Friday in Summer

After the Dodger disappeared into the water, Hamish was still for a moment. Then he collapsed. ‘What have I done?’ he groaned.

Jasper growled. Continue the journey. Then he disappeared into the bushes, following the Dodger from the shore. My friend had fallen deeply into the water at first, and now, when he should have been swimming for the shore, he was not. I could see the current taking him further downstream, faster than we had travelled upstream. Hamish did not see this; he was crouched down with his head bent to his knees and his hands pulling the back of his head lower. He looked a picture of abject misery.

I looked back down river, torn. Jasper had gone with the Dodger, and I wanted to follow. I considered just leaving them all to it: Hamish in his misery, the Dodger, having a delightful underwater swim and Jasper, being better thought of here than I was at home. But in the end I didn’t want to leave Hamish on his own. I’m not sure how much of my motivation was that having failed at his task, he could take me home. Conflicted or not, I stayed.

I sat down beside him. I talk too much sure, but I knew enough to be quiet this time. My shoulder touching his occasionally as he rocked, I looked out over the river at the Levels beyond with smoke rising in wisps. Although the devastated and hurting land was not mine to worry about, the sight was painful. I looked towards the mountains upstream. I wondered if the snow at their tops would be cold. You can’t have mountains without snow, but …

‘You can go. I’m alright.’ Hamish spoke without lifting his head.

‘I’m staying. Jasper said we should continue the journey. I’m staying with you.’

Hamish turned his head and looked at me. He was no longer angry, but I was worried by the look his eyes held. ‘The dog says stay, so you stay?’

‘Twice now. He must feel good getting back at me. But he seems to know what’s going on, so I think we should continue the trip. You know the way, don’t you?’ I looked away from him, but I could feel his eyes still on me.

‘There’s no point.’

This seemed to call for another non sequitur. But none came to mind. I was going to have to say something relevant and meaningful. Books are no preparation for this sort of thing. I sighed. ‘Look, I just want to go home. I didn’t ask to be here, but I am here. Don’t make it any worse for me by having a pity party. Let’s just get this done and then go home. OK?’ Sympathy is not my long suit. I don’t play card games at all. Hamish’s look sharpened. I had his complete attention now. He could tell I was not joking.

There was silence; babbling brook, wind in trees notwithstanding. Then he laughed. A short bark, sure, but a laugh.

‘You are more hard-boiled than I thought. Come on then, if that’s what you want. Do the business and go home. How refreshing.’
Still a bit cryptic, but at least he stood up. He offered me his hand, but I stood on my own. No going back. No flirting.

If I could keep him moving we just might get this thing done. I didn’t look at him until he had got his bearings and started moving upstream again. This time he avoided the short cut across the burnt fields, and followed the river bank. There was no path, but the going was easy for now.

‘You knew who I was all the time didn’t you?’ Time to get things into the open.

‘Yeah. Dad told me that a Rhodes or the dog in the Valley would be a bad thing. When I saw Jasper go through the gateway I went after him to get him back. He told me you two were coming. I had an idea that you would leave faster if you had clothes, so I traversed to the village gate, got the robes, and traversed back. I thought if I could get you back, without giving you any idea about your place in here, nothing would change.’ He stopped talking. He was figuring something out. The first change was taking place in him. He was speaking to himself more than me now. This was probably one of those things that are good for people: like verbalising the internal conflict. ‘But I want things to change. My dad sits at home in the dark. He talks about the Valley, but he won’t come back in. He says that it’s not the same anymore. That ever since the Clan have been using our place to get in, it hasn’t been the same as it was when he was first here.

‘He wasn’t the first son, so he wasn’t supposed to be able to get in to the Valley. Because he was the second son, his father didn’t mind too much when he came to Australia and married my mum. But my Uncle Bill died the year I was born. When dad returned to New Zealand for the funeral, Grand-dad told him about the Valley and how the MacKenzie Country was connected to this paradise. It’s not the same, of course, land-forms are different, and directions are reversed. Grand-dad brought him here and told him that he would have to come back to the farm in New Zealand and be the McKenzie.’ Hamish stopped here, looked at the river, the Levels, the mountains. ‘Dad and Mum were doing alright here in Australia. I had just been born and, anyway, it wasn’t even our farm. It was Browne’s farm. The whole area was named after our family, but we didn’t even own any of it. Grand-dad was a contractor on the farm. His father had been the same. Dad told my grandfather he could stuff it, and thought that was the end of it.’ He stopped. It was getting interesting and he stopped.

I glanced in the direction he was looking. There was a series of massive rocks across the river joining the two halves of the Levels. Between the rocks, the water spilled in a white cascade over a ten foot drop. This side of the river was precipitous for a few hundred metres past the rocks. ‘We’ll cross here. It’s the only way across the river at this point… I don’t think the Clan will be coming back. They’ve finished the harvest this year. Moving it back to our world takes a while. They have to transport the last few from the knoll. We’ll have to walk along the other bank after the bridge.’ I hoped it was not as dangerous to cross as it looked from down here.

He led the way from the bank up to the beginning of the ‘bridge’, avoiding the emerald green moss that grew on the spray from the waterfall. I would remind him where he was up to in his history once we were safely on the other side. I was finding it hard not to be distracted by the sight. I really love waterfalls. Here a great deal of water was being forced through and around and over a collection of large boulders. There was something lyrical about the way the water found its way around the jagged and smooth, large rocks, changing from water to smoothest glass to become something else as it tumbled no longer glass, now white cascades of lace, to plunge into disturbed mirrors and bounce back as masses of white droplets. The spray rising from the white water completed the misty appearance of lace. Thinning out, but still shooting high enough that I could feel it on my face.

When we were kids, we used to drive through a gorge on our way to Uncle Phil’s house. There was a waterfall half-way through the gorge that could be seen from the car as we sped past. Sometimes we were treated to a wonderful view of white water dancing and tumbling the whole length of two waterfalls. This was when there had been rain and the smaller stream was rushing to fill the river through the gorge. Other times there would be only a couple of places where white manes of the little rain that had fallen, created streams. My brother and I could never anticipate what would be seen. We would wait with bated breaths for the stretch of the road where the waterfall could be seen from. And then, for a moment it was there, and then it was gone.

The waterfall here had the added dimension of sound. Drops of water clashing against other drops of water relentlessly making a sound bigger than any other. A sound made up of the soft tinkling and the tumble sounds of water falling. And it continued on and on. Even when there was no-one to hear. The waterfall required no audience. I could hear the voice of the Valley in the waterfall. You do not own what can not be owned. Return what was taken.

‘Can you hear that?’ I asked Hamish as I pulled myself up level with him, scrabbling at the grass on the bank. ‘Not the waterfall,’ He stopped and turned to me as I shouted above the noise of the waterfall. ‘The voice. She says I’ve got to return something.’

‘I used to hear her voice, but it has gotten fainter as the years have past. I wonder what she means. How can you return anything? We can’t bring anything in.’ My hand went involuntarily to my neck.

Hamish’s eyes sharpened. ‘When Grand-dad died, my father went back for the funeral. His mother gave him a necklace; greenstone on a fine gold chain.’ My hand tightened around the stone through my shirt. ‘She said the necklace was for the eldest son’s wife. My mum had gone by then, but Gramma said to save it to give to me, for my wife. It sits at home in the original box on Dad’s dresser.’ I dropped my hand as he came closer. ‘He told me that he hoped I did a better job of picking a wife than he did.’ Slowly he undid the string at the neck of my shirt. ‘I used to take it out sometimes and hold it, wondering whether this girl or that girl would wear it.’ He splayed my collar open and stood back, silently looking at the green stone against my skin.

In the same way, I had looked in the mirror after my grand-father left me the necklace, but the look Hamish was giving me made me blush. ‘It looks right good on you.’ He came closer, and held the stone, resting the back of his hand against the upper part of my breastbone. He followed the fine plaited string of gold that held the stone around to the side of my neck.

I was close enough now to see the marks of dried tears and spray from the waterfall on his cheeks. I reached up and wiped a mark from his left cheek with my thumb, my fingers resting against the short hair above his ear. He looked into my eyes, bringing his hand around to cup the back of my head. He lowered his head, I raised my chin and we kissed. The sound of the waterfall was drowned out by the sound in my head of blood rushing around aimlessly. His lips on mine were gentle at first, but when I lengthened the kiss, he pulled me in closer and wrapped his arms around me. It was a good moment. It lasted a long time.
But time passes. When the time came to stop, we looked into each others’ eyes. ‘This probably isn’t the time or place for this, is it?’ I think I said that.

I think he said yes. Or maybe it was no. We slowly untangled ourselves from each other. At the end, we still held hands. Some of the tension between us had eased, but something else had taken its place. Another sort of wariness. Pleasant, but cautious.