Friday in Summer

We couldn’t hold hands as we crossed the bridge. There was too much stepping carefully between rocks. They were horizontal and not far apart at all, but still, they were definitely a single-file affair. On the other bank, a wide clay path led up to the next plateau of the Levels. We walked along this hand-in-hand, but talking was too difficult with the roar of the waterfall still in our ears. It was surprisingly complicated, walking hand in hand, keeping in step, ignoring Hamish tracing circles in my palm, but I coped.

We rounded the last bend in the track to bring us up to the same level as the field, and saw more burned stalks, from which little smoke now rose. There was a greater area of burnt paddock on this side of the river than on the other. Hamish spoke as we stopped, ‘I felt the earth’s pain when I first saw this. My dad brought me up here during the summer I was fourteen. It was a shock to him too. When he had come through with his father, the Levels were fields of tall waving crops. He fell into the Valley accidentally one day back here in Australia when I was about twelve. During his first trips he stayed in the Village or the forest.’ We left the track and started walking upstream again, across the grass towards the trees at the river’s edge. The ground was flat and strewn with soft decomposed leaves.

Hamish continued speaking, his hold on my hand firmer. ‘Dad learned about the Valley from the locals, and he knew this burning was not necessary. On that trip, he spotted Mr Browne. Dad was really shocked at the coincidence of finding him in the Valley. They’d been to the same school in New Zealand. The same school, but they hadn’t been friends. Dad was a couple of years younger, and neither of them could forget who owned the farm.’ I must have looked as confused as I felt. Hamish explained: ‘My family worked on the Browne farm for at least four generations. Turned out Mr Browne had bought a farm over here. Australia, I mean.’ I didn’t think I was going to like this next bit. He turned to me. ‘Your grand-father’s place.’

‘Is there a gateway on our farm?’

‘There was. It closed when your grand-father died.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because they’ve used our gate ever since.’

I didn’t like where this was taking me. I didn’t like what Hamish was insinuating about my family. I didn’t know what he was insinuating. Shaking my head, I pulled my hand out of his: one less distraction. I pulled a little away from him and spoke purposefully with each step. ‘You’re wrong. Coles bought our farm. Grand-dad and Nanny stayed on in the shepherd’s cottage until they died. Nanny’s still there. Grand-dad had a heart attack and died when I was fourteen. He left this to me in his will.’ I touched the green stone around my neck again. ‘He always said he would; that it was for the Rhodes women. Not the wives, only the daughters. My mum thinks it’s kitsch, but I love it.’ Now it was my turn to cry. ‘He wouldn’t have let them hurt the Valley.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t know.’ He carefully took my hand again. I wished he’d left it at that, but he started answering my other objections. ‘The entry from your farm closed when your grandfather died. It used to open onto the cairn, but now the cairn is only a traversing gate. Browne said he had two partners. Coles was one of them. Your farm’s not big enough to support three families, without the extra money from the crops they get from here.’

‘It’s marijuana isn’t it?’ Drugs education was finally asserting itself. ‘The ropes are hemp. The clothes are made of hemp linen. They’re taking the seeds back to plant on my grandfather’s farm?’

‘They plant them in winter. There’s only one crop of cannabis, but the quantity of THC produced is really high.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘My dad. When they came to him he said he wouldn’t help them, but Coles said he’d …’ Hamish grimaced. ‘Coles isn’t a nice man. Dad told them not to burn the stalks at the end of the harvest, but they ignored him. Still ignore him. They finish a day’s work in the fields at home, then come here and do a day’s work.’ Hamish was silent for a while, walking beside me, deep in thought. I wished he’d stop. ‘My dad’s starting to think about what Mr Douglass said before he died.’

I wasn’t going to ask. I didn’t want to know. I thought about my hand in Hamish’s. I thought about the dappled light falling on us through the trees. I thought about my father and how he’d been happy to leave the farm because of the drought. I thought about Jasper and the dogs on my grandfather’s farm. I heard the voice of the Valley again in the breeze through the trees: You do not own what can not be owned. Return what was taken.

‘Dodger’s dad said that the gates could be closed from our side by the heir dying at the portal. The cairn gate back to your farm was closed when your grandfather died. The one in the village is only good for traversing now. Neither Dad nor I ever took it back in to our world. Coles took it once, but wouldn’t say where it went. All he said was that it was closed now. There’s only one gate open nowadays; ours on the hill. It goes in and out to our place.’

Hamish was quiet. There was a voice on the breeze again. There is a need for haste. You are being sought.

Hamish lifted his head. ‘I heard that.’ He threw at the trees. There was no reply, but he held my hand lightly before releasing it. ‘We’d better move faster then.’

I had enjoyed the slowness of our walking, far more than what we had been talking about, but a little more haste could be accommodated. I adopted my ‘keeping up with Jasper’ stance: arms lifted, elbows high, and stepped out a bit faster. Hamish looked at me, laughed and said. ‘A bit of a jog perhaps?’

‘No.’

He set off at a slow jog. I maintained a quick walk. He didn’t fully appreciate the complications involved in a woman of my size jogging in shirt and track-pants only. Although, when he jogged back to me and ran backwards looking back at me for a few metres, I thought perhaps he did appreciate the complications. I batted at him. He laughed and maintained his position in front of me easily.

The trees were slowly being replaced by rocks and tussock, until we found ourselves above the tree line, with the river getting further and further below us. Hamish had stopped jogging and was walking briskly ahead of me. We were now in a valley with mountains rising up either side of it. The river was noticeably narrower, rockier and quicker flowing. I wondered whether we should be walking on the dry river bed and how we would cope with rock-hopping in bare feet.

Thank goodness we didn’t have to find out.