by Susan Duncan
'I've lined up a couple of retirement units for Esther to look at when she's here,' I say to Bob when I get home. 'I should have done it long ago.'
'Take it one step at a time,' he advises. 'Your mother will fight the idea. So would you in her place.' It's not in my character to go slow once I've set a course of action, but I know he is right.
***
The drought puts an end to dinners at the water's edge, sitting around a blazing fire in an old washing machine drum with a battered black camp oven hung over it. Cooking an old-fashioned stew, filling the bay with the smell of onions, carrots and celery. Fire bans are a way of life, now. On the rare days a fire is permitted, we still hold back. Who could live with the horror of being the one who lit the match that got away?
When I first came here, we spent many late summer and early autumn evenings at the waterside. The whole neighbourhood came by, with folding chairs, fishing rods and whatever they could find in their fridges to contribute to dinner: pasta, salad, cheese, chorizo, salami . . . Often we caught fish. They were plentiful, then. Crabs, too. Now they are so scarce, it is disturbing. Why have they run off? The water hasn't been cleaner for years. Highly toxic antifoul boat paints are banned. Until the drought, even the oysters were coming back. Is it something we've done?
At Church Point Commuter Dock one day, lugging groceries and petrol – the staples of offshore life – Lisa mentions there's a new weed, caulerpa taxifolia, that's killing our sea grass. 'It's bad,' she says, loading a box of shiny red capsicums into her tinny. 'Sea grasses are fish nurseries where baby fish hide from predators. No grass – no fish.' It's already infested the water under the Elvina Bay public jetty and the east side of Scotland Island, she adds. 'Encourage people not to anchor in sea grass beds, if you can. It makes a difference.'
Sometimes, because our waterside barbecues are impossible, Jack sails his wooden boat, Birrah Lee, to Brooklyn, a haphazard little town on the great Hawkesbury River where most of Sydney's famous rock oysters are farmed. He buys a bulging hessian bag full and sails back the same day.
'Oysters are on! Seven o'clock, in front of the boatshed,' Brigitte calls to tell us.
Jack slings the bag on one of the trestle tables that Bob built for the tourist lunches and that now lives at the boatshed. Then he puts a folded towel in the palm of his left hand, slaps an oyster into it and stabs the lips of the shell with a pointed knife. He cuts through the muscle and removes the top shell, throwing it over his shoulder into the bay. It lands with a tiny splash, like a jumping fish. 'Look at that,' he grins, holding out the oyster. 'Plump and filled with liquor. You don't even need a squeeze of lime juice.' He tips back his head and lets the oyster slip into his mouth . . . and sighs. In the sky, a fingernail moon rises above Salvation Creek.
Each Friday, no matter how wet, cold, hot or windy, Michael, Bob and Stef gather in front of the open roller door of the boatshed workshop for a board meeting amongst the sanders, grinders, workbenches and on a concrete floor that holds the heat and cold. John comes by, too, but not as religiously. Secret men's business, we call it – although if the evening is irresistible, Mary Beth, Bella, Therese and I join them.
'Can't get the pump on the boat going,' Stef says.
'I'll have a look at it,' Michael replies.
'Got a bit of a bulge in the retaining wall, Stef. What d'you reckon?' Bob asks.
'I'll have a look tomorrow,' Stef offers.
'Can't find a way to get a bloke to pay his bill,' Michael says.
'Here's what you do . . .' Bob and Stef leap in simultaneously, because they are both seasoned businessmen and Michael is softhearted. Perhaps because he comes from a large family where it was always a battle to make ends meet.
One night when we're all gathered for dinner at Tarrangaua after a twilight Woody Point yacht race, I leave the bowl of fruit for the Christmas pudding on the kitchen bench. It's soaked in Grand Marnier and the whole room smells of boozy oranges.
'Stir and make a wish,' I tell everyone who walks through the door, as I have done for decades now, wherever I've been living.
'Not like that!' Bella says, grabbing the wooden spoon from Fleury. 'My friend Pat reckons you can only stir one way if you want to make a wish and have it come true,' she says.
Fleury gives her a hard look. 'Clockwise or anti?' she asks, testing her. 'And does everyone have to stir the same way, or just one person at a time?'
Bella thinks. 'Oh, do it anyway you like,' she says finally. 'But I think it's clockwise. I'll call Pat to check.'
Bob sees me watching as he makes his wish. He deliberately blanks the expression on his face.
'Bet you don't know what I wished,' I mutter grumpily.
'Of course I do. Health. For everyone.'
He's right, of course.
MAKING CHRISTMAS PUDDING AT LOVETT BAY
Serves 10–12 people.
(A recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly)
CITRUS PEEL
2 large oranges (600 g)
1 medium lemon (140 g)
water for simmering
250 ml water, extra
440 g sugar
250 g seeded dates, chopped
250 g dried currants
120 g sultanas
120 g raisins, chopped
80 ml Cointreau
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon boiling water
250 g butter, softened
500 g firmly packed dark brown sugar
4 eggs
150 g plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon ground ginger
280 g stale breadcrumbs (make them from a loaf of good sourdough)
Prepare the citrus peel a couple of days before the rest of the pudding. Peel the rind thickly from the oranges and lemon, including the pith. Add the rind to a pan of boiling water and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Drain, add fresh water and repeat.
Combine 250 ml water with the sugar in a medium pan and stir over the heat, without boiling, until the sugar dissolves. Add the rind and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, stand 10 minutes. Transfer mixture to a heatproof bowl and stand overnight.
Return the rind and syrup to a clean pan and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and stand until cool.
Drain the rind from the pan, reserving 2 tablespoons of the syrup. Chop the rind into pieces about the size of a currant. (The original recipe suggests a citrus butter made from the remaining syrup. I made it once but felt it was overkill.)
Combine the dates, currants, sultanas, raisins and Cointreau in a large bowl. Combine the soda and boiling water, add to the bowl and mix well. Cover and stand overnight at room temperature.
Beat together the butter and sugar in a medium bowl until just combined (do not overbeat). Add the eggs one at a time, beating only until just combined after each addition. Stir the butter mixture into the fruit mixture and add the citrus peel and 2 tablespoons of reserved syrup from the peel. Stir in the sifted flour and ginger, then the breadcrumbs. If you have (clean) old threepences and sixpences, stir them in now.
Wrap the mixture in a prepared calico cloth* or pile into a heavily greased and floured pudding basin. Place in a saucepan of boiling water and boil or steam, covered, for 4 hours.
(*To prepare the calico cloth, boil a large square for 20 minutes.
Remove it from the water and wring out. Using fresh water, boil it for a further 10 minutes. Wring it out and then lay it flat. Sprinkle hot calico with plain flour to form a skin on the pudding when cooked.)
***
A few days before picking up my mother to bring her to Pittwater, Bob and I decide to spend a couple of days touring the wineries of the Hunter Valley with his son, Scott, who is visiting from Pittsburgh. Ten minutes after we check into our motel, Bob's phone rings.
'Where?' Bob asks, sinking into a chair. 'How long ago?'
A moment or so later, he asks: 'Which way is the wind blowing?'
He looks at m
e, his face serious. 'Fires. Don't know whether to stay or go home.'
'Bloody bushfires,' I mutter darkly, picking up our bags because I know there is no choice. 'More traditional than Christmas turkey.'
None of us speaks on the return trip, silenced by dread and dismay. At Terrey Hills, fire trucks line the roadside like a massive ground battalion. Impossibly young men in yellow and navy uniforms lean against them, styrofoam cups in hand, waiting. The car radio flicks to the news. Firestorms north of us. Then the weather report.
'Wind's in our favour right now,' Bob says. 'Nothing to worry about.'
We pick up Chinese takeaway in Mona Vale and head home. The neighbours have already set up our hoses and pumps. It is ten o'clock, too late to thank them, so we climb the steps with our baggage and takeaway and eat barbecue pork and satay chicken watching the orange glow behind the hills of Salvation Creek. So far, the air in Lovett Bay is crystal clear. The wind is being kind to us. Once again, we wait.
'Might as well go to bed,' Bob says at about midnight. 'Nothing's going to happen tonight.'
At two am the phone rings. Scott answers it. Bob and I don't even wake.
'Scott. Scott, we're all on alert,' Brigitte tells him. 'Elvina Bay is burning. Anything could happen. I've called everyone. Be ready.'
Scott, a tall, quiet man, doesn't panic. He walks onto the verandah. There are flames on the other side of the bay. The sky is burnt orange but the air is still clear. The wind remains in our favour. He decides not to wake us. He sits for another two hours, watching. Then he, too, returns to bed and sleeps soundly.
The next morning, the wind is still our way and there's no threat, so we have tea and toast and amble down Lover's Lane to check on our neighbours. We stomp on John and Therese's back deck. 'Hello?'
The silence is unnerving. Nothing stirs. No smell of coffee, toast, bacon.
'Where is everyone?' I ask Bob.
He shrugs. We call out again. Nothing.
Next door, at Stef and Bella's, all is still, too. We look up to Jack and Brigitte's house. Not a sign of life. Not a single larrikin kid playing war games or cricket.
'Did the whole world change overnight? Have we missed the siren call?' I ask.
Bob doesn't answer. He goes back to John and Therese's house.
'John!' he calls.
There's a grunt: 'Yo!'
'Are you there?'
'Hold on!'
He comes up the stairs from the bedroom in white overalls, bleary-eyed. Therese follows on her backside, dragging a broken ankle. She flew into the air when they rode a wave over a sandbar out of a harbour, then crashed, harder than a coconut on cement, when their boat landed. John helps her into a wheelchair. Both of them look drunk with exhaustion.
'You're up early, boy,' John says to Bob.
'It's almost ten o'clock!'
'Yeah, but that's early when you didn't get to bed until eight in the morning,' he replies, though not as a complaint.
Stef and Bella stagger across from their house. They've been up all night too. 'What's happening?' Stef asks. 'What's going on? Heard shouting.'
'Nothing,' Bob says. 'Just came down to see you were all ok and to say thanks for setting up the pumps.'
'Well, we were ok. Until you woke us,' Stef says. 'Hard to get a good night's sleep around here when you've got noisy neighbours. Never dull, though, I'll give you that.'
And we all grin, because our bonds are like family and there's nowhere else we'd rather be. John puts on the kettle. We look out the window and see a helicopter scooping water from the bay and then dropping it like a sudden deluge on the smouldering bush. Technology triumphing over nature. Good or bad? Either way, to survive is the most basic instinct.
***
Bob's daughters, Meg and Kelly, arrive to celebrate Christmas bringing their partners . . . and dogs, Tali and Bear. Tali is a handsome black and white border collie with a baby pink lipstick smile and a ton of charm. He shadows Meg like her keeper. Bear is the ugliest dog ever born: too tall, skinny in the rump, big-chested. Not even her ears match. One sticks straight up. The other flops flatly. Her coat looks like it's been attacked by moths. Kelly adores her.
The floors of rooms all over the house are littered with clothing, mattresses and bedding for dogs and humans, strewn like the aftermath of gale-force winds. Lulu, my stepdaughter from my first marriage, comes with her partner and her border collie, Bella. Bella's muzzle is greyer than ever, although she still never stops dropping sticks in your lap and begging you to throw them. The sticks are more like toothpicks now, though. The floor space is chockers. Lulu will sleep in a tent on the lawn. She is kind enough to tell me she likes camping. Chip Chop is overwhelmed, but she cheers up at the sight of food.
Christmas dinner unfolds in chaos. The charcoal in the barbecue won't catch alight. The turkey, covered in the skin from the ham to keep it moist, is cooking too slowly. Dogs, stinky wet from a swim, hover politely at my feet in the kitchen, hoping a morsel will drop from the bench. When nothing does, they wander off, heads sagging with disappointment, pausing only to shake. The walls are sprayed with water. The salad, too. Chip Chop finds the ham skin after we take it off to brown the turkey. She eats it to the point of explosion. We call Ray the Vet who tells us she might die but there's not a damn thing we can do. We lock her away from even the smell of food.
My mother, resplendent in fire-engine red with strobing red reindeer earrings and a Santa Claus brooch that flashes like a lighthouse, tells me the Christmas decorations are a disgrace. 'I'll do them next year,' she huffs.
'I've gone minimalist,' I snap back. Truth is, with bushfires and getting beds and tents sorted, I ran out of time and energy for more than a few baubles and a small old flashing Christmas tree I've had for years.
'Minimalist and Christmas don't work,' she replies. And she has a point.
When we finally sit down to eat, I am sweating from a barrage of hot flushes. I whack down two glasses of champagne in rapid succession, then I look around. Smiling faces. Tanned arms reaching for a prawn, smoked trout, some mango salad.
'Ah bugger,' I shout. 'Put down your knives and forks. We haven't sung the carols yet.'
Everyone groans. Lulu hands around the words to six carols we sing every year before we eat. She's been sitting on them, hoping I'll forget. Not a chance! Is there an exploding point for happiness? There can't be.
Late in the afternoon, Stewart and Fleury and their two daughters, drop in. Lisa and Roy and the two Alans, too. At the sound of Lisa's voice my mother wanders into the kitchen, her red skirt a thousand thin pleats. Like the Chinese, she believes that red is lucky.
'Hello, Esther,' Lisa coos, folding my mother into her arms for a hug and a kiss. 'My, you do look gorgeous. What a stunning outfit!'
My mother smiles girlishly, holds her hand to her face in a mock 1920s pout, pats her hair softly, using a thumb to roll a curl more tidily. She pulls up a kitchen stool and the two of them chat away like old cronies. Lisa admires her necklace, her rings, her flashing earrings and brooch. She makes her feel beautiful.
'How do you do it?' I whisper to Lisa later.
'You get in first. Tell her she looks fabulous – and she does, as a matter of fact – then there's nowhere to go with a complaint. Works every time.'
'Told you that years ago,' Bob says, catching the tail end of our conversation. 'Used to tell my mother she looked great before she had a chance to say a word. Stopped her in her tracks.'
By midnight, we're all in bed, even the youngies. Bob grabs me tightly. 'Thank you,' he says, with a sigh.
'Oh no, thank you!'
And we both fall into a dead sleep. Holding hands.
***
On Boxing Day, lunch is set out in the kitchen. Leftover ham, turkey, baguettes, lettuce, mustard, cranberry sauce. 'Make your own sandwiches,' I suggest. 'Then, if you like, we'll watch the beginning of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on television.'
A few minutes before the start, there's an almighty
crash from the kitchen. We all look around, count . . . Everyone's present. Dogs, too. Except Tali. He's in the kitchen, looking sheepish. The ham is on the floor.
'Tali fancied the ham,' I call out to Meg. 'Pulled it off the bench.'
'Tali would never do anything like that,' Meg says, running in to defend him.
Tali hangs his head. It's covered with the stringy bits of fat we cut off to make our sandwiches.
'Oh, Tali,' Meg says, pulling it off his coat. Then she turns to me. 'It really isn't his fault,' she says. 'He's on cortisone for his rash. Makes him hungry all the time.'
'Yes, Meg.'
And I rush outside so she can't hear me laughing.
***
On New Year's Eve I help my mother into the tinny to drive her back to her home at the foot of the Blue Mountains. She's not a fan of ushering in the future. Or perhaps it's just that when you're in your eighties, it's more prudent to look back than forward.
'I'm going to swing past a place I want you to see,' I tell her. Suspicion fills her eyes. She twists her rings round and round, draws her lips into a smile. Red lipstick splatters her front teeth. The smile is full of fright. Her vulnerability is heartbreaking.
'What kind of place?' She cannot quite make her voice sound firm.
'It's a retirement village, not a home,' I tell her.
'I like my own house,' she insists, stubbornness creeping into her voice. 'Nothing wrong with it. And it suits me. I know where everything is.'
Gut-churning fear floods her eyes. Will I put her away somewhere and forget about her? She's read newspaper stories about foul nursing homes crammed with confused old people medicated to oblivion until, eventually, oblivion claimed them forever. She's heard about kids who never visit, who snap up cash and property and take off in search of the good life, leaving their parents for almost dead. As though it's their right and their parents, because they are old, have none. It is quite shocking to realise she doesn't trust me. I must have failed her badly in ways I don't even know – and, to be truthful, some that I do – for her to be so afraid.
'Let's just look. If it makes you feel uncomfortable, we'll turn around and drive straight out.'