, the dreams seemed more real. Even when I couldn’t recall the dream, I would know it had been with me. I would wake to my own reflection in the mirror, my face gaunt from exhaustion, eyes rimmed with red.

Was I afraid? I should have been. Yes, in a way I suppose I was—afraid, yet exhilarated. This intelligence, or whatever it was, was the key to my work. I needed it. I knew that.

I never stopped to wonder why it needed me.

The days had maintained their own rhythm. I worked and I slept and I walked through the trees. There was only the estate and the countryside around us, Maggie’s bar and the shop where I bought food. It was like living in a miniature world under one of those glass domes: I could see out and others could see in but there was no point of contact. The rest of the universe was irrelevant to my existence.

So that was why I nearly missed Christmas.

The first I knew about it was the noise and the smell of engine fumes as Jason’s bike skidded to a halt outside the cottage. I was under the sheltered end of the deck, cursing at a saw blade that had become jammed in a wave of grain, and had to leave what I was doing. He kicked the bike stand down, swung the camera round and clicked at me. When I realised what was happening I quickly retreated to throw a cloth over the wood block I was working on.

‘Merry Christmas!’ he shouted

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I bring peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind.’

‘Oh, fuck off, Jason, I’ve got no time for this.’

‘You can’t be working. It’s Christmas. Even the peasants are allowed a day off.’ He came up on the deck and walked inside, arms laden with packages, all professionally gift-wrapped in gold foil and tied with silver ribbons. ‘Come on, put down your tools and see what Santa’s brought you.’

‘Are you serious?’ I trailed after him. ‘Is it really Christmas?’

‘December the twenty-fifth. All day.’

‘Oh, hell. I’ll have to ring my parents.’

‘Never mind that now, you have to open your presents. Here, sit down.’

He elbowed me onto the sofa and tipped the parcels onto my lap. Immediately the camera came into his hands and he started clicking. I’d forgotten how annoying that was. Or perhaps it wasn’t before.

‘Come on, open, open.’

I gave in. And it was fun. I finished up with a lapful of nonsense. A Father Christmas hat with a white bobble, a box of balloons in rainbow colours, a squeaky toy Santa (that would please Bramble), an oil burner with a bottle of frankincense, chocolate Christmas trees, a penknife with my name on it, a bottle of my favourite liqueur, a Japanese fan. The fan was beautiful, delicately carved from wafer-thin cedar wood that wafted its bittersweet scent into the air. But nothing too expensive, except maybe the penknife, which looked well made. Nothing I could justifiably reject for fear of committing myself. He had chosen well. And I was enjoying the game, laughing along with him.

‘Jason, this is so silly. And you shouldn’t be here.’

‘Of course I should. I came to visit my father. I just wanted to make sure you were OK. Where’s the beer? How’s the work going?’

‘It’s going fine. In the fridge. One piece finished, the second started.’

‘Can I see?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Here, you want a drink? You look tired.’ He bent over me, concern momentarily clouding his smile. ‘I can see you’re working too hard. You need a break—it’s just as well I came.’ The smile was back. ‘I’m barbecuing our lunch up at the house. Come and join us. It would please Dad.’

‘Can’t. Too much to do. And while we’re on the subject of Dad, what was all that bullshit you fed me about your father renovating
this place for backpackers? This is your cottage, Jason. You did all the renovating.’

He hesitated a moment, suddenly serious. ‘Yes, it is mine. If I’d told you it was mine you would never have come, would you? Be honest. But I knew it was what you needed. It was my fault that your workflow had dried up. There’s something about this place that feeds the soul. I hoped it would resurrect your creative spark. The least I could do was to give you this, if only for a little while. And it worked, didn’t it?’

‘Yes, you’re right, it worked,’ I said. But I wasn’t going to let up. ‘This is where you went to, wasn’t it, when you disappeared for days on end? You were here, weren’t you? Why didn’t you tell me about it? Why all the secrecy?’

He fell silent for a moment, looking a bit sheepish. ‘This is mine,’ he said, ‘something for myself. We spent days here when I was little, my mother and I. She loved this land, the trees. This was her special place. She often brought me here and I’d have her all to myself. It was a place where she was happy. She hated the house.’

‘What about your father? Where did he fit in?’

‘I can’t remember him much. They quarrelled sometimes. Mostly they were apart. She liked to be alone, spent a lot of time in her room.’

‘Is that why you brought her dressing table down here?’

‘Dressing table? Ah, yes. The mirror. I wanted to have it near me.’ Jason went into the bedroom and I followed him. He stood in front of the glass and gazed into his childhood. ‘She would spend hours brushing her hair. It was long and gold-coloured and she would pull it all over one shoulder and stroke it with the brush. But her eyes would be fixed on some distant place. She’d tell me some things she saw, as if she were looking through a window. But not everything. She always kept some things back.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘Oh, about the hills and the trees. Things she would see when she went walking.’

‘Did you walk with her?’

‘No, I was far too small. Only three or four. I would never have been able to keep up. She would be gone for hours.’

‘So what did you do when she was roaming the hills?’

‘I used to hide in her room. I went on hiding there, even after she didn’t come back. I wanted to be close to her, I suppose. I would burrow into her wardrobe and wrap myself in her clothes. Her special smell was on everything she touched. It was a way of bringing her back. My father used to get angry. I guess he felt guilty.’

‘Guilty? Why?’

‘I think he felt he’d failed me, that everything was his fault.’

‘Is that why he let the place fall apart? Why he started drinking?’

Jason smiled suddenly, and pulled himself away from the mirror. It was as if he had come back from another place. ‘Who knows why people do things?’ he said. Then he turned and strode out of the bedroom. ‘Lunchtime. Lunch for my father and my best friend. Us men are having steaks but I brought something special for you, something with cashew nuts and truffle mushrooms. You won’t be able to resist, I promise.’

‘I’m not sure how your father would feel about that. My coming to lunch, I mean. I’ve been avoiding him. We had a sort of argument a few days ago, though I think he might have forgotten about it. But I’ve been feeling awkward ever since.’

‘Really? And what were you arguing over? Me, I hope.’

‘Well, no, it was Badger’s accident. I virtually accused him of attempted murder. He has told you about it, hasn’t he? No?’

‘No, he never mentioned the dogs, though I was beginning to wonder where they were. What’s happened to Badger?’

So I had to explain it all to him and where Badger was now. ‘Bramble went out earlier. They’re probably both over at the
woolshed. That’s why you haven’t seen them.’

‘Oh, well that’s OK. Dad asked that chap to join us for lunch. Connors, is it? He’ll probably bring the dogs with him. And I know he’d really like you to come too. He’s looking forward to seeing you.’

‘Well, if you’re sure it will be all right. Just let me find a clean shirt. Can’t go to Christmas dinner like this.’ I quickly shuffled out of my grubby vest and squirted myself with some body spray. I had to ask sooner or later, it might as well be now.

‘By the way, how’s Sally?’

‘Sally?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Oh, that Sally. I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since you left.’ Then he went outside and kick-started the bike.

Sullivan stood up to welcome me. He had a glass in his hand, of course, but it was Christmas.

‘Ah, Regan, I’m glad you came. Jason said he mightn’t be able to drag you away. A happy Christmas to you.’ He took my hand and bent to kiss me on the cheek. It felt uncomfortable, as it always does when people you hardly know insist on greeting you with a kiss. However, he did seem genuinely pleased that I was there. Our last encounter might never have happened.

‘Now, can I offer you a drink?’ he asked. ‘Jason’s made this hot weather punch. It’s spiced, like mulled wine, but chilled. Rather good, really.’

I watched Sullivan as he fixed my drink. Like me, he had made an effort with a clean shirt. And like me, his face looked thinner. In fact he looked physically ill and dishevelled despite the fresh clothes. His eyes were hollow and dark ringed and his hands shook as he handed me the glass.

‘Jason’s made a bit of an effort. Said since we had guests around the place we ought to have a proper Christmas.’ The deck certainly looked different, impressive even. It had been
swept and dusted and there were fairy lights strung across the railing. A table had been set up for lunch. It spoke of grander days. Precious family silver and chinaware sparkled on a white cloth squared with careful folds. A crystal bowl of roses had been placed in the centre.

‘Is the old man looking after you?’ Jason called out from a pile of bricks and metal grids that I recognised as a hastily rigged-up barbecue. ‘I need to get this thing started—it takes a while to settle down before you can put the food on.’

‘Anything I can do to help?’

‘No way. Barbecue is a man thing. No women allowed. You sit right there and entertain Dad.’ Jason was enjoying this and I wondered how long it had been since he last spent Christmas at home.

Sullivan and I made polite conversation and sipped our festive booze. He was quite pleasant actually—gracious, I think, is the word. He asked me about my work, about what it was like to live in the city. And he asked a lot about Jason. What was his life like, what did he do, how did he live, who were his friends? His son lived in an alien world. It must have been a long time since Sullivan had last ventured beyond the local bar.

Jason kept looking up at us, smiling and waving and brandishing cooking irons. Look at me, he seemed to be saying, are you still looking? He reminded me of Sebastian. Sebastian’s my younger brother, indulged by everyone and always the centre of attention. He would contrive to have the whole family form an audience to witness one of his performances, making sure we were all positioned at some vantage point. Then he would show off his latest skateboard flip, or his tennis backhand or whatever. We would humour him, of course, and talk among ourselves whilst pretending to be amazed by his prowess.

‘Are you still looking?’ he would call.

‘Yes, of course we are.’

Jason waved again. Suddenly the nine years between us, that age difference I always maintained was irrelevant, split us apart. It was as if the ground at my feet had cracked wide open and I was watching him from the other side of a deep abyss. What I saw was a blond-haired, blue-eyed child and I wondered how the hell I had ever managed to get myself involved with him.