Ironbark (5 page)

‘Yo, down-and-dirty hot thing,' I say. ‘The answer to all your fantasies here.'

There's a good ten seconds of silence. When he finally speaks the man's voice is calm, but dripping with menace.

‘I am glad you've called. Listen to me carefully. You are, in my opinion, a bad influence on Kris and I forbid you to contact her again. Do I make myself crystal clear?'

It's her dad. I recognise his voice. It's distinctive. I know for a fact he was born and bred in St Kilda, but he sounds like he's taken elocution lessons from Prince Charles. He's a self-made man. I think it's pretty cool of him to take the blame all by himself. I don't know who gives me the runs more – Kris's dad or mine. Damn close, that's for sure. Anyway, I nearly splutter when I think how he must have loved my conversational opening. I have to cover the phone while I give this small scream of laughter. Then I compose myself.

‘Yo, Mr Dawson,' I say. ‘How's it hanging, dude? Listen, any chance of speaking to Kris, please?'

‘Are you deaf, mate?' he says and his voice is thick with anger. I'm kinda amused to hear the ocker coming out in the stress of the moment. Bonnie Ponce Charlie is a thin veneer, take it from me. ‘She will not speak to you. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever. She is out of your league, my friend. She will not consort with common thugs, with . . .' ‘Hey, man,' I interrupt. ‘Good word, “consort”! But this is radical stuff. I mean, Kris – not having a brain or anything – must be thrilled you're speaking on her behalf. Have you told her about the arranged marriage and the dowry of mountain goats yet?'

But I'm talking to myself, 'cos he's hung up. Which is just as well, because the old tell-tale thrumming in my ears is sending off warning signals and I can do without smashing up yet another mobile phone. At nearly a thousand bucks a pop, you'd think Dad would get tired of replacing them. Then again, he never gets tired of spending money.

He loves shop assistants fawning on him when they realise he's oozing cash from every pore.

I don't get a chance to flip the phone shut before a text message comes through. It's a number my phone doesn't recognise, but it's from Kris.

DON'T ring me on my phone. Ring this number
.

She's the only person on the planet who bothers with apostrophes when texting. Kris has standards. I'm just grateful she relaxes them a little when it comes to me. I realise it's an old text. I didn't give it a chance to download before I rang her number, that's all. Might have saved us all some aggravation if I had.

I dial the new number and she answers after one ring. I wait for her to say hello this time, just in case. But neither of us gets a chance to say anything, because there's all this yelling and whooping and jeering going on in the background. Then I hear a thin voice piercing the hubbub. ‘Kris Dawson, how dare you answer your phone in class! Turn it off right now.' I recognise the voice and the shrill delivery. It's Miss Millner, a sad old maths teacher at our school who can maim from fifty metres with one blow of her tongue. I'm sorta touched Kris kept the phone on in class. With Miss Millner your main chance of survival is to keep your head beneath the parapet. Then I hear Kris. ‘Miss Millner, it's my father. He said he might ring in an emergency. Can I take the call outside, please? Please?' There's a pause. Teachers have to be careful about this ‘emergency' stuff.

‘Very well, Kris,' comes the reply. ‘But I will contact your father after class to confirm this. Be quick.' I can hear a scuffling of chairs as Kris makes her way to the door. Most times you wouldn't have to worry about the ‘I'll ring your home' guff. With Miss Millner, though, you never know. If you use a death in the family as an excuse, she's liable to ask for pictures of an autopsy.

‘I've got to be quick,' says Kris.

‘I figured.'

‘Listen, I've had to borrow this phone. Dad confiscated mine.'

‘I know. I just spoke to him.'

‘Oh, my God. To Dad? What did you say?'

‘Hello, stud muffin. Fancy a bit of hanky panky? Something like that.'

‘Oh, my . . .' She's laughing already. ‘What did he say?' ‘Your place or mine. I think he might have added “big boy”, but I'm not sure.'

She's giggling fit to bust now. I worry Miss Millner might smell a rat if she hears gales of laughter from outside the classroom door. Difficult to argue a hilarious emergency. But Kris gets herself under control quickly.

‘Why haven't you rung? What's the place like? What are you doing?'

I explain about the reception problems, and how Granddad's place is great if you're into tree-spotting, and that my social calendar is crammed full with wallabywatching. I do this in about twenty-five seconds.

‘Look,' I say. ‘I'll try and ring you after school, but it's a helluva trip up the mountain and I suspect the weather isn't always going to be crash-hot for hiking. I'll do my best. Text me, though. Text me whenever you can.'

Even as I speak, there's a rush of static. I quickly check reception. The bars are flicking on and off. I put the phone back to my ear.

‘Don't . . . old phone . . . Dad is madder than a . . . after yourself . . . ring when you can . . . I . . . you.'

Miss you? Love you? Hate you? The end is swallowed by static and the connection is broken. I move around the clearing, and although the bar flickers a couple of times it doesn't linger. Kris would have had to go back to class anyway. I turn the phone off, sit down on the rock and light a cigarette.

I feel better having talked to her. I even find myself smiling as I think about Kris going back into Miss Millner's class and inventing something to explain the emergency. She'll think of something good. Kris is very, very smart. A lot of people are surprised by that. They don't see it coming. I guess because she likes wearing trashy clothes. Sometimes she's nearly wearing them, if you know what I mean. So guys in particular assume she's got nothing between her ears. I tell you. If they mess with her, they find out quickly. I said Miss Millner's tongue was sharp. Kris's is registered as a lethal weapon in four states.

I think about having another ciggie, but the weather's turning cold and, anyway, I still have to ration them. A wind is swirling over the summit and the sun's gone AWOL.

The treetops bend as gusts tug at them. Clouds clump together on the horizon and some of them look grumpy. Goosebumps stand up on my arms. Time to head back.

Getting down is nearly as bad going up. There are some places when I scoot down banks like I'm snowboarding. The Etnies aren't looking too hot, but they're nearly five months old, anyway, so I figure I can afford to dish out a bit of rough treatment.

I find plenty of clearings. The one thing I can say about this part of the forest is that clearings are not in short supply. Trouble is, I can't be sure they're
my
clearings. If you were to push me on this, I'd have to say that one clearing is pretty much like any other clearing. And most times, in most circumstances, it wouldn't matter a rat's ringpiece. But I do some quick calculations. Bear in mind that my geometry is nothing to get excited about, but even with a twig and a patch of dirt I can do a rough estimation. Just a small deviation from my original direction makes a huge difference the longer I go on. I could miss Granddad's house easy. Real easy. And then what? With all these trees, I wouldn't even know I'd gone past it. I'd be deep in the brown and smelly stuff, then, wandering further and further into the State Forest. Even I know those things go on forever. I regret not having marked some trees on the way up. It had occurred to me, but I couldn't bring myself to do any of that cheesy Hansel and Gretel stuff. I have standards.

A big splodge of water hits me right on the top of the head. One of those thuds that makes you think a bird has dumped on you from a great height. A big bird. It's followed by another and then another.

‘Oh, man,' I wail. I look up. I don't know why. It's not as if it's gonna do any good. The sky, or at least what I can see of it through the tree canopy, isn't so much angry as downright furious. I think I hear a rumble of thunder in the distance. Looking up seems to have achieved one thing, though. It must've been taken as a signal, because the clouds open as if my glance has slit them across the belly. Rain is not an adequate word here. Rain conjures images of water drops pattering gently against windows. What dumps on me is a continuous sheet of water, and it hurts. In seconds the sound drowns out everything else. The forest blurs. I can't see more than ten metres.

There are plenty of people who dribble on about the wonders of nature. My school's full of them. Of course, they're always singing its praises in climate-controlled surroundings. I'd love to have my Soc. Ed. teacher here, drenched and freezing cold. If his teeth stopped chattering long enough he could tell me what a great experience this is. I hate nature. In Melbourne, I'd duck into a Starbucks, wrap my hands around a latte and watch the show in comfort. I'm a million kilometres from a Starbucks. I'm soaked, freezing and lost.

Part of me wants to make a run for it and get back to Granddad's as soon as possible. Nothing to do with trying to keep dry. After ten seconds in this rain, the one thing I'm certain of is that it's impossible to get any wetter. But it's cold. And the constant beating of the rain is just miserable. I can't see where I'm going. Even in good visibility I didn't have a clue about the right way to go. Now, I'd be blundering in any random direction. I decide the best thing is to find somewhere more sheltered and wait for the rain to ease.

I find a huge tree and the branches provide some protection. It's not like standing under a waterfall, though when the wind blows the branches around, big splashes of water hit the back of my neck and roll down my back. I get a cigarette lit after a good few attempts. Then half a bucket of water, trapped in the leaves I guess, falls straight onto it after I've had a couple of drags. There's a quick hiss and the soggy tube falls with a splat into the undergrowth.

I can't remember a time when I've been happier.

There's another rumble of thunder and I know I should get out from under the tree. Then I reckon that being hit by lightning might actually improve my mood, so I stay where I am.

At least the wind eases. After another five minutes, so does the rain. Don't get me wrong. It's still fairly heavy, but at least I can see where I'm going. The cold has seeped into my bones and I'm shivering as I start back down the slope again, in what is hopefully the right direction. All I can hear, all around, is raindrops hitting leaves. It's a comfortless drumming.

The rain makes everywhere even more unfamiliar. Before, I could at least try to convince myself I'd seen certain clearings on my way up. Now, the rain has washed everything clean and it all looks new. I jump over a fallen tree trunk that I have no memories of having hurdled before and hit a patch of mud. My Etnies – buggered, worn and soaked – slip and before I know it I'm skidding down a muddy incline on my backside. I attempt to dig a heel in and succeed only in doing a flip, landing in a patch of scrubby brush face first. I get to my feet, touch my face with my fingers and they come away bloody. Instantly, I feel my blood pumping fast through my heart. It hammers in my ears. It drowns out the drumming of the rain.

I concentrate on my breathing. That's always the first step. Get the breathing deep and regular. Draw the air into the lungs. Concentrate on it. In. Out. In. Out. Only when I feel the breathing is under control do I start the self-talk.

‘It's cool,' I say. ‘It's all cool. You're all right. Stay calm. It's cool.'

I'm lost in a forest, soaked, muddy and bloody, talking to myself, trying to keep control. Because if I lose it out here, I don't know what will happen, or if I'll ever get back. I breathe and talk to myself. Talk to myself and breathe. Until I feel the demons retreating, slipping back into the shadows.

I start walking, but I don't stop talking. I keep my eyes fixed firmly ahead, watching for safe footholds, taking it slowly. Taking it easy. The rain has eased off almost completely now and the wind has settled. I glance up and the sky is still dark and threatening. It looks like it's just having a break.

It's when I look back down that I see it. Down the slope and off to my right. And I don't quite see it. Not really. It's more a sense of something dark slipping into the trees, a shifting shape caught in the corner of my eyes. And when I
turn my head it's gone. If it was ever there in the first place.

I stand still for a moment, listening to my heart beating and water trickling. Nothing else. Not even a rustle of lizards in the underbrush or the call of birds. I'm conscious of water dripping from my hair and down my neck. A shiver runs up my back and goosebumps gather. My forearm reminds me of chicken skin, plucked white and bumpy. I take another step and then another. The crunch of twigs under my feet sounds unnaturally loud. I want to hush them as if they might give my position away. This is stupid. This is childish. My mind is insistent. Trouble is, the eyes are out there. Somewhere nearby, unblinking eyes are trained on me. Doesn't matter how firm my mind is, how insistent it is that this is all nonsense. The eyes are back.