Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
The first time I walked through a garden so desolate was when I visited my Aunt in Dubbo. I remember how hot it was that day and how I could feel the heat on the soles of my feet through my sandshoes. Was that 1982? Oh god, memories flood back from that time as a poor child, as a troubled child from a broken and troubled mother. My Aunt had invited me to visit ‘for a spell’, she said, just while Mum got herself back on her feet. The grass beneath my feet was dry and each step crackled. Her little terrier scrapped around the yard and darted under the house, toward the only cool shade. There were no trees just some screen plant – quick growing, but unkempt. I looked at the sunburnt tag still hanging from one of the branches and tried to make out the words. Pittosporum, ‘simply the best for privacy’.
Every day I stayed with my Aunt, things seemed to get a little worse, a little more frayed at the edges. I’d had no news of mum, so I kept asking, and the more I asked the more agitated she got. She’d just sit inside with the fan on her, smoking cigarettes and watching bad TV. I tried to find things to do. I walked around the adjoining streets, on the footpaths literally stamped out by tracks made over the years, bikes and boots; they hadn’t even got to concreting them yet. I tried to see who else lived in these quiet dry streets, but usually there was no one about. It got me thinking about the plant. About privacy. Why did these people shut themselves in? What were they hiding from.
At night, when it cooled down and TV sets lit up the otherwise empty looking houses, I would read. I had a few books with me, even in the rush getting here after Mum had lost it, I had managed to grab a few. They weren’t school books though and so I worried I was missing out. I remember one night after turning the last page on the first one, I picked up the little terrier, pulled him onto my lap and patted his matted hair.
His feet hurt, I could tell by his licking them. All that heat through the day practically boiled the tar on roads. I remember looking out the window, into the night, absentmindedly patting the dog. Without even thinking, I picked him up and strode out of the house. The night sky was vast, but sparkling with countless starts. I could see the milky way; I felt like could see into space. There was not a cloud in the sky. Never had I experienced that sense of vastness and it filled me with equal measure of wonder and unease. It was then I started thinking how I could potentially get out of there.
The weather changed the next day, a dark storm rolling in across the wheat fields. I had looked far into the distance, and could see the columns of rain pouring down. The sky got progressively blacker and the previous night’s idea of running away seemed to get rolled up in the clouds themselves only to be rained back down on me later. I had run about the hot brick house as the wind picked up, closing the windows. My Aunt didn’t seem to notice; I recall her faintly snoring at that point.
Next minute, there was a huge crack, and I knew the storm was upon us. The terrier lost his mind, barking, startling my Aunt, parking himself at her feet, yapping. I had cowered at the noise, but recovered enough to think of the next steps I had to take. I had never seen a storm loom so large – I didn’t know what to expect. I called the local cops just to check in. I dialled the number, only to get a recorded voice, “Please check the menu. 1 for an emergency, 2 for a complaint…” and so on, so I slammed the phone down. I checked every window twice. I grabbed the little terrier, more for my own comfort and safety than his I think, and sat down in the corner of the kitchen, bracing for the storm to hit. I realised then, I was going nowhere.