all.
–Alright. Let’s do that.
Onto the Snowy Mountains Highway, into the Kosciuszko National Park, across the Bogong Mountains. Can’t see a thing except for a metallic glint of water under moonlight through trees so we park up by that glint and I get out of the van for a piss and it’s freezing, I’m shivering, my teeth are actuallychattering. I get back into the van and brush my teeth and put a woolly hat on and wriggle into my sleeping bag and soon I’m drifting off. Thirty years. This distance, this time. Last year when I was a boy.
THEN
–Quick, little bunny! Run for your life! Get away!
The boy’s pulse is racing. They are standing at the top of a sloping meadow which rushes down to the lake, and on the banks of that lake across a dip in the field races a rabbit only a single paw-swipe in front of a sprinting fox. The animals aren’t close but the boy can see the rabbit’s frantically bouncing tail and the erect brush of the fox and the redness of his fur. Any minute now. Snap that fox will go, any second.
–Oh God, the boy’s mother says. –He’s going to get eaten.
The children are aghast, stricken, shouting:
–Run! Run, little rabbit! Get away!
The rabbit quick-darts at right angles but the fox mirrors every move, his body leaning sideways, his ribs close to the ground. This is it. He’ll catch the rabbit. There will be mutilation and screaming and agonised death any second now.
–Quick! QUICK!
And then the rabbit vanishes. Just disappears into the ground and the dad says that he’s found his burrow and everyone cheers. The fox paws and sniffs at the ground for a while then skulks away down to the lake’s edge and is swallowed up in the rushes.
The boy’s heart slows. He can actually feel his blood decelerating. The spectacle thrilled him completely, shook himwith emotions that he can’t quite name. His palms went wet and his mouth went dry and he felt a kind of heaviness in his bum and legs and all of his skin went tight and tingly. He’s glad that the rabbit got away but he wonders now what the fox will eat. Wonders if the fox has got babies and if they’ll now starve.
Later that day they stop at Blowering Trout Farm. Many circular chest-high tanks filled with fish, the water thrashing and boiling with the muscular bodies of trout. Many fish have jumped out of their tanks and are flapping and gasping and twitching in the mud, and the boy wants to put them back in the water but there are hundreds of them, all dying, drowning in the air. The boy wonders why they can’t be fed to the hungry fox. Thinks that there is waste here.
NOW
I wake up and go outside and now in the daylight I can see where I am and in my memory this is always, exactly, how it has looked; the narrow dingle, the dip, the solitary tree, the lake behind it, and the thickly-wooded hill over that lake. All of this corresponds precisely to my memory. This is the exact spot, I’m sure of it. The running rabbit and the ravening fox. The sounds of shouting scared children. All of that happened here. Early exposure to the world’s indifference, nature’s violence. I’ve gone back in time as I slept. This is the exact spot.
Sunday morning. Cold. We drive on, needing a hot drink and food. A wash, too, but that’ll have to wait; at least we’ve got some baby wipes. Essential items, if you’re spending any time away from a shower or a bath; they at least give you the sensation of being clean. Blowering Trout Farm is still here butis closed, and there’s no way of getting beyond the padlocked gates or over or under the chainlink fence, which is disappointing. The Yarrangobilly Caves are open, though, and after some tea and cake in the caff we go down into the vast yawning gob of their entrance, past a pink gala fast asleep on a railing. Can’t say that I remember a great deal about these caves, beyond shiny spikes of rock and a feeling of low-level panic, and no memories gush back, apart from a vague one of an
–Alright. Let’s do that.
Onto the Snowy Mountains Highway, into the Kosciuszko National Park, across the Bogong Mountains. Can’t see a thing except for a metallic glint of water under moonlight through trees so we park up by that glint and I get out of the van for a piss and it’s freezing, I’m shivering, my teeth are actuallychattering. I get back into the van and brush my teeth and put a woolly hat on and wriggle into my sleeping bag and soon I’m drifting off. Thirty years. This distance, this time. Last year when I was a boy.
THEN
–Quick, little bunny! Run for your life! Get away!
The boy’s pulse is racing. They are standing at the top of a sloping meadow which rushes down to the lake, and on the banks of that lake across a dip in the field races a rabbit only a single paw-swipe in front of a sprinting fox. The animals aren’t close but the boy can see the rabbit’s frantically bouncing tail and the erect brush of the fox and the redness of his fur. Any minute now. Snap that fox will go, any second.
–Oh God, the boy’s mother says. –He’s going to get eaten.
The children are aghast, stricken, shouting:
–Run! Run, little rabbit! Get away!
The rabbit quick-darts at right angles but the fox mirrors every move, his body leaning sideways, his ribs close to the ground. This is it. He’ll catch the rabbit. There will be mutilation and screaming and agonised death any second now.
–Quick! QUICK!
And then the rabbit vanishes. Just disappears into the ground and the dad says that he’s found his burrow and everyone cheers. The fox paws and sniffs at the ground for a while then skulks away down to the lake’s edge and is swallowed up in the rushes.
The boy’s heart slows. He can actually feel his blood decelerating. The spectacle thrilled him completely, shook himwith emotions that he can’t quite name. His palms went wet and his mouth went dry and he felt a kind of heaviness in his bum and legs and all of his skin went tight and tingly. He’s glad that the rabbit got away but he wonders now what the fox will eat. Wonders if the fox has got babies and if they’ll now starve.
Later that day they stop at Blowering Trout Farm. Many circular chest-high tanks filled with fish, the water thrashing and boiling with the muscular bodies of trout. Many fish have jumped out of their tanks and are flapping and gasping and twitching in the mud, and the boy wants to put them back in the water but there are hundreds of them, all dying, drowning in the air. The boy wonders why they can’t be fed to the hungry fox. Thinks that there is waste here.
NOW
I wake up and go outside and now in the daylight I can see where I am and in my memory this is always, exactly, how it has looked; the narrow dingle, the dip, the solitary tree, the lake behind it, and the thickly-wooded hill over that lake. All of this corresponds precisely to my memory. This is the exact spot, I’m sure of it. The running rabbit and the ravening fox. The sounds of shouting scared children. All of that happened here. Early exposure to the world’s indifference, nature’s violence. I’ve gone back in time as I slept. This is the exact spot.
Sunday morning. Cold. We drive on, needing a hot drink and food. A wash, too, but that’ll have to wait; at least we’ve got some baby wipes. Essential items, if you’re spending any time away from a shower or a bath; they at least give you the sensation of being clean. Blowering Trout Farm is still here butis closed, and there’s no way of getting beyond the padlocked gates or over or under the chainlink fence, which is disappointing. The Yarrangobilly Caves are open, though, and after some tea and cake in the caff we go down into the vast yawning gob of their entrance, past a pink gala fast asleep on a railing. Can’t say that I remember a great deal about these caves, beyond shiny spikes of rock and a feeling of low-level panic, and no memories gush back, apart from a vague one of an
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