The Pilgrimage

My footsteps ring hollow on the timber planks of the boardwalk. The ocean’s breath, sharp and salty arrives on the wind. Reaching up to tie back my flyaway hair, the tug of a waist band too tight makes me wince. I press on, following the water’s flow back to the sea.

Up ahead, the boardwalk weaves in and out of the mangroves, their gnarly roots a tangle of stilts seeking anchor in the mud. In the distance the sun peeps through clouds at the creek entrance, gilding the wind-tossed waves, making me squint. I shiver. Truth is, I never feel quite secure at this early hour. It’s a lonely stretch. Fair-weather exercisers stay home on days like these.

I round the bend and the little fishing shelter comes into view, perched on an arm off the main boardwalk. It’s usually empty at this time of the morning, but today a hunched figure sits on the edge of the platform, legs swinging free over the water. I stride on keeping a close watch, my city-girl antennae attuned to the lonely setting and my vulnerability. I draw parallel, and I see it’s a man. He turns to watch me. His clothes are unkempt and his grey hair wild and woolly in the wind. He raises an arm in greeting; then turns to look across the water again. Long deep breaths help banish my uneasiness. Nothing is going to spoil this opportunity for reflection.

Halfway now, I turn and set out on the return loop of the boardwalk, back to where I began. This pilgrimage to find my roots has been nothing short of underwhelming. A bit like my morning walks really; pleasant enough but with little point beyond the exercise. No great revelations of my early life to be found here.

Thinking back, I remember my mother refusing point blank, to talk about the past when I was growing up. She simply alluded to our move south as being necessary for a better life.

‘There are more opportunities in the southern states,’ she said. ‘City people are more cosmopolitan, better educated. I want your horizons to be as broad as I can make them, Sophie. I’d hate to see you make the same mistakes as I did. One day you’ll see what I mean,’ Her beautiful eyes shone reassurance. How I wanted to believe her.

But crucial questions remained unanswered. And I never could see what she meant. I’ve always struggled to explain the burning need to know about my early life. But I knew even then it would remain a monkey on my back until I came to see for myself. A fish jumps nearby making me start. I pause to see if the creature chasing it reveals itself. It doesn’t.

It’s strange the meanings people invest in compass points; the way assumptions are made according to geography. Not just my mother, but people like Tom, the local newsagent fellow. He’s been my only source of conversation since I arrived a couple of weeks ago.

‘Staying for long?’ he asked, on that first morning when I called in to buy my paper.

‘What makes you think I’m a visitor?’

‘Well, for a start, you dress different, I guess,’ he said, his expression thoughtful.

‘And you talk a bit different to folks ‘round here too,’ he offered, not fazed by my direct questioning. ‘My guess is you’re a southerner.’ He beamed a knowing smile. ‘We don’t get many tourists from down South. They seem to prefer the glitz of the northern beaches.’

Down South. I thought about his use of the word ‘down’. Why ‘down’ to preface South? Or for that matter, why ‘up’ to preface North? It seemed to go beyond the obvious cartographical influence, which always referenced North as up and South as down—one only had to look at any map. Still, one didn’t say ‘right’ for East or ‘left’ for West. Curious. It was fitting in a weird way though. South for me had definitely been ‘down’ lately. Down and empty. I could make little sense of my loss; first my mother and then James. My whole life had ‘gone South’. I had travelled north expressly to induce ‘up’; to rediscover my roots and get on with my life.

The unfairness of it invites tears, too often close to the surface lately. I push on, the exertion beginning to make me puff. A stitch niggles in my side.

By the end of the week the weather hasn’t improved. Still I persevere with my early walks around the creek boardwalk. Each morning the man in the shelter is there, as if bound to that place somehow. He hardly seems to have moved since the morning before. Each time he turns to watch me approach and then pass, raising his hand in a wave before turning his attention back to the water. There’s something about him that draws me. I decide I’ll talk to him this morning. And so I do.

‘Are you fishing?’ I ask, looking at the old fishing creel with a rod propped up against it.

‘No, not today.’ His voice is gruff but gentle in reply. He turns his head slowly to look up at me and smiles. ‘I’ve been waiting.’ His eyes are a piercing blue against the mahogany of his careworn face. I feel strange, as if I’ve known him all my life. Time stretches, long and elastic.

‘Well, have a good day,’ I say finally as I step away. His gaze has already turned back to the water. He makes no sign he has heard me.

Days pass and the old man becomes a feature of my morning walks. Rarely are more than a few words exchanged between us. I sit beside him on the platform and together we watch the migratory birds come and go on adjacent sandbanks. One morning, startled by a passing raptor, the flock rises as one and wheels across the water to land again on the opposite shore. I gasp at the astonishing beauty of it.

‘Short-tailed Shearwaters,’ he says after some moments. ‘They fly all the way from Russia to rookeries down South,’ he tells me. ‘Thirty-two thousand kilometres non-stop…to get back home.’ His voice is full of wonder.

Softly I speculate on the perils of their long journeys, hoping to coax something further from my companion. He turns to look at me but doesn’t speak. The air hums between us and my stomach lurches. He seems to gaze right through me. I feel light-headed, queasy; wishing I’d had breakfast.

And then I breathe out and the feeling passes, replaced by a strange kind of serenity. I watch him closely, riveted by the expression on his face. It defies description.

‘Those birds, they always find their way home…somehow,’ he says with a radiant smile.

And then this morning he isn’t there. His absence punches a hole in my morning landscape. All the way home I am heavy with disappointment.

‘Just the paper thanks Tom,’ I tell the newsagent.

‘You’re always out so bright and early; enjoy your walk?’

‘I do usually, but this morning was different; a bit disappointing.’

‘Oh? How so?’ His hand pauses over the open till, my change in his palm.

I explain about the old man, how he’s always at the same spot each morning. How he doesn’t fish but simply gazes across the water, apparently just ‘waiting’.

‘Funny,’ says Tom, ‘sounds a bit like old Will.’ He pauses in thought for a moment and then shakes his head. ‘But it can’t have been him.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, he died just a few weeks back.’ Tom stacks magazines on a stand as he chats. ‘Folks say it was a broken heart. You see, he was separated from his daughter many years ago when his wife left and moved back down South. The girl was just a baby. He never got over it.’ He straightens up from his task to look at me. ‘So how are you settling in anyhow? That baby of yours must be due soon.’

I can’t answer. I rest a hand on my swelling stomach, the other is in my pocket seeking out Mum’s last gift – an old watch that never left her wrist until she died. I turn it over and read the inscription again: To Rachel, on our wedding day, my love forever Will.