The Long Goodbye by Kathy Prokhovnik
I didn’t know you could fall in love with a piece of land. But hand in hand I fell deeper and more deeply in love with you and with the land and the sky. I fell in love with your kind heart and with the heavy summer beetles that buzz loudly at night. Your sharp wit and the fussing of parrots as they settle down at dusk. A lone night bird flying silently in near-dark sky, flapping up and diving, swooping down, making wide arcing loops through the valley. We would go outside to pay homage to the night sky, the full moon, the cooling air. To hear the wet thud of a frog jumping down from wherever it had been. To see the flashing light of a plane crossing the sky, so high up that no sound reached us as it made its steady way from north to south.
The first time we came here we walked along the fence line and reached the creek, walked along the creek away from the fence and saw the tree – a stately, white-trunked gum with swelling limbs. Surrounded by drooping bark strips, its trunk was smooth and naked. Seized by the moment, the majesty of the one tree unobscured, you hugged me, and I hugged you, and the thrill of what we were doing shivered through us.
We chose a house site and fenced a section of paddock. We drew a house on the back of an envelope and found people to make it real. You dug one brave little garden and filled it with quick-growing pumpkins and tomatoes. Each year we made more gardens, bigger gardens, and the yard filled with every shade of green, every shape of leaf, until the memory of the paddock was retained only in tamed patches of mowable kikuyu. We would come back from being away and walk around our gardens, noting the growth on the black sapote, picking a giant caterpillar off the olive, twisting strands of grape vine onto the trellis. We spent our evenings reading seed catalogues, ordering fruit trees and investigating the red-shouldered leaf beetle.
Now I walk around the garden alone, saying goodbye, as you watch from the kitchen. Your laboured breathing reaches me through the open window as I check the persimmon. We haven’t gone yet but I’m readying myself for that day when I won’t be worrying. About a drooping avocado tree or a zucchini seed that hasn’t sprouted.
I’m readying myself. To not hear the dawn sounds of the land and the birds waking, the backdrop of cicadas and crickets, the foreground of magpies and blue wrens. The kookaburras crisp and cackly. The dew still on the grevilleas.
Not watching. The frills of mist curling around the tops of the trees as we drink our morning cup of tea.
Author's Note:
When I’m feeling rattled, restless, uncomfortable, walking is my best cure. Out on the streets my mind can wander and relax. I can see other people living their lives and they seem settled, sure of themselves. That rubs off on me. Even better is being in the bush, where the sheer beauty and surprises in nature smooth out my worries. By the time I get home I’m ready to deal with my life again. Of course, walking is good at any time.
Kathy Prokhovnik is a writer of fiction (long form, short stories, microfiction) and nonfiction. She is the author and director of Seeking Sydney, a ten-episode podcast. Her short stories have had some wins, some shortlists, some publications. She blogs at http://kathyprokhovnik.com/.
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