by David Vernon
Tin Barn
— Peter Court
William Napier Garden arrived from the old country within a hardwood ship and a cloud of settlers. They were not the first to fall upon this scarifying land but they felt like it as they tore the native trees into the shapes of houses made from distant memories. Gum and Mallee log in place of stone and tile, dirt for cobbles. The hardwood ship, like the locust cloud of inappropriately dressed pale bodies, would never return to its place of birth so William Garden bid to tear its buxom frame apart. The heavy stone that had weighted the ship to stability was hauled away to build the houses of the powerful, those ornate personalities who represented the King, reclining on the other side of the globe in his silk and perfume. All that remained of the vessel were these wooden boards and staves with which the shuffling thinness of William Garden gave birth to the skeleton that eventually became the heart and soul of this tin barn. Finally, after years, he was pleased with his tin barn. It hunched above the packed earth and humbled the surrounding wooden establishments. Branocks, the two storey, grey wood home of the Branock shipping agency looked like piggy-backed dwarves next to the fully-formed muscularity of the tin barn. Their roofs sat side by side in the smoked air but whilst Branock’s lean entrails were filled with little wooden rooms, the wide stance of Garden’s tin barn was filled with air, space and farming equipment.
Franklin O’Meare had also boarded that bloated wooden ship as it bobbed on the rancid waters of Dublin harbour. The salted rot fell behind him as he ducked within the stained wooden bowels of the vessel. He was a short man, but large enough to hold the dreams of a pioneer. He bore within him the soul of a distant land. And a hideous thing that would, one day, be known as cancer. It was the cancer, not the adventurer’s soul, that eventually turned his proud chest to hacking and finally, beneath the cold pale hand of his fluttering wife, snuffed the soul from him as he lay leaking on the planking bed of the bloated ship. So now, later, those same planks breathe in the free space at the head of the tin barn, the porous hardwood gently exuding the heart of the little pioneer and his nation shaped passion. This indefinable scent of his life taints the flavoured air within the tin barn, an unusual smell, but not unpleasant. In fact, the hatted customers will mutter, it's kind of comforting.
In Ireland they were dying now. Whilst the scattered strangers stopped in at the tin barn, the vital potatoes on the far side of the planet had turned rotten — black hearts eating them from within, and so more boats came. The ships had full bellies, these new arrivals did not. They were full of something that can only come from a land of sudden failing where nature disappoints and humanity fails to be human. They came as escapees, crushed by the soil of the land they had loved and dumped in a land so strange it could never recognize them. And so, even as the earlier settlers convinced themselves that this place was theirs, new building was needed. Further down, toward the sluggish creek that the ebullient natives called ‘Red Gum Forest River’, away from the busy normality of the smiling tin barn, the earlier settlers piled hasty brick and local stone to build a destitute asylum. It was not the new building that was destitute or insane. This was a role played by the new immigrant women, deserted wives and other common detritus of human dilation. The brick and stone are cold, unyielding. It will not hold the sense of the people who have passed through. It is not like the wood of the ship that now holds up the tin barn and is oozing with the compressed giddiness of the individuals who have given their lives in its arms. The thick stone asylum is full of fleeting misery, brokenness, loss. The thin tin barn is complete with life.
A huge horse, mythical in size and heaving flanks, is hauling forward barrels from the new brewery. The milky fragrance slaps and giggles in the kegs as it is rolled down the wooden ramps and into the cool crypts beneath the sifting dirt of the streets.
For thirty years the yawning happiness of the big tin doors have seen the future scurry in and out armed with gold or food stuffs from their land and then loaded with ropes or tins, steel tools and hard leather as they left. Around the barn the city of tents has vanished beneath the pride of newly quarried rock from the squat hills. Soon the men with thick, dusty skin will find the wonder of bluestone and then the little settlement will change again as the squat little pubs become majestic hotels. But for now, the big market was a moment of jubilee, a leap forward for the tiny little town. The central market brought together the growers and sellers of the soils value under one loud and prosperous roof. A place of bright and joyful berries, baffling carnival accents, deep and important conversations over bulging vegetables. The town would now be fed with modern efficiency. And looking down the newly cobbled road, looking upon this red brick market, was the tin barn.
Many didn't finish the long journey from blarney to the mistakenly named terra nullius. Children were born aboard the bloated, wallowing vessel as it huffed and puffed the endless black seas. Some of these children never knew of land, never felt solid foundation. They were born on water, died on water and left joyous imprints of wide skies and endless travel. These little people remained ingrained, part of the wheezing vessel. Eventually they filled the tin barn, bringing their pollen of restless innocence and their unformed, unfrightened futures. The tin barn was forever misted with an invisible essence of beautiful childishness.
Now they have used concrete to secure the feet of the bridge across the river, now the big town will no longer be snapped by the fluid whimsy of rare floods. Reinforcing concrete with cold steel allows the men to make more of their land, to build up and out, no longer making ‘enough’, now making an edifice. Three, four, five storey buildings are sprouting out of the infertile soil and the town is reaching up. Its voice is breaking and muscular structures are rising around the ever-useful tin barn. And concrete has covered its floor. Limestone and potash, the tiny bones of ancient creatures, torn from distant hills, crushed and ground up and finally laid to rest here beneath the heavy boots of the craftsmen and the delicate leather of their customers. The tin barn now has a belly full of furniture and the rich tang of wood sap torn by the band saws and planes of the men, young and old, who reshape the trees into something useful. This is the stuff of homes and houses. This deep honey, five draw bedroom chest with pugnacious inlays of mother of pearl will be handed down through forgetful hands, an heirloom of scratches, pieces of history etched into its wooden hide. These workshop pieces will absorb the story of themselves to carry into the photo albums and videologs of approaching generations.
Steel and concrete bristle from the little city, youthful, manly stubble. As cranes wheel and diesels roar the tin barn looks on. Shadows fall upon its new corrugated iron head and war falls upon the world as dry, poisoned leaves. Winter follows, the old country and the new cringe under the ashes of their children, burning on distant soil, driven by prevailing winds of fear and confusion. As in every place, the military come to town and find within the tin barn a space of suitable size and position. This is what the military always seek. Now they use the concrete floor and the vast reaches of space to prepare the next battalion to feed into the hungry belly of the distant argument. Cabinets fill with paper, the paper fill with names, the names fill with hope and history. Louisa Curtis sits anchored behind a small, tin desk and moves the paper about, keeping it neat and organised, for this is how war should be waged. So many young faces come through here. Nervous, excited, passionate. This is how Louisa sees war. She sees their handsome mouths smile and wink, offer suggestive lips. She never sees them screaming, never sees the spittle of blood, the vomit of pure fear, the hard, bone-dry prayers of inhumanity. She sails her tin desk blissfully through the war, surrounded by the slowly dripping presence of those first settlers, weeping from the bold supporting beams above and beside her in the tin barn. She never wonders what trick of the soul allows her to enjoy the war years but, in her pastel nursing home, a lifetime away, she would feel the deep, guilty maggots eating her. And she would never understand.
The art of building higher and hi
gher has seen the value of a simple square of dirt grow greater and greater. The ground itself is forgotten beneath the investment of architecture and technology, for it is the thin air that now holds the people of this city as they step out of elevators high above the tin barn and scurry about on nylon carpet. In the dark of evening she is one of the horde, her face of polyester, she is made from bits of magazines and she lives here. Only here. The tin barn has always been here, its age evident in the wrinkled skin of old posters and long gone paint. Graffiti has become urban art upon its grandfatherly flanks and the joists and beams lean upon themselves, exhausted pensioners, waiting. The sign hanging above the glass front is carefully distressed to match the character of the barn. The sign speaks of “Traitors Nightclub” but the harsh light of day tells more of oxidizing tin and rust. Within the cavernous musk the honeyed light paints the old barn with an angry softness. Earlier, when mist still furred the morning air, these men arrived with their shouting vests and snarling machines, their breath stinking with coffee beans born in a far away land. The future is here, it has come. Today the tin barn must die.
Peter Court is a radio announcer who also loves to write. He lives in Adelaide where much history has unfolded and been buried without ever being documented. Tin Barn is a tribute to all those amazing old buildings that created our past but couldn't survive our present.
The Clearing in the Forest
— Linda Carter
The boy climbs swiftly, ignoring the scrape of rough bark. He reaches his sturdy sitting branch and settles, the pine tree’s spiky trunk scratching his coarse cotton shirt. He sits securely, one bony elbow crooked, bare feet tucked up tight. In this secret hiding place he’s high above their shingle-roofed orchard cottage. Made from old shipping timber, so Vater tells him; hardwood frame, weatherboard walls, teak for floors and ceiling, Oregon board linings from fruit cases.
The boy understands numbers because of the pastor’s schooling. Knows the Ardwendt family home — built two years before he was born — is now twelve years old. Vater likes to smile at day’s end, when a special variety of apple tree is established in the rich soil, or the season’s pruning is done, or the ripe fruit has been harvested and taken to distant markets. Then weary workers gather under the verandah’s angled roof for cool drinks, steaming hot tea, Mutter’s rich plumcake:
“We work so hard. Such achievements.”
“Sehr gut.”
“Nein – es ist wunderbar!”
Like a clear-sighted eaglehawk, the boy watches the land. Patch-worked orchards stretch for miles, sliding down sloping hills, protected from wind by tall-reaching rows of dark pines. He can name all the German families whose properties sketch a green and gold tapestry as far as his eye can see. The pioneers came in 1853 to take up land in these outer eastern reaches of Port Phillip, after the charcoal burners and woodcutters had cleared as much as they wanted. The gardeners planted wheat and vegetables, crops for the farm animals, grape vines and cherries and finally the orchards. And, Vater says, the Monterey pine windbreaks were the gift of a baron!
Over there, glowing in the western sun, is the golden-brown roof of Tante Johanna’s new house, built by her English husband; it peeps between branches of yellow box gum, the best for honey. Onkel Edgar Morrison, tall and dark-whiskered, calls his nephew ‘Henry’ rather than Heinrich, and sometimes takes him out in the dray on Sundays after church, when he and Johanna visit his family.
Perched in the pine tree, Heinrich’s dark blue eyes follow the brushy creek line criss-crossing the valley. He can see the faint footpad — a well-worn path linking their two families — through olive green bush, fodder-sown paddocks, tree-studded squares.
A bristling seedy-brown cone dangles overhead, just within reach; he won’t have to stretch and wobble in a slippery clatter that will set the puppy off with a warning yap. Today, no one is watching. Mutter paces inside their small timber home, tending baby Tomas who is crying faintly and has been all morning. Vater is somewhere over the hill, helping raise the barn for another family. Little Hedwig’s fair plaits and half-turned face are distorted by the eight-paned window; she sits in the main room that is both kitchen and parlour, pulling a blunt needle and thick yarn through fabric scraps, practising stitchcraft under Mutter’s distracted gaze.
Heinrich holds the scaly branch with one hand; reaches forward, twists the short stem until the cone drops gently, trickles down the trunk, bounces and bumps, thuds onto the needle-soft ground. A large bird caws, beady-eyed, flaps heavy black wings and skews away from deep within the next tree.
“Heinrich, wo bist du, liebchen? Schnell, bitte!”
Mutter’s voice is strained, a sudden urgency that sends him slithering, heedless of noise, breaking into a low run on landing, meeting the chubby brindle pup as it bounces round the corner and they fall through the doorway together, legs tangling and bumping.
“Heinrich, Henry, I need help now. Miss Margaret. Und Tante Jo. Schnell!”
Mutter switches between English and German so Heinrich knows she is deeply worried. The baby is red-flushed and damp, tiny forehead screwed up, back arched, white fists pounding, a bubbling swell of milky fluid seeping from its mouth. Mutter shushes and rocks, jiggles and pats the frantic bundle, dabs at a wet yellow stain on the shoulder of her faded gown. Heinrich props in front of Tomas as another drop of silky milk falls from the baby’s lips followed by a gush that runs onto the wooden floorboards. Then Hedwig whimpers, her pressed hands hiding pale cheeks; unblinking eyes, hazel-pale as speckled bird’s eggs, fix fast on her big brother. She calls the puppy to her softly — “Tischer, Tischer!” — and cuddles it close, her golden head on the silky coat. The little dog squirms playfully then rests, legs splayed, panting lightly.
Heinrich grabs his dusty boots from behind the door, stumbles outside, scrunching through crackling gum leaves and feathery grass. Crests the hill and rushes down to the closest farm to deliver Mutter’s urgent plea to the English lady who helps sick people, then another mile to Tante Jo’s house.
Past the wattle and daub church that Vater helped to build, where all the children in the district learned their words and numbers before the school was moved further away.
Past the dark cemetery shaded by cypress where he sometimes visits Annaliese, who died before he was born. The sister he never knew –—“eine kleine schwester” — sleeps among mossy mounds, leaf-strewn stones, with a border costing ten shillings, so Mutter told him, when they tidied the grave last year. Heinrich does not stop there today.
By Sunday baby Tomas lies quietly, not much better, but at least keeping the milk down. Hedwig strokes his cheek and murmurs little words of kindness. Heinrich prowls restlessly, eyeing his worried parents, keeping out of their way, waiting for a decision about the community picnic that will be held on flat grassland, not far from the mudstone quarry where the stones are hauled out for houses and roads. Heinrich really wants to escape the sour-smelling cottage.
Mutter finally agrees, only after many careful words with Vater, that they can visit the new barn — just a short drive for fresh air, not far away, to admire Vater’s fine ‘kraftwerk’. Vater adds, with a quick nod towards Mutter, that they might join the other orchard families that afternoon, if Tomas has not become too fretful,
Hedwig folds napkins and tucks pewter cups and plates into a wicker basket heavy with sandwiches and fresh fruit. Heinrich helps Vater pack the dray; holds reins at the horse’s head while Tomas is carefully handed up to Mutter.
The old bullock track rumbles beneath the wheels. Heinrich and Hedwig bounce on hard board as Vater tells stories of rainbow-seekers making their way to the goldfields years ago, pushing barrows filled with belongings. Some became sick-fevered, lost their way in life, he says, with a flick of sun-dappled hands that hold the trailing reins, a shrug of broad shoulders that chose not to follow those hopeful dreamers to the dusty diggings, a tap of sturdy boots that lead him to a clearing in the forest instead.
The barn, set where
two roads meet, belongs to a house much larger than their own. Vater points to the steep pitch of the roof, the nailed timber shingles. Braced half-doors at one end of the barn are propped open, stables still empty. Heinrich jumps down from the dray to run his hands over smooth bluestones, asking why they do not have such a barn, just a small shed. Hedwig claps her hands as powder grey pigeons flutter away from louvred casement windows in the upper gable. Mutter lets Tomas suck on her finger; his face is turning pink and his forehead is wrinkled again, Heinrich notices.
Vater walks ahead when they arrive at the picnic site, carrying the basket and rug; Tante Johanna runs to meet them, her arms reaching out for the sleeping baby, her hands on Tomas’s flushed cheeks with a questioning look at Mutter. They hurry away to sit with the other women on blankets in the shade, watchful of flies heading for platters of food and children zig-zagging across grassy flats near the creek, trailing shouts and easy laughter.
Onkel Edgar and Vater talk with a group of men gathered near the jagged rocks. Their muted words float and echo off stepped-stone walls, not meant to be heard. Heinrich sidles past, slips behind dangling shrubbery and up the steep grassy edge, crouching beside slabs of golden stone. Vater has a folded paper in his hand, the one he has kept hidden in his jacket for some time, and Heinrich wants to know what it is all about, and why adults stop talking when children are near. Heinrich thinks something bad must have happened here, a few years ago, near where they live — or perhaps it was further away, another district, or on the other side of this new land they came to live in. He leans forward, itchy weeds tickling his nose, his slight form hidden behind rocks in dappled shade at the top of the old quarry: