A story part 1 - New Morning

I remember now.

The morning, hard and bright, with strong yearning, new venture, resolve; guilt. The bird song was almost deafening coming through the New Forest. Magpies winging through the trees, darting, flashing, white and black; their melodious warbling cries like silver bells.

There was heady freshness to the day, full-scented with spring, sap rising. In The Gully, the Tea Tree river rushed and hurried, shooshing over smooth green riverstones, tinkling among treeroots.

My sandals slapped loud on the cool hard dust of the back road. The man ferns and black boys of The Gully, dew green and black, primeval, dwarfing, spears raised, fell away and the slope of the ridge opened up to a sparse standing of slim gum maidens, their smooth green-grey trunks straight up near the ground amongst the wire grass, twisting into writhing limbs high up beneath their red-tinged canopies arching across my head.

Nearing the crest, the sky broke through, brilliant and wide, a deep mid-blue, shocked with piled mountains of bright, white cloud.

My heart was in my throat, singing; a rushing filling my body, like a stream in flood. I felt washed and new, alive, beautiful; bad. If I closed my eyes I could still see Rush, his tousled hair gilded by the flickering embers of the fire, raked over. Smell his body, sandalwood, my head buried in the firm warm hollow of the base of his neck.

I opened my eyes. Warning. A huge crow stood still in the middle of the sandy road. Black, glistening, like a hole in the fabric of the day. His round white eye watched me. He stood his ground, a sentinel before destiny. I came on.

Goddess, be with me.

I breasted the rise; into the day’s wide arms; and you were there. Halted at the edge of the road. Pale, like a ghost in grubby once were white cheescloth. You said nothing but I watched your eyes, those doleful cow eyes, flicker over the rose-pink dress, ironed-fresh and never before worn.

No I love it, but I’d never buy it. It’d be too self-indulgent. I have the Coming Spring to wear.

Flicker down to the pearl pink polish on my toes.

Yes, it’s nice but I don’t really need that do I?

I faltered in my stride. In that frozen moment, the crow called. Was it thrice? Or was that my guilty imagining?

I stood as if naked before you; my ambition and desire brash and strident. My arms bore fresh-picked snowdrops and betrayal.

Fuck you! Did I say that? Or did you just hear my thoughts? Like you always did? You never said a word. It didn’t need words. It was all said, there in the hard bright morning, on the back road into Mullum, just up from Josie’s.

Two spirits, kindred to the core; two blackbirds, sharing broken wings, winging it to the beat of a different drum. Sitting out the long hours of the night; marking the heartbeats of our separate pains to the sound of the same waves, flashing phosphorescent along the dark rimmed edge of Brunswick beach.

Ethereal, pure; or wannabe pure. Beyond samsara and commitment. Unbodied, unblemished; or so we hoped. Never touching but being touched. A platonic passion. Bloodless wraiths frolicking in muslin shrouds.

Fuck you! I feel like a nun! I want him, I want me. I want me back. I want something, not this. Yes, this but not just this. My cunt aches. Does that shock you? I said it. So I said it. So what?

What we had was a dream. Pretending to be magpies, pretending to dwell in Middle Earth. Everything starting with capital letters; Moreton bay figs being Mallorn trees; leaden loaves being Lembas. I want to be real; get real. I’m thirty-two. I’m running out of time.

You said nothing, just stared, with those wide-open doe eyes. Deep brown, sad eyes welling up with bottomless sorrow and hurt.

For a moment we stood together, face almost to face. Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands. You’re like a fuckin’ sad eyed Lady of the Lowlands and you’re the guy! Supposedly. Fuck you! Daniel! I’m a woman, I want a man.

He said nothing. I said nothing. I stepped slightly to the side and swept on, the new rose-pink dress swirling after me like a last word, my freshly washed feet raising cold clouds of dust from the hard road. Long after I started the climb up to the crossroads I could feel Daniel far behind me. Not letting go, not ever letting go.

I stood on the ridge at the crossroads. A cool early morning early spring wind whipped up and flung my hair around. I stood still for a moment, feeling the goose bumps breaking out along my arms and the chill in my feet, the chill in my heart. Then a cloud passed and the sun streamed down. Like a Sign! Down on the flat, the white signpost pointing up the Twenty Mile Road to Rush’s cabin was lit up, brilliant. Meant to be!

Joni sang, “I’m a radio” but I felt like a battery. I could feel the charge arcing and pulsing between the electrodes, Rush’s and mine. I’d broken free from moorings and my sails were out. I could feel the hard, strong tug of the winds of change lifting me up.

I stepped off, and down. Down to where the sign pointed brightly to the way ahead. Down away from your sad brown eyes, and dreams of flying and a Magic Land with capital letters.

I walked into the sun and my pearl pink polish shone and the scent of my own Patchouli wafted up, heady.

And you were gone.