Where the Trees Were

by Inga Simpson

Genres: General Fiction; Coming of Age; Family Life

Synopsis

Finding a copse of carved trees forged a bond between Jay and her four childhood friends; opening their eyes to a wider world. But their attempt to protect the grove ends in disaster… and on that one day, their lives forever. Seventeen years later, Jay finally has her chance to make amends. But at what cost? Not every wrong can be put right, but sometimes looking the other way is no longer an option.

Release date: March 22, 2016

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 304

Sample

WE FLOATED DOWNRIVER. Stringybarks and red gums leaned over the water, throwing shade too thin for the heat. The boys were ahead of me, in formation. I had missed the start and given up, let them go. It was quieter on my own. Sometimes it was as if the water was talking and I liked to listen.

There were four of us. Five, counting Matty. We left Kieran’s little brother at home when we could, but during the holidays it was difficult to get away without him.

I drifted past the swinging tree, with its knotted rope, waiting. Ahead, Kieran paddled towards the beach, wanting to win, although it wasn’t really a race. I paddled, too, now, to catch up. Kieran was out, on the scoop of pale sand and gathering up his lilo. The back of his calves were burnt brown, disappearing up the bank. Ian was out next, then Josh, then Matty and me. We pelted along the path, well worn by us and stock coming down to drink. Our bare feet gripped the earth, impervious to rocks and roots. On land I was quicker, more certain, even dragging the lilo, and left Matty behind.

From a high point on the bank – the launching pad – we threw ourselves into the water all over again, rubber slapping on water and skin slapping on rubber. This time I got myself into a better position, where the river was deep and ran more swiftly, helping me move in front of Kieran. I was lighter and, if I kept my balance, would reach the shore first this time.

‘No paddling!’ he said.

‘I’m not.’ I pulled in my arms, tucked them by my sides, and lay my cheek on the pillow of the lilo. Once red and navy, it was now more pink and grey, from the sun. My swimmers top itched where I was peeling and I wished, not for the first time, that I could still take it off the way I used to, and go bare-chested with the boys. Mum had put an end to that last summer – saying I was too old.

Ian and Josh floated out either side. Our wingmen. Matty called from behind, which we ignored, although Kieran did glance over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t drowning.

‘What time do you reckon it is?’ Ian squinted into the sun.

‘Not even close to lunch, yet,’ Josh said.

Ian was always most concerned with time, for fear of missing a meal. Fear of his dad, too. His mum worked, so he had as many chores as us even though they lived in town, and was always in trouble for getting home late or messing them up.

Matty paddled to catch up, his splashes getting closer. ‘I’m hungry, too,’ he said.

Dragonflies flitted and dipped between us. We drifted around the bend in a languid line, as if the river was ours, as if it always would be.



Afternoons were for swinging.

We climbed up the tree and onto the horizontal branch, waiting our turn to place our feet on the knot, grip the rope and throw ourselves out into midair, to freefall into the river. If the timing was right, the arc perfect, we would reach the middle and touch the bottom with our feet or our hands, depending how we had left the rope.

The water was cold down there, brown and quiet. Things brushed against my skin. I felt a pull, not just of the river, the current wanting to carry me. When I looked up to the surface, the world was strange and far away, as if perhaps I was no longer part of it. But I always needed breath and had to return to the surface, and then it seemed that I belonged after all.

Matty couldn’t get his swing right, lacking the strength to push out far enough, and often hesitating before jumping. So one of us would push him and tell him when to let go, or jump with him.

It was all easy for Kieran. He was getting muscles and moods and had started wearing board shorts over his Speedos. He did somersaults and dives and bombs to impress us, sending up great fountains of water. Sometimes he would climb to the top of the tree and dive from there. I held my breath when he did that, even though I wasn’t underwater, because I knew that he was too high and, with the summer we’d had, the river too low.

We had been at it for an hour or so when we found ourselves up the tree without Kieran. For a while it was fun. I could keep up with Ian and Josh and we jumped in pairs, taking turns with Matty.

Then we found ourselves all in, treading water. Waiting for Kieran. Even the cockatoos had gone quiet.

‘I’m tired,’ Matty said. I let him grab my shoulders, although it nearly sent me under.

Ian looked towards the shore. ‘Maybe he’s started on the food already.’

Josh’s hair was sticking straight up on top, like wet straw. ‘Should we go look for him?’

‘There he is,’ I said.

Kieran was high on the bank, gesturing for us to follow, as if we weren’t already on our way. The look on his face was enough. The promise of something new – an adventure.

SHE SHIVERED. THE basement was kept at a constant temperature – twenty degrees – but always felt colder at night. She had been sitting still too long.

The few times she had worked into the night, prepping for a big exhibition, had been with others, the place alive with movement and noise. In the low fluorescent light, and the quiet, the room most resembled a morgue, its walls lined with specimen jars and stuffed animals, the tables littered with dismembered and decaying objects, some being prepared for display, others for storage or disposal. Until recently, there had been human remains, too. They were hidden away now, off site, awaiting identification and repatriation. The knowledge of them lingered in the room.

She stretched one leg and then the other, closed her hands into fists and released them. Upstairs, the night guard would be completing another circuit, around the great masters and the other pieces deemed of significant cultural value. Frank always did Wednesday nights. Unless he was sick, which had only happened once in five years. Or when he was on leave. He took his four weeks all at once, over Christmas, every year. He was one of those guys counting down the remaining workdays until retirement, actually crossing them off the calendar with a red texta. He was old enough to be in the original super scheme, which through some drafting glitch, gave a financial return so good, if retiring at age fifty-four years and eleven months – rather than fifty-five – that you had to work for another ten years to match it. ‘Fifty-four eleven’, they called it. Or they used to, before September Eleven.

They had shut that scheme down before her time. It was another of the baby boomer booms she was paying for. Like the rest of her generation, she would have to work until she was sixty. In theory, anyway. It could all be over tonight.

Her stomach growled. Being alone with her thoughts had been peaceful at first but now those thoughts kept coming back to food – the pasta she might have had for dinner, the pear she had forgotten to eat for afternoon tea, the sushi she could have packed in her pockets. The emergency power bar still in her pannier.

She checked her watch again. Frank would be in the tearoom, his two-minute noodles turning in the microwave. She could almost smell them. Right on midnight, he sat down at the square table, with a detective novel – it was always a detective novel – and slurped and read for fifteen minutes. The monitors allowed him to keep one eye on things. Or they would, but he sat with his back to them, listening to jazz through his earphones. It was always jazz.

They had been installing an exhibition around the clock, trying to make the opening on time after a customs delay, when she had first seen him. The presence of five senior conservationists scoffing Turkish pizza at the tearoom counter hadn’t disturbed his routine in the slightest. She should have reported him. Someone should have. It was a major security flaw: a ten-minute window. Just what she had been looking for.

She moved now, a shadow in the shadows, to deactivate the alarms, disarm the outer cameras, and open the gate. The loading dock camera was out of order. A stroke of luck she had taken for a good sign.

The driver backed in: lights off, plates and brakelights covered, reversing alarm disconnected. The truck was gunmetal grey and immaculate.

The exhibit was waiting. Like a prisoner, it had been prepped for transfer tomorrow, back out to the Mitchell storage facility. Laid out and bubble-wrapped. Bubble wrap for fuck’s sake. But all that plastic would help it travel safe now. It was worth a hell of a lot to the right people.

The truck’s tray crept closer to the ramp. She held up a gloved hand, signalling stop. His face, like hers, was hidden beneath a cheap black balaclava, but his eyes shone in the side mirror. She started the forklift, eased forward. Its modified prongs were more used to paintings, busts and sculptures, but it took the package in a familiar embrace. She raised it slow and steady, just one finger on the hydraulic lever, as she had practised, keeping the package balanced.

They were almost out of time.

He tapped his hands on the wheel, watching the clock. He could still take off, fly free, if something went wrong; that was their agreement. She drove to the edge of the ramp and lowered the forks onto the truck’s tray.

He climbed out of the cab and onto the back, gripping the tree as she reversed. He rolled it into the middle of the tray, spun it lengthways, and covered it with a soft tarp while she parked the forklift and cut the motor. In the quiet, she could breathe again.

She caught one end of each strap, looped it under the rail, and threw it back. He tightened the fasteners.

She climbed into the passenger seat, shut the door. Thirty seconds. He was up and in, all in one smooth movement. Twenty seconds. They drove out the gate and into the lane, into the night, and along streets still damp from the afternoon’s late shower. It was windy on the bridge, the water choppy in yellow lamplight, and then they looped away via the off ramp. There were few cars on the Parkway, and lights twinkled in the satellite city centre in the valley. She kept one eye on the lanes behind them in her side mirror. He watched the road ahead. ‘So far, so good,’ he said.

They were already pulling into the warehouse by the time the automated message alerting her to the security breach flashed on her pager.

Their footsteps were loud on the concrete, the space inside vast and empty around the truck. They bumped fists for a job well done before slipping out the side door. He locked it behind them.

They walked in opposite directions without looking back.

It was cold, even in her fleece and jacket. Even with her blood still pumping. She walked to the car park of the nearby club, fished her keys from her pocket and unlocked her bike. There was already a crust of frost on the grass.

She cut across the club’s service road to the bike path. Her headlight showed the way around the curves and through dips, up that last steep rise. Back past the empty city centre. It was the ghost town everyone said it was. She saw no one.

The sky was so clear she could see the pits on the moon. Her legs had found a rhythm; she was part of the bike, and together they were part of the universe. The stars looked on, guiding her home through the empty streets and around the back of her local shops. She threw the balaclava and gloves into the cafe’s skip, which would be emptied in three hours. She shook out her hair, ran her fingers through it.

There should have been a further message on her pager by now but the screen was blank.

The carport light didn’t flicker on. She had remembered to cut the switch when she left this morning. Yesterday morning. She locked her bike and slipped up the back steps in the dark. Something stirred in the hedge. She removed her shoes, opened the door, and padded to her bedroom without turning on the lights. She stripped, left her clothes on the floor in a neat pile, and slid between cold sheets.

She went back over every detail, every moment. No one had seen them, nothing had gone wrong. There had been no mistakes. On the road home she had just been a cyclist. It was done.

IT WAS KIERAN who found the trees.

We swam and then ran, still dripping, behind him. It was hot away from the water, and the path dusty. My skin dried and began to itch. I was imagining a calf stuck in the mud, needing rescue, or an old vehicle for playing in. A raft or even a pirate ship. A body, perhaps.

We entered a kind of grove further up the bank of the river, the sort that is quiet inside, and makes you feel quiet inside yourself. There was a covering of fine grass underfoot, still green, despite the season. Kieran stopped, turned and crossed his arms.

‘What?’ Josh craned his neck to see what was behind Kieran’s back.

‘Turn around,’ he said.

So we did.

It was a tree. Or rather, a series of trees. The largest of them, a big old yellow box, was long dead. A great grey ghost. The other four, still slender and youthful, staggered back either side of the clearing. They leaned over the raised mound of earth, as if protecting it. A section of each trunk had been cut away, in the shape of a shield. There were designs carved inside, curved and straight lines that were not quite pictures and not quite words but told some sort of story. They had been there a long time. You could still see rough tool marks, and where the trees had kept on growing, bulging out over the carvings.

We had only ever approached from the other side, marching past without looking back. Without noticing. As if the trees didn’t want to be seen. Or we hadn’t been ready to see them.

Now we couldn’t look away.

There was one tree for each of us. As if they were for us. What breeze there had been stilled. The birds and insects paused. For a moment, there was no sound. Even Matty had nothing to say.

I pushed past the others, to touch the ledge between the bark and the carved surface of the largest tree. The cuts were deep and wide, right into the heartwood, like fingers making a river. Scrolls and diamonds filled the space around it. It all meant something. It meant a lot. We knew that straight away. We didn’t quite understand, the way we didn’t fully understand a lot of things. At the same time we almost did, although it was more than we could have explained. And we knew that we all felt the same, without having to speak. It was as if the trees said everything for us.

Although dead, the timber was warm. It might just have been the afternoon sun, but it felt magical.

Only when a peewee called and all the sounds started up again was the spell broken.

‘Far out,’ Josh said.

I turned to look at Ian. We were all looking at him. But his face wasn’t telling us anything.

‘What is it?’ Kieran said.

Ian shrugged. ‘I don’t know. An important place, for sure. I could ask Mum?’

We walked the tree circle before stepping inside. It was another time, out of the world. We were younger, we were older – we were together. We heard the wind, the sky, the leaves, the earth, and all of the birds and creatures who lived there. And we were part of it.

Afterwards, we lay on the grassy mound, looking up at the roof of the world through the tips of our trees, until our stomachs were growling and I thought Ian would remind us of lunch.

It was Kieran who first sat up. ‘This is our secret, right? Our secret place.’

I frowned. I had started to imagine telling my father at dinner, triumphant. Finding something on our farm that even he didn’t know about.

‘For sure,’ said Josh.

Ian said nothing. I couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or shut behind his dark curls.

‘Jay?’ Kieran stood over me, blocking the sun.

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘All in?’ Kieran pulled me up, and the others followed. We gathered around the bigger tree. No one asked Matty – he just reached up and put his right hand on the trunk with ours. I put my left arm around Josh, and he put his around Ian, and Ian put his around Kieran, and Kieran hugged Matty, until we were a circle around the tree.

Kieran cleared his throat. ‘We swear, on these trees, to always be friends. To protect each other – and this place.’



‘Jay, did you even wear blockout today?’

‘Yes.’

Mum was serving dinner but looking at me instead, spilling peas over the edge of the plate and onto the bench. ‘You have to reapply it when you’ve been in the water,’ she said. ‘Look at your poor nose.’

Dad took off his boots at the back door and washed his hands in the laundry. ‘How was it down there today, love?’

‘Tell her, David. I’m not going to agree to them spending the day outside if she comes back looking like a lobster.’

I carried the meals to the table, sliding two slices of pork from my plate onto Dad’s. He winked.

It was too hot in the house for roast, too hot for anything. I poured two glasses of cordial and fetched Dad’s beer from the freezer.

‘Someone should be supervising them,’ Mum said. ‘Or their parents will be ringing to complain that we burn their children.’

I put the beer bottle down on the table harder than I meant to. The last thing we wanted was some grown-up putting the brakes on our days.

‘Smells great,’ Dad said, and for a minute I thought he meant burning children, but he was leaning over his vegetables. ‘I don’t have time to spend all afternoon down there, do you? We were both let run wild at their age.’

My parents running wild, or even running, was hard to imagine but it was a better direction of conversation. Mum finally sat down, as pink in the face as she said I was.

‘Maybe on Sunday we can all go?’ he said. ‘So they can use the swing.’

I chewed my potato slowly, even though it was burning the roof of my mouth.

Mum gave me a look, as if she knew we had already broken that rule, but I just took a long drink of my cordial and refilled my glass from the jug.

‘Good girl,’ Mum said. ‘Keep your fluids up.’

FOG CLOAKED THE city. It had been a cold and damp ride in. By now, the tree would be on the highway. She showered and changed in the basement, hung her towel over her locker door.

She blow-dried her hair, although she hated the noise of the machine, and the heat. It was not something she had bothered with, until a senior staff member had commented, as she was bent over the paper in the library one morning, about the connotations of arriving at work with still wet hair. He was a sexist arse, from last century, and didn’t realise that she rode to work, but she didn’t need hi. . .