Bushwalkers guide to love and other worms

 

We were talking about intestinal worms. G was thinking they might be the cause of my stomach troubles.  We were side by side, on the track down from the carpark. The air smelt peppery crisp.

‘It was on QI last night,’ he told me. 

‘Were you watching it?’ I asked which seemed unnecessary unless you knew about the two words I’d swallowed at the end. With her. 

​

He forged on, probably hoping to swing the conversation in a direction that suited him better. He was tired of my carry on. 

‘They were saying someone had a worm that started to come out through their leg. It came out really slowly and they wound it around a pencil, maybe an inch a day.  It took ages but eventually they got it all.’

‘Ew,’ I cringed and he laughed. I could feel his relief.  He enjoyed me so much more when I was cooperative.  But I wasn’t really. That other thing was on permanent simmer. 

‘Yeah, it was pretty gross.’ 

We had descended into a lush gully where tree ferns grew metres high and the whole tangled mess of forest growth was bathed in lichen and moss.  The spice of sassafras wafted through the air as did the stench of forest decay: as rich and earthy as the ripe French cheese we’d fed to each other the evening before and the after-smell of sex: that lingered long after he had gone.

 

In a little green glade we stopped for a break.  G perched on a fallen log that seemed designed for the purpose. Dappled light shone through the canopy overhead and cast patterns on the mossy floor. Fungal ears grew right along another log that lay on the ground in front of us. 

‘It looks like that log has grown ears,’ I said as I balanced myself beside him. He laughed. 

‘It’s beautiful here,’ I said and we kissed. I loved his tender lips, the smell of his face and the soft prickle of his stubble.  This added to the list of wondrous places we had kissed - Uluru, Lake Eyre, the South West Wilderness - over the last couple of years.  And now the lush, temperate forest of the Blue Mountains where I had ventured into his home territory.

He went to drink from the stainless steel bottle. ‘How about we drink from the plastic bottle first?’ I said. ‘The water will keep better for longer in the steel. 

He nodded and said, ‘Good idea.’ He screwed the lid back onto the steel bottle and I handed him the plastic one.  He took a drink and said, “I like the way you said how about we, instead of just saying, drink from the plastic one first, like a school teacher would.’

‘I’m not your regular schoolteacher,’ I said flippantly. 

We resumed walking and G took the lead.  I strolled along behind, irked by his comments.  

‘Hey,’ I called to get his attention.

‘Yeah.’ He turned his head, ear towards me. 

‘I was thinking about what you said back there, about the way I speak.’ 

‘Oh yes, do tell.’

‘Well I’m not the kind of teacher who barks commands at students.  If I’d done that to the students I’ve worked with over the years they would have walked out of the classroom.’

‘Walked out,’ he sneered. 

‘Yes they would,’ I insisted as he shook his head.  ‘That’s why I do the kind of teaching work I do.  That other way doesn’t suit me.’

​

He didn’t get it.  He thought he was all Renaissance Man but sometimes he just seemed out of touch.  Like with that episode of Redfern Now we’d watched the other night about the woman who went on for years having the lover who always went home to his wife.

I had tried to explain it; that woman had a child with the lover. When he came to visit they had sex and fun of the kind that she got nowhere else.  She was in love with him, whatever that means.  G wasn’t convinced and thought the woman was pathetic. I thought she was a lot like me.

I was savouring this new feeling of irritation towards him: potentially my ticket to freedom.  I dropped back a bit, absorbed in my own thoughts and wanting space to spread them out. 

 

‘I’m just not ready to tell her yet,’ he’d been saying. For two years.  ‘It’s a delicate time in our separation.’ I had rolled my eyes down the phone at delicate time in our separation and mouthed it back at him in a disparaging way. 

But then he invited me to come and stay in the artist’s retreat. He’d be over to keep me company. ‘A lot’ he’d emphasised at the end.  Like I should jump at the very opportunity.  Be flattered by his lustful duplicity.  

I followed up his invitation by making the arrangements and trotting into his territory like a faithful little dog.  

When the ‘delicate times’ were over would we ever be more than part-time lovers? Perhaps that’s the way he preferred it, wallowing in the scum like feeders on the bottom of the dam. Or was it really hard to break up with someone after thirty years spent together? Did it just take time to unravel things, carefully with no sudden movements, like guiding a worm out through the skin? 

​

He was waiting up ahead.  ‘How you going gorgeous?’ he asked in the soft way that melted me. Our eyes met. ‘We’re making good progress.’  He brushed his lips across mine. ‘I wanted to tell you how good you look, all soft and relaxed.’ 

I felt like I’d been busted, cheating on him with my critical thoughts.  Maybe he could hear me in some cosmic way that had drawn him to me.  One partner moves backwards and the other steps up: the relationship cha-cha. 

‘Do you want to go in front?’ he offered.

I walked on while he dropped back.  

 

A man nodded as he passed me on the track.  Then I heard G speak to him.

‘Tim. How are you? Beautiful day.’

I looked back and, seeing they had stopped to talk, doubled back to join them. I arrived so closely beside G that I guess he felt compelled to introduce me. Of course he would have preferred me to hang back and play it cool but that was his game, not mine. 

‘Tim, this is my friend Linda.’

I smiled at Tim. He had clear blue eyes and a roundedness that contrasted with G’s gaunt, dishevelled demeanour. I think that’s what led to my split-second decision.  

‘Lover actually,’ I said.  

G laughed nervously.  Tim looked bemused. A silence then ensued that I decided to wade right into, to ensure things were crystal clear as well as deeply murky.  ‘G and I are lovers.  We have been for a couple of years but he doesn’t want anyone to know.  He’s the cagey type…’  Tim grinned at that. G looked at the ground. ‘While I’m more into bludgeoning people with the truth.  He still lives with Penny although in different rooms he says and apparently they don’t have sex anymore.  That’s why I’m here.’

​

Out there in the forest you could have heard a pin drop. Even the breeze seemed to hold its breath.  

‘Oh right,’ Tim stammered eventually while poker-faced G stayed studying the ground. 

Maybe he was wishing it would open up and swallow him.  Or me.  Maybe he felt ashamed of being the gormless shit he was. Maybe he was just studying the dirt. Once at the end of the lane when I asked him what he thought about when he swam he replied, ‘I count my strokes.’

Me: I thought about what had happened yesterday, what we were doing today, whether we should become a republic, what Penny was like, whether he’d ever tell her, what was for breakfast and how nice the sun looked, refracted on to the bottom of the pool. And that all took place in three strokes between one breath and the next.  

There was another little silence that I interrupted with, ‘Oh well, we might keep going. Nice to meet you Tim.’ I turned to G.  ‘Are you right?’ He made the barest possible gesture that would indicate in the affirmative. 

G took the lead.  I left some space between us and bounced along feeling excitedly unhinged. After a while he stopped and turned to face me.  

​

‘Well the cat’s out of the bag now,’ he said. I still couldn’t read his tone. 

‘Yeah,’ I shrugged, tongue-tied.  He nodded and traipsed on. The sky was clear blue and mottled sun danced through the overgrowth. Perhaps storm clouds were brewing in the distance. 

We reached our destination, the old logger’s hut at the top of Rigby Pass. G found a little spot around the corner, off the beaten track.   

​

We set ourselves up on a couple of boulders that were big enough to be the lounge-room and spread our picnic out: fruit, sandwiches, the little quiches he had brought from home.  

‘Where did you get the quiches,’ I couldn’t help myself from asking. 

‘There was a do at the community centre yesterday. These were left over.’ 

‘Convenient,’ I replied and felt that comment settle heavily in mid-air. Penny worked at the community centre.  

G helped himself to a quiche and tried to pass me the container. 

I shook my head. ‘No thanks.’ He shrugged and put the container down while I helped myself to a sandwich. 

‘Delicious,’ he said with a mouthful. 

We ate in a silence, punctuated only by the buzz of mountain blow flies. 

 ‘I was thinking about the worm,’ I said, ‘and how they wound it out on a pencil… I think it’s a great concept for a story.’

‘Yeah, I thought that too!’ he exclaimed.

The mood had softened now with this move back onto safer ground.  

‘Not a real worm,’ I went on, ‘A metaphoric one.’

‘Oh metaphoric,’ he repeated, surprised.  

‘Imagine if you carried that worm around inside you, for years...’

‘Would it make you sick do you think?’ 

I thought it through. ‘No, it wouldn’t make you sick. It would just…stop you from being all you could be.’

‘And would you have times when you weren’t affected by it?’

‘Yeah, maybe…Yes. Times when you’re free… And then it takes over again. But you keep working on it. Keep patiently winding it around your pencil then whammo, one day, you finally get the damn thing out.’

We sat back in our thoughts: me outwardly at peace but with a private battle waging within. Selling myself short for the dubious affections of lovers.  The monotonous pattern of my adult love life.  My worm.  

‘Do you think word will get back to Penny?’ I asked. He shrugged.  ‘Well don’t you care?’ He shrugged again.

‘Maybe it’s a good thing,’ he said, very softly and I felt like pushing him over the nearby cliff. 

I went there myself and stood spellbound at the sight of an eagle soaring on the thermals.  Becoming that eagle calmed me down. G came up behind me and slid his arms around my waist.  

‘What you watchin’?’ he asked.

‘That eagle, flying?’ I replied.  ‘I am that eagle.’

‘Good for you,’ he replied and planted a kiss on my neck. 

‘I’m gonna walk back by myself,’ I announced.  

G nodded and looked sad. I thought he might object and perhaps I was hoping he would.  Instead he offered, ‘Do you want to go first?’ 

Sorrow hung heavy in the air.  I had to fight back the familiar urge to retract. 

Keep winding. Gently winding.     

‘No,’ I replied; the stoic act. ‘You go. I’ll get a taxi… I’ll make my own way.’

He nodded, thoughtful. 

Keep winding. Gently winding. 

With each turn of the pencil, each step away, it got easier.