Some of My Friends Have Tails

by Sara Henderson

  I had to smile when Marlee this year asked her husband Franz to build her an animal-and bird-proof garden; history repeating itself, I thought. He built her a beautiful screened, steel-framed cool house. But it was so well screened even the bees couldn’t get in to pollinate the flowers; we had beautiful tomato plants, but no tomatoes. Franz made some holes for the bees to get in and do their job. We had lovely herbs and other vegies growing … and Marlee is ready for a bumper tomato crop next year as soon as the bees know they are allowed in!

  Of course, when I refused to plant vegetables any more Charlie hired Fred, our Italian gardener. Apart from making moonshine in the weed patch, Fred was a very good gardener, and had a large garden growing in no time at all. His caravan was parked right in the middle of the garden, and I can only assume he stayed awake all night because the pigs never carried out one successful raid on his garden. You would hear shocking noises that could indicate some pig had been caught in the act, but they never wrought havoc as they did in my garden. Finally the pigs became too great in number, and the piggery had to be moved to another site. It was with great delight when I watched them being carted away, disappearing down the road to the other side of the cattle yard.

  Fred only had the birds to contend with then, but he built such elaborate scarecrows that they even frightened people. So he was a little mystified when his ‘beaut-a-ful’ plants were being eaten. He decided to stand guard all night and ‘catch-a this-a thief’.

  ‘I know-a who tak-a the plants, is-a big-a lizard!’ he told me triumphantly the next morning. ‘I will kill this-a big-a lizard,’ he went on in a determined manner.

  The children were immediately up in arms. The lizard was a goanna; it lived next to the pool in the big hole; the girls fed it meat and bread, it was becoming quite friendly. So we had to find some other way to stop it having its salad over in Fred’s garden. The girls gave it more to eat, hoping the variety would satisfy the goanna and keep it out of Fred’s garden. But it ate all the children’s offerings and still visited the garden. So I told Fred to put some greens on the same plate the girls used to feed the goanna daily, and this seemed to do the trick. Each night Fred would set out a variety of leaves and trimmings on the plate near a large log, the lizard’s favourite sitting spot, and each morning most of the food would be gone. The garden seemed to be undamaged.

  During the day, the girls fed the goanna back at its hole, next to the partly finished swimming pool. Life settled down to a happy situation with the goanna growing and Fred’s garden growing, and everyone friendly. Fred’s tomatoes were a bumper crop, and just starting to ripen, so he didn’t get much sleep because of the fruit bat raids. He asked Charlie could he keep a shotgun in the garden to scare off the bats. Charlie gave him the gun but soon realised it was a bad move to put a gun into the hands of an untrained person. At all hours of the night everyone would be jolted awake by shotgun fire, and hear Fred swearing in Italian, running around the garden naked except for a towel, waving a clenched fist at the retreating, terrified fruit bats. After a few nights of this, the staff started to complain; the tomatoes just weren’t worth the sleepless nights, they would gladly go without! The final straw was when Fred’s towel fell off while he was rushing around the garden and he tripped and fell, and the shotgun went off and sprayed the side of the house. Fred was finally given a large slingshot and rock-salt instead of the shotgun and everyone got some sleep. Fred sat on his log and guarded with the slingshot.

  Fred was having a busy night; the smell of ripe tomatoes and fruit, thick on the night air, had the bats coming in fast and regularly. He was resting on his log, having repelled repeated attacks, when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He slowly turned his head, and there, peeping over the top of the log, were two black eyes. Fred remained very still and the ‘big-a lizard’ slowly climbed onto the log and starting eating its nightly meal from the tin plate. Fred had placed the food there at sunset, but with the unrelenting fruit bat attacks he had forgotten the goanna. They sat together on the log, eyeing each other curiously. While Fred would rush off to sling rock-salt at the bats, the goanna sat eating, watching this crazy man running around doing strange things.

  As the sun started to rise, Fred was pleased he had once again saved his beloved garden from the ravaging hordes, and when Fred was happy, he sang … Italian opera. Slowly the first rays of sunlight bathed the valley and washed over Fred, singing opera, with his friendly goanna sitting on the log beside him listening. The months passed and the goanna spent most of the day in someone’s company. With the children out watching the progress of the swimming pool, in the kitchen begging me for food or in the garden with Fred. But Fred soon became the favourite. The big lizard seemed to enjoy his rather unusual style of singing.

  Fred said the ‘big-a lizard’ had to have a name, ‘can’t keep-a calling it big-a lizard’, and so he proudly announced that he had decided to call her Rosa. He had also decided the lizard was a girl, ‘Because she was-a too pretty to be-a boy!’

  Rosa grew and grew, happy with all the love and attention she received. Most of the time you would find her in the garden with Fred, following him around as he tended the garden. He would talk and sing to her all day. If he wasn’t in full voice singing opera, you would hear conversations like, ‘Hey, Rosa! Watch-a where you put-a the foot’, as she tried to follow him through the plant beds on the narrow path.

  When the sun became too hot, she would sit in the shade and watch, and Fred would shout to her, ‘Hey, Rosa, come help me pull-a the weeds! Wha’s the madder with you?’ She would just blink those strange eyes or stretch her neck, put her head on the side and look at him with one eye, but continue to sit in the shade and observe.

  Fred grew to know Rosa’s every favourite plant and it was not long before he was growing a special garden bed, just for Rosa. He would show it to her, telling her she could go and nibble whenever she wanted, but he still put a selection on her plate on the log for her. She had grown so big that if she did wander onto a garden bed she wiped out most of the plants with her feet or tail. So Fred would hand-pick her favourite food daily. Rosa just kept growing, eating and sitting on the log with Fred listening to Italian opera. She still visited the kitchen occasionally and did tricks to receive her cubes of roast beef from the children, but she was Fred’s goanna.

  When it was time for his holidays we were all a bit concerned how she would react when he was gone. She watched him carry his suitcase out to Bertha, our Beaver aircraft, and saw Fred wave out the window as Charlie flew him to Darwin.

  The girls and I watered the vegie garden and she sat on the log watching us. She spent more time in the kitchen and playing by the pool, but although she missed Fred, and often wandered over to the caravan or the log looking for him, she stayed in good spirits and was eating well. It was a relief to see her handling his absence so well. But sometimes you would see her sitting on their log, a silhouette against the setting sun, just waiting.

  The stockmen arrived from town to start the season’s mustering. About a week later one of them spotted Rosa strolling across the lawn and thought what a great meal she would make. No-one had remembered to tell them Rosa was a pet. He found a big rock and was creeping up behind an unsuspecting Rosa, sunning herself beside the pool. One of the girls saw him and let out a high-pitched scream; Rosa woke with such a start that the rock only gave her a glancing blow. Still, we had a very dazed Rosa on our hands. The stockman was so upset when he was told the goanna was the children’s pet, he carefully helped them carry Rosa into the medical room where the children bathed her cut and tried, without luck, to keep a bandage on her head. When Fred arrived back the next week, the children did manage to have a very impressive bandage in place for the few minutes after he landed. She was still quite shaken by the blow, so she continued her recovery period sitting out on their log, contentedly listening to Fred singing. As she regained her strength, she was again happily going from the log to the kitchen, to supervise the building
of the swimming pool.

  The pool was a long and slow project as work was only done on it during lulls in mustering or spare time, and there was never much of that. However, its eventual progress caused a major problem. Rosa’s hole would have to be covered with cement and sandstone. Fred discussed this problem with the children and me and a decision was made that Rosa would have a new home near the log, so Fred busied himself with this project. Rosa sat on the log and watched with interest.

  A few days before her house was to be officially finished, and Fred was arranging a big celebration, Rosa disappeared. The children and Fred searched and called her daily, even the Aboriginals went on tracking missions. They reported her tracks led off into the bush and to the nearby billabong in Nutwood Paddock, but they lost them in amongst the cattle and bird prints at the billabong.

  Weeks passed and we had to accept she was gone. Fred missed her terribly. He would sit on their log and look sadly at the little sign that he had painted her name on and decorated with roughly drawn flowers. This was nailed to the log, just over the entrance to the hole he had started for her, hoping she would continue and make it her new home. The mustering was in full swing, so everyone was instructed to speak to any goanna they came across out in the bush to see if it was friendly and was maybe Rosa, lost.

  The months went by and the pool was finally completed, and the children couldn’t wait for it to fill so they could jump in. Of course it leaked and it took days for the ground around to soak up its share of water before the pool filled. But soon it was brimming and everyone was jumping in any time of the day and night to cool down.

  Along with being a swimming pool, it also became a favourite watering hole for any animal that could get into the garden. The horses much preferred the pool to their drinking trough not far away. The cattle would also try to get into the garden and sample the water. As it turned out, it was not only for drinking; they were used to the billabong where they could walk into the shallows and take a drink. They regularly tried to step into the pool, and would go head over turkey into the water. Rescuing cattle and even horses out of the pool got to be such a regular event that, during the winter, the pool was pumped out and the steps were enlarged so the animals could get in and out of the pool without our help. Guests were sometimes shocked when they looked out and saw a horse emerging from the swimming pool, looking for all the world as if it had just finished a few laps.

  Hundreds of little birds drank at the pool. The surrounds were uneven sandstone, giving the pool the look of a natural rock pool, and the birds could get down to the water level without too much trouble. The pool was always a hive of activity, everyone was there at some time of the day, except Rosa. Oh, how we missed her.

  Then one morning Fred came bounding into the kitchen so excited he could hardly speak. We finally understood—he was trying to tell us Rosa was back! We rushed out to find Rosa standing next to where her hole near the swimming pool had been, but was no longer. And if a goanna could fold its arms and assume the expression of ‘Well, explain this!’, Rosa achieved it without the folded arms.

  Fred led her over to her new home under the log, but she wasn’t too impressed and kept returning to where her home used to be, to sit with a dissatisfied expression on her face. This was in between her cooling-off swims, up and down the pool; Rosa was certainly impressed with the pool.

  Fred put a plate of her special greens in front of her new home every night and would sit there each day and explain all its advantages to Rosa. Privacy, coolness, protection, he would elaborate for hours, but Rosa sat on top of the log and would not go anywhere near it.

  Fred wasn’t sure where she was going to sleep, but he knew it wasn’t in her new home. She disappeared regularly but he was content just to have her back, even if she didn’t like his carefully planned residence. Then, when we had all forgotten about the new house, Rosa decided to move in. Fred walked into the garden early one morning and there she was busy excavating further the hole Fred had started for her. Soon Rosa was firmly entrenched in her new home, and enjoying herself immensely in the pool.

  Sometimes we would forget to tell guests about our big lizard, and she would scare them half to death by surfacing just in front of them. You would see someone swimming at breakneck speed for the steps and would have to rush out and tell them not to be frightened, she was friendly. Even though you assured them of this, not too many went back in, not while Rosa was there anyway. I often found her in the kitchen scaring the cat half to death as she ate its food. She spent quite a lot of her time in the house, but if Fred whistled she would be off in a dash, even leaving food.

  They spent most of the day together. Fred would take the wheelbarrow out onto the airstrip and collect horse manure for his garden. You could see Rosa walking along beside him. When the grass was too long you couldn’t see her, but there was Fred in animated conversation, waving his arms around, pointing out different objects of interest, seemingly to no-one. It was not until he reached the mowed lawn of the garden that Rosa came into view, looking at him as if she understood every word.

  When he set off to get the cows to milk, Rosa had to stay quite a distance away. The cows were wild bush cows that the girls had broken in for milking, but they were still very touchy, and even though they would follow the bucket of feed anything strange upset them. So Rosa would hide in the grass until Fred had the cows well and truly tethered in the bail, then she would slowly walk out and sit on a nearby post to watch the milking. She really was quite a help at this point because the cows would keep their eyes fixed on Rosa and stand still, making Fred’s job a lot easier.

  Rosa started acting strangely, she wouldn’t swim, she disappeared for days on end, she wouldn’t eat. I told Fred he had to face the fact that she would probably go back to the wild and he had to be ready to expect this. She was fully grown, or at least looked it, and the time would come when she would want to be with other goannas. Or at least I thought this would be the case; I wasn’t very versed on goannas or their habits, and didn’t have any books on them. Fred was quite sure Rosa would never leave, so the subject was dropped.

  Fred once more rushed into the kitchen one day, too excited for anyone to understand what he was saying, so we followed him out to the garden. Rosa had returned after an absence of many weeks, and there with her was a baby goanna! This certainly explained her strange behaviour of late. Fred was over the moon with excitement, and wanted to enlarge her hole immediately. I said I was sure Rosa would handle this, and he controlled himself and didn’t interfere. He worried constantly that she would leave and was always thinking of ways to make her life and Rosetta’s so comfortable that they would not go.

  I fully expected it would be Rosa who would go back to the wild, but it was actually Fred who left Rosa. His father became ill and Fred had to leave to go home to Perth, telling Rosa first, then us, that he would be back soon. But he never returned.

  We couldn’t get another gardener as good as Fred, and Rosa certainly didn’t like any of them. It wasn’t long before she moved out of the log house and back into the bush. The vegie garden soon developed that uncared-for look as the growing season came to an end and all the plants went to seed. I found her a few times wandering down the paths in between the beds, still being careful as if she could hear Fred’s voice, loud and clear, saying, ‘Watch-a where you put-a the foot, Rosa!’

  The neat garden plot soon became natural paddock again and it seemed to be a signal to Rosa that Fred, this time, would never return. She visited the pool for a swim now and again, but when the girls and I went to Sydney to visit my sister and Mum for a holiday she left for good.

  10

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  PYE-WACKET THE MARMALADE CAT

  Not all our unusual animals were creatures from the wild who returned to the wild. We raised just as many domesticated animals who were truly remarkable and in some cases almost human. One of these was a marmalade cat that I called Pye-wacket after the magical cat in the book Bell, Book and
Candle. Of course, being orange and white, he was not the right colour for a magical cat, but just the same he possessed definite powers.

  Pye-wacket was found in a gutter in Darwin as a small kitten, starved and almost at death’s door. The little girl who took the miserable creature home promptly poured a whole bottle of liquid baby vitamins down his throat to help him along. Her parents were not as sympathetic. Horrified that their daughter would even touch such a thing, they tried to get the dying animal away from her. But she was bent on saving this kitten, and threw a screaming tantrum every time they came near it.

  The children and I were in Darwin on one of our rare visits; Marlee just happened to be playing with friends next door, and was shown the kitten. When she saw how distressed the little girl was and the lack of concern of the parents, she offered to take the kitten back to Bullo where, she assured its worried guardian, it would live in a ‘kitten paradise’. She proudly presented me with a frail, skeleton-like creature lying in the bottom of a small basket.

  The first thing that struck me were the amazing large yellow eyes that consumed the entire face of the very sick kitten. I held the basket, staring at the poor creature, feeling it was only minutes from death, but not having the heart to tell this to two sets of pleading eyes that were asking silently for a miracle and watching my every expression for confirmation. The little girl was so upset and worried, I had no choice but to cheerfully tell her that after a few weeks at Bullo her kitten would be restored. This calmed her considerably. She told Marlee she had heard her father say he would dispose of ‘it’ when she went to school the next day, so she was happy when the kitten safely took off in the Beaver aircraft with us, heading for safety and Bullo.