Chapter Forty-Six
CHAPTER
46
Drones buzz above us as I trot Phoenix, eyes bright with adventure, back to the yards. I lean over his wither to rub under his short glossy mane.
‘You were a star.’
Shooting for The Dragon Slayers finished weeks ago, but Astrid was dissatisfied with the lighting in a few of the scenes and ordered some of us back to the set.
‘Whoa!’ James, dressed in an Equisaught costume, sits on a director’s chair behind a low railing. ‘Take it easy there, Saddler Girl.’
Neck damp with sweat, Phoenix prances when I bring him back to a walk. ‘Who talks like that?’
‘Kevin Costner in Yellowstone .’
‘Saddler Girl?’
James flicks the leather ties on his waistcoat. ‘How did my stunt double do with my horse?’
‘In accordance with the script, we pipped them at the post.’ I kick free of the stirrups, slide from the saddle and take off my Akubra.
‘You got a call.’
I have no reason to expect it, but … ‘Kit?’
‘Nope.’ James grins. ‘The Viking.’
My heart skips. ‘How did you know …’
James holds out my phone. ‘It came up on the screen.’
Two weeks have passed since he left. Even though I haven’t seen him every day or even every week in the past eight months, Norway seems particularly far away. ‘Did you answer? What did he want?’
‘To know what I was doing with your phone.’
‘Did you explain?’
‘When I told him you were naked in the tub, he wanted to know if you’d fallen off your horse.’
‘James!’
‘He doesn’t see me as a threat.’ James huffs. ‘That’s offensive, to be frank.’
‘Tell me what he said.’
James counts on his fingers. ‘One, he hoped Astrid wasn’t working you too hard. Two, he’ll be doing his best man speech …’ James checks his phone. ‘It’ll be about now, so he wants you to call him back in an hour. Three, he’d prefer you didn’t gallop on the horse that almost killed you.’
‘Why did you tell him that’s what I was doing?’
‘He misses you. You miss him.’ He shrugs. ‘I’m jealous.’
‘I don’t know what’s going on.’
‘You never told me what the sex was like.’
‘I walked out on him afterwards.’
‘He hurts you, you hurt him.’ Another shrug. ‘The make-up sex will be brilliant.’
Phoenix flicks a fly off his flank with his tail. ‘Summerfield is micro, and islands in the sub-Antarctic are macro. I’m thinking that might be like us. It can’t …’ My voice wobbles. ‘How could it ever work?’
‘Mac!’ Astrid calls out. ‘One more take!’
Being careful not to get too close to Phoenix, James pulls me into a hug before taking me firmly by the shoulders.
‘Do you know anything about Norse mythology?’
‘It’d surprise me if you did.’
He mocks offence. ‘ The Dragon Slayers is rich in the stuff, including the story of Njord and Skade. Njord was a powerful god—a seafarer. Skade was into snow sports—skiing and hunting. They wanted to be together, but she loved the mountains, he loved the coast.’
‘I’m thinking they didn’t get together.’
He smiles apologetically. ‘Sorry, Mac.’
‘Kit said sorry too.’ I gather the reins, put my foot in the stirrup and hoist myself up. ‘Right before he left.’
***
Does Kit sleep any better than I do? When he’s not having nightmares, does he think of me in the way I think of him? Sometimes I convince myself he needs me, but then I change my mind again.
I called him back on the day James took his call, and in the past ten days we’ve spoken three more times. If I called him right now, even though it might be the middle of the night, he’d pick up. He’d answer my questions about climate conferences in Belgium, fjords in Norway and islands off the Tasmanian coast. Would he ask me to trust him, or has he given up on that?
‘How is your grandfather?’ Astrid, sitting on a stool at the campsite in the national park, looks up from her cereal. I’m not sure we’re friends, but we understand each other better than we did. When we do trips for the documentary, she minimises her eye rolls and I methodically go through her checklists so I don’t ask time-wasting questions.
‘It’ll be good to see him tonight.’
‘I’ll get you back before dark.’
Kit warned me I’d be busy and I am. Jimmy Bains, the young saddler from Denman, can’t afford to go out on his own yet, so he’s taken over my shed to do his own work and a lot of mine too.
Astrid rinses her bowl and spoon. ‘I’ll come with you this morning. Dougie will film.’
We hike to the same place I went yesterday—a patch of level ground at the base of a cascade of boulders. Astrid perches on a rock while Dougie sets up his tripod and measures the light.
I flick through pages in my sketchbook. ‘This must be boring for you.’
‘Seals, birds, penguins,’ Astrid says, ‘like kangaroos, they’re easy to portray. But you …’ She points an accusing finger. ‘You see moss, an orchid. You notice things the rest of us don’t. Kit saw it first—the connection, the fascination. This is unique.’
‘I think Dad understood.’
‘What did he understand?’ Astrid asks. ‘Tell us.’
‘It sounds stupid.’
When Astrid glances at Dougie, he nods in annoyance. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
Sunbeams, filtered by the canopy of trees above us, fall like stars at my feet. Darkness and light. Warmth and shelter. Roots and fallen leaves.
‘When plants grow out of the soil, it’s a new beginning.’ I find the sketch I finished yesterday. ‘Most plants have an endosperm, which nourishes seedlings before they photosynthesise. Orchids don’t have that.’
‘How do they survive?’
‘In a natural environment, orchids rely on the nutrients fungi provide to germinate and grow. This place …’ When I put my hand on the ground, the dampness, the grittiness, flows through my fingers. My chest tightens, my eyes burn. ‘There were times in my childhood when places like this meant everything.’
‘This is different from orchids grown in glasshouses?’
‘When orchids are cultivated commercially, growers use an artificial medium. In the natural environment, orchids grow as they always have. As a child, I wanted to leave the city to see Dad and Grandpa, but now I see there was more to it than that.’
‘The natural environment?’
‘Bushland is real, not fake.’
‘The first time we filmed at the mine, you were angry and upset. Are you more hopeful than you were?’
The dot on the tip of my pencil. Colourful dots on an orchid labellum. Newly opened fronds of the fern at my feet, delicate as lace, are dotted with seeds. How many? I count in columns, down and across. I open my sketchbook, find a new page.
‘Mackenzie?’
I look up. ‘What was the question?’
She glances at her notes. ‘The mine site at Summerfield. Is there hope?’
Shading my eyes with my sketchbook, I turn three hundred and sixty degrees. A kaleidoscope of green. At the mine, the ground is barren and grey but …
‘After the dam is demolished, there’ll be water for the wetlands and the streams will run again. In time, a lake will form in the crater. Water brings vegetation and wildlife. We can’t restore what was there, but we can rehabilitate the landscape. That’s good for us, the environment and the planet.’
‘How long will it take?’
I’m barely aware of the camera as I clamber over boulders at the edge of the clearing to a river peppermint gum. The two-metre-wide trunk is covered in rough brown bark. Ten metres up, the bark tumbles in strips like streamers.
‘When I’m my grandfather’s age, there’ll be trees like this at the mine …’