Sloane on the Mountain – by Alexander Bennetts
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What she was running from, well, Sloane would never speak of it, but if you pored through reams of court transcripts and certain bank transactions, I’m sure you could eventually work it out.
She parked her canary-yellow Saab opposite the Mount Macedon Hotel and nodded to the regulars on the porch. Sloane made a show of greeting the bartender. He wore a deep V-neck; he looked like the kind of man who paid for his protein supplements to be shipped in from overseas. She asked for two bottled waters.
‘Just came in on the Spirit this morning,’ Sloane told him. ‘Figured it’d be a smart move to stretch the old legs.’
‘You know where you’re going?’
‘Just up the Hump, then maybe across to the memorial if I’m feeling it.’
He nodded, looking more impressed than one should at such a simple plan.
‘There’s some good climbing spots up that way, if that’s your thing.’ Small talk. ‘Might spot a couple of folk around there.’
‘Maybe I’ll come back next week.’
‘Well, anyway. If you’re not too buggered after, drop on in. First beer’s on me,’ he said. A wink. She was a fit bird, he’d tell his mates later, for her age, I mean.
‘We’ll see,’ Sloane said, just enough of a crinkle in the corner of in her smile to reel him in. The bartender handed her a receipt. That was odd for a pub.
‘Our number’s on there,’ he explained. ‘Just ask for Aiden.’
———
Weeks ago, after travelling to Melbourne for business, Sloane had stashed a bike just off the highway. She’d hidden it underneath a tarp, which she’d covered with mounds of earth and uprooted shrubbery.
The plan was to retrieve the bike, ride out to Woodend and catch the train. She was aiming to make it up to Far North Queensland, where she’d buy a caravan and something to tow it with, having withdrawn a couple of hundred bucks every fortnight for the past six months. There was a bloke up there that did passports. Not that she wanted to travel, but she needed a new name. Something less distinctive, she hoped. Alice. Sarah. Beth.
A complete restart. She’d have to shed her habits, her ways of looking at the world, her old search terms. Anything that made her uniquely her. But that’s how it had to be, Sloane figured: no loose ends. No one in on it. No looking back.
———
The walkers’ log at the track entrance was curled from rainwater. Slowly and with care, Sloane wrote out her name and phone number. Everything had to appear ordinary.
The incline was harsh on her knees. She took it gradually; this was the time to revel. She listened to the birds and tried to distinguish one call from another. She thought of the spotter’s book that her father kept by the front door. Maybe this could be her new life, an itinerant twitcher. She smelled the eucalypts, tried to taste the air. From tomorrow it’d be all helter-skelter and looking over one’s shoulder.
Waiting for the ferry the night before, Sloane’s arms began to shake. Her legs started next, then her whole body. It’s just performance anxiety. There was no space for second-guessing. She phoned her father while the ferry was still docked. No answer. She tried to imagine what he’d be doing: a counter meal at the local or listening to his wife’s old records in the back room, maybe. It had been his birthday last month; Sloane had held off her exit until afterwards, so she wouldn’t have to fight the urge to call him on the day. That’s how you get caught.
Her phone went out of service as they began to cross the Strait.
The phone did ring, eventually, when they docked in Port Melbourne. Sloane held it nervously, but let it ring out: it was her sister-in-law. Ex-sister-in-law. Marta, still plastered from the night before, had left a message. She was the younger sibling Sloane never had. Equal parts verve and obliviousness – even into her forties Marta projected a childish optimism. They’d spent weekends touring the state with nothing but a box of cleanskins on the back seat. Their friendship began before Ricky’s affair. Their friendship outlasted Sloane’s marriage.
Sloane waited a few minutes, then responded with an SMS: sorry just getting off the boat. will call u tonite!! xx
———
From the peak of the Hump, Sloane looked out over the fields of Woodend. She could make out Anti-Gravity Hill, where she’d driven with Ricky on their first trip to the mainland together. The water ran up the incline – what the fucccccckk, he had exclaimed. His mouth had fallen open, like on those rotating clown heads you’d see at the Royal Show.
Sloane had relocated to Tassie a few months after her first break-up. That must have been two decades ago, the first time she ran. She’d found a job as a transcriptionist, moved into finance after a couple of years. She was comfortable. Hit her targets, got promoted early; bought a fixer-upper in Sandy Bay. She tempered her expectations; she let Ricky move in. The beginning of the end.
This is where she would lose the pouch containing her car keys, her phone. She would kick dirt over it, but not bury it. That’s what she had to be, after all: easily forgotten.
A hiker’s pack leant against a log. Sloane ignored it: someone was probably taking a piss, she figured. She wasn’t worried about being seen – witness accounts would lend the disappearance a veneer of truthfulness. She was adamant about performing her ideal story: she’d just gotten lost, took the wrong turn and went missing. The last thing she wanted was for it to look like a suicide; to be missing for the fallout. Her father, Marta, her workmates, Ricky. How did we miss the signs? they’d say to one another. Her ex-husband would be the worst. You should have known, he would yell at Marta. She told you everything and you couldn’t have done a fucking thing to stop her?
The not-knowing would eat at her father. Sloane knew this. She thought of the rats in her father’s shed who had made a home in the half-a-century-old, Shiraz-stained love-seat. Creatures who made do.
Things between them had changed shape since he’d begun living alone. Her mother had been the bridge between them – a go-between, a mediator, a toll-booth attendant. Now, they didn’t even bicker over dinner, a meeting which was becoming less and less frequent. They were lonely, together. She weighed up the benefits of allowing him closure against the risks it posed – but no imagined conversation ever felt coherent. I’m just dipping out of the world, Dad. No, not like that. You just won’t see from me or hear from me. But I’m fine. I’m fine.
So: no warning, no closure. Her best worst option.
He’d win a cash prize in the following year. A convoluted set-up – making it look legitimate, as not-a-scam – but what was the point if she couldn’t share her gains? But this could all come later. She had to disappear first.
Sloane closed her eyes and let the breeze mess up her hair. No takebacks.
From below her came a stifled cry. Sloane startled, letting the sunlight spill in. The noise reached her again. Slowly, she looked over the precipice, hoping to spot a wallaby; instead, there on the rocks below was a human body.
‘Hello?’ she called down.
The body – a man’s – rocked from side to side, his face pointing towards the sky. There was a wide gash across his forehead. His limbs were caught in a twist of hazard-yellow climbing rope. He moaned.
Sloane stepped back from the cliff. Part of her had hoped for no response at all.
‘I’ll get help,’ she yelled out. Her regret was instant and felt sharp, hot. The man below her wailed.
What have I done? Her well-made plans frayed like cheap polyester. Sloane looked around the Hump, down the track. The blood-rush of crisis was taking over. There was no one else around. She peered over the cliff. She wanted him to have vanished, for it to have been a daydream. But the man was still there, keening. A sign of life. A refractive glint revealed the metal piton stuck into the rock a few metres below her. He’d fallen from a considerable height.
‘I’m calling someone, okay?’ she shouted to him. ‘I’m going to call someone and you’re going to be fine.’
The dial tone sounded five times before an answer. Sloane spoke recklessly.
‘Are you there?’ She peeked over the cliff one last time: the man appeared to be her father’s age, give or take a few years. The way the man moaned recalled her father’s cries at the funeral; the explosive wailing of a ghost stuck in a man’s body. Sloane breathed in sharply and held the phone to her ear. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what I’m about to tell you, but I need your help making a decision. And I need you to be quick.’ ▼
Image: Brianna Laugher
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