The House on the Hill

by Susan Duncan

  ‘But we won’t haggle if someone’s doing it tough, ok? No one likes to profit from another person’s misfortune,’ I said to Bob.

  ‘Let’s wait and see what happens,’ he replied.

  As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Anyone who buys and sells cattle in endlessly fluctuating markets driven by drought, floods, over-supply or under-supply or the whims of governments who make decisions from their often self-serving, short-sighted inner sanctums has to know the value of a dollar to the last cent. It’s mostly the dreamy-eyed city slickers like us who really need looking after.

  When the net failed to throw up anything interesting, we booked a room at the local dog-friendly B & B and walked through the door of one of two real estate agents located in town. We settled on a bloke called Peter, primarily because he didn’t flinch at allowing a white-hair-shedding old doggie in his nice, clean car. While he wasn’t even remotely rough-edged compared to the more slippery and opportunistic members of the species who dealt in Sydney’s boom-or-bust housing markets, he exuded a reassuring earthiness that inspired trust and confidence. He ferried us around (at a speed we found alarming on narrow country roads but that we later learned was legal and normal) with endless patience and good humour.

  Each night, we lobbed back at the B & B to dine on a sumptuous feast highlighting local produce. Comboyne cheeses, locally grown vegetables, relishes from a Wingham café called Bent and German-style smoked meats from a Taree butcher named Rudi, famous for his streaky bacon, sausages and salamis. A fire blazed warmly. Chippy was tucked comfortably and quietly in her own soft bed. The wine was excellent. It seemed like all the signals were pointing in the right direction.

  One thing we’d learned, though, was just because a place was called Flat – as in Dolly’s Flat, Wherrol Flat, Cundle Flat or Caffrey’s Flat – the term had no bearing on the actual landscape. At best, it meant comparatively flat or referred to small areas of river flats. Mostly, the terrain was a roller-coaster of hills – high, fat, steep, rocky, wooded, cleared. But climb them, and we found that the views were spectacular. Hills, we decided, could be tolerated. The right hills, of course. Nothing too steep. Nothing too wild. Nothing too difficult.

  But as winter drifted into spring and then summer, nothing appealed. We were in danger of losing our enthusiasm, wondering if the whole idea had been crazy from the word go. But neither of us voiced that thought. Not out loud, anyway.

  On cue, the silly season engulfed Pittwater. For some reason, I idly thought it would be lovely to have an offshore Christmas choir. Bring together people who liked to sing Christmas carols, on-key, off-key or even tone deaf, it didn’t matter. No pressure, Pittwater style. It would be a salute to the holidays, community and our environment. It would be lovely to perform on a barge, I thought, anchored in Frog Hollow, where the acoustics of a small bay backed by a steep escarpment would help give our voices volume. If we could find a choirmaster as well, to instil a little musical cohesion and finesse, it would add to the mix. Offshorers could prepare a picnic, throw out an anchor, get comfy in a tinny and join in the singing as the sun went down and the nocturnal wildlife of the Ku-ring-gai Chase slowly woke. And while voices carried across the water, the pulsing sea under the hull would lull, soothe and settle spirits worn ragged by the rush of Christmas. Restore and, in a gentle way, ready us for the big day ahead.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked Bob.

  ‘I’ll do what I can to help but don’t ever, ever ask me to sing.’

  It didn’t occur to me until much later that it was precisely the same sort of hazily considered idea my mother might have come up with.

  When Toby Jay and Dave Shirley agreed to let us sing on their muscly lighter, the Laurel Mae, I knew the idea had legs. I began searching for a choirmaster.

  ‘You’ll never get Doc Lloyd,’ everyone said. ‘He’s been asked to establish a community choir heaps of times. Says outdoor musical events are a nightmare, he can’t condone the presence of alcohol at any performance, and he has an aversion to wobbly women’s voices.’ Strike three, I thought, but you’ve got to ask, don’t you?

  John Lloyd lived on Scotland Island. His CV included Director of the Centre for Research and Education in the Arts at the University of Technology, Sydney and conductor of numerous university and community choirs and orchestras. He had a stellar reputation as a serious classical musician. He was way out of our league, but I called him anyway.

  ‘We want to sing carols at Christmas,’ I blurted. ‘On a barge in Frog Hollow. Have locals rock up in their tinnies with a picnic to join in. Pure Pittwater. Nothing flash. Not sure the singers will even be able to hold a tune. Will you help out?’

  There was a second’s hesitation, then a light but gravelly voice replied, ‘How many people do you think will come?’

  ‘Ten. Maybe a few more.’

  ‘When do you want to start rehearsals?’

  ‘As soon as we find a piano.’

  There was a longer hesitation. ‘John Marshall has one. Perhaps he’ll let us borrow it.’

  I disconnected and shouted: ‘Yay! It’s a goer.’

  John Marshall and his wife, Melanie, own and run PMC Hill Real Estate, specialising in offshore sales. They are both kind-hearted and generous in the ways that matter – with their time and their effort.

  ‘When do you need it?’ John Marshall asked, as though it was no big deal to load a piano onto a small tinny to cross choppy waters to Lovett Bay, unload and get it up eighty-eight steps.

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Yeah, ok, leave it with me.’

  ‘Bob will help.’

  ‘Nah, we’ll be right.’

  And so, in the magic-wand tradition of offshorers, Carols Afloat was born.

  We recruited singers through our local information networks, Brigitte’s Bay News and Pittwater Offshore News, and asked all volunteers to assemble at Tarrangaua at 6.30 pm for a 7 pm start. Bring whatever your tipple to grease the vocal chords, we said, and a light supper will be provided after rehearsal.

  It was an enthusiastic but slightly shambolic beginning – not enough word sheets, a few carols none of us knew and, given the wetness of the season, plenty of leeches to be picked off legs and feet. But somehow, John Lloyd, who has Welsh blood running through his veins and a streak of authority none of us were bold or dumb enough to question, inveigled a group of close to thirty larrikin spirits to stop chatting and focus.

  ‘Now,’ he said, tapping a baton on the top of the piano for attention. ‘Who can read music?’ Two hands hesitantly went up. ‘Ah,’ he said, perhaps truly aware for the first time of the challenges that lay ahead. He ran his fingers over the keyboard, hit a few chords and, it seemed to us, resigned himself good-naturedly to our motley lot.

  We warbled thinly and with muddied tones through ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. Limped on through a repertoire of twenty-two traditional carols, growing a little more forceful.

  ‘Ok,’ John said finally, ‘that wasn’t bad.’ We all laughed, grinned and slapped each other’s backs in congratulation. The baton tapped the piano once more. Silence fell. ‘Now,’ John added, ‘let’s try to turn it into music.’

  John effortlessly transposed keys in his head so we could (almost) hit the high or low notes. Patient, always patient. A little testy only when we dropped the ‘h’ from ‘heaven’ or failed to crisply finish words ending in ‘t’ or ‘d’. When we’d sung our lungs out and felt limp with exhaustion – singing for a long time is much harder physically than you’d think – we found places at tables on the verandah to share food, wine and conversation. Which is at the heart of all that is our offshore Pittwater life. Nothing could ever equal it. So why, I wondered, were we searching elsewhere for a place to call home? It was temporary madness. We’d recover soon and ditch the plan completely.

  As our performance date drew closer, someone came up with the idea of including onshorers in the celebration. There had been long-running, heated debates between both sides
about changes to the car park and commuter dock. We could ride the barge from Lovett Bay to The Point and sing again for anyone who wanted to stroll from mainland homes to the jetty and ferry wharf to join in. There was only one ironclad rule: ‘Don’t fall overboard on the trip from Frog Hollow to The Point. We won’t turn around to pick you up.’

  While the choir warbled along with small improvements and much raucousness each week, the turbulence between my mother and me only increased. Esther complained about seeing double. Used little foot-tapping gestures, like a blind person, before stepping forward. And yet, in a restaurant, she read the menu without difficulty. As usual, I had no idea how to extricate truth from attention-seeking play-acting. Each week, I heaved her walker into the back of the car. Scooped up the papers that fell out of the under-seat carrier. Mostly out-of-date flyers announcing village activities. Christmas and birthday cards from friends who made the effort to stay in touch. Some of them years old.

  ‘Bum first,’ I ordered, ‘or you’ll end up in a tangled mess.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she replied, making small, hesitant movements, her feet at weird angles as she twisted her body to feel her way towards the car seat.

  ‘Do you want help?’

  ‘No! I can do it. I can do anything.’

  It played out identically every time.

  There were changes in her, though. Her ankles were so swollen that flesh spilled over the edge of her shoes. Her fingers looked like fat sausages, the rings so tight I worried they might cut off circulation and I’d find her one day, sitting fingerless on the sofa, her digits lying on the floor where they’d dropped.

  ‘Have you seen the doctor lately?’ I asked.

  ‘He comes to my room every week. All the others inmates have to make an appointment to see him in his surgery. I’m special.’

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘About what?’

  I sighed. Out of the blue, she said, ‘I think I was jealous of John’s wife. He was my son, after all, and I found it difficult to see him with another woman.’

  ‘Blind Freddy could have told you that,’ I responded.

  Our father, by the time John and I were teenagers, had descended so deep into the bottle he would never find his way back to daylight. For all that, he was an easy drunk. He strove for oblivion, not confrontation. So my brother was the one who took my mother to glamorous restaurants, bought her expensive clothes, whipped her away for weekends in Sydney or Adelaide and sent her shopping while he went to the races. When he married, the whirl that lifted her out of the dull flatline of her beer-sodden suburbia came to an abrupt end. Outraged, my mother tried so hard to foul the marriage that my brother banned her from the house until Esther came to her senses. It took years.

  ‘He loved me, though. He really did. I know he did,’ Esther said. I squirmed in my seat. The words were somehow un-maternal. Unfitting. Should I remind her how she tried to undo my first marriage? I didn’t see it, of course. I never saw her self-interest so rat cunningly disguised as maternal concern. Not even after my late husband spelled it out in words of one syllable.

  ‘She wants the best for me,’ I insisted.

  ‘She wants the lot for her,’ he retaliated. But still, I couldn’t reject a lifetime’s conditioning that, in all things, my mother must come first and that, like most mothers, she held my best interests at heart.

  At her most generous, she wanted my brother and me to excel because she planned to tag along on our coat-tails. It all went screwy because as much as she desired our success, when we achieved any small measure, she envied and, occasionally, even tried to sabotage it.

  One day, I pulled into our habitual park at the beach. Reached for her coffee, resting on the dashboard. She tried to remove the lid. ‘No, no, remember? You drink through the slit. That way nothing gets spilled.’

  ‘We didn’t have things like this when I was young. A cup was good enough.’ For some reason, the conversation turned to death. ‘Your brother will be pleased to see me. Your father, too.’ A familiar refrain.

  We talked about the Bonegilla days. ‘Wish I’d known that was as good as it was going to get,’ she said. It was the 1950s, she was the beautiful blonde and extroverted wife who shone brightly in the small pond of Bonegilla Migrant Camp, where the Australians were at the top of the social order and treated like royalty, which suited my mother perfectly. Good, though?

  I remembered kindergarten. Another kid whacking me in the sandpit on my first day and the reeling shock of it. I remembered weekend movies – mostly swashbuckling comedies. The kindness of a teacher who took me home and fed me frankfurters cooked on a bar radiator. I remembered my father drunk at the club. The fear of him swerving all over the road on the short trip home. I remembered my mother playing weekend tennis. My brother selling soft drinks at the tennis club to make pocket money. I remembered migrants rioting. The Italians about the quality of the food. The Hungarians over a soccer match. Shutting ourselves inside our house until the furore ended. I remembered my mother nagging my father to get us a billet in Block 21, which had more social kudos than Block 23. Or was it the other way around? I remembered my mother being called to look at my finger paintings in preschool. Black and white shapes. Pages and pages of them. Never a skerrick of colour.

  ‘Is there anything you’d like to tell us?’ the teacher asked, her voice comforting and full of concern.

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘Has anyone done anything to you? Hurt you?’ the teacher asked.

  ‘No,’ I said, again. I seem to recall my heart pounded. That I shook with fear and shame. My grandfather was two hundred miles away and I was still terrified. I recalled I wore a smock in finger-painting class to keep my clothes clean. Recalled my mother wore a dress with large buttons down the front. How did she miss the clues?

  I changed the subject: ‘I’ve been trying to find a couple of leather chairs like your red ones. They don’t make them anymore.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be long before you get mine,’ Esther replied, gearing up for a round of emotional blackmail.

  I pounced hard and fast. ‘They’re the wrong colour. And anyway, it’ll take a vet’s needle to see you off once and for all.’

  Caught out, she laughed from deep in her belly. ‘You realise we’ve both got a shockingly black sense of humour?’ she replied, still grinning.

  ‘Who said I was joking?’ We laughed long and loud but one day, I promised myself, I will ask her if she knew. Soon, I thought. Because time was running out and if she died I would spend the rest of my life wondering.

  ‘We’re singing carols on a barge this year,’ I said. ‘Why don’t I pick you up a couple of days earlier for Christmas so you can be part of it?’

  Esther’s eyes lit up, the little toe-tapper in her rising to the surface. ‘On the barge? With you?’

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t think we’d be able to get you on board. I meant you could watch from the chair in the garden. It looks directly at Frog Hollow. You’d have a prime spot.’ Wreaths of disappointment engulfed her face. ‘Sorry,’ I added, ‘too risky. If you went overboard you’d be a goner by the time we managed to rescue you. Mind you, those water wings of yours would probably keep you afloat.’ But she didn’t even smile.

  On the night of the carols, the choir gathered at the Lovett Bay Boatshed, decked out in red, green and white, wearing silly reindeer hats and flashing earrings and neckties. The piano was carried out of Tarrangaua and lifted into the back of Bob’s toylike but grunty red truck, where it was tied down firmly to survive the thirty-five-degree descent on a bumpy sandstone track. John Marshall and a wonderful photographer, Chuck Bradley, who’d been a tireless organiser at every rehearsal, set up speakers and microphones. Mick Morris provided a generator for power. Toby Jay kept track of wires, cords and ordered us to stay clear of the edges. John Lloyd, his white hair frothing, ran his fingers lightly over the keys. Outdoors, the sound was like magic conjured from air in the trees, zephyrs skimming the water.
He asked where the piano stool might be hidden. There were blank looks. Then the youngest one amongst us ran up the steps to retrieve it.

  While we waited for the final technical details to be sorted, the choir took up positions in three sections (soprano, alto and men) and sang a few scales. No one noticed black clouds rising on the horizon until they blocked the evening light. ‘Is it going to rain?’ we asked each other, appalled, unwilling to believe that six weeks of rehearsals might end in a cancelled performance.

  Someone said loudly, ‘What we need is a Christmas miracle.’ And bizarrely, a few moments later, the clouds broke apart and scudded away to the north and south. Sun poured down from the heavens. Blue filled the space above our heads. The choir sent up a loud, triumphant cheer. John launched into ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’. We opened the wine earlier than we’d intended and raised a toast to unseen beneficent forces.

  Toby steered the Laurel Mae into Frog Hollow with a feather-light touch, deftly and skilfully dodging million-dollar boats on moorings and a flotilla of tinnies already anchored with picnics underway. It was a wonderful, quintessentially Pittwater sight. I looked up at the chair where I’d suggested my mother sit and listen. It was empty.

  10

  OUT OF THE BLUE, Esther announced she had a new boyfriend. ‘Well, friend, really, but he’s very fond of me. We met on a blind date.’ My mind reeled.

  ‘Blind date?’ I croaked. I was seated in one of the red leather chairs in her room, waiting to take her out to lunch.

  She smiled in a dreamy, smitten way: ‘His name is Stefan. We’ve already been on a bus trip together.’

  ‘Bus trip?’ I was struggling. My mother loathed buses. The only public transport she approved were taxis. ‘He wants me to convert to Catholicism so I’ll be able to find my way to life everlasting. Told him I already had a religion.’