Tallows
by Alexandra Shaw
Alex is one of our Writer's Residency finalists that was recently published in our first Anthology. Read more about the program - and buy the Anthology - here.
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On the drive up to meet her, shadows from gums stripe the dirt road like the haunches of Tasmanian Tigers. The eucalypts bend and reach overhead, as if excited to watch me wrangle my city car across the 4WD track. I’ve become a pro at navigating these sharp dips and bumps. As long as I don’t get too cocky, there’s a pretty good chance that I won’t bottom out and scratch up my exhaust system. For the number of times I’ve fucked up my cars, you’d think I’d give up on trying to drive up here. But I had so much to catch her up on that I couldn’t postpone my visit again, and I knew that meeting would do me good - there’s just something special about Tallows in that way.
My heart settles as soon as I pass the sign for Bouddi National Park. “Good morning, my love,” I smile out of the window at the flannel flowers and lichen speckled sandstone. “It’s been a while.” She waves hello with the breeze and I lose focus, scraping the bottom of my car over a particularly sharp bump in the road. “Fuck,” I laugh, shaking my head and pressing on.
At the top of Tallows there is very little shade. Grass trees, heath banksia and myrtle wattle bake beneath the sun, all too short to offer relief from the heat. It feels like the meeting point of earth and sky. On a sunny day, the azure expanse above looks like someone has cracked open a fresh tube of acrylic paint and splattered it across a canvas - striking vivid colour yet to be brushed down. Contrasted against the earthy tones of the trees and the dirt, it almost looks unreal.
Once I’ve padded down the sandstone tumbles, soggy moss squelching between my toes, I settle on the cliff’s edge to look over the water. The sight feels like sticking my head out of a moving car’s window: it steals the breath from my lungs, clogs my throat and makes my eyes water. Sunlight washes over the trees, their broccoli tops sloping down the bowl of the valley towards the ocean. With steep headlands bordering the beach on both sides, it looks as though the bush has opened its arms to embrace the shore. Sitting smack-bang in the middle, at the edge of the valley’s drop, I feel like I’ve been swallowed whole.
I lay my palms on one of her smoother edges and grate the pad of my thumb over her sandpaper surface. “How’ve you been?” I sniffle, while gazing out into the valley as one would look into the eyes of an old friend. Welcome swallows chatter and swoop, darting after each other above the gums. They carry her words on their wings: Happier than when you were here last.
I glance away. She’s had a tough year, much like me. The bushfires of 2019 had her choking under the heavy blanket of smoke that washed up and down the coast. I remember laying with her, curled over my knees and watching my tears sink into her surface. I remember her grief pressing up through the soles of my feet.
“Well, that makes two of us.”
A gentle breeze fans over my shoulders, cooling my sun-warmed skin. It’s a supportive touch; reassurance that she’s listening. “I’ve changed a lot since I visited last. Life got sticky for a while. But, I’m on the other side of it all now.”
It’s strange yet understandable that the words don’t snag in my throat when I talk about this with her. She is calm in the steady throb of the treetops pulsing in tune with the wind. She is understanding in the way her once-burnt shrubs have sprung anew in vivid green. She is warm in the sun soaking through my jeans: a maternal embrace to remind me that I am safe when I am in her sights.
I curl my arms around my legs, thighs tucked against my belly and cheek pillowed on my knee. “I missed you.”
The solid feeling of home in my chest whispers that she missed me too.