The boy is seventeen now. We hiked these hills to the lighthouse once before, when he was only twelve. At that time he was a tough little martial artist. In the years since the boy has grazed in the lush meadows of high school and his muscles have lain fallow.
Weeks before we set out I warn him he’d better train those muscles with some long, hilly walks. It might be tougher this time, darling.
OK Saba.
In the event the boy studies hard and does not exercise. Adolescence is a place with few words. At least few words spoken directly to an ancestor, plenty into a phone. Sucked into silence the grandson has become scarcer, harder to feel.
This grandson is the first of his generation, a dandling, darling of us all. In this epoch of change I think of those earlier times and I miss him. Does he miss us, I wonder? In the silence I’ve been remembering the vulnerable boy who walked here with me last time. At the time he showed me his naked wounds. Feeling uncertain whether he’d want to do the walk again, I asked: How would you feel about a hike to the lighthouse at the Prom, darling? Just the two of us?
I’d love it, Saba!
We start out at six, an hour neither congenial nor customary for the boy. The boy says, Can we stop somewhere for coffee, Saba? I point out the thermos at his feet and soon we’re both drinking happily. The boy can’t stop smiling. Neither can I. He says, I’m pretty excited, Saba. Through the open car windows warm air caresses our faces: It’ll be a hot day here in town, but it should be cooler in the hills. I speak as the elder, the experienced one, the sage. In the prevailing agreeability the teenager accepts all I say, challenging nothing.
In the city, through the suburbs, rush hour rushes ever earlier. We grind our way among vehicles that fling themselves forward against fate. For once I’m not drawn into the race. Time is our marshmallow.
Into the green now, we’re starting to climb. The Strzleckis are shapely hills of green, alternately rolling and steep. The pastures draw the eye up, up, across, down. ‘Lucky cows, lucky sheep’, you think. And you think, ‘These hills, so easy on the eye, not so easy on the legs.’
Being as wise as I am, I lecture the boy on his studies, I lecture him on building his future, I lecture him on the value of studying hard through this long vacation. The boy listens to my wisdom, and says, without apparent irony, Yes, Saba. Outside the sun shines and the world warms.
The boy looks out: Smoke haze, Saba.
Really? – I wonder. We arrive at Wilson’s Promontory National Park where a Ranger says, Those bushfires are ’way to the east. This wind is blowing from the north. We’re alright here unless the wind changes and comes from the east. Good news – as far as it goes. I remember Black Sunday and the firestorms that tore through these forests. Last time, when the boy and I passed through silent hills of blackened boughs, there wasn’t a green shoot anywhere. The silence and the black haunted those flatlands. I spoke wisely about it all at the time.
‘Lightstation 19 KM ‘ reads the sign, ‘Six hours’ walk.’ Six hours for old people and children’, say I. ‘We’ll be quicker than that.
We set off at a smart pace. Our track is kind, chiefly leading us down long hills. After a few easy kilometres we pause for Saba to recite his morning payers while the boy eats and drinks. Hikers pass us in both directions, Good Morning! – they cry, then hide a double take at the old man in his ritual regalia. In the benevolent fellowship of the hike they march on without a backward look. I finish and I ask the boy, Did I embarrass you, darling?
No Saba, you look like a wizard in your white tallith. Gandalf of the mountains.
We pack the remains of our brekkie and start out again. Three steps on I freeze. Stop! Don’t walk! I point to the snake. It’s probably an adolescent, like the grandson, long and thin. Its back is coloured deepest brown, its belly a rich tan. Even an adolescent can hurt you. Snake makes his unhurried passage across our path. We stand and wait our turn. In the dignity of his passing I remember Lawrence’s snake in Sicily, with Etna smoking.
We walk on. Over our shoulders to the right are the creamy swathes of Oberon Bay. Below us we look down on a forest that covers the valley floor between our track and Oberon Bay. The grandson says, It’s eerie: we’re looking down on the tops of trees. Cool.
Cool and beautiful, this shivering green carpet of spring growth.
Last time, when the boy was small, I entertained him with letters of complaint penned in my head to Mister Wilson. I complained about the hills:
Dear Mister Wilson,
Nice Promontory you have here. No need for all these uphills, though. We’re quite content with the flat, we have no complaint about the downhills. Please bear that in mind as we progess toward the Lighthouse.
Ahead of us, abrupt slopes of dark green draw the eye upwards. Beautiful, silent, strong – mountainous actually – more grounds (five years ago) for complaint to Mister Wilson. Slugging up those slopes back then, I wrote;
Dear Mister W,
Have you been paying attention? Too many hills, too steep! Put your hills away from the track, over to the side, where we can see them and we can admire your designs. No need to put your hills right here where we have to walk!
At the time these letters of the mind seemed to ease the boy’s passage. He’d laugh and nod his head and agree with me, yes, Mister Bloody Wilson was a slow bloody learner. So slow was Mister Wilson to take heed, I found it necessary to raise my voice:
Hey Wilson!
What is this? A man and a boy are supposed to be having a holiday here. Why do you fling these great bloody alps all over the place. You’re tiring us out with your granite and your gravel and your scree, and all these steeps.Go easy, Wilson, or we’ll have to report you.
Yes, five years ago I was a very funny grandfather. I’m still funny but I sense a seventeen-year old would find the uphills funnier than my humour. This time I hold my peace. I address no mental correspondence to the Eponym of the Prom. Instead, I devote my energies to breathing. We’ve passed half way; we’ve left behind the downhills that would lull the unwary; we’ve passed through the burned forest, now green again and lush, with soft gravel underfoot and the roadway undulating gently. Here on these hills, the sun blazes, there’s no shade, the gravel has given way to fine, retardant sand and this steep little bush track is really tough. The wise old weather prophet got it wrong: it’s very hot here at the Prom.
I breathe and breathe and follow my grandson. He looks back and even though he slows I do not gain on him. He looks back again and pauses. Let’s have a drink, Saba. We sit and drink our warm water that was solid ice at six this morning.
We resume. The track winds upwards between low shrubs and ferns. Away to the right we can glimpse the blue of the sea. Beautiful. Mister Wilson got that one right. Above us our path reaches a crest, promise at last of a break. But no, the hilly little track turns a bend and leads on to higher perdition. I breathe and I think basic thoughts: How tough am I? How much more of this before a sclerotic old coronary artery occludes itself?
The boy has stopped again. He waits for me. When I reach him he claps a hand on my shoulder. He smiles: I love you Saba. A moment of realisation: I have reached an extremity; this path has bested me. I’ll need to take lots of breaks. A further realisation: in the passing of time since first we two walked this track, I’m five years weaker, and grandson is five years stronger.
This aging is sweet. Who cares that we are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven?
Here is my grandson, flesh born of flesh born of me, gazing towards me tenderly, and I am sufficient to him.
We struggle on and soon we break for a drink. Another, shorter struggle and a break for an energy bar. A briefer effort still, a couple of candies. A final assault and we crest the ridge and there lies the sea. Four undulating kilometers down hills, between ferns at shoulder height, and at every turn the sea smiles in the sunshine, winking at us. And there, between trees and boulders, the white stone lighthouse stands proudly priapic and calls to us.
We’re trotting now, our feet joyful. It’s hard to convey our jubilation. Emily Dickenson wrote:
Exhiliration is
The going out
Of an inland soul
To Sea …
Emily’s right.
A right-hand turn and Mr Wilson adds a massive final insult to four hours of injury: this is the last half killermeter of near-vertical climb. The boy looks at the slopes and he looks at me. He smiles, I smile back, and we both draw breath. We redouble our pace, we swing our arms, we mount our counterattack on Mr Wilson. Quickly, though, our lungs are amazed; we pause and look at each other in wonder.
We overtake a teenage girl with fair braids. I notice the grandson noticing the girl. We hail her and pass. Grandfather slows and presses on dourly. Grandson breaks into a run and completes the trek with me far in his wake and the girl watching in a wild surmise.
No sooner in our lodging than I shower in cool cleansing water. Grandson pursues the acquaintance of the fair maiden. I have an early night, the young ones make an evening of it. When at a late hour grandson retires for the night, he asks, Saba, do we really have to get up at six?
We do, darling. Remember you told me before we left home you need to be back early. And so do I.
Early mornings don’t suit the young. But for the second morning in succession my grandson is up, ungrumpy and full of energy. Rain fell overnight. When we step out from our lodge we shiver at first. Soon into an easy loping stride, we find the morning chill delicious. Grandson looks around, takes in giant sculpted rocks, furtive little wallabies, enfolding hills, the sand underfoot, the singing breezes, the cockatoos at their screeching; his bony face fills with joy: I love you Saba.
The six-hour walk that took us five laborious hours outwards takes us less than four hours on the return. Nothing Mr Wilson throws at us today dismays.
The final upslope. In wordless agreement we break into a jog. Running alongside the grandson I feel heroic. With a hundred metres to go, Grandson starts to sprint. He races away from me and it feels like a consummation.
Read about our previous hike here:
https://howardgoldenberg.com/2015/07/10/and-the-two-walked-together/
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