"Hey, Zoe, why don't you and Peter do that walk over the hills? That should get him fit and brighten him up a bit."
Over the hills that form a backdrop to our city there is a chain of hostels, each about a days walk apart. To walk the whole distance took about a week and Bern and I had done it a couple of times, but Peter had never been with us.
Peter had finished his final year at high school and seemed to go into a state resembling depression. Even when he got his exam results, which were brilliant, and he got his picture in the newspaper and he was even on T.V., he still did not brighten up.
"Post study reaction," our local GP had diagnosed, "needs to get some exercise and fresh air."
It was a rough diagnosis, but I knew he was right. Bern and I had encouraged, (or should I say "pushed"?) Peter pretty hard for several years. Peter wanted to enter Medical School and we knew he would need a very good pass to get accepted. Now he had been accepted and that didn't seem to cheer him up either.
I suppose the fierce concentration had a detrimental affect on his social development. The old saw, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" applied in this case.
Peter had simply missed a lot of the things that most young people engage in, and added to that, his focus on study gained him the title "Nerd" among his peers. His one and only sport, if you can call it that, also tended to be isolating, namely, weight lifting.
Bern and I were proud of his academic achievements and his magnificent physique, but suffered some degree of guilt that we had not encouraged him to socialise more. Apart from general socialising, young people these days do a lot of their sexual maturing during teenage years, which means a fair amount of youthful copulating. As far as I could gather, Peter had not had any of this either.
So it was that Bern suggested the week long walk over the hills, stopping each night at one of the hostels. He couldn't make it himself because of work commitments, so it was up to mother to make the arrangements and then endure foot slogging journey.
On making the suggestion to Peter he shrugged, showed little enthusiasm, but muttered "Okay." So I went ahead and booked our places in the hostels, and since only one place had a warden I collected the keys to the other places.
Having made the bookings I had second thoughts because most of the time we would be walking alone and at the hostels we would most probably still be on our own. Nevertheless, having made the arrangements I decided we would go ahead, and perhaps the fresh air would do wonders for Peter.
One advantage I hoped to reap for myself was that Peter and I might re-connect. Right up until he entered high school he had been very affectionate towards me. Soon after starting high school he seemed to draw away from me. If I tried to hug or kiss him I would get shrugged off and told, "Don't do that mum." Perhaps having me as a fellow hiker there might at least develop a bond of companionship, if not a restoration of the old affection.
So on the day of our start, with our rucksacks filled, Bern drove us to where we were to begin our journey; a place called "Stony Creek," where a trail started. Bern kissed me goodbye, told us to "behave ourselves," and drove off into the misty and rather cold morning.
The trail was easy at first, passing through a State Reserve where a wide variety of trees and native undergrowth flourish. Occasionally there was the rustle of some animal moving in the undergrowth and once a snake undulated across our path. We came upon a group of wallabies that on sighting us, bounded away through crackling scrub.
The trail crossed a road then continued up a hill and into another State Reserve. The sun had by now pierced and driven away the mist and the temperature was rising. The country was harder here and we began to toil up a steep hill, until we came to a place where the trail dropped down almost precipitously to a creek.
We stopped here for our first rest, taking off our sweaters so as to continue the walk in shirts and jeans. We drank from our water bottles and ate some cheese and biscuits, sitting with our backs against a big old gum tree.
We had said hardly anything during this first part of the walk, but now Peter commented idly, "Hell mum, that's a long drop down to the creek."
"It gets rougher later on," I replied, "in fact you'll end up being glad when it does go down, because I swear that parts of the trail go up in both directions." That got a bit of a laugh from him, which was nice because I hadn't heard him laugh for a long time.
We hefted our rucksacks and began the descent to the creek. Sometimes going down can be harder than going up, and by the time we reached the bottom my ankle and knee joints were making themselves felt. We crossed the creek on stepping stones and were immediately confronted with a clamber up to a ridge. It must have taken us an hour to get to the top.
By now I was sweating and the straps of my rucksack were beginning to dig into my shoulders. Another rest was called for, more water and some cold sausage and cheese.
Peter did not seem in the least bothered by the strenuous efforts we had made, but he did ask, "How far to the hostel now, mum?"
"About another hour and a half," I said. "We walk along the ridge and that's fairly easy going, then a bit more up and down, and we're there, "Thank God" I thought, as visions of a wash, fried sausages and potatoes, then sitting by the stove rose up in my head.
We sat for a bit longer admiring the view from our vantage pointed, seeing the forest stretching away, then in the middle distance farmland and vineyards and beyond, more hills.
Hefting our rucksack again we began the walk along the ridge. At one point the trail took a sharp turn and coming round the corner we came face to face with an old man kangaroo. We stopped only a couple of metres from the animal, he staring haughtily at us, and we looking back at him. We stayed like that for at least half a minute, and then in what looked like a contemptuous manner he turned and thumped slowly away.
"That's the closest I've ever been to one of those," Peter said a little breathlessly. "Just as well we don't have man eating tigers in this country."
"No," I responded, "but we do have some nasty poisonous snakes," I reminded him, pointing to a long black form draped over a bank of rocks on the side of the trail, its head raised, looking at us fixedly.
We hurried on.
We came to the end of the ridge and struggled up and down a number of steep slopes, to emerge onto a flat open area where there was the Ranger's house. Passing it we crossed a dirt road and walked the last bit of the trail to the hostel.
It was in fact an old Nissen Hut that is essentially a half round tunnel-like structure of corrugated iron with a concrete floor. It had no showers and water had to be drawn from a rainwater tank and heated if you wanted a warm wash. The toilet was a separate structure with a cement arrangement with a hole in it. Beneath the hole was a seemingly bottomless pit, the purpose of which I leave you to imagine.
Inside the hut there was a division with a notice, "Men," on one side and "Women" on the other. These were the sleeping areas. The small kitchen was provided with bottled gas and a single gas ring, and a lounge area that had old armchairs with the stuffing hanging out of them, and as a central feature, the iron stove.
It was now about half past four, so Peter brought in water in a bucket and filling a large saucepan the water was heated for washing purposes. I was to wash first, so I departed for the toilet while the water was heating, and seating myself over the hole I prayed there were no redback spiders lurking in the place.
My wash consisted of stripping off in the kitchen and dealing with the essential parts of the anatomy while Peter brought in wood for the stove. When I had finished I redressed, omitting my bras as I hate the things anyway, and more water was boiled for Peter and he washed while, as the day was cooling, I lit the stove.
When Peter had finished it was cooking time, if you could call the rather basic activity cooking. We ate the rough meal ravenously and then retired to the lounge. There were some old board games lying around and Peter, who now seemed to be more cheerful than I had seen him for a long time, said, "Let's play snakes and ladders, remember how we used to play it when I was little?"
I felt a lump come into my throat as the memory of those days when he was a child welled up into my head. Those happy days when it seemed that he was all mine to teach and love and he would sometimes put his little hands on my cheeks and say, "You're the most beautiful mummy in the whole world." Then I would kiss him and say, "Thank you, darling." How we look back to what seems like the halcyon days when innocence has hardly been defiled by the "I wants" and the "I must haves" of our so-called "maturity." I could never have him again like that, but surely there could be something between us? The love of mother and son that seems to go beyond almost any other relationship in its depths; could we have that?
That evening we played our games of snakes and ladders, laughing, accusing each other of cheating, and letting our tired limbs relax as we sensed the sounds of silence in the world outside the hut. The silence unfortunately was broken with the sound of a possum dropping on to the corrugated iron of the hut and scrambling and screaming for about half an hour.
Then it was time for bed and sleep to prepare us for the next day's strenuous march. We took no notice of the "Men" and "Women" signs; both of us electing to sleep in the women's section. Peter stripped off to sleep naked as he always does.
Modesty was thrown aside, and this was the first time I had seen Peter naked since he became a teenager. I could not help feeling a little thrill of pleasure ripple through me as I covertly admired his beautiful body. "I and the weight lifting helped to make that, "I thought; then chastised myself for my prurient interest.
As I began to undress, taking off my shirt, I began to regret that I had not put on my bras. I was very aware that Peter was doing his own covert looking, and there was no way I could conceal my breasts completely from his vision. More disconcerting was the fact that I could see his penis rising.
