The Returned
By Daniel Hansen
His hand jerks and waves over the
tiny corpse, discharging the fat bluebottles with a reluctant buzz. A young
robin, red breast towards the sky, feathers dishevelled. The fact that its tail
is completely missing greatly deepens his already deep unease. The small bird
is scooped from the undergrowth with one hand while the other hand smoothes the
out of place feathers. It weighs practically nothing resting in his rough palm.
A shallow grave is dug with a boot heel.
How can he be here? A quarter of
a century has passed and it is still sooner than he thought he would be back.
His wife had pulled the car over for their picnic but it had to be destiny or
fate that brought him here. He had said he was just going to go urinate. What difference
did another lie make now anyway? She wouldn’t come look for him when he was
gone longer than was needed to void a bladder; instead she would be sat, sulky
faced, in the car. The scorching sunlight, filtering through the leaves in hot
white patches, does nothing to lessen his disquiet.
The path to the lagoon is over
grown, the brambles no longer kept at bay by the regular passage of legs. Why
did no one visit the lagoon any more? It could not have lost any of its tranquil
and turquoise appeal. Of course he knows why. Its pine lined shores have
haunted him for twenty five years and he has been nowhere near it. A single
gagging sob forces its way out of him and he sits down hard, dirt staining his
white shorts.
A fallen branch is employed to
ease his passage down the bramble-choked path. The swatting branch helps but
still curved barbs catch at his clothes and flesh, as if the very thorns are
protesting his decision to go down there. Is he really doing this? His mind
firmly repeats instructions to turn around, but his defiant legs keep taking
shaky steps forward. Ahead the path curves and he is all too aware of the
dreadful vista awaiting him. With mouth dry he presses on.
His eyes snap shut against the
panoramic opening in the forest; the contrast is still startling. A luminous
aquamarine mouth gaping from a beard of ominous towering black pine. The tongue
in his mouth extends, it is abruptly thick with acrid flavours and he drags a
salty forearm across its lolling pink form. Stinging eyes are forced open and
set to search for the most terrible detail in this view. It lies ahead, the
raised rocky mouth of the shallow stream that weakly delivers its waters into
the lagoon over a wide fat lip of stone. The sensation of its smoothed and worn
rock bed beneath bare feet returns to his memory with such startling strength
that he steps back and stares dumbly down at his sandals. “The waters never got
quite deep enough to cover the tops of my feet.” he says aloud.
It is this wet stone platform
that has been the stage for a looping parade of ghastly nocturnal imagery,
perpetually disrupted the sleep of his adult life. The crimson wetting the rock
further, diluting into a fading pink mist as it reached the water. The sun
bleached floral patterned dress, clinging to small tanned legs. He is awake now
and these pictures are yet more vivid than his dreams. The limp sun hat, draped
over his skull like a wilted daisy, is employed to mop up the sweat trickling
down his ample forehead. His eyes slide away from the mouth of the stream to
the expanse of the lagoon. His damp brow furrowing, he squints at something
stirring beneath the surface. A scarlet ribbon, rising up, up from the depth of
the lagoon and spreading out in a claret cloud as it reaches the surface. Dumbfounded
he stares at the red spot, startling against the perfect turquoise waters, then
he notices another band of scarlet snaking its way upwards. An involuntary
whimper is emitted as he spies two more red clouds pooling on the lagoon
surface. The red spreads out before his eyes and bleeds together, turning the
whole lagoon a brilliant deep crimson.
For the second time his legs go
out from under him, only this time he is sent sprawling forward, snatching
pointlessly at the air until face meets dirt. There he lies, a helpless toddler;
his brown and cream stripped polo shirt ridden up to his armpits, puffy,
hairless white back exposed to the sun, and nostrils and mouth crammed with
soil. The peaty scent takes him back to that geranium filled room, their number
so great that the air was pungent. Amongst the geraniums, all dressed in black,
was every living member of the family.
He has no clear memory of that
room as a whole, his mind so dulled by emotion that he only took in details. Great
Auntie Lena picking the salad out of her sandwiches with shaking hands. His
elderly Uncle Rupert, his suit jacket looking like the night sky, flecked as it
was with crumbled meringue. His cousin Stephanie, her dark hair in a tight bun,
sat straight backed at the piano mastering Satie. The dried grass cuttings
clinging to the knees of his little brother Thomas’ trousers where he had been
playing outside. His deflated parents sat hand in hand, sunk into a red Chesterfield, faces pale
but a quiet rage burning in their eyes. From that room was born the question
that had always plagued him, a question of fault. Family members softly spoke
lines of possible comfort; phrases like, “You can’t watch them all the time,”
and that “It was just a case of tragic bad luck.” His parents were not among
these softly spoken family members.
Years later, sprawled on the
ground, dirt in his face, the question is still as persistent as ever. Was it
his fault? Not by direct action perhaps, but by omission? He had always carried
the guilt so it did not seem that amiss to also carry the blame. A muddy spit
ball is hacked out onto the ground and the previously buckled legs find their
strength again. There is no surprise when, risen from the forest floor, he sees
that the lagoon is turquoise again; not even a fleck of red. He can sense the change
from down in the soil; something has arrived, he can feel eyes on him. His skin
crawls into icy bumps, his gut feels like a piece of fetid meat, gnawed
and torn by writhing maggots. His hammering heart crashes blood so violently
down the body’s vessels that it makes his vision bounce, and his breath come
out in ragged little stutters.
A hollow, steady knocking
suddenly pounds out from the stream mouth and echoes out infinitely across the
lagoon. Silence, then the knocking comes again; five strong, purposeful raps.
He knows exactly what it is, a spirit knocking to be let through into our world
and he will let her in. The tears flow faster than the stream ahead, burning
hot lines down the fear-chilled flesh of his face. He moves forward, towards
the knocking. The unworldly rapping is ringing out from a point in the stream
mouth hidden by a ceanothus in full pale blue bloom. Unconsciously the
ceanothus bush is reached, his body moving with one motivation now; to be forgiven
or to be punished. The knocking is so loud now it is the only thing left in the
world, drowning out his own shakily whispered, “Come.”
Breath held in his lungs, he
steps round the bush to confront the entity that has brought him back; to gaze
upon the ghost he has allowed to return. In front of him, stood in the middle
of the stream, grand and silhouetted, stands a huge stag. The beast’s antlers
form the illusion of holding the pale sun in place in the sky. It raises one
leg and then cracks out another five haunting knocks across the surface of the
rock with a dense chipped hoof. There is no comprehension in his mind why she
has chosen the form of a male deer, he just understands it is her. He sinks to
his knees in front of the stag and he begs forgiveness through saliva and
tears. His hand sinks into the tick-bitten hide of the animal, then his face
joins the hands and the pleas are muffled. The deer’s ears flick violently,
discharging a fly from its resting place; its black eyes, though gently weeping,
show no sign of forgiveness.
