As I drive north along the west coast of the island, I notice what is like and what is unlike the Vineyard. Both islands are rimmed with beaches—some broad and sandy, some intimate and covelike. The Vineyard's year-round population is much larger—maybe fifteen times greater than that of Flinders Island—and the summer influx of tourists and second-home owners swells it enormously. Still, both islands have wide tracts of farmland rolling toward ocean and acres of unspoiled woods and marshes. The houses are similar in some ways; modest beach cottages and farmsteads, though in recent years many of the Vineyard's unpretentious homes have been demolished in favor of lavish summer compounds out of scale with island tradition.
The most striking difference is the geology. The Vineyard is a terminal moraine—low hills of clay soils and boulders pushed out into the ocean by an ancient glacier. Flinders is part of an island chain that is the remnant of a drowned land bridge that once connected Tasmania to the Australian mainland. It has a rocky mountain spine slung between two soaring peaks—one north, one south—thrusting into the sky at either end of the island like exclamations.
As the northern peak, Mount Killiecrankie, looms into view, I know I am nearing my destination. I turn off the main road and bump down the steep track to the shack.
I am all alone here in this beautiful place. Where Tony should be, hauling the wheelie bag, already restless and impatient for the first adventure. I have a sudden sharp memory of him, from the last time we visited Tasmania. He'd decided to use the vacation to break his addiction to nicotine gum, and when we couldn't immediately find the right room at the hotel we'd booked, he'd stamped his foot and sat down on his wheelie bag, grumpy and petulant as a toddler. The boys and I had laughed at him and told him to go get some Nicorette.
I smile at that recollection. Toward the end of that vacation, we'd sent the boys back to Sydney and celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary alone together on a wild beach on Tassie's east coast.
Now I wrestle the wheelie bag over the rough ground by myself. I let sadness come and accept it. This is how it is now. Lonely.
But right on its heels, yapping like an ill-disciplined terrier, a querulous inner voice: What's up with you? You're lucky to be here, to have the means and the time to do this. And look at that view!
The shack is just three simple rooms, built of mismatched timber. It sits at the southern end of a deep, goblet-shaped bay, looking directly across at Mount Killiecrankie, a muscular swell of granite surging out of the sea. The boulders are striated with vivid Caloplaca, an algae-fungi symbiosis that stains the rock in bright bands of tangerine. I stand and stare, gobsmacked by the beauty of the orange rock and various blues of the water, as shifting and luminous as the colors in peacocks' plumage.
I put the food in the small fridge and set out to walk the beach. This turns out to be more of a hike than it looks. The deep curve conceals its true length. When I leave the shack, it's two p.m. It's four thirty when I get back. At low tide the fine white sand is firm underfoot, the beach wide and expansive. There is only one other person. In the distance, a woman plays with her dog, throwing a ball. I get close enough to see that the dog is ginger and white, like a Brittany spaniel. The beach is so wide it seems impolite to change my trajectory. I do not encroach on them as I pass. When I turn to look, they've vanished up some unseen track in the dunes, and I am all alone. I feel how extraordinary that is. Most beaches as beautiful as this have been developed, so these miles of high dunes are a bit of a marvel—a globally rare example of pristine coastal health. My shack is one of just a handful of simple structures confined to a small area of the rocky southern end of the beach.
The dunes eventually give way to upthrusting granite, the sand replaced by rock shelves and pools. Cuttlefish skeletons have been blown into crevices. Some are a foot long, abraded by the wind to resemble the contours of topographical models. A shiny curve like a draftsman's spline catches my eye. It is the edge of a perfect abalone shell. When I lift it out of the sand it glows in ripples, iridescent pinks and greens.
All this, I want to share with Tony. I want him alive beside me, to feel the sting as the wind picks up, to bundle up on the deck and hold my hand through the late twilight, to watch the moon rise, lustrous as a pearl, over Mount Killiecrankie.
I have many friends with good marriages. Long ones like ours. Lucky people, like we were. They have raised their kids, done good work—usually in the arts or the media—and, in their sixties, have money and the time to enjoy each other. I'm happy for them when they post their lovely pictures, sipping coffee in a square in Siena, exploring Kakadu, scrambling over a lava field in Hawaii, canoeing the Okavango. I am also envious.
Tony and I had a bit less than two years as empty nesters, after our younger son implored us to let him go to the boarding school that had recruited him for lacrosse. I was sorry he chose to go. I came late to mothering and loved it; I did not want to be cheated of four more years on the daily job. I was also skeptical of elite private schools and their superprivileged progeny. But Bizu had a talent, and a dream. It seemed churlish to stand in his way.
It turned out to be a blissful time for the two of us, with no one to consider but ourselves. For the first time in decades, we could go out, spontaneously, to dinner or a movie, instead of riding shotgun on homework and bedtime. We made a wonderful trip to Oxford, where Tony was giving a speech on historical memory and the arguments over Civil War monuments. We walked cobbled laneways of golden stone, got into lively discussions in the low-ceilinged pubs, and plotted how we might get back there for a longer stay.
What big plans we had. How many more adventures there would be for us, just as soon as Tony's book was finished.
Plans. Oh, those.
