Geoffrey Cousins - The Butcherbird

Jack wasn’t at home when Louise returned to Alice Street. He was deep in the paperbark forest in Centennial Park, staring blankly at the peeling sheets of white-pink bark, listening to Joe sloshing through the reedy swamp. The dog was where it shouldn’t be, in the pungent mud of Lachlan Swamp, but then so was everything else where it shouldn’t be. He walked slowly along the raised boardwalk, counting the slats as he went, for no reason. He had nothing else to do, no office to go to, no speeches to make, no conferences to attend, no meetings to take, no plans to draw, no colleagues to converse with, no accolades to accept, no reports to read, no orders to give-nothing. Just the trees and the swamp and a dog mired in rotting compost. He came to a clearing in the forest and leaned against the pulpy surface of an ancient trunk. The sheets of fibrous bark compressed under the weight of his body and he let his head fall back into the softness. The tree was alive in its skin, welcoming, comforting, giving. You could strip great sheets of its bark and make vessels or carrying bags or wrappings as the Aborigines had, or just hold the skin and let the life flow into you, as he was now. He spread his arms around the trunk, three trunks really, melded together in a fluted pillar. He closed his eyes and let the sun fall through the dense canopy onto his hair and face.

When he opened his eyes, both Joe and a small group of Japanese tourists were staring at him with some interest, obviously intrigued to see a genuine Australian tree-hugger in a native forest. He wondered if they’d taken pictures. He called to the dog and they emerged from the paperbarks, heading towards a wooden bridge.

As they did so, he noticed the figure of a man he remembered seeing earlier in their walk. He was wearing a dark tracksuit and a peculiar cap with an unusually long brim. Jack glanced at him quickly then strode off at a brisk pace towards the ponds. He didn’t look back until they’d reached the kiosk where the bike-riders came to refuel on Saturday mornings. He couldn’t see the man and was relieved. Somehow he’d felt he was being followed. Paranoia was creeping into his psyche. He had just clipped the malodorous dog back onto the lead, when he noticed a familiar shape near the queue at the kiosk. There was the peaked cap.

He tugged at Joe’s lead and they almost ran between the two ponds and into a dense palm grove. Why he should be running from anyone he wasn’t sure, but panic was upon him. The dog sensed the change in mood and whined and pulled at the lead. He released him now they were clear of the waterbirds and the animal darted in and out of the palms, chasing shadows and sunbeams, looking back now and again to check if his master was still intent on a mad dash through the fallen fronds. Jack couldn’t see the dark tracksuit behind him, but he could hear someone crashing through the brush. He was sweating, panting, dry in the mouth and, he suddenly realised, a ridiculous figure. What was he running from? Who could be following him? What harm could they do him in a public place? Well, not so public here, in this lonely dark grove, but who would want to harm him anyway?

He stopped, breathing heavily, and stood behind one of the palms to wait for whatever was coming. The dog also halted its insane careering about and stood to one side, a gothic hound covered in a coat of drying mud and attached debris. Jack could hear his pursuer’s laboured breathing now as he made heavy weather through the thick matted fronds. And then, suddenly, the familiar shape with the long peak over the face emerged only a few metres away. Jack stepped from behind the trunk.

‘Who the hell are you? Why are you following me?’ The figure let out a startled cry, looked up from the ground in surprise, and as it did so, tripped and crashed into the crackling brush. The dog, growling at this bizarre disturbance, rushed at the fallen figure, snarling over the face. A man’s voice called out from the ground.

‘Jesus Christ. Get it away, for Christ’s sake. It’s me, Jack. It’s Mac. Call the dog off.’

Now it was Jack’s turn to cry out in surprise, but he had the presence of mind to clip the lead onto Joe’s collar and pull it away. ‘He won’t hurt you. He’s only frightened.’

He leaned down to help the bulky mass regain its feet. The cap had disappeared somewhere into the broken fronds and he could see the face clearly. There was stubble on the chin and a vague, uncertain look in the eyes. ‘What are you doing here? Why are you following me?’

Mac was brushing the sticks and leaves from his clothing, watching the dog warily. ‘It’s a long story. Can we sit somewhere quietly and talk? I’ve been trying to get you in a place where no one’s about, no one’s listening.’

Jack examined him doubtfully. ‘We’re not supposed to talk. The instructions from ASIC are we’re not to talk to anyone else involved in their investigation, not to discuss the matter at all.’

Mac nodded. ‘I know, believe me I know. But I need to talk to you. I’m trying to help you.’

Jack snorted. ‘Sure. Who isn’t? The trouble is your sort of help’s likely to land me in jail. No thanks.’

Gradually Mac’s breathing was returning to normal. He stood erect, drew air deep into his lungs and exhaled slowly. ‘It’s not like that. I’m not what you think I am. I don’t hang people out to dry. I don’t stab in the back. If I’m coming for you, you’ll see me. Please, just talk for a while.’

They sat, all three, on the mound of a massive date palm. Jack couldn’t stop himself from staring at the evidence of Mac’s decline: the muddy tracksuit, the unkempt hair, the unshaven jowls. He checked the normally manicured nails-ragged and dirty. All this in only a couple of weeks? He could see himself here, see the kids inspecting him with pitying eyes, see Louise looking away in order to preserve some semblance of respect.

‘I’m not a crook, you know.’ Jack was startled to hear the silence broken. He’d already forgotten they were going to talk. Somehow it seemed more appropriate just to sit, to be quiet.

‘I only took what was mine. Okay, maybe some law or regulation says it should have been done a different way, or I should pay some extra tax, or whatever. But it was mine. I made it, I had the right to take it. Maybe we dressed up the accounts a little, but so what? All the shareholders benefited, didn’t they? Not just me. And now I’ve suffered more than anyone.’

Jack thought of the bronzed commander offering sweetmeats on the deck of the Honey Bear, the captain of industry in the dark cave of an office, the arts tsar at the opening of his gallery. Alongside him now was a grizzled old man, absentmindedly patting the head of a filthy dog, trying to justify himself to anyone, to no one.

‘Is that why you wanted to talk? To explain yourself?’

Immediately there was a flash of anger from the spleen of the old Mac. ‘Fuck you. I don’t explain myself to anyone. I’ve come to offer help. If you want to bite the hand, fuck you, Jack.’

There seemed to be no other people in this impenetrable section of the park. They were in the heart of a city of five million people, but alone, lost in a secret grove. A breeze rustled the swaying fronds above; a spent pod fell to the ground causing the dog to leap to its feet. Otherwise there was silence.

‘What is this help?’ Jack’s eyes drifted to the minutiae of the world around him.

A caterpillar was making its painful way across a dead frond, clambering laboriously up one leaf, down another, on and on-to where? A tiny lizard darted out into the light, stared at them briefly, darted back. Somewhere high above, a bird was crunching at a fruit on the palm, rejected fragments drifting down softly into the leaf litter. He could hear Mac’s tired voice speaking, but was somehow indifferent to what was being said.