by Claire Dunn
I unload my water outside the lean-to, sit cross-legged with my machete in front of a timber board and begin to thwack a clean edge on handfuls of grass, the roots a growing pile of witchetty grubs on the sand beside me.
God, it feels good to be alone. It’s the first full day I’ve had to myself in what seems like ages. It’s been really bloody busy: in the last few weeks there’s been another two-day bird workshop, a landscape awareness day with an ecologist and a four-day bush-food workshop. And, in between, grass, grass and more grass. Again, if Shaun hadn’t offered to help me with that, I’d be stuffed. In the late afternoon we can often be found gloved in the paddock, the rhythm of our grass yanking sounding much like cows at mealtime.
Nikki has dubbed us the Blady Bunch, which sounds like a happier family than it is. There are fun times, but more often there is simmering tension, especially when we’re all together. You can almost hear the clang of our unspoken hopes and fears bumping into each other. I thought it might have settled down after summer, but the only thing that has settled are the cliques and the chasms. Ryan is still stiff and surly with me and that hurts, but not as much as my strained relationship with Chloe. I miss her company but avoid her at the same time. The other day I found her in the Gunyah, painting a rooster on canvas, and made some subtly demeaning remark about her use of time. No wonder I’m dreaming of a neurotic, tight-lipped old woman.
The only real tribal camaraderie I feel is when Nikki, Ryan, Shaun and I are on mission together. Something about that combination works, maybe because there’s a fair bit of bitching about “the twins”, as Shaun calls Chloe and Dan. It’s a fair call; they act like naughty kids up the back of the classroom. I’m not sure whose authority they are trying to rebel against, or why, but it’s annoying. I spent the last two days with them and Shaun, building our floors. Flooring was not something I had considered until the last rain, when I realised that rising damp was going to be a severe understatement unless I got my bum six inches off the ground. So, contracted together by mutual necessity, we wheelbarrowed in hundreds of loads of gravel to one another’s sites and tamped it down in a rough rammed-earth style.
At the end of the day Chloe pulled me aside and asked, “What does our relationship mean to you?” I didn’t know how to answer her. The comforting memories of how things were between us bump against the painful reality of how they are now. I’m confused about why she’s resisting being here, resisting what I thought we both wanted and needed. But just her asking that question seems to have lifted some of the tension.
Even though we’re still bound together by the need for physical labour, for communal tools, utes, trailers, food and fire, I’ve made a small but significant shift away from the group by moving my breakfast supplies to my lean-to. It’s amazing what a difference this has made, not to having to tiptoe around the couples or worry about how the morning fire was lit. Now I just have to hold out until I can really move in to my shelter and begin a proper solo life. I hear there are big rains coming, so I’m madly trying to make grass bundles while the sun shines.
*
As I cut off lengths of string, I arch my back and stretch out my legs. The pile of grass looks as if I’ve hardly made a dent in it. A couple of scarlet honeyeaters land directly above me, fire-engine red feathers stunning against the yellow banksias. Despite my pleasure in taking some time alone, I can’t help but wonder what the others are up to today.
Here’s the story, of a bunch of bladies …
That damn song is stuck in my head again. That’s another thing I thought would have settled down by now – my brain. It’s actually sped up, or else I’m only just noticing how crazy it is. The commentary flits between planning (finishing shelter, skills to master, places to explore), grumbling about the group and random memories. Today I’ve been at a New York cafe with the cute waiter who asks, “Is that chai on soy?” to which I coyly reply, “How did you guess?” I sometimes feel as if I’m deliberately generating these space fillers, avoiding silence like a nervous host.
There are chinks in my thought armour appearing, though. In the campfire game last night, I could not think of a four-letter word beginning with “m” that means “a lot”. And on the way to my sit spot this morning, my mind dropped into my body, sinking below the level of thought, as I fox-walked. When gaps in thought appear, I know them only in hindsight, my signal a warmth that suffuses my chest, a bodily pleasure in momentary stillness. I pause to take in a centipede riding the lean-to post, its legs rippling in seamless coordination. What will happen when these moments of stillness open windows that extend the view to vast horizons of open-sky mind?
Taking a bundle that is just wider than the circle made by my thumb and first finger, I roughly tap the roots into line before cinching them together with a surgeon’s knot. The first few are a bit rough before I find my rhythm.
The Blady Buuunnnnch … the Blady Buuuunnnnnch …
It’s been interesting to watch the other shelters rise up out of the dirt and assume the likeness of their makers, in either form or function, the way a pet might. Shaun has bravely pronounced his “finished” (a word that sits right alongside “waterproof” in its relative meaning). His shelter is a treehouse crossed with a rickety Thai beach hut, and he gallantly scales a knotted rope to his sleeping loft, only as wide as his shoulders, from where he can look out over the old quarry through his monocle – like a pirate. His roof looks like it’s just stumbled out of bed, blady grass sticking out at awkward angles from the A-frame corners. I wouldn’t have thought thatching was a method particularly conducive to patchwork, but Shaun keeps poking in a few more bundles to try and tame the roof’s mane, earning him the nickname “Ten More Bundles”. I think his “ten more bundles” refrain may be the excuse he uses in front of the boys for why he keeps accompanying me to the blady fields. Not that I’m complaining.
Dan’s shelters are progressing in short bursts of frenetic activity. First came the kitchen, then nothing happened for weeks. After that, he worked a fortnight of twelve-hour days notching logs to form a waist-high rectangular wall, in the style of a log cabin, which he sealed with clay. With another burst, he erected a roof frame of curved saplings like mine. Dan’s first foray into the blady fields quickly burnt up his remaining enthusiasm, and his shelter is now a blue-tarped mushroom that’s empty inside. Besides, he’s got other things on his mind – a love interest with a fella that was brewing before the bush year started has recommenced with ferocity via mobile phone and days away from camp. I just don’t get it, but it seems I’m the only one here who could quite happily don monastic robes this year.
True to her noncommittal style, Nikki has only just sunk her first post holes. Her shelter plans are the inverse of mine – a large, open lean-to. I can’t imagine how she will keep warm in winter, unless she plans to snuggle up with Ryan. If he finishes his shelter before winter, that is. Ryan’s Queenslander took a sharp turn when a miniature model illustrated one key design fault: the gently sloping grass roof did almost nothing to prevent a bucketload of water from falling straight through it. Instead he has borrowed from the wisdom of his home country, by beginning construction on a teepee of a size and stature to rival those of the Mohawks – a five-metre-high handmade ladder his only access to the top. To service it Ryan has created an outdoor woodworking studio and laid a tessellated, seven-sided raised floor, making his shelter big enough to raise ten kids inside. I’m in awe of the sheer amount of grass (and time) it’s going to take to thatch. He’s quick to cut off any doubtful talk, though: “I’ve always wanted to build something, so this is my chance. If it takes me all year, then so be it.” Spoken with Zen acceptance yet with not a small edge of defensive anxiety.
If Ryan is living in The Block Heights, his neighbour Chloe is in more of a working-class suburb. Like me, Chloe decided to live in the shed while the house went up. But as with many DIY-builder jobs, the shed has become the permanent dwel
ling, with various mismatched add-ons and extensions – a bit of a stringybark roof here, a bit of a thatched wall there. The one sloping wall that she covered in forest debris is proving to be a rodent haven. Still, it has a kind of impulsive, ramshackle charm, just like its owner.
And that’s how they became the Blady Bunch …
Now for the fun part. The hours of bundling translate quickly into rungs on the roof. I bunch the grass up tight and comb the edges together affectionately, as though running my fingers through someone’s hair. Fixing the last bundle, I step back to survey progress. Wow, that’s actually a quarter of my shelter thatched. If I really go hard, I could be done in a couple of weeks.
And then what? The question lands with an empty thud in the pit of my stomach, the wide-open space I’ve been hankering for suddenly becoming a cliff edge I’m walking towards.
*
As I drape my clothes over the fallen limb at the edge of the waterhole, I look down at my naked body. My arms are brown and buff, and I’ve definitely dropped some weight. My feet appear to have grown a size since being unshackled from shoes. They’re tanned and leathery, the soles etched with mud-stained cracks. After numerous stubs to one of my big toes, the toenail is threatening to fall off, while the skin of the other is peeling underneath. There are two other tender places on my feet, as if splinters are buried there, but I can’t find them. I’m still sporting the scars of the hundreds of tick bites I collected on one blady trip, the red dots that I’ve been scratching joining up to look like the rash of a venereal disease. I’m getting used to being dirty and bitten, and I’m not craving hot showers much at all while the waterhole is still warm. We humans are adaptable creatures, really. One welcome change is my hair. My no-shampoo experiment in the city was an oily disaster, but here the tannins in the water are licking it clean and shiny.
Easing myself into the shallow bend of the waterhole, I let out an audible sigh of relief. As I float on my back, gentle ripples massage the ache in my shoulders, my legs tingling from the day’s accumulated grass cuts. I breathe deep and long.
Bathing in water is almost as crucial to my survival as drinking it. Day after day it embraces me, soaking my dried-up inspiration to make it plump and full again. It reminds me that there is nowhere else I want to be but held in the cricked elbow of this nameless waterhole, feeling myself – if only for a moment – forget the sound of my own name.
2.
“March-fly bum, anyone?” Ryan says, offering the winged morsel he has just slapped on his thigh. I screw up my face and take a Thumbelina-sized bite of the hindquarters, trying not to flinch as a wing brushes my gums. A shot of honey-ish liquid bursts out of the sac onto my tongue.
“Sweet revenge, eh?” chuckles Bill, the laid-back woodsman who’s arrived to give a two-day advanced cordage and rope-making workshop. Laying out a cow skin rug, he tips a large knotted-string bag upside down, releasing dozens of balls of homemade cord in varying shades of brown, green and cream, some sturdy as sailor’s rope, others thin as fishing line. The skill that has gone into these is clear – there’s not a hint of a frayed edge or bumpy splice. That’s a piece of art right there, I think, eyeballing them eagerly.
“All here?” Bill asks. Jessie the dog races into the Gunyah in front of Dan, who collapses against the back pole. Chloe’s face is pinched and drawn as she writes in her journal; Shaun stands at the edge, tapping his foot. I nod politely from my cross-legged position down the front, Ryan and Nikki next to me.
“Welcome to the wonderful world of string and fibre,” Bill announces gaily, his face becoming serious as he leans his elbow on one knee and says, “Now, I reckon string has been given pretty short shrift in the scheme of things.
“Think about it – you need string for shelters, fire making, fishing nets and lines, snares and deadfall traps, baskets, lashing spears and stone tools …”
“Sewing,” Nikki jumps in.
“Yep, sewing clothes … I reckon it’s in the running to be pretty damn essential, don’t you?
“Now, we’re not going over the stuff you know, because two-strand reverse wrap is baby’s play. Nope, I’m talking three-strand, double reverse wrap, splicing, tanning …” he says, getting visibly excited.
“Your mission by the end of two days is, in two teams, to make four metres of triple-strand tanned rope and then see if we can’t have a good ol’ tug of war!”
The group is silent, except for Dan, who lets out a heavy sigh from the back.
“Nah, it’s not hard. Come on, let’s get started,” Bill says, mistaking our lack of enthusiasm for intimidation at the task, not realising that the real challenge is the idea of working together – all except for the one undaunted team player.
“Cool, okay, who’s on my team?” asks Nik, jumping up.
My string envy overcomes my resistance to yet another group activity, and I wander over to where Bill is explaining the different materials.
“Lomandra and dianella – absolute gems.” They’re both abundant around here, but I tried using them fresh and wasn’t too impressed with the results. “You gotta strip ’em green, hang ’em to dry, then re-soak ’em,” Bill explains.
Holding out his wrist, he pulls hard at a fine thread bracelet to demonstrate the strength of the gymea lily, well known around the Sydney sandstone area for its enormous single red flower. Bill sets Shaun to work on its large flat leaf, showing him how to pound the thick central vein with just the right strength to loosen but not break the fibres, then clean off the snotty cellulose with his thumbnail. To Chloe and Dan, Bill offers the rainforest options – cordyline leaves, bangalow palm flowers and leaf sheaths, and the inner bark of fig and stinging trees. Ryan takes hold of the New Zealand flax that Bill pinched from a park garden on his way here.
“And now for my hands-down favourite,” Bill says, unwrapping a long bundle of damp hessian to reveal two long skinny saplings. “Native hibiscus.” Picking a leaf, he hands it to me, the rough edges giving way to a tart lemony flavour in my mouth.
Unzipping the bark from the trunk in one long cut, I lay it flat and use the back of my knife to scrape off the green outer layer, until the starchy white of the inner bark is all that remains. Bill coils it up and swaps it with some he has had soaking for two weeks. “Perfectly ripe,” he says, with a glint in his eye, the dripping bundle he hands me sporting the distinctive smell of rotting vegetation.
I watch as Bill pushes the belt of bark together so that it buckles up in paper-thin layers, which he separates off with his thumb. Compared to the coarse wattle, it’s like weaving with white chocolate, the string falling from my fingers in easy cream rolls. It’s such a pleasure that I can almost block out the noise of Dan updating Chloe on his love life.
“So, how’s the shelter building going, folks?” Bill asks.
“Finished,” says Shaun.
“Taking way too long,” I say.
“As long as a length of string?” Bill grins.
Ryan looks up at me sharply. “What is it with you and time? Ever since you’ve arrived everything has been, ‘Can’t do it, it’ll take too long.’”
“Well, sorry, but I do actually have other plans this year, apart from playing with grass.” My face flushes.
Bill looks perplexed. Poor fella, he doesn’t realise he’s just happily waltzed his string bag into a smouldering volcano, the pressure of several months of communal bush living cracking the thin crust of niceness and civility to form ever-wider fissures. My brothers’ jokes about Lord of the Flies don’t seem so far-fetched now. Our small community, which I hoped would provide mutual support for each other’s exploration of the wilds, seems intent on focusing on human drama. Perhaps a Buddhist monastery, or an ashram in India would have been a better choice for me to find the space I crave? But I know I don’t want to be shuttered within four walls; I want my meditation to be a sensory experie
nce, with the forest – and not a dusty text – as my guide.
Jessie chases a butterfly, taking with him all of Ryan’s carefully split fibres.
“Is it too much to ask you to control your dog?” Ryan says to Dan, with a death stare.
“He’s not meant to be at the workshops anyway,” I say, already pissed off that I was woken last night by the roar of Dan’s van, Kylie Minogue’s latest album blaring, when he drove right up to his shelter, despite the no-vehicles rule on the property.
“Okay, folks, now I’m gonna show you the best way to stop this rope from fraying,” Bill says, demonstrating how to splice the end of the rope back in on itself.
Ryan sniggers. “Too late for that.”
“I don’t get it. Where does this bit go?” Dan says, looking as dark as charcoal as he wrestles with his rope.
“Look, you just pick up this piece and divide it in two,” Nikki explains.
“If you just listened for once, you’d get it,” Shaun mutters, frustrated at his own mess of knots.