by Inga Simpson
Wonder
From the kitchen sink, she watched a male fairy-wren performing on the deck railing, head tilted back, eyes closed, as if in wonder at its own song. The volume of trills and range of notes produced by such a tiny bundle of bones and feathers was indeed wondrous, defying physical, if not earthly, laws.
It was John Burroughs who said that you did not know a bird until you heard its song. For her, the point of knowing was when you could pick a bird out of the forest cacophony without sighting it. Jen was at that stage with many of her companions, though only through cheating: three years of observing them, singing, at her birdbaths.
Their personality was just as evident in the way they bathed. The treecreeper entered the water the same way he went about the rest of his day, in a series of furtive, jerky, vertical movements up the post, until encountering the lip of the dish. Where, caught blind, he listened to establish whether another bird was present above him. Then he had to take a leap, up to the edge of the bath, and if all was clear, would turn and back into the water, as if fearing attack.
The fairy-wrens, on the other hand, dived in headfirst, entering on one side of the dish and exiting on the other, hopping between the two dishes with a great deal of splashing and chirping, in celebration of water and life in general – as they were doing now, the extended family of husband, wife and their three children, two female and one male.
She felt guilty, sometimes, a voyeur intruding on their private space. Although they did not disrobe – or defeather – she was watching them go about their ablutions. Sometimes she thought the birds conscious of her, as a living thing, but perhaps they had grown so used to her they thought her part of the furniture.
She wiped up her cup and bowl and placed them in the cupboard. Her mother had liked birds, the more colourful the better, hanging seed-feeders out in the backyard to attract the parrots and parakeets. She had been fond of the chooks and ducks and even the turkeys they had tried to farm for a while, in another of her father’s grand schemes that never quite came off. Jen had been afraid of those large, caged birds, their wrinkled feet and spurs a source of quiet horror. Even as an adult, she could not bring herself to run chooks, despite the obvious benefits, which was probably somewhat perverse for a bird woman.
She had chosen her mother’s room at the nursing home for its little balcony with a low-slung blue gum, heavy with red blossom. She had hoped her mother would not only enjoy its plumes but the conversation of the lorikeets and rosellas. As it turned out, they made quite a mess on the deck – and the little table and chair Jen had put there for her to sit at – but she could hear the birds, all year round, even while in bed, which was one of the few things that seemed to give her any pleasure.
Jen had done some pieces for her mother’s room, a series of king parrots in colour wash, to brighten the place, hanging one above the bed and another by her armchair. The ladies seemed to appreciate them, bringing in visitors to view the pictures of birds, rather than those outside. Her mother, although irritated by the interruption at times, was quite proud, one of the nurses had told her, talking up her ‘artist daughter’.
Jen had never seen any sign of such pride herself, the only comment coming shortly after she had hung them. ‘You should use colour more often, dear,’ her mother had said. ‘Everyone likes a bit of colour.’
The birds at the baths celebrated the sun’s descent. Lewin’s honeyeaters snapped away fantails and white-eyes; wrens and pardalotes made way for the robins; and the treecreepers preferred to bathe alone. Through sheer numbers, the robins tended to rule the roost. She took a glass of wine out onto the deck. The thing that had been worrying its way forward for weeks now, slowed by her trying to worry back at it, trying to dig it out rather than let it work its way free, was upon her.
For all their stories, Sam and Glen had not once mentioned her father’s last job, the development on the edge of town. If Sam didn’t get him the job, he would have at least known about it.
It was no longer the edge, but some sort of middle, overrun by housing estates, a new school and park, the outlying houses infilled as blocks were sold up and split off. A light industrial area had sprung up, with a factory that turned fruit into straps and another that put herbs in a tube. The sort of project lauded for its innovation and employment opportunities.
When her father and his team had begun clearing, it had been controversial. She remembered that much. Her parents whispering after dinner, when she was supposed to be asleep. ‘We need the money, love,’ he’d said. The phone would ring in the middle of the night, but after the first few times, no one answered it.
At the time she had thought the fuss was about the destruction of the forest guarding the town’s edge, and perhaps for some it was. In those days, though, trees were a minority concern. The town relied on the timber-getters and the economy they created. They were the economy.
There must have been something else about the development, though: the people behind it, or the process. Not that there was much of a process in those days.
Children
She woke up tired. The neighbour’s dog had barked half the night, starting a chorus of hounds all around the district. Sound carried on a clear and otherwise quiet night, and she had counted half-a-dozen different voices. They were not the voices she wished to hear. When she had first moved back, there were one or two dogs about. Now everyone seemed to have one. If she had a dog, which she would not, she would be mortified if it disturbed the peace in that way – how did their owners just sleep through it?
The brush turkeys were out and about, more ugly and bedraggled than ever. There were three of them now, which was a worrying development. One made a half-hearted attempt to chase another off. A child, blow-in or rival, she wasn’t sure. They strolled the lawn with feathers flat to their bodies and showed no interest in scratching up her gardens, so she let them be.
Jen paused, hand on her cup. The fairy-wrens were cavorting below the deck and up into the birdbaths, their tails, longer than their bodies, held at a jaunty angle. They lived up to ten years, which was a long time for a bird. They tended to settle in one place, a territory of a few hectares, in an extended family arrangement – a habit returning to favour in the human world – the offspring often delaying setting out on their own in favour of the security of home territory. Although the group might have more than two adults capable of brooding, only one female laid the eggs each year. When the young wrens did finally disperse, it was usually the females who up and left.
She had always known Craig didn’t want children. At first she assumed that he would change his mind when he was older, or that she could change his mind for him. Not through arguing or mounting some sort of campaign but by loving him. Demonstrating that their relationship was worth it. That she was worth it.
He was right. If she had wanted them enough, she would have raised the question – pushed the issue.
She had wanted children only in an abstract sort of way, as an extension of their relationship, but she had never felt clucky or fussed over babies the way some women did. There was something about teaching that soon drummed any idealism about child rearing out of you. She enjoyed them, their open minds and hearts, and had assumed she would get more maternal as she matured, that something would kick in. But it hadn’t.
She had put Craig first, before herself, and had to nurture her art in secret. There hadn’t been enough energy left over for a child.
The truth was, she hadn’t found the right man. She had just left it too late to admit it. When the time came – when she could no longer keep the realisation out of her mind – she waited until Craig was at work, packed her things in three hours and hit the road. No note. Of all people, she should have had more regard for the person left behind, but it was the only way she could be sure she wouldn’t change her mind.
Perhaps it was for the best that she hadn’t passed on any of her defective genes: a father who left, a mother who broke down, and a child who perpetuated their pa
tterns.
Protest
Glen found her planting out another tray of seedlings. Davidson plums, tamarinds, and a quandong. Food trees – as much for the birds as for herself. Aunt Sophie had made a Davidson plum tart one year, picking up a bucket of fruit at some market. Jen would have to wait seven years for the tree to mature, the label said. It was going to be a long time between pies.
‘I didn’t hear the ute,’ she said.
‘Parked up the top,’ Glen said. ‘Perfect day, isn’t it.’
‘It is.’
He looked about him, at the new plantings and freshly mowed lawn. ‘You’ve got things looking good,’ he said.
She tried to see it with his eyes, without all the flaws hers tended to focus on. All the things that needed doing. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m going to a meeting in town. About that A-hole developer’s plans,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you might like to come along.’
She had seen something about it in the paper, a shopping centre and units. There was a petition she should have signed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘We need to stop this guy,’ he said. ‘The original proposal wasn’t too bad, a little shopping centre with parking underneath, a few units. But he’s managed to buy up half the town on the sly, and now he’s changed the development proposal. A new bank and a big supermarket. Forty-two units.’
Jen frowned, trying to picture it. ‘Where?’
‘The park goes, and all the original houses on Dale Street. The nice old shops opposite.’
‘That would completely change the nature of the town.’
‘Exactly.’
Jen looked herself over, gardening clothes, dirty hands. ‘I’m not really dressed for it.’
Glen smiled. ‘We could use your support, Jen. And you’ll meet some good people.’
The quandong was out of its punnet but not yet in the ground, and they all needed watering in.
‘I’ll finish this,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you clean up.’
It seemed she was out of excuses. ‘Won’t be long,’ she said.
She brushed herself off and scraped out of her boots at the back door, then peeled off her jeans and shirt and dropped them in the laundry basket.
She found a clean pair of fisherman’s pants in the wardrobe and pulled a fresh T-shirt from the drying rack. Tied her hair back into a ponytail. In answer to her stomach’s grumble, she took two Granny Smiths from the bowl on the dining table. Her slides were at the front door; she’d have to go round.
Glen was washing his hands under the tap. He had finished the planting, watered in the seedlings and stacked the empty punnets next to the watering can.
‘Ready?’ he said.
‘Ready.’ She threw him an apple.
He caught it in his left hand, smiled. ‘Thanks.’
They walked up to the ute, crunching. Sun on their faces. Glen wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Opened the door for her and cleared off the seat. Bills and soft drink bottles spilled out. He couldn’t have counted on her coming along, which was good to know.
He held the apple in his mouth while he reversed out of the drive and then drove one-handed towards town.
‘How’s Karen?’
‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘Having a few problems with Sarah, at the moment. She wants her freedom and independence. And we want to know where she is – At All Times.’
‘It’s hard not to worry. Especially now.’
‘I know the Jones girl and Michael were probably one-offs, but —’
Jen looked at her apple.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
They had stopped eating. ‘We don’t know that,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty to worry about.’
He crunched his apple.
They passed the lagoon, empty of birds today.
‘Didn’t some of the land you’re talking about belong to the council?’
Glen nodded. ‘They sold it to him.’
‘Can they do that? Without putting it on the market?’
‘Apparently.’ He took one last bite of the apple and threw the core out the open window. ‘The guy’s a real sneak. He came along to a community meeting years ago. We were trying to come up with ways to bring the town together, give it a heart. He already owned a lot of property then but pretended he was on the same page. That’s where we came up with the idea for the market space and the walkway.’
‘He was planning a development all along?’
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘He got all the information he needed at the meetings, all of the property owners’ details. And approached them, one by one. Somehow, he stopped them talking to each other. A year or so later – boom – he owns the centre of town.’
Jen picked a piece of apple skin from between her teeth. ‘What a bastard.’
‘You got that right.’
A semitrailer laden with mangoes pulled in to the fruit strap factory. ‘Has Sam ever mentioned that development that went bust here when we were kids?’
‘Only that it was a rotten business,’ Glen said.
Jen turned. ‘Was he involved?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I only remembered it the other day,’ she said. ‘I guess there was so much else going on.’
Glen pulled a face. ‘Over our heads then, that sort of stuff.’
‘I guess it’s our turn, now,’ Jen said. ‘To do something. So – where’s this meeting?’
Storm
The irises, for once, hadn’t seen it coming. By the time their flowers began to open, it was already raining. Cyclone Haydos must have been heading somewhere else, changed course at the last minute and fooled nature herself. It was encouraging, especially for the Bureau of Meteorology, that even irises could be wrong.
Above the rain and the wind, the roaring in the treetops, she heard the piping call of a lone treecreeper, optimistic as ever.
The trees were lathering themselves, soapy suds running down their trunks and foaming at the base. Their tannins doubled as a washing agent; the trees were taking the opportunity to bathe.
She watched as the wind picked up, bending the treetops over. Water rushed over the gutter outside the kitchen window. The rain was about as heavy as she had ever seen but the downpipe must have blocked, or the strainer the plumber had talked her into installing, not realising the volume of leaves and rain it would have to deal with. She had meant to clean the gutters properly again by now – but had put it off one day too long.
Jen pulled her singlet over her head and stepped out of her fisherman’s pants, leaving them in a pile on the floor, like a slipped skin. She shut the back door behind her and ran out into the rain. It was coming down in slap-like drops. Slops. The roar was disorienting and her hair was soon plastered to her head. She had to stand on the edge of the deck to reach the box downpipe. Water washed over her, forcing her to work blind, unclipping the cover, removing the filter and plunging her arm in to the elbow. She removed a plug of leaves and muck from the bend and threw it over her shoulder, then another.
The waterfall ceased, rushing down the gutter again instead, beneath the house and into her underground tank. She tapped out the sieve and put it back in place, then the mesh cover, before stepping back down to the ground. The force of the water had washed a great hole in her garden bed, sending her plants sailing out onto the lawn, each its own island.
She ran back to the cover of the deck and stood dripping on the boards, the rain deafening on the iron. No sign of the birds today.
She slipped and slid to the bathroom for a towel.
Still it came down. Seven hundred millimetres in twenty-four hours alone and eighteen hundred for the week. The underground tank had been overflowing for days. The rain was so loud on the roof overnight she had not been able to sleep. That and worrying about the water getting in around the fireplace and the corner of her studio.
All she could smell was damp wood. She had lit the fire to try to dry things out, turned on all of the
fans. Burned incense to cover it over.
She had been cut off since the morning before. No phone, no internet, no mobile reception, and the road out flooded in both directions. Her own driveway was a stream, and the steps down to the house a cascade.
The power had been out for eighteen hours, and then returned after breakfast. On one side of the house, anyway. The other was still dead, probably just a circuit shorted out. She had hooked up an extension cord, running yellow across the dining room, to keep the fridge going.
Jen watched the clock. The second hand, she was sure, had just moved backwards: stealing time. There, it did it again. One back, three forward. How long had it been doing that? She marched into her studio and turned on her laptop, waiting for it to wake up and tell her it was ten past twelve. The clock said twenty-five past nine. No wonder she had felt out of whack. How long had she been operating in her own private time zone? There was a new battery, at the back of the kitchen drawer, still in its packet. She pulled the clock down and changed the battery over, reset the time, and hung the clock back on the screw in the wall, adjusting it until it was straight. It didn’t move. It had stopped altogether. Swiss it might be, but her clock could not keep time in the tropics. It probably dreamt of snow and dry air, the alps of home.
There was a line of condensation spreading outwards on the freezer door. Its seals were on the way out, although only a few years old. Fridges were apparently not designed for high humidity. The complaints representative had explained that the problem was that she was failing to moderate the indoor temperature with air-conditioning – a larger fridge – so that the smaller fridge could work in comfort.
Only the television worked fine, beaming in calamitous images that had become addictive. The coast had been declared a disaster area, whole towns cut off, roads caved in and washed away. Every river, stream and seasonal creek had broken its banks, and still the rain came down and water rushed off the land; there were flood warnings across most of the state. The worst in a hundred years, they said.