Into That Forest Read online

  First published in 2012

  Copyright © Louis Nowra 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

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  Australia

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  ISBN 978 1 74331 164 6

  Cover photos: Kamil Vojnar / Trevillion Images;

  Studio Aqua Photography / iStockphoto; Pawel Gaul / iStockphoto

  Text photos: ♣ Kristian Krogh Photography;

  ♣Huck Productions; ♣ & ♣ Pawel Gaul;

  ♣ Ars Infinitum; ♣ Studio Aqua Photography

  Cover and text design by Ruth Grüner

  Set in 11 pt Sabon by Ruth Grüner

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  FOR VINCENT WARD

  Me name be Hannah O’Brien and I be seventy-six years old. Me first thing is an apology me language is bad cos I lost it and had to learn it again. But here’s me story and I be glad to tell it before I hop the twig.

  I were born in Tasmania, born not in a hospital but here in the backblocks. In this actual house. It is crumbling round me ears now, but the roof hardly leaks and if I chop enough wood I can heat the place when it snows. Though I live here by meself I am not lonely. I got a wedding photograph of me mother and me father when men wore beards and sat down for the picture while me mother wears a wedding dress and stands beside him. And there’s me father’s harpoon hanging from the living room wall with its cracked wooden handle and rusted blade. Me only new thing is the cabinet with a radio in it which Mr Dixon down at the general store gave me. I can’t hack it. There always be mongrel music in it, like it’s shouting all the time. Anyway, I’d sooner yabber to meself than listen to those voices inside that box. I reckon I need new curtains, these are a bit dusty and fraying, but they keep out the summer light when it’s so strong it hurts me eyes.

  I think me uncle built this house. He gave it to me father. It were a present. At that time we were the only house for miles and miles. Me father wanted to live in a place near water - if not the sea, then a river. Me mother liked rivers and so the house were a give-and-take for the both of them. From the verandah we could almost touch the Munro River as it flowed down to the sea. I had no brothers or sisters. I don’t know why. There were a problem, I think. I’d hear me mother crying buckets in me father’s arms and hear him say, like to a child, There, there, we got Hannah.

  Me first memories, well, the thing is, and this be strange when I think about it, but me first memories, they are really me father’s. Maybe not even his memories, maybe his stories. I’d drop into a swoon of gladness when he come to me bedroom to put me to sleep and he’d tell me ’bout his adventures. He were a whaler and when he came back after travelling the seas, he’d tell me these stories, stories about places and things he’d set eyes on. I s’pose me mind made them me own so I thought it was me, Hannah, in the Philippines and I could see two black men in a boat, the sort hacked out of a log, and they were waiting for a whale shark. When it came, one fisherman jumped out of the boat onto the back of the whale shark and rode it like it were a brumby and at the same time he stabbed it in the back til it croaked. In the South Seas, in water so clear you could see right down to the bottom where queer fish swim, a fisherman jumped into the sea with a banana in his mouth. He spitted bits of the banana at a huge groper which gobbled them up, all the time coming closer and closer til the fisherman caught that big fish in his bare hands. There were another time when me father were at the bow and a sperm whale, big as a house, were harpooned and the whale boat, stuck fast to the wounded whale, were dragged along at a wild speed towards the sun on the horizon til the monster carked it of exhaustion. One time me father were at anchor in Western Australia when he seen a gin on a beach and she were singing a song, an uncanny song like you sing to ghosts, but it called to the whales. One whale, a minke, came to shore sucked in by her song and beached itself like a sacrifice for her. On the Tasmanian coast, near South Bruny, a whale were winched into the flensing yard where a big puncture were cut into the back of the creature and an old man, he crippled with tuberculosis so bad that he walked on all fours, were put into it, like a plug down a hole. He was pulled out half a day later and all the workers were thunderstruck cos this fellow could walk and he was straight-backed. He had been cured.

  When me father came home from his voyages, you knew. When me mother and I lived by ourselves everything were quiet, but when me father were in the house there were singing and me mother kept bursting into giggles and me father’s footsteps were loud and happy. One time when I were ’bout five he brought back some stuff from inside a whale. He had carved it out from deep inside its spout. It were like a small, grey, ugly sponge. He put it in a jar and sometimes I opened the lid and sniffed it. It half stank of dead, putrid things from the sea but when I got past that stink I smelt perfume, ever so sweet: a rosy, sugary mist. Me father said it were worth more than gold but he never tried to sell it - it were to be me dowry. He had lots of memories of his whaling - there were a harpoon on the wall, baleen always drying on the back verandah, rigging ropes and cutting blades so sharp that when the sun shone on the blades it cut the shine up into thin pieces. People smile when I say that, but I seen it with me own eyes.

  His times away growed longer cos whales were harder to find. Once Derwent River were so choked with whales that it were just a matter of going out in a boat and harpooning - you could do it wearing a blindfold, there were so many right whales using the river as a nursery. The people of Hobart used to complain that they couldn’t sleep cos of all the whales blowing all the time. That’s how many there were, me father said. Now he had to go to all parts of the globe. Me mother and me were close, like sisters, when me father were away. She taught me to read and write. I were very keen on animals, especially Sam the pig. He were as big as a beer barrel and he allowed me to ride him. I spent a lot of time with him, talking to him in grunts and snuffles. I never made fun of him by going Oink, oink. Me mother used to get worried. Why you talking to Sam like he were a person? But I were lonely being a child in the bush by meself, and, you know, I were just a little girl, but I’d look at Sam as I were talking to him and he’d seem to understand, like he were listening really hard to me.

  Cos I liked being outside and playing, I were always dirty and me mother would shake her head and say, You’re grubby or filthy, but never clean, Hannah. I couldn’t help it. If I ate food at the table, some of it would always slide out of the side of me mouth and plop onto me clothes. There’s a cobweb across two trees in the back yard, well, I don’t know how I do it, but pretty soon I’m wearing it like a hair net. Me hair were always such a mess that me mother shoved a bowl on me head and cut me hair - it were a real basin cut. It didn’t bother me. But I must oppose meself here. Sometimes I did feel green with envy when me mum would take the pins out of her hair and let it
fall down her back. It made her look like one of those mermaids in me picture books. I still remember her cry of Oh no, Hannah when I brung home wounded birds or wallaby joeys or blue-tongues. I were always sad to see animals hurt.

  Cos our house were far from any town we didn’t see many people. We might get a prospector passing by on his way out west where people said there were mountains of gold in places even the blackfellas had been too scared to live. A few times we had this same bounty hunter (or as we called them, tiger man) sleep in the barn for the night. He got paid for the number of tigers he killed. I forget his name, but he had ginger hair and a beard and stank something terrible because he’d rolled in tiger dung and piss, and he had yellow hands and teeth cos a cigarette were never out of his mouth or fingers. Me mother sticked lavender up her nose when he had tea with us so she didn’t have to breathe his pong, but as the tiger man said, he had to smell like his prey so they wouldn’t take flight when he came along. He told us how he caught two tiger pups and put them in a hessian bag and, knowing their mother were watching what he was doing from where she were hidden in the tall grass and ferns, he threw the bag into the lake and then walked off like he were leaving, but really he hid himself behind a tree and waited for the mother to rush down to the lake to rescue her pups. And when she did, he shot her. He showed no grief in telling us the story - he were skiting, actually - cos the tigers killed sheep, so many that the farmers cried poor. After he killed the mother he yanked the two pups from the bag and strangled them. When I said I felt sorry for the mother and pups the hunter said yes it were terrible, but either humans starved or the tigers did.

  The closest people to us lived three hours away. Mr Carsons were a widower and a sheep farmer. His property were by itself between tarn country and wild bush. The tiger hunter stayed with him a lot and he killed dozens of tigers that ate Mr Carsons’ sheep. Mr Carsons had a daughter called Rebecca, though she liked to be called Becky. She were a year and a half older than me. She had no mother. Her mother got sick one day and the next day she were covered in purple sores. While Becky’s father were getting the buggy ready to take her to Hobart hospital, Becky found her mother near the shearing shed, naked as the day she were born, scratching at her sores, foaming at the mouth and crying out to Jesus to help the pain stop. Becky called out to her father but when he came the poor woman were gone to God.

  I did not see Becky much, maybe ten times in two years, but we were the only girls in me whole world and so when we met we were close cos she were lonely too. She were like her father. He had this air ’bout him, he always seemed to be thinking deep thoughts or were glum like an undertaker. When they visited us they always wore their Sunday best. He’d be wearing a black suit and she’d have a lovely blue or pink dress. Oh yes, do not let me forget this - she always wore a cameo of a beautiful woman, who Becky told me were her mother.

  One day when I were ’bout six years old - me dates are fuzzy but you will understand why later - me father, who was back from a long voyage, told us that Becky were coming to stay for two days cos Mr Carsons were going into Blackwood to buy a new buggy. She had only stayed overnight once - and that was the year before - so me father’s news made me shiver with pleasure. I were beside meself on the morning of her coming. I couldn’t sit still. I were running through the house, sitting on the verandah chair waiting for them, then, quick as a flash, I’d be down to the track to see if they were coming. I run into me parents’ bedroom to ask them again ’bout when Becky were coming and I seen me father tying up me mother in a corset. She never wore them when he were whaling but when he was back home she were never without one. It made her look so beautiful. She walked differently, not walked but glided like she were floating a foot above the ground. I knew it were to please me father and in pleasing him she were always in a daze of happiness.

  Then Becky arrived in an old buggy with her father. I were so excited to clap eyes on her. I tingle now, thinking about it. You see, I were an alone kid most of me time with just me mother and maybe me father and Sam, me pig. Becky looked gorgeous in her Sunday best with her long golden hair falling down her back. Oh, how I were jealous of that hair cos I had a basin cut and me hair were black like dirt. Her father only stayed for a short time cos it were a long ride into Blackwood. He said he would be back the next evening to have tea with us and stay overnight.

  Me father had plans for a picnic, so while he and me mother got everything ready, I took Becky into me parents’ bedroom and I showed her one of me mother’s corsets hanging from its stand. It had been made especially for her from baleen me father had got from a whale he harpooned. Becky knew nil ’bout whales and were amazed when I told her ’bout the baleen. That pleased me cos she were smarter and a year older than me and could spell words like encyclopaedia and Tasmania. Then I dragged her into the living room where I unscrewed the lid of the glass jar and shoved her nose down into it. Her face went all wrinkles when she first smelt the stink, but I told her to keep sniffing and then she smiled cos she could smell the musty, sweet scent. I told her how me father had taken it from inside a whale - and she went Pooh. I told her how expensive it were - worth twice as much as gold - cos perfume makers need it for their perfumes.

  It were going on late morning when the four of us set out in me father’s small boat. Me father had one oar and Becky and I pulled on the other til we were so tired that me mother took over. The water were brittle cold, and so clear you could see the pale pebbles on the bottom. On the river banks forests were real thick and there were no sunlight in them. On the river it were so sunny that me mother, when she was not rowing, held up an umbrella so her skin wouldn’t burn. Me skin were already covered with angel kisses so I didn’t care but when Becky wasn’t rowing she sat under me mother’s white umbrella so the sun didn’t burn her either. When the sun did fall on her it made her blonde hair look like a saint’s halo. All the time me father rowed he told us yarns ’bout his whaling adventures. Becky’s eyes growed as large as saucers when he told her ’bout a man eaten by a sperm whale. It swallowed him right up but when they killed the whale and cut it open there he was, this fella looking like death but still alive. His black hair were bleached white, he had no top skin left and he were nearly blind. Then me father were telling us how he was going to give up whaling cos there were not many whales left when he cried out, Look! Before I could see what he was pointing at I heard me mother say, Oh my goodness, it’s one of those hyenas.

  I turned and there, there on the bank not more than ten yards from us, were a wolf creature with yellow fur and black stripes. It were about the size of a real large dog. I can remember it to this day, cos it were the first one I had ever seen. It had a long muzzle and stripes on its sides like a tiger. The tail were thick and the fur so fine and smooth it were like it didn’t have hair. It’s like a wolf, I heard me mother say and indeed it looked like those wolves I seen in me fairytale books. It stared at us with huge black eyes, then it opened its jaw real slow til I thought it could swallow a baby. I’ll go bail if it were not the most bonny, handsomest thing I ever seen. It were like a magician cast a spell on me. I had heard about these creatures, but nothing prepared me for how noble and strange it looked. It snapped its jaws closed. It sounded like two metal doors slamming shut. Then it sort of loped, taking its time, into the bush and vanished.

  I must have said it were beautiful, cos Becky hissed real angry, They are killers. They kill sheep. She were so firm about this that I were struck dumb. Me father laughed, thinking she were joshing, but she weren’t. As he began to row again, he told us why it were so rare to see them. He said they were like vampires. They came out at night and they drinked blood. Me father were chiacking and it made me laugh, but I were sitting next to Becky and I felt her body shiver all over. I can still feel her body against mine and how her fear gave me goosebumps. She went quiet and only perked up when we found a picnic spot.

  We moored against a bank and spread out a blanket on the grass in a clearing. Me mother were radiant
. Her face were like a pale moon in the shade of her hat. When I ate a banana I held a bit in me mouth and fed it into me father’s gob, pushing it through the strainer of his moustache, like I were one of those fishermen with a banana in his mouth luring a groper. After lunch Becky and me went for a walk. We were so thirsty our tongues were hanging out, so we shook the trunks of saplings and the rainwater, trapped in the leaves after the rain, sprinkled down on us and cooled us. Our clothes were wet with water, but we didn’t care. I remember, as if right now, standing in me dripping dress in the spotted light coming through the treetops and seeing me parents kissing under the umbrella as they sat on the blanket. I felt a joy dance through me. Me parents were still in love, we were all happy and I had a friend in Becky. An hour or so later, while Becky and me were chasing each other through the trees and bushes, I heard me mother calling us to come quick. I looked up. The sky had gone sick all of a sudden. Me father said we better go home cos a storm were brewing.

  We raced the storm that were coming out of the west at a quicksticks speed. The wind and the current pushed us along so strong that we didn’t have to row and me father used one of the oars as a rudder. The sky fell so dark that it was more like night than day. Me father yelled above the wind and thunder that he’d try and seek a haven. As the water boiled and foamed we bounced along with me father unable to steer the boat towards the shore. The river were so wild that all we could do were to cling on tight to the sides of the boat or each other as we were flinged back and forward like puppets with no strings. The rain chucked down and we were soaked, so soggy it were like the rain were drilling through our skin into our marrow. There were loud bangs when tree boughs broke and fell into the madcap river. Then we were spun round, caught up in a whirlpool. Becky and I went dizzy and screamed in fear. Out of the corner of me eye I seen a giant tree bough bouncing along the river straight at us. Me mother cried out in terror just before it hit us with a crashing and smashing and the next thing I felt were me stomach plopping into me mouth as the boat went over. Oh me, Oh me … I must catch me breath in remembering this - I can still feel me terror and all that water pouring into me gob.