by Susan Duncan
The words are out before I can stop them. Bob's shoulders slump. I feel I've betrayed a trust. 'But wallabies eat everything so there's no point in even trying,' I add hastily.
Jeanne looks at the two of us standing with our backs to Lovett Bay. Before us, the house looks both powerful and restrained. Shadows dance on windows, enigmatic, inscrutable . . . the closed, other-world feel of the place. I shrug off a sudden wave of pessimism.
'You cannot live in a house like this without at least having a good go,' Jeanne insists. 'It doesn't have to cost much. I'll call you every time we prune at Waterfall Cottage. Nearly anything will grow from a cutting.'
***
Bob relents on the spathiphyllums and Jeanne and I roar off to a nursery to pick up a swag.
'I'll choose the plants for you,' she says. 'My father taught me how to pick healthy specimens.'
'Fine by me.'
The nursery spreads over a couple of acres in the backblocks of Sydney's west. Rows of trees, shrubs, hedge plants, weeping plants, frothy plants, water plants, scratchy plants and fragrant plants. Thick plants, skinny plants, silver ones and emerald green. And every shade in between, even purple and brown. But the brown foliage looks dead and depressing and I walk straight past it. Pots of flowers – pink, red, white, yellow, blue – beckon seductively, but they are meant for cottage gardens with a permanent water supply and chocolate soil, not hard-packed clay, seams of sandstone and voracious wallabies. It would be futile to succumb.
The spathiphyllums are under shadecloth, a surging sea of massive, rippling green leaves. Jeanne picks up a pot, stares at the base, puts it back. 'It always amazes me when people walk into a nursery and pick up a plant without checking it out. Nurseries sell seasonally, so you'll look at hundreds of azaleas at one time. But each of them is different. Don't just pick up the closest or the one with the most flowers. Look carefully for new growth, healthy leaves and stems. Check for vigorous roots, although I don't worry if they're pot-bound. You're going to loosen the roots anyway when you put them in the ground. And check the leaves for diseases. You don't want to take a problem home to a healthy garden.'
Jeanne lifts each spathiphyllum and searches for new growth, gently pushing aside leaves to look into the soil. 'Three for the price of one!' she announces cheerfully when she finds plants that have begun multiplying in the pot.
We fill the car with fifty vigorous spathiphyllums glossy with health, and a few potted flowers I know won't live beyond a few weeks. But they give such joy that in the end I cannot resist. Once, when I was three-quarters of the way through chemo treatment, I felt too tired and ill to move beyond the house so I sat next to a gardenia in a pot on the deck, with my little dog lying comfortingly on my feet like a furry guardian. The first flowers of the season were out, pure and white and so fragrant that if I closed my eyes I could imagine myself in some faraway exotic garden. It gave me an intensity of pleasure I can hardly describe, like my body and soul had been briefly flung into a rapturous universe. It was the moment I understood why the very old and ill refuse to let go of life.
I load the last spathiphyllum into the car. Jeanne eases the leaves down gently so they won't be damaged when I slam shut the rear door.
'You're so careful, Jeanne.'
'Because it takes time for plants to grow and when you are old, you never know whether you'll be around to see if what you carelessly hurt recovers.'
'When they flower, it will look like white sails floating in the garden,' I murmur dreamily.
'Lovely,' Jeanne sighs.
We celebrate our vision of the years ahead by stopping on the way home for a creamy yellow tart with slivers of ruby baked quince on top. Coffee, fragrant and steaming. With sugar. What is coffee without the sweetness to balance the bitterness?
There was a time when I would have reached for a glass of champagne or, at the very least, wine, and I would have lost the rest of the day and most of the desire. I am so glad, so very, very glad, I have found richer ways to celebrate. In the evenings, when the habit of a drink is strongest, I pick up my knitting. I'm a terrible knitter, but I keep going, square after square, right through what used to be the cocktail hour. When I have enough squares, I sew them into blankets. The last blanket I knitted is on our bed. Pale blue, cream and light brown. It's knitted in 20-ply wool, so the squares are huge and heavy. Bob says it's like sleeping under a flock of sheep. I'm not sure he means it kindly.
'How are you going to wash it?' he asked when I sewed the last of the border with a giant aluminium needle he made in his shed because I couldn't buy one with an eye big enough to thread the wool through.
'I had no idea how big squares get when you use 20-ply wool,' I replied, trying not to sound defensive.
Bob warned me when we bought the wool on a weekend jaunt to the country. He knows much more about knitting than I do. His mother, he told me, could read, knit and watch television at the same time. But I refused to listen to him. I was seduced by the creamy feel of the thick yarn, the huge hanks ready to roll into balls. My grandmother and my Auntie Belle knitted nearly everything the family wore and their hands were never idle. 'Busy hands' was the biggest compliment you could pay a woman in those days. Auntie Belle knitted my brother an absolutely magnificent white tennis sweater in the finest yarn. It took her weeks. She loved my brother – we all did – and my brother loved clothes. When our mother accidentally threw the jumper into the copper and boiled it, my brother went silent with rage. Then he took the matted, shrunken little garment and buried it in a drawer. He held on to it for years.
'Every time I hear the click of knitting needles I see my mother,' Bob says. 'It was the drumbeat of my childhood. Click. Click. Click.'
'Does it annoy you, my knitting?'
He takes a while to reply. 'No. The knitting is good,' he says finally.
***
It takes all day to prepare the garden beds and tuck the plants into their new home. They look full of promise as the sun goes down, standing straight and tall, with deep-veined leaves so glossy they catch the light and bounce it back in your face.
'I think they bloom in late January,' I tell Bob happily. 'Can't wait.'
He doesn't reply immediately, just leans the shovel against the shed wall and presses down the lid on the blood and bone container. 'Cuppa would be good,' he finally says, wearily, because he has done all the work.
The next morning, instead of lingering in bed I rush out onto the verandah to look at the new garden. It takes me a moment or two to understand that our tall, elegant spathiphyllums have been reduced to ratty little nubs about two inches high. Chewed to the ground.
'Bastards!'
'You can't change the bush,' Bob says, coming to stand beside me. 'It's a losing battle.'
'The next person who tries to tell me a wallaby won't cross a dog's scent is going to get an earful,' I rant. 'Must have been a whole herd here to do this. There's not a single leaf left.'
I storm inside, slam down a mug on the kitchen bench. The phone rings.
'Hi, it's Caro.'
'Can you believe those bastard wallabies have eaten fifty spathiphyllums! FIFTY!'
Her laughter echoes down the phone line. 'Did they look gorgeous for an hour or two at least?' she asks.
'Yeah,' I reply as my frustration slips away. When will I ever learn I have to adapt to the bush? It is never going to adapt to me. Not unless I kill it first, and that would be heinous. 'Enjoyed them for a couple of hours. Should have taken a photograph. Would have been a nice memento.'
Bob has one last go at saving them. He installs an electric fence which is effective for a few weeks. Then we come home late one night and see three wallabies feasting on the other side of it. They have learned to jump the wires. When Bob pulls out the wooden stakes, they are riddled with termites. The fence would have toppled anyway.
'Must have been heartbreaking in the early days,' I say to Bob. 'Wonder how they ever kept going. Everything's against you here.'
***
/>
Gill strides through the back gate a few days after the spathiphyllum disaster, looking nautical in a white shirt and navy shorts. She holds a hairbrush in one hand, like a small club. Obea lumbers along not far behind her.
'Want a cup of tea?' I call from the verandah.
She waves and nods and I go into the kitchen to put on the kettle. Obea waddles up the front steps, panting with the effort, swinging his hips. He's massively overweight. The good life might be killing him.
'What's the hairbrush for?' I ask, pouring tea as we sit on the verandah.
'I brush Obea on the track,' Gill explains. 'Keeps the house cleaner. And the birds collect the fur for their nests.'
'Ah! Saw the piles of blond hair when I walked Chippy. Bit mysterious at first.'
I take a sip. Look again at Obea. Chip Chop lies alongside him, her head almost in his mouth like she's still the little puppy that first fell in love with the boofy golden labrador from across the bay. Her hips, too, are spreading. If only, I think to myself, we were like spotted gums. We could shed the old skin each year and begin again.
'Obea seems to have put on a bit of weight,' I say, although he is as golden as ever.
'Found a way to get into the cupboard where we keep the dog food,' Gill replies ruefully. 'Ate a whole bag. Our grandson, Adam, was looking after him while we were away. Obea just lay on the deck, groaning. Adam called Ray the Vet, who said he might die and that he needed X-rays. So Adam heaved him into the water taxi, then the car, and took him to Mona Vale. Just as the vet was getting ready to examine him, Obea threw up all over the surgery. Had to starve him for three days. Obea, that is. Ray's so skinny he can't afford to miss a meal.'
'Always loved his tucker. Still, that's another one of his lives used up.'
'He's using up those lives quite quickly,' Gill says. 'Did you hear about his solo voyage?' She leans her elbows on the table, mug in her hands.
'Is this another cuppa with a cake story?' I ask.
'Oh, do you have any cake? That would be quite nice, and it's a long tale.'
Gill follows me into the kitchen. I have finally moved on from lemon cakes. I found a simple little recipe for a cake made from coconut and almonds that only needs stirring before baking. It comes out of the tin almost wet with moistness and you can double the ingredients without compromising the end result. Freezes well, too, and makes lovely cupcakes which are delicious served with poached plums and thick cream. I cut us a couple of slices.
'Cream?'
'Why not? Obea keeps me fit enough.'
We move back to the verandah, carrying our cake and tea.
'Ric and I were away in London,' Gill begins, settling comfortably into her chair. 'Marion and Michael kindly agreed to house-sit and look after Obea. We felt it was better than sending him somewhere strange. He's had too many homes, that dog, and he was just starting to really understand that he's with us for good.'
Marion is a generous-spirited artist with curly brown hair and angel's skin. She is also a librarian, and sometimes works on Scottland Island for Paul Smith, a gangly master printmaker with such a passion for colour and perfection that his clients, artists such as David Boyd and Margaret Olley, say he reveals layers to their work they weren't even aware were there. Her own art, which is bold and abstract, is all about Pittwater's hues and textures. It hangs on walls all over the bays.
Marion's partner, Michael, is a documentary film maker and photographer. Like her, he is multi-talented and also works on wooden boats, restoring beautiful timbers left uncared-for. His passion is film, though. He made a short documentary about the much-loved ballet dancer Trudi, who lives at the top of Scotland Island. Tiny enough to be a child herself, Trudi is in her late eighties. She teaches The Island children to dance, inspiring them, as gifted teachers always do, to give their best. She explains carefully, and in a way that even preschoolers understand, that fulfilment comes from struggle and discipline, and talents hardwon are of the most value. The film is a gem.
On the day Gill is talking about, Obea accompanied Marion when she went to work at Paul's studio. 'She took him nearly everywhere, really. She's got such a soft heart and Obea has a way of looking at you . . . he doesn't exactly plead, it's more like he expects to always be part of the group,' Gill says. 'The funny thing is that after a lifetime of wandering, he never strayed far from Marion.'
Marion worked all day with Paul and his offsider, Dimitri, a passionate Russian who also creates exquisitely detailed religious icons and powerful portraits. Marion and the two men were making prints for painter Tim Storrier, of a starry sky in the dusty glow of late dusk. They all quit work as the winter light faded. Without the sun beating through the windows, it was numbingly cold.
'Time to go home,' Marion told Obea, who thumped his tail in mute agreement.
She and Obea wandered along the jetty to wait for Michael, who'd been in meetings all day. He saw her as he roared around the bend and waved, looking incongruous in his best city clothes as he rode the choppy water in the tinny, holding tight to the bow line for balance. Accountants, though, don't understand salt-stained boat shoes and mouldy wet-weather gear in their multistorey, airconditioned offices. They think you might've lost the plot.
'Too windy for Tennis Wharf,' Michael yelled. 'I'll meet you at Greg's pontoon.'
He rounded the tinny and sped to the pontoon, anxious to get out of the freezing wind and inside a warm house.
'Get in the boat, Obea. Come on. Get in the boat,' he pleaded, holding the tinny steady.
The big dog hesitated. Shuffled in a kind of tango, unsure of himself. Michael turned off the engine. Obea isn't a dog that likes to rush.
'Let's go, Obea. Now!' he encouraged. Obea finally leapt and landed safely.
He lay flat, a smart tactic in high winds and choppy seas. Michael rubbed Obea's ears. 'Good boy.'
'Wait till I start the engine,' he told Marion. 'Then get in.'
He grabbed the bow rope to hold steady while he pulled the engine cord. Pull. Cough. Nothing. He pulled again and again. Nothing. Then he gave a final mighty heave and the engine kicked into a furious roar. It also slipped into low gear, and took off. Michael toppled straight over the stern while Obea sped off into the distance, a puzzled look on his handsome face.
'What have you done to Obea!' Marion moaned.
Michael, hanging by his arms from the pontoon, looked at her in amazement. 'Obea? What about me?'
'Oh, you'll be alright,' she said not unkindly as she bent to help him. 'But Obea's in danger!'
Michael, soaked and shivering, judged the boat would arc straight back to Tennis Wharf.
'He'll be ok. Really,' he reassured Marion.
'He could hit a boat on a mooring, Michael. He could be killed.' She ran along the shoreline towards Tennis with Michael trailing behind her, his good city shoes oozing water with every step. In the distance, Obea plodded unsteadily forward in the tinny but his massive weight made the bow dip so that waves flooded the hull. Obea staggered nervously back to the stern. The boat lurched, wobbled, teetered. Completely out of control.
Then the ferry came in sight. The driver, Alan, a quiet sort of fellow who wears a black Greek fisherman's cap, took a minute or two to figure out there was an empty tinny coming towards him on a collision course.
'First he thought someone must have fallen overboard,' Gill said. 'Which was right, in a way. Then he saw Obea.'
'I could see he was having trouble steering the tinny,' Alan said later. Deadpan.
The passengers twigged that something was up and ran to the boarding area near the captain's cabin.
'It's Obea! And he's alone. Oh, poor Obea!'
Alan slowed the ferry and swung round to come alongside the tinny. One of the passengers leaned over and grabbed a rope then tied the tinny securely to the ferry.
Alan pushed the throttle forward. 'I can see Michael and Marion at Tennis,' he told his passengers. 'We'll go and drop Obea and the tinny off.'
'From all account
s, Obea wasn't too anxious,' Gill says. 'Think he's been saved so many times he just expects the miracles to keep rolling in.'
Marion fell on Obea, crying with relief. 'Oh, poor, poor Obea,' she said, her arms around his neck.
Michael stood behind her. The passengers turned to him, shaking their heads. 'Could've been a disaster,' they told him, as if he didn't already know. 'Poor bloody dog. Take him a while to get over it, probably.'
Gill pressed a finger to her plate to tidy up a few slivers of almond. 'Thing is, not a single person asked Michael why he was standing there, dripping wet, in his best city clothes,' she said. 'He waited and waited for a hint of curiosity. No-one even noticed.'
In the end, he looked around and pointed at his chest. 'I'm wet,' he said. 'I'm cold. And I've ruined my best clothes.'
'Yeah, mate,' someone replied. 'But you want to be a bit more careful with Obea. He's not a young dog anymore.'
Gill finishes her tea and gets up to leave. Obea lurches to his feet with a grunt. He gives a drooly goodbye, wags his tail, performs a little front-footed jig in the same spot. He is still his own man plodding to an unhurried song. But he is wearing out and we all know it.
8
SEASONS FOLLOW THEIR INNER drumbeat, shifting gently from one rhythm to the next. One day, the luscious spring scents on the back track, which follows the shoreline from Lovett to Towlers Bay, fade away under the heat of the sun. The snowy flowers on the blueberry ash wither until they clench tightly into small green berries. Later, they ripen to deep purple. The twisted trunks of the angophoras turn tan, like skin. An oleander, a rogue exotic in the place we all know as The Secret Garden, erupts in hot pink flowers. There's a cumquat tree there, too, a relic of a European style garden where a house once stood. Only the chimney remains, and the mauve crazy-tiled floor of what was once the back porch. Each year, whoever has time picks the fruit. When Ann, who is more diligent than the rest of us, makes a deliciously gold and bitter marmalade, she gives us a jar labelled 'Secret Garden Marm. March'. We bring it out on special occasions.