CAVE WOMAN
A short story of 3600 words
© David Lowe, July 1993
Emma Dyson's last journey began at the start of winter. The young woman travelled alone, in a VW Beetle, past bare apple orchards and around the edge of a limpid blue bay. Open farmland was soon left behind, and Emma entered the perennial green of the eucalypt country. Inside the car she could almost forget it was freezing outside. The after-noon sun shone brightly. The bay twinkled through the trees. But then she rounded a bend, and saw glacially scarred, snow-capped mountains looming on the western horizon. Emma shivered. She turned up the radio. The signal was breaking up now, but she left it on anyway, to keep her company. There were no other cars on the road. It was the wrong time of year for logging trucks, and tourists didn't come to this part of the island.
Although Emma Dyson was a small woman, most people thought of her as being tall. She had that kind of presence. In company, Emma's bird-like features were always moving. She smiled easily. Her large eyes were green (like a cat's, according to her mother), and she kept her black hair cut short and out of the way. It was just as well Emma wasn't really six foot; she spent a lot of her time in caves.
Suddenly a lyre bird darted across the road. Emma instinctively swerved, but the bird had already reached the shelter of the trees. The narrow road swung round again. Emma found herself driving past the very edge of the beach. There were no waves. A long, forested island just off the coast sheltered the bay from the worst of the weather which swept up from the south. Such a beautiful place, and completely deserted. Not like the city beaches Emma knew.
She had just finished six years at university and a four year on-and-off relationship. Now she was taking a break from everything, before deciding what to do next.
During Emma's studies to become a geologist she had occasionally read about the area she was now driving through. Some of the names on the signposts were familiar. They were an odd mixture; some bequeathed by Dutch and French explorers, others by the English settlers who followed them. The original, Tasmanian names had long been lost.
The place where Emma was going did not have a name. As far as most maps were concerned it did not exist. She was like a pirate, searching for buried treasure. Instead of an X she had only two coordinates on an old, and possibly inaccurate map. The coordinates marked a hole in the ground. A cave.
It was the lack of information about the cave that had originally got Emma interested. The cave had first been discovered by a pastoralist called Dobson over one hundred years ago. There was a brief flurry of interest in the local newspapers, and then the cave was forgotten. Since then a lot of the surrounding country had returned to being crown land. According to Emma's map, the road she was driving would become a fire trail, and then end completely, not far from the entrance to the cave.
A cloud blew over the setting sun as Emma rounded another corner. Abruptly, the bitumen ended. Windows and doors rattled as ropes and caving gear bumped around on the back seat. Muddy puddles splashed up over the windscreen. The little car negotiated corner after corner. It grew darker. At times the forest met over the road, like an arch.
Emma had almost decided she'd gone the wrong way when the trees gave way to roughly cleared scrub. A wooden building appeared on the left side of the road. 'Walsh's Hotel' was painted on the side. Several muddy Landcruisers and utes were parked outside the pub.
Saturday night. She'd forgotten.
Emma slowed down as she drove past the pub. There were a few shacks scattered nearby. A couple of dogs ran after the car, barking. One kilometre past the pub the road degenerated into a 4WD track. The fire trail? Things were looking up. Emma did a three-point turn and returned to the pub.
Although it was almost dark, she put her sunglasses on before getting out of the car and entering the ramshackle building. A young bull terrier at the entrance growled and then rolled over on his back as Emma walked past.
The bar was a plastic-topped bench. Behind that were three barrels along one wall, tended by an overweight middle-aged man who wore a sheepskin jacket and thick glasses. Smoke hung in the air. There was no TV, but country music blared from a tinny cassette machine. Bearded men sat at rough slab tables as they drank. The women were gathered mainly in one corner. Grubby kids played on the floor.
Emma strode up to the man at the bar as people stared at her. 'Fosters thanks,' she said, getting out money.
'Sorry love, no can do,' said the big man.
'What?'
The man turned to serve another customer.
'VB then,' said Emma.
'Look love, we're not that kind of establishment.'
Suddenly the other customer spoke. ''Scuse me,' he said. 'I might be able to help.' He was a lanky young man in a woolly jumper, with tawny curls tumbling over his brown eyes and a warm, unsophisticated smile. 'Maurie's only got No.1, No.2 and No.3.'
'One two and three what?' asked Emma.
'The No.2's not bad,' said the young man, trying to help.
Emma was getting confused. This was not what she had expected.
'Big No.2 thanks Maurie,' said the young man. The barman grunted and turned to fill a glass from one of the barrels. He slopped it down on the bench in front of Emma. The young man reached into his pocket to pay, but Emma beat him to it. She turned around. There was nowhere to sit. The bench would have to do.
The young man held out his hand. 'I'm Ed,' he said. 'Ed Harris.'
Emma did not offer him her hand. Instead, she sipped her beer. 'Emma.'
Ed was not at all put out. He nodded and smiled happily. 'Thought so,' he said. The young man watched her as she drank. Emma tried not to lose her cool.
Ed spoke again. 'You're looking for the cave, right?'
Emma was surprised. 'How did you know?'
'I can take you if you like.'
'What makes you think I need to be taken?!'
Ed smiled again, and shrugged. 'Only if you want me to.'
Emma took a mighty gulp of her beer. With dismay, she noticed the glass was still two-thirds full. 'Look... Ed. If you really want to do something to help, tell me where the nearest camping area is.'
'Why don't you stay at my place?'
Emma gave him her best drop-dead stare and stood up. 'No thanks.' Leaving the beer on the bench, she walked to the door and stepped around the bull terrier.
She was reversing out of the carpark when someone knocked on the window. Ed. Emma stopped and wound down the glass slightly. 'What is it?'
'I just wanted to tell you there aren't any camping areas round here for miles. If you want, you could camp at my place.' There was something very attractive about the way Ed's eyes sparkled in the moonlight, thought Emma. Not that that made any difference.
'I'll manage,' she said.
'Well, if you change your mind, my letterbox is half a mile that way,' Ed pointed down the road. 'It's the one with the wooden owl sitting on it. There's plenty of room in the paddock out the back.' Emma nodded and wound up the window again.
Ed waved as the headlights swung over him and Emma drove away.
Three hours later, she had almost given up hope of finding a place to camp. This was rough, rocky country. It was too far back to the beach, and all the dirt tracks off the main road went nowhere.
A letterbox with a wooden owl loomed up in the headlights.
Just for one night, Emma said to herself. She got out and opened the gate. The Beetle protested as she turned up the steep driveway and went past the house. Cattle mooed as the sound of the engine woke them up.
Emma set up her tent in the moonlight, on a flat piece of ground out of sight of the house. Exhausted, she fell asleep.
She woke up late the next day. There was still a thin layer of ice on the tent. Ed was nowhere to be seen, although she could hear a motor bike whining somewhere in the top paddocks.
Using her maps and compass, Emma set off to find the entrance to the cave. She reached the end of the fire trail after two hours walking, and then set off up the jungly slope.
By late afternoon Emma was covered in leech bites. Despite her gaiters, brambles and thorns had badly scratched her legs. Neither of her maps seemed to properly correspond to the country. Eventually, Emma gave up for the day and returned to the fire trail. It began to rain as she trudged home. When it got dark she used her caving light to see where she was going.
There was a note pinned to the door of the house: 'Back late tonight. Help yourself to whatever you want in the fridge. Ed.'
It was dark inside. After thinking for a moment, Emma opened the door and went in. Rain drummed on the roof. Feeling guilty, like an intruder, she wandered from room to room. There were no pictures on the walls, but racks and racks of books, some in other languages. Two of the rooms were locked. In the bathroom she found a big fluffy towel, which she used to dry her hair. The unlocked bedroom was a mess of bits of motors, clothes and scattered newspapers. Emma could tell it was Ed's room from the smell; masculine and musky. An alive smell.
The living area was sparse and unused-looking. There was no TV or stereo system. Ed's kitchen was surprisingly clean. The fridge was not full of alcohol and meat, as Emma had expected, but stocked with fresh cream and milk, vegetables and leftovers in contain-ers. Emma had two big glasses of milk. She helped herself to a crunchy red apple from the overflowing fruit bowl. Then she left five dollars on the counter and went back out to her tent to prepare a meal.
Next day she woke before dawn to the sounds of cows going to be milked. Then she drifted back into dreams of caverns and bottomless holes. When she next awoke, the sun was high in the sky. Emma got dressed with a strong resolve to find the cave. After packing a lunch from her supplies she crept round the back of the house and down the road.
This time she tackled the mountain from a different side. It was no good. Cliffs and sprawling weeds made it impossible to make the approach from that direction. She returned that night utterly exhausted.
Emma unzipped the tent next morning to find Ed outside, leaning on his trailbike and facing away from her. 'Gotta go in from the back you know,' said Ed. 'There's no other way.'
Emma covered her surprise with indignation. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
Ed turned round with a disarming grin. 'I've come to help,' he explained. 'It's my day off.'
Emma decided to swallow her pride. Minutes later, they were bouncing over grass tussocks and past cow pats on the trailbike. When Emma put her arms around Ed's waist, he felt muscular, but surprisingly thin through his jumper.
At one point the bike splashed through a warm, sandy-bottomed creek. The water smelled slightly sulphurous, and was pale blue. 'Thermal spring,' yelled Ed over the noise of the bike.
When the bike could go no further, they began to walk. The climb was steep, and difficult. When Emma saw where Ed was heading, she took the lead, despite the effort of the climb. Both were soon panting heavily.
Suddenly Ed grabbed Emma around the waist.
'What the-'
'Look,' said Ed.
Emma looked. One step ahead of her was a black hole, dropping into nothingness. Emma gulped. 'That's the wrong way in,' said Ed.
The other entrance was round the corner, hidden beneath a lip of limestone. Emma switched on her light and adjusted the ropes coiled over her shoulder. She handed Ed a torch.
'You can go first,' he said, with an impish grin. 'I warn you, it's very intimate.'
It was a tight squeeze. Once they were inside, the cave opened up into a high chamber. A familiar earthy smell filled Emma's nostrils. It was warm inside the cave. The sides looked like slippery clay. Somewhere deeper inside, water flowed. Slowly, carefully, Ed and Emma ventured further into the cave. After another low squeeze, they entered a bigger chamber. The rock was pinky yellow in the beam from the light. Pendulous stalactites became more prominent.
Emma's face glowed with excitement. 'It's fantastic,' she exclaimed.
'Keep going,' Ed nudged her.
'The third chamber was a magnificent space. Emma's light barely illuminated the distant roof. Mighty stalagmites reached up into the inky blackness. The sound of running water grew louder.
'Come here,' Ed called. His torch beam danced across the floor of the cave and then vanished with a splash.
Emma didn't understand where he had gone. 'Where are you?!'
'Down here!' came a muffled voice.
Carefully, Emma felt her way across the rough floor of the cavern, trying not to touch the stalagmites. She reached a wall and turned left. After being blocked by an obstacle in that direction, she went back the other way. Suddenly Emma's feet went from under her. The switch on her helmet was knocked and the light went off. There was a sensation like sliding down a wet slippery-dip. Warm water drenched her clothes. Then the flow of water slowed. A strong hand helped her stand up. Shaken, Emma switched her helmet light back on to see Ed's smiling face.
'You crazy bastard, I could have been killed...'
Then she saw where they were.
It was like the inside of a temple; a jagged dome of limestone. The thermal stream ran along the edge of the floor. A passage led off into darkness the other way. Echoing water created an effect similar to a crowd of whispering voices. Tiny green glow worms spangled the roof like stars. It was a magical, seductive place. Curtains of rock hung around the edges of the space like silken shrouds, and tiny, gravity-defying helictites sprang out into space from honeycombed rocks on the ceiling.
Suddenly Emma felt soft lips against her neck, warm hands around her waist. Ed uncoiled the ropes from her shoulder and removed her helmet. He switched off his torch and her helmet light. Emma resisted at first, and then responded, pulling off Ed's wet clothes as he hungrily peeled away hers. Skin rubbed skin as they pulled each other down upon the soft jumble of clothes.
They touched one other as though they had been lovers all their lives; roughly, then gently. The sounds of their union echoed along caverns as water flowed and the world seemed to stop turning.
After their experience in the Glow Worm Cave, Emma moved into Ed's house.
They ate by candlelight. Ed talked about his past. He had been born in a neighbouring valley, 26 years ago. When he was a baby his parents had moved over the hill and started the dairy farm. Eventually the farm became uneconomic. Most of the cows were sold to pay the bank. Ed's parents had moved into town a few years ago. Soon after, they'd died in a car accident. Ed had an elder brother, Steve, who worked on a natural gas platform in Bass Strait. 'Haven't seen him in three years,' said Ed. 'That rig could have sunk for all I know.'
'Why don't you talk to each other? What went wrong?' asked Emma.
'Oh you know. Family stuff.' Ed didn't seem to want to say any more.
Emma skimmed over her own story. Middle class family. Suburbs. University. From where she was sitting now, it all seemed very unreal and remote to her.
Ed worked four days a week as a mechanic at an iron ore mine, 70 kilometres away. While he was away during the day, Emma explored the cave. She found new entrances, hidden branches. Her scientific understanding of the cave seemed increasingly inappropriate and insufficient as she delved deeper. Emma stopped thinking of the cave so much as the product of geological forces, but as a place with forces of its own. At night she told Ed of her discoveries. He listened intently, never dampening Emma's enthusiasm by telling her when he already knew of the things she'd found.
Ed was unlike any other lover Emma had known. Exciting and sensitive at once. Always patient, always smiling. He gave her a silver ring with two letter Es interlocked, and wore the matching one himself.
Meanwhile Emma's old VW became rusty. Long tendrils of weed grew over and around it like spider webs. Emma did not think about going home. She was home. Occasionally she would write to her parents, but she did not provide a return address, and there was no phone in the house.
When Emma became pregnant, Ed was solemn, but then he kissed her. 'We'll have enough,' he said. 'Don't worry.'
And then he disappeared.
It happened on a Saturday. Emma had been exploring the cave, as usual. When she came home, Ed and his trailbike were gone. At first she did not let herself worry. When two days and nights passed, and Ed did not return, Emma grew frantic. She asked people in the town whether they'd seen him, and hitch-hiked to the mine. No one knew anything. She saw the half-smiling looks on the men's faces as they saw her pregnant belly and turned away.
The police came and left again. It seemed nothing could be done. Emma considered leaving the house and heading back up north, but something held her there. She took solace in the cave. When she sure Ed would not return, she spent two days and nights underground, weeping while the moist earth held her like a mother. Emma's tears joined the thermal stream and disappeared. She faced the light again feeling strong and renewed.
After three months, Emma's periods came back. Her bulge shrank and disappeared, as though there had never been a baby. When she went into town for supplies, people looked at her strangely. Emma took to growing her own vegetables. She lived mainly on potatoes, milk from the cows and berries from the forest.
Emma grew old.
She became an institution, like a picturesque boulder or an old tree. People no longer paid the 'mad old woman' very much attention. The road to the house eroded away until it was undriveable. No one visited.
Emma did not care. She lived only for the cave. Deeper and deeper she explored its depths. Hours of hunching gave her a permanent stoop. Emma's hair became long and grey; when she let it out it fell like a shaggy curtain over her eyes. Her teeth grew sharp and pointy-looking. Her nose drooped down towards her chin.
By now Emma had learned to find her way through the cave entirely by feel; she carried no lights or ropes. She came to sense when there was a drop ahead, or an obstacle. Even in new areas, Emma never got lost. Her tendril-like fingernails were long; she used them like delicate feelers to find her way.
On her 70th birthday, Emma slept in the place she and Ed had christened the Glow Worm Cave all those years ago. Now the thermal spring was dry, and the cave was quiet and warm. When she awoke, Emma stood up and felt her way down the passage that led deeper into the mountain. It became narrower. Like a worm, she wriggled onward. Deeper and deeper, lower and lower she went. When she was tired, Emma slept. Eventually she came to an underground pool. Emma swam through the pool in the dark. She barely noticed the cold. Ancient mud squelched beneath her toes. Beyond the other side, the passage led upwards. Tiny creatures skittered away as Emma climbed. She reached a fork, and turned left. Another fork. She turned right. The path led higher and higher. On the left, a low, narrow passage. Emma paused, and then crouched to enter the passage. This was a new route for her. The passage became a crack. It was almost impossibly tight. By breathing in, she could just squeeze herself forward, a few millimetres at a time. The lack of air made her feel light-headed. Emma hallucinated images of Ed, making love above her. Then the crack widened, and the vision receded. After hours of patient wiggling, she could move forward on her hands and knees. The air was fresher now. Soon, she could stand up. Emma felt her way round a corner.
From high above a faint glimmer of light came filtering down. To Emma's wide nocturnal eyes, the dim glow was like a spotlight. On the floor of the cave were human bones. Emma knelt by the bones and touched one cautiously. Something glinted. It was a silver ring. She held the ring up next to her own. Two Es interlocked. Ed and Emma.
Emma's old eyes grew moist. Standing directly below the source of the light, looked up. She saw the silhouetted shape of a motorbike, jammed halfway down the jagged chimney of rock. High above, a fragment of sunlight and blue sky.
Emma lay down by the jumbled bones and wrapped her body around them like a lover. For the last time, the old woman curled up and went to sleep.© David Lowe, July 1993