Prospecting

PROSPECTING

stephaniemiller@welltravalledmag.org

Sent 21 January 2022

Steph,

I know it's not bloody perfect. It's a draft. I’ve revised the opening paragraph. What do you think of the bones?

Balancing on a ridge of slick rock just above the waterline, I can see the town's lights reflecting in the dark water of the sound. The dock cranes, Lego red and hazard-tape yellow, are lit up night and day. It's only 4 degrees, but I am dressed in nothing but neoprene.

In the shadows between me and civilisation, Rhys is manoeuvring two kayaks into the water. Past the line of twinkling lights, beyond the bluff, the Eagen Islands are jagged shadows, darker grey than the clouds.

[…]

I don't like ‘greyish’ either, but it was a very grey morning. All kinds of grey, gunmetal through to dove. Dawn in a Northern Irish winter is grey, would you believe it? And cold. That's 4 degrees Celsius, by the way. Convert it for yourself. Miserable. Let me know what you think about the hook, though.

All the best for the spring edition, etc.

#

On their first evening in the cottage, Min noticed that the macadamia tree in the yard had withered to twigs and tinder. The branches had gone brown at the ends and curled inwards. The leaves were drying out, breaking down, and only a few cracked husks lay scattered on the ground as evidence of a final crop. Mistletoe curled over one branch, its reddish-brown roots creeping under the bark. It was flowering, pushing out red and gold trumpets that nodded and swayed with the force of the rain. It wouldn't live long, now the host was dead.

‘What do you do around here for fun?’ Em asked, coming out to join Min on the veranda. She carried two mugs of tea. The mugs were shining white, like goose eggs. Min had bought them in Trabzon, during an assignment along the Black Sea Coast. Roses, willows, pines. A different sea. A birthday gift. She had borne them back across continents without breaking them. A surprise for both of them.

What about fun?

‘Watch the sunset?’ Min suggested. She didn't sound sure. It was 8pm in muggy midsummer. The sun should have been setting as she spoke, but what little light made it through the storm clouds got lost in thickets of gum and bracken.

‘You grew up around here,’ Em pressed. ‘Is there a charming country pub? An interesting dive? Sure they could use the customers, with the travel restrictions.’

There was definitely a pub and dive. Same spot, for extra convenience. Min took a gulp of her tea and let her expression express her opinion.

‘Can we go somewhere that isn't leaking, at least?’

There was, in fact, a leak in the corner of the living room, sending a dribble of dark water down into a plastic bucket. There was no mould, so it couldn’t have been there for long. It was their damn luck, when all they needed was a roof over their heads for a couple of months.

‘Earth to Minnie? Have you got a plan?’

Usually she had a whole itinerary, the tickets booked, the deadlines circled, her fleeting insights priced by the word, an insurance policy stretching like a hammock beneath her. Ready, set, go. But the race had been cancelled, and she found herself back in her grandmother's house. Or what was left of it; the rose garden had vanished beneath a curtain of kudzu, the bush was gumming at the orchard, the macadamia tree was dead. And the roof was leaking.

She was turning circles. Enough of that. The tea was good, strong and sweet.

‘I'll go to the hardware store tomorrow. We'll fix it up,’ Min promised. This time, she hoped her expression does not give her away. Solnitt and Sons’ Industry Suppliers was a treacherous landscape, full of sly, lurking bastards. Even worse, these sly, lurking bastards had her number. She had left town twenty years ago, hadn't looked back. Her return would be the stuff of glorious gossip.

‘And where are we supposed to sleep tonight?’

‘In the bedroom. It's not raining in there too, is it?’ Min joked.

That was not the thing to say. Too late, she saw how Em was curled around the tea cup, tapping her red-bitten fingernails on the pearly glaze. Sometimes the effort of holding back tears was more trouble than plain old weeping. Em hiccupped, muffled something with her fist, and looked away.

‘I can't go tonight. This isn't the CBD. The place will have shut at 4:55 in the afternoon,’ Min protested.

‘It's not that.’

‘Then what is it? I'm not to blame for the bloody rust on the bloody tin roof.’

‘Of course not. You are never to blame for anything.’

The rain eased up for a few moments. Good timing. An escape route.

‘I'll check the outbuildings. Who knows? They might have fared better. Five-star accommodation for the brushtails,' Min suggested. She hopped up, gulping down the rest of the tea. What a waste of warmth, sugar, solace.

She hadn't gone ten paces before the weather turned. Cold droplets slid down her back. How would she write about this place, if she were here on assignment? R____ was a one-horse town, and even then the horse was a bad-tempered biting nag. There was just one pub she couldn’t go to because she knocked El Perry's teeth out when they were both fourteen. They drove him nine hours to the dentist's, and he had lost one of his incisors somewhere along the road. There was just one supermarket which sold a staggering array of preserved vegetables that could have been canned a hundred years ago. Dusty tins of tomato, jars of beetroot that were genuine antiques.

When Min was working, she looked for beauty in strange places. Pork fat sizzling and shining under fluorescent lights, one midnight in Taipei. The stars slanting through the fern fronds, that time she got lost on Te Waipounamu. She had been freezing her toes off, but she had found something in those moments. Some poetry. Something good enough to flog to Nat Geo, in any case.

Why couldn’t she find it here, where she knew every crooked root and bole for miles?

The outbuildings, lined up beside the access road, were newer than the house. The steel sheeting had stood up to the elements, but the sheds were not insulated, and the wind thrummed through the cracks between the walls and the roof. The farm equipment had been sold off years ago, but the interior still stank of fertiliser and petrol. Not good enough even for the brushtails.

Gran used to wear such strong perfume – eau de rose in quantities that could stun a steer – so you couldn't smell the burnt-garlic odour of old-school pesticides. She used to worry the poison would find its way through rubber gloves and plastic hoods. She was probably right. There was a whiff of her lingering in this hollow space full of rain-drumming and spiderwebs.  

Min stood there, where Gran used to park the ride-on mower, wringing water out of her hair. No ghosts emerged to confront her, but she knew what the trouble was.

It had always been a trick. An illusion. Tapping on the keyboard, she conjured far-off places, wonderful adventures. Oh, she really did kayak through the grey morning on Strangford Lough, she really did eat chocolate moss in that charming restaurant in Tallinn, and she really did visit those tiny matchstick churches in Bucharest. But the articles she wrote, they were all sparkling details, untrammelled joys, champagne bubbles.  

Figments. Because she knew she would end up back here, sooner or later, when someone saw through her act.

Min waited for another lapse in the weather. Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. The sky darkened. She checked the lights in the shed. Disconnected. Unsurprising. A good thing she knew her way home blind. When the drumming on the roof quietened, she set off back. She'd had time to consider a few things.

When Min reached the cottage, no one was sitting on the veranda. Inside, Em was busy in the kitchen, unpacking salt and sugar, jars of mixed beans and foil packets of dehydrated stock. One of the boxes held their Christmas baubles, tinsel, and an assortment of ceramic figures in festive colours, all jumbled together. They had left their flat in a hurry. A bit foolish. It had been obvious for months that they couldn't keep up with the rent.

The bucket in the living area had been emptied. Water plopped into it every few seconds, never quite finding a regular rhythm.

‘You know,’ Em said, without looking up, ‘You're not the only person who's been hurt by this.’

‘This?’ Min asked. She could guess, but she was buying herself a moment for the finishing touches. It needed to be a good one.

‘This. The closed borders, the lockdowns, the whole mess. But you do know how to wallow in it. To make it personal.’

‘Emmie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've dragged you back here. I'm sorry that I brought you to the middle of nowhere instead of – I don't know – New York or Bora Bora.’

Em tilted her head, weighing up the apology. ‘Any luck with the outbuildings?’

‘A paradise for white-tailed spiders, but not for us. But I have got another question for you. Just think about it. Where would you go, if you could go anywhere?’

‘Not sure,’ Em answered, too quickly. A door closing. Or rather, a door that had been closed for a long time, staying shut even though someone was rattling the handle. ‘I'd need time to think. What about you?’

Oh, a trap. Everyone had a different definition for ‘perfect’. Em wouldn't go for anything obvious. No cocktails on the beach, no restaurants on roof decks.

‘Wetlands,’ Min replied, making her bet.

‘A swamp?’

‘It sounds terrible when you put it like that! No, coastal wetlands. We could hike along the boardwalk, between river and ocean. Watch the black herons poised on spurs of driftwood, wings raised, waiting for the glimmer of a fish beneath the surface. Listen to the rustling reeds. And when the sun goes down, we could watch ghost lights flicker above the landscape, dancing between earth and sky.’

‘You're making that up,’ Em objected, but her eyes were bright, her mouth curved upwards at the corners.

‘I am not. Will o' the wisps, they're called, or ignis fatuus if you like things better in Latin. Look it up.’

‘I might. And I might just go with you, someday, to your swamp beside the sea.’

‘You followed me here. That was a harder thing, already,’ Min said. That was a good coda. A final line with an emotional kick. She could believe that. She could make other people believe that. A girl could build a life on lovely lies just like that one.

‘We still need to fix the roof,’ Em conceded, smiling openly. ‘But I suppose we can do that tomorrow.’

Min nodded. That was tomorrow's problem. She stepped over to the sink to wash up the tea cups. On the inside, they were stained rust brown.

#

stephaniemiller@welltravalledmag.org

Sent 22 December 2021

Steph,

I know you’ve suspended publication for the moment. No one can go anywhere, and even daydreaming about travel is in poor taste. But I’ve got an idea for when the world starts opening up. Very boho chic, finding treasure in other people’s trash, eye-of-the beholder, that kind of thing. There’s this speck of a town west of the ranges, where I grew up. Pretty and lonely, orchards and meandering rivers, grasslands and dusty roads to nowhere. I could do a feature on it. It could be just the ticket for an audience who wants a change of pace, who don’t want to risk paying $20,000 for an emergency repatriation flight.

It's a bit of a stretch, but I’m sure I can sell it.