Chapter 30
Rowan pointed me up the hill and into the forest.
Shadowy pine trees crowded in around the truck as the road narrowed.
Between the trunks the daylight stopped and everything was dark.
I could barely see more than a metre or two beyond the road.
The massive, fringed branches hung over us, as if the trees were giants peering down into the truck as we passed.
It reminded me of being a child sneaking into adult parties in the dining room, before my parents would usher me back to bed so they could talk to their more interesting adult friends.
“Take that left,” said Rowan.
It was an unmarked trail, barely more than a pair of tyre tracks leading further into the forest. I became keenly aware of my phone in my jeans pocket, pressed tight against my thigh. Would I get reception up here? Could I hold the truck keys between my fingers?
Rowan grinned at me, seemingly oblivious—as most men are in these moments—to the alarmed whispers in my head.
“Get ready for this,” he said.
I turned along the track. After a moment of shadow, the trees opened out on a large clearing sloping down the hillside, looking out on a beautiful vista of the surrounding hills.
Dramatic cliff edges cut the landscape while soft rolling fields undulated out to where the horizon disappeared in the early summer haze.
Forests, all various patchworks of green from lime to emerald, shimmered in a breeze I couldn’t feel, while up above two birds of prey circled like guardian angels.
My mouth fell open. Rays of sunlight broke through the soft cloud cover, as if the fingers of God himself brushed over the forests and brassy slopes, illuminating them with a spectral fire.
Down below us, sitting pretty like a toy town next to the glittering river, was Carlinsrest. I pulled the truck over and stared.
“It’s my favourite view,” said Rowan. “Too bad it’ll eventually get covered up by the trees we’re planting up here, but it’s a fair trade-off in my opinion.”
He got out of the truck and headed round the back, but I stayed to look out over the view for a little while longer.
The silence struck me the most. I’d heard that the countryside was quiet, but I’d never been anywhere this quiet before.
There had always been the background noise of far-off traffic, the hum of a fridge, the gentle shift and murmur of other people.
But up here, when Rowan wasn’t dragging saplings out of the truck bed, it was truly silent.
I had thought true silence would be terrifying.
Like a void. A lack. A horrible nothingness.
I was surprised to find it was sort of alright really.
Calm. Peaceful. Like nothing else needed my attention for once.
All my thoughts and the high ringing in my head were far away, and now I could hear the sounds from within my body.
The soft rustle my clothes made as I inhaled.
The gentle rush of the air through my nose.
The wetness redistributing in my mouth and throat.
The thrum-thrum-thrum of my pulse. I’d always thought of my body in relation to what it should look like, what it should be able to do.
Pushing myself toward another deadline. Ignoring the hunger pangs when I felt I ought to slim down.
The ache of feet that just wouldn’t walk in high heels.
I rarely thought of my body as a living thing, gently humming with blood and electricity.
I held myself in that moment of nothingness, just listening to my body.
And for a second, I thought I might levitate out of my seat and—
“Hey, did you hear me?” Rowan appeared at the window.
“Sorry, I sort of lost myself there.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it’ll do that to you.” He lifted a sapling up to the window. “I was asking if you wanted to help plant these babies.”
I nodded, the earlier tension forgotten.
Yeah. I did.
Two by two we carried the saplings further into the clearing to where a line of young trees had already been planted. Their springy, sparse limbs reached up in exultation to the sky. After the first load, my arms were already burning, but it was a good burn. The burn of something achieved.
Rowan showed me how far apart to dig the holes, what fertilizer to scatter in the bottom, and how to firm the soil back in around the base of the sapling before covering it with a layer of unprocessed wool. I spent the next hour digging. Blisters on my palms. Mud under my fingernails.
And I felt the best I’d felt in years.
So much of my work back in the city had felt ephemeral, unreal.
Back in the office, I’d get a brief through for my emails, spend an hour or so writing something up, then send it back, never to hear anything about it again.
Every job felt like it came from nowhere and disappeared into nowhere.
There was just me at my desk, between two portals into nothingness.
I sometimes suspected it was all made up, one of those bullshit jobs that never really needed doing.
Just something to keep the over-educated and under-employed occupied enough to stop us realising it was all a farce.
But still I kept doing it. The brief coming in.
The email going out. No word before, no word after.
Silence. And I learnt that silence was the goal.
Early on, as an experiment, I left mistakes in my work.
The odd typo at first—specail, thier, teh—then out-and-out misspellings—competishun, redused pries, perfekt—then strange phrasing—Merry Easter, grummy snacks, totally goatily!
—slowly working my way up to something more absurd—our new dishwashing tabs are also great for whitening your teeth!
I got the odd comment back but most of my transgressions were quietly dealt with elsewhere.
It was only after a stupid quiz I’d written for a popular nappy brand—What’s the best way to keep your little one warm?
A) a blanket B) sand C) a toaster—that I started getting more regular feedback.
Only ever negative, mind. It was then that I realised the silence really was better.
In fact, the less I interacted with anyone, the better.
So, the briefs continued coming out of the void and the work went straight back into it.
No reply. No reaction. It was easy to forget I had done anything at all.
But looking back at the row of trees I’d—perhaps a little haphazardly—planted it was difficult to miss what I had done; to see the change I had enacted on the world.
Look, here there used to be just grass. Now there is a tree.
With good care and good luck, these trees could well be here long after I was gone. It was like reaching into the future and tapping someone on the shoulder.
I was here. You are here. We were both here by the same tree.
It would outlive me, Rowan, and future generations, until someone so totally blind to the absurdity of trees cut it down.
Or maybe a storm would come. Or a fire. But even then, that was still part of the shift and change of the landscape of which I was now a part.
Here. Visible. Tangible. Very much not void.
At the spot where I was about to dig next was the small corpse of a mouse.
It curled stiffly around a red gash where its innards had been.
Its eyes were shut as if sleeping. Its tail was broken.
I didn’t say anything to Rowan, but dug the hole for the tree all the same then tipped the tiny body in with my spade.
I scattered fertilizer over it and set the sapling on top, gentle this time with the soil, and pressed the tree in place, sending the mouse into the tree’s hopefully absurdly long future.
“Nice work,” said Rowan. He stood close by with his arm resting on his spade. “Stop for a bite to eat?”
We downed tools and found a patch of grass short enough to sit in.
Rowan brought over two bridies in a paper bag—picked up from the pie counter at the butcher’s that morning.
I bit into the flaky pastry and the flavour of salty beef mince instantly filled my mouth.
My God, I thought. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. How long had I been this hungry?
I smiled over at Rowan to express my gratitude. He smiled back, but this time it felt forced. An awkward silence descended on us.
An alert sounded on his phone. He silenced it without even looking.
He pressed his lips together, looked out over the view, took a deep breath, then said:
“I didn’t retake the tests when the driving ban was over because I was in prison.”