by Susan Duncan
Once I tramped this track to the point of collapse, trying to still the yammering of grief and despair. The bush was foreign and disturbing to me at first. Sharp-edged, lacerating, like the life I was leading. Sinister, too, as almost anything is when you have no understanding of it. I was used to crowded city pavements. Streetlights, cars, keys and office boltholes where we all huddled without question, tapping at a keyboard while the years pirouetted away from us. Believing that what we were doing mattered. But not much of it did – although it paid the bills, which is certainly important. Now the back track is as familiar as family, a hugely diverse, engaging landscape, far more fascinating than the city stage I once thought was the only world worth knowing.
Once morning a while ago, I met a weekender walking her dog. 'I am so bored,' she confessed unhappily, drawing lines with her shoe in the dust.
'With Pittwater?' I asked, aghast.
'No. With my life.'
'Why?'
She shrugged. If she knew why, she said, she would fix it.
We moved on in different directions, but her words stayed with me. When was the last time I felt bored? So long ago, I cannot even pinpoint the occasion. Certainly Before Pittwater, as I refer to the years of my other life. So why not now? Because there was a time I was too ill to do anything much, and now, even the worst chores feel like a privilege. And no matter how small, I try to do each job to the best of my ability. It is a way of life I learned from my Buddhist friend Sophia, when she came and stayed with me during the dark days of chemo. When death loomed closer than it ever had, and each day I played black and white reruns of my life in my head, searching for moments of nobility and finding only helter-skelter.
Each job, Sophia told me as we sat on facing sofas sipping honeyed tea in the final winter of the second millennium, must be done with care. At the time, I thought she meant that if you demean your work you demean yourself. But she meant much more. Although I didn't really understand that until I put aside a natural instinct to get to the finish as quickly and haphazardly as possible, and instead found reward enough in the process itself.
Neighbours meet randomly on the back track and walk and talk together for a while. If it suits. With our dogs: Chip Chop, Louie, Gadgie, Ziggy, Lizzie, Blonde, Bailey, Ferdie . . . Obea, of course, and others who arrive with the weekend influx.
Ferdie is a Jack Russell and Staffordshire terrier cross (we think), who lives in Little Lovett Bay with Chris and Tessa. Bob calls him the Bowling Ball. He's big-chested and hard-muscled, with one ear that sticks straight up and another that flops as though it's missing some sort of wiring. He passionately detests goannas. Tim and Leisa, who also live in Little Lovett Bay, have a couple of chooks. Although they're good layers, Leisa rarely gets an egg. In the early hours of the morning, a goanna sneaks in and steals them. The goanna raided the eggs late the day Ferdie furiously rounded him up in the chook shed. The noise was horrific – yapping dog, hissing goanna, hysterical chooks, feathers flying, fangs flashing. Tim says it sounded like war and he rushed up from his boatshed office to find Ferdie locked in combat.
'Get out of here, both of you!' Tim yelled, but the little dog held on, demented with rage. So did the goanna, his eyes filled with glittering black fury. Tim finally shoved them both out of the chookhouse with a rake. They rolled down the hill, still fiercely locked together.
'Bloody hell,' Tim said, trying to settle the flapping chooks.
Then he looked up. Ferdie and the goanna were rolling straight through the open kitchen door. Leisa yelped, their own dog, Gadgie, hid.
'Get that goanna out of here, Tim,' she screamed. 'Now!'
'Jesus!'
Chris and Tessa, hearing the ruckus, raced across the lawn separating the houses. 'Ferdie! Ferdie!' called Tessa, her voice high-pitched – the little dog's special sound. And finally, Ferdie looked up and let go. At that precise moment, the goanna vomited two perfectly intact, stinking eggs. Then he slowly, and with as much dignity as he could muster, lumbered out of the kitchen, blending into the bush like a chameleon. Unbeaten and undamaged.
Ferdie, who needed Ray the Vet to stitch up a wound, hates goannas even more now, but he steers clear of them. Mostly. 'That wretched goanna is still scaring the chooks. Haven't had an egg this year,' Leisa says. And we part, going in different directions.
'The brush turkeys have returned, building a mound in the backyard,' says Maureen, further along.
'Gotta get the pulse rate up. See ya!' says Kirstie, semi-jogging past.
'Seen all the lantana Nick and Ann have cleared? They're miracles, those two,' says Caro when we meet, as we do most days unless our schedules don't fit.
Some mornings – and there is no pattern or season – lyrebirds tiptoe around the track like pale brown feathered ghosts: plain hens and showier males with long tails stretched out behind them. They flee at the slightest disturbance, blending into the scrub in seconds. Often, we stop and squint into the bush, hoping to see the beautiful fanned tail of a courting male.
Caro lives above Frog Hollow, near a somnolent little creek and a deep green rainforest where, in a light wind, cabbage palms rustle like taffeta skirts.
One day she and her husband, David, were returning home in the boat. As they neared their house the sound of someone playing Space Invaders – Kachink. Kachink. Kachewwww – was so loud, they could hear it over the whine of the outboard engine. They looked up to see, high above in a large, deep cave just below their house, a lyrebird singing his lovestruck heart out: Kachink. Kachink. Kachewwww. Kachink. Kachink. Kachewwww. Some people say they have heard lyrebirds imitating chainsaws, sirens, the opening bars of a symphony, a kid practising on his violin . . . which can get on people's nerves. A bit. But when they sing for themselves, it is soft and full of melodies that rise and fall like laughter set to music.
Towards the end of October, glossy black cockatoos, with splashes of red under their wings and tails, lurk high in the casuarinas, invisible in the needle-like foliage. But we know they're there by the sound, like fingernails lightly tapping a table, of cracking seeds. Under our feet, the discarded pods are hard round balls through the soles of our shoes.
'Saw some yellow-tails the other day,' Caro says. 'Unusual. Perhaps their habitats are changing.' They are rare, quiet and self-possessed birds, so much more gentle than their prodigious and destructive white cousins, the sulphur-crested cockatoos – bad-tempered thugs with yellow crests who live to create chaos. Airborne terrorists with an uncanny ability to wreck what you most cherish, they fling lemons to the ground to rot. A whole crop can be wasted in minutes. Not content with shredding one window frame, they rip hunks out of all of them in a sudden frenzy. Is it the pleasure of destruction? Or an instinctive attempt at a territorial grab-back? We were here first – is that it?
At dusk, their discordant screeching is deafening, like blasts of electronic feedback from a bad rock band. What makes them so angry? And yet, when they stride across the lawn, swinging their legs and shoulders arrogantly, they look pure and beautiful. Blindingly white. But their eyes are full of madness. They are a ruthless, winged mafia.
Caro thinks I am being hard on them: 'They are more like cartoon characters than thugs. Cheeky. Irreverent.' Which makes me wonder if my antagonism is tied up with their destruction of my lemons. Hard to feel kindly towards anything that knows no respect for the efforts of others.
In the very early morning or late afternoon, wallabies linger on the slope that slips towards to the worn cliff of Woody Point. They stand and stare as I walk past, some so innocently beautiful they trigger a dull ache. Occasionally, skinny back legs and a ratty tail will dive into a pouch. The joey somersaults and a moment or two later, a pointy face with wide, curious eyes pops out. In the flat light of noon the lush brown pelts blend into the landscape, as still as a log or large rock. Impossible to see if you don't know they're there.
One day just before noon, two stumps, mottled grey with age, stand like bookends in the middle of the track. Whe
re have they come from? They are so out of context I hold the dog close and tiptoe. When I am five feet from them, they explode. Wings flapping with a whooshing sound, two birds lift off like heavy-bellied freight planes painted in camouflage colours. They land on a bough, lightly for such large creatures, and stare down, frowning like schoolteachers who expected more from me. They are tawny frogmouth owls. Did I interrupt some still, silent courtship? 'I'm sorry,' I call, because true love should never be thwarted. But I am excited. I've never seen them before.
At the turn where the spotted gum stands bleeding from the drought, cabbage palms in full warrior headdress muster in a gully like troops. Vines creep sinuously over low-lying shrubs, like breaking green waves. Impenetrable. Mysterious. Beyond, the sea meets the sky in shimmering blue.
These, I know as I march along in a softer rhythm, are my most wondrous years. If anyone had told me, even a decade ago, that all this calm lay ahead, I would have laughed. Bitterly, I suspect. What is so great, after all, about a body screaming through the rites of menopause and the narrowing gap between now and the end? And yet somehow, it is great. Because one day, no matter how carefully and correctly I try to live, no matter how many silent pacts I make with the bigger universe, it will all end.
***
Someone, we're not sure who, built a magnificent henhouse at Tarrangaua. It's a large space, braced by timber poles and wrapped, roof and all, in sturdy wire. When Bob and I disagree, we threaten each other with a night in the chook shed, in the same way my mother used to tell my father he was in the dog house, when he came home in a state of disrepair.
The chookhouse overlooks the bay, Scotland Island and even as far as the shores of Newport and Avalon, which gives it some of the best views around Pittwater. Inside the wire cage, there's a sheltered, steel shed with a concrete floor where beautifully crafted plywood laying boxes are stacked in two tiers, considerately scooped at the front for easier access for chubby-chested hens. The boxes are so appealing, I remove one to use in my study for files.
Bob chucks weeds in here, the kind you don't want spreading through the bush, which keeps them contained while they rot. He throws in agapanthus, too, when they pop up outside the house boundaries. They are plants that rampage if you let them, multiplying from their roots or from seed heads. There are thousands of them, matted in clumps so deep it takes a pick to dig them out. For some reason, wallabies won't touch the leaves, although they munch happily on the new buds each Christmas. If we end up with one or two flowers, it's only because they've been overlooked.
When Sophia phones to say her son, TY, is looking for work to fund his trip around Australia, we sigh happily. TY, short for Tupten Yeshe, is named after Sophia's great Buddhist mentor, Lama Yeshe. She's spent more than twelve years meticulously researching and writing his biography. It is a labour of great love, respect and intellect. TY is tall, with lion-like strength and a gentle nature. He reminds me of my father, who was also a giant of a man – six foot five in his bare feet. Little blokes fuelled by a few grogs would often target Dad, aching for a fight. My father always turned away. One day, my mother called him a coward. He shambled up to her, very close, told her that if he hit a little man, he'd probably kill him. Better to be called a coward than a killer, he said.
Unlike my father, TY is not afraid of his strength because in him it comes with a beautiful, gentle calmness. Perhaps because he has nothing to prove. He sometimes works as a bouncer outside the front door of clubs. In the early hours when drink and drugs play havoc with reason, the sight of him, placid but firm, stops most brawls.
'Fancy digging out a few plants?' I ask him when I pick him up from the bus stop at Church Point. He shrugs and smiles. 'Oh yeah. Sounds good and healthy work.'
'Agapanthus. There's plenty of them. Keep you going for a few days. But the ticks can be fierce if you don't spray yourself with insect repellent. Still interested? The alternative,' I add, 'is a bit of walking, fishing, a kayak or two . . . and three meals a day. Holiday stuff.'
'Think I could manage the lot,' he says. 'Not the fishing, though. Not into fishing.'
Of course not, he's Sophia's son and a Buddhist.
I hand him a pair of old sky-blue overalls and a blinding yellow T-shirt left behind by goodness knows who or what. 'Begin at the bottom,' I suggest, following him down the steps to the shore. 'Work your way up. Easier, I think.' He looks full of purpose as he sets off with his pick slung over his shoulder, like a handsome fairytale character.
At the foot of the property, massive sandstone boulders surround a bowl of bare bush that spills towards a sandy red beach. Further along, loose stones tumble chaotically along the shoreline. Oyster shells bleached white by the sun look like giant bird droppings. A clump of plants obscures a charred, rough plank between two low stumps that announces Tarrangaua. Not a single bushfire in nearly one hundred years has done more than lick its edges. TY braces a leg against a sandstone step, leans down, grabs some leaves and pulls. There's the sound of ripping fabric and thick roots, like masses of white worms, come away with a pop. When I first moved into the Tin Shed, Bob often brought me agapanthus plants to start my garden, because it was easy to keep them contained around the Tin Shed. I've always loved agapanthus. My mother called them Star of Bethlehem, and we cherished them because they'd flower abundantly even in droughts.
TY throws the agapanthus onto the sandstone track. 'I'll come back and tidy those later,' he explains. 'I'll need a wheelbarrow.'
'No, we'll chuck 'em in the back of the ute, drive them up to the house. You'll need a barrow to get them into the old chook pen, though.' I leave him to it.
The V-shaped ragged mess of bush between the car track and the steps is full of native grasses flowering in vicious yellow spikes that draw blood if they catch you. Like an old bull, a coastal banksia has thrown its seed all around to sire a small plantation. There are scrappy wattles, sharp-edged native holly, flannel leaf, muttonwood, kangaroo apple and a few geebungs. Names I know from Barbara's reference books, neatly titled 'Plants Native and Weed at Lovett Bay' and dated 15 March 1995. I often pick a leaf from a tree as I pass, then flick through the binder with its faux marble cover to check shapes, veins, descriptions and size until I can identify it. Anxious not to pass through this landscape in ignorance.
The plants are full of secrets. Umbrella clusters of red leaves when tree heath shoots newly. Four petals for boronia, five for wax flowers. The delicate charm of the flowers of the blueberry ash, like miniature fringed bells. The wickedly heady perfume of pittosporum, which floats on warm breezes in spring. Barbara filed notes on herbs, climbers, shrubs and trees alongside simple line drawings photocopied from a reference book – a legacy for all of us who come to live here.
'Learning much about the bush?' I ask TY when I take him his lunch. I hand him a box filled with vegetable frittata, salad, buttered baguette, a slice of almond cake.
'Mostly just getting attacked by it,' he responds, not unhappily.
On his third and last day, exhausted but still quietly patient and persistent, he fills the barrow and wheels it to the back of the ute. He throws a handful of limp plants in then sighs. Grabs both sides of the overfilled barrow, picks it up and swings it into the ute tray upside down. It is a feat of Herculean strength.
'Sorry. That was a bit rough,' he says. 'But I only had enough energy for one last go.' He smiles sheepishly.
'Fine by me,' I reply, still dumbfounded. Touched, too, that he didn't want me to think he was showing off. 'No ticks?'
'No ticks.'
Three days working in the bush and not a single tick. Perhaps they sensed he was a Buddhist and left him alone.
***
Bob and I pin notices advertising free agapanthus from Church Point to Scotland Island. People come over and grab armfuls for the next couple of weeks but there's still a mountain in the empty chook pen a month later when I murmur longingly about fresh eggs: 'Be nice to have fresh eggs, don't you think? They taste different, you know. Egg
ier. Velvety too, instead of rubbery. The white should sit up in a contained little puddle when you break the shell. The yolk should hold like a firm breast. Most eggs you buy splash like water. They're not fresh. Not fresh at all.'
Bob is silent, stuffing the last of the unclaimed agapanthus into two giant drums. He'll fill them with water, wait a year until the plants have rotted, then use the liquid as fertiliser. Like my Uncle Frank used to, though he added chicken and cow manure to the brew, too. Once a week he'd fill the watering can over and over and hand-water the vegetables with what we all called his liquid gold. His garden was an Eden: beans, cauliflowers, lettuce, beetroot, the sweetest tomatoes that we'd pick and eat warm from the sun when we visited on school holidays. Peas, too, which we shelled each night. It kept us busy between dusk and dinner and stopped us running amok. No capsicums, eggplant, zucchini or radicchio in those pre-gourmet days. But Uncle Frank is almost eighty and no doctor or dentist has ever made enough out of him to buy even a cheap bottle of wine.
He never had the slightest interest in flowers, though. And the garden around the house was meagre and roughly tended. To him, flowers were decorative, not useful, although he did look after a tree here and there because it provided shade. To be fair, though, everyone was on tank water in those days, and there was never enough for a lawn or flowerbeds. If they ever meet, I reckon he and Jeanne will spit fire, because Jeanne thinks the greatest use of all is beauty. It nourishes the soul. My Uncle Frank believes in nourishing the body. The rest follows.
He and my Auntie Belle, who made the most wonderful apple pies with cloves that scented the house long after we'd scoffed the pie, had chooks roaming everywhere. They scratched around the yard and kept the insects under control. There were a couple of cows, too, usually with calves at foot. My Uncle Frank was a child of The Depression. He understood early that the only way to survive was to be self-sufficient.
He made it look so easy. I remember thinking, even as a kid, that he managed to touch the universe lightly but effectively, and in my childish imagination, I gave him superhuman powers. 'My Uncle Frank,' I'd tell anyone who would listen, 'can do anything!' Now I am older and have tried to create my own gardens, I understand there was nothing magical about his success. All it took was hard work from first light until the moon came up. It's an ethic he still holds dear even now.