The House At Salvation Creek

by Susan Duncan

  Hardy Wilson, he tells us, was a frequent visitor to Eryldene: '"Billy" and Gowrie were great friends. Partly, perhaps, because Gowrie was probably the only client who never questioned Billy's ideas. Gowrie said he'd never known an architect with more mastery of the finer details.'

  'Did you ever meet Hardy Wilson?' I ask.

  'No. I wish I had. But Gowrie said he was always immaculately dressed and walked everywhere, in great, striding steps, often sketching as he went along. He was a wonderful artist who had a great understanding of light and shadow, although he brooded about lifting the level of taste in Australian homeowners. He was a reserved man, too, which some people mistook for arrogance.'

  'Maybe Wilson was just tall. Tall people can look arrogant, when mostly they're not.'

  'Perhaps. Now tell me, where do you live?' asks Pearman as we get close to Richmond.

  'Lovett Bay,' Bob replies.

  'Ah! Lovett Bay. I seem to recall Gowrie saying that Billy did a house there for a poet. Dorothea Mackellar.'

  Bob and I look at each other. I glance at Jeanne's face in the rearvision mirror. She's got that smug 'I told you so' expression, again. To our credit, none of us leap in with exclamations although I feel like thumping the steering wheel and yippy-yay-yaying like crazy.

  'Really?' I say, faking nonchalance. 'Why would Professor Waterhouse know about her?'

  'Well, Mackellar was a regular visitor to Eryldene, of course.'

  'Did you ever visit her house on your jaunts with the professor?'

  'Oh no. It was far too difficult to access. As I recall, you needed a boat.'

  It's a few lines in a casual conversation based on hearsay. Is it enough to make a judgement? While the conversation drifts around me, I go over Pearman's words in my head. As a journalist, I know it's often a throwaway line that gives you the link in a story or reveals a truth you thought you'd never find. But is it enough in this case? Probably not. Academics want facts. I need tangible evidence that Hardy Wilson was personally involved in the design of Tarrangaua. Or not.

  Later in the day, Pearman gives his talk about Hardy Wilson's plans for an imagined city called 'Kurrajong', self-published by Wilson in a modest little paperbound booklet when he was seventy-four years old. It was his last work before his death. Wilson came up with a detailed layout of a completely self-contained city exquisitely drawn as though it was a mythical kingdom in a magical land. It was art you could hang on a child's bedroom wall to keep them fascinated for hours.

  Wilson's city, named after an Aboriginal word meaning 'look-sit-see', included council chambers, a sun temple, civic centre and a library. There was a parliament house, a temple of heaven which catered for all religions, a university, an open-air theatre and even an airport and helipad. It was a grandiose and utopian view of how he thought people could live in harmony surrounded by the beauty of nature.

  'Mankind aims to subdue nature in its working on him. He must not forget that he is, and always will be, one of Nature's expressions of life. He is not the superman he has come to believe himself to be, but is as dependent on the sun as are the birds and insects . . .' Wilson wrote. And the words still resonate – perhaps even more loudly than in his own lifetime.

  On the trip home, we tell Pearman about the quest to pin down the architect of Tarrangaua.

  'Is there some doubt?' he asks.

  'More like lack of evidence,' Bob replies.

  'I seem to recall – in fact I am sure of it – that Gowrie mentioned the project and it's not likely he would make something like that up.' Then he sighs. 'I think I am right, but as I grow older . . . my memory . . . I wouldn't swear on a stack of bibles. Have you tried the Mitchell Library? There must be records of building the house.'

  I explain the search and where it has led.

  'The answer is almost always in the details,' Pearman suggests. 'Check the mantelpiece over the fireplace, see if the design is similar to any others. Is it a Marseille tiled roof? Wilson hated them but they were all he could get in the early twentieth century. Bagged walls, yes? Is the design symmetrical? Well, if I were you, I would stop looking for the reasons why the house is a Wilson design, and instead ask what is the case against it.'

  'Perhaps I'll track down those heritage architects who started this whole ball rolling. I wanted to contact them when I found proof – if I found it. Thought that was the best way to go. But you've spun my thinking around. Heard the other day that one of them has a sister who has a weekender in Towlers Bay. Might give her a call and ask her to open the door for me.'

  'It never ceases to amaze me,' Pearman says, 'that we are all separated by so little. That the world, if you like, is so small.'

  A few months after his talk, Bob and I visited Pearman, curious to see how his eco-friendly house functions. He showed us water tanks, a waterless, composting toilet, shelves made out of recycled timbers and double-glazed windows. The key to it all, though, was an 800 millimetre thick layer of soil on the roof which he says is the ultimate form of insulation. And the grass I saw on the roof suddenly made sense.

  'When you all sweltered the day Sydney hit forty-six degrees, inside Moonview the temperature was a comfortable twenty-two degrees,' he said with only a hint of self-congratulation.

  I recalled our trip to the rug weaver in her remote village in Turkey. How she proudly pointed out her new tiled roof – a sign of wealth – that had replaced rammed earth. Much easier, our weaver told us, because at the end of every winter earth roofs must be rebuilt and tiles last for a lifetime or two. Is it possible for ease and sustainability to coexist? Or is it the point where balance breaks down?

  I wonder whether, like Wilson when he designed Purulia, Pearman shocked the neighbours into mild revolt when he built Moonview.

  'Oh yes,' he replies. 'Everyone was against it. They didn't understand what I was trying to do. But you see, I wanted to build an environmental teaching house, to show how we can live sustainably even in big cities. I was told I would cause house prices to collapse in the street, but as far as I can tell, prices simply keep rising.'

  ***

  January swings in fast and furious and there's no time to follow up Pearman's suggestions but I have rung my neighbour and I have a phone number and email address for Howard Tanner, one of the heritage architects who is an expert on Hardy Wilson. I'll call him after the Tassie boat trip. Big Dave organises the Hobart pre-departure dinner. Crew and assorted partners – who have insisted with quiet inflexibility that they will not be joining us under any circumstances – sit around the heavy timber table on Big Dave's front terrace. Only a few metres away, Intrepid hangs sedately off her mooring, as though she is patiently waiting for Big Dave's bugle call. Does he laze on his deck on warm evenings with a beer in his hand, gazing at her with a mushy look on his face? Boats have a way of filling you with romance. Anyone who's ever spent time at sea, though, knows what the ocean can hurl at you and snatch from you.

  Jackie hands around her famous homemade deep-fried wontons. Crisp on the outside and moist inside, they're so good we eat too many.

  'I'm bringing a few packs of cards. I'm also going to teach everyone to play ten-card rummy. We'll have lots of time and not much to do,' she says. 'There'll be music on board but feel free to bring your own. As long as it's not doof or country.'

  I glance around the group. Annette and her husband (who isn't coming). Middle-aged. Kerry and her husband (also a non-starter). Middle-aged. Bob and me. Middle-aged. No. No chance of doof.

  'We've got two bathrooms, two double beds, a couple of single bunks, a fridge and freezer big enough to store food for three months and space for six people around the table,' Big Dave says. 'There's a washing machine, a press button toilet' – which sends up a sigh of delight from the women – 'and plenty of deck space out the back for pre-dinner drinks and snacks. The wardrobes are spacious, so pack as many clothes as you like, – another sigh – 'and the hot water never runs out' – almost applause.

  'Bring your own pillows,
if you want to,' Big Dave adds. 'There's bed linen but if you prefer, you can bring that, too.' Bed linen on a boat instead of sleeping bags? It's maritime luxury and we all know it.

  Big Dave fires up the barbecue and the men drift towards the flames. Marinated chicken breasts hit the hotplate with a hiss. Jackie puts a rice noodle salad laced with hot red chili and coriander on the table. Big Dave goes to the kitchen and returns with a platter of barbecued pork belly he's bought in Chinatown. He slices it with the delicacy of a surgeon. Annette reads out meals she thinks would be suitable for the trip from a very long, very organised list. Spaghetti bolognese, lamb korma, curried chicken . . .

  'What do you reckon?' she asks. 'A few of these in the freezer?'

  'Yep,' we all nod. 'Sounds better than a restaurant.'

  'I'll make a fruit cake, too,' I say, wanting to contribute.

  'Don't eat cake,' says Big Dave.

  'I don't eat cake, either,' Jackie adds.

  'Never been fond of fruit cake,' Annette says.

  'Thought I'd try to lose some weight,' Kerry says.

  For a minute I'm miffed. But who cares? 'Just bring enough for Bob and me, then. We're partial to a sliver of something sweet with a cuppa.'

  'Is it one of those cakes you put a lot of rum in?' Big Dave asks, only slightly curious.

  'Yeah. Plenty.'

  'Had a cake like that once. On a Sydney to Hobart race. Some bloke's mum made it. When we unwrapped it, the cabin smelt like a distillery. Magnificent, it was. Every bloke who'd hated fruit cake all his life got into it. Fought over the last couple of slices.'

  'Well, I'll make a big one and we'll see what happens.'

  'No need for a big one!' everyone shouts at once.

  ***

  Fleury makes one last attempt to get me off the boat. 'I'll wait for you at Middle Harbour,' she says. 'You're gonna hate this trip if you go all the way.'

  'Yeah, you're probably right. But I've signed on for the long haul. Don't waste your petrol.'

  I sailed from Melbourne with Bob on my only other small-boat ocean experience. We were helping to deliver a yacht to Sydney. Time was short because we had to be home for a wedding. Ours. We hit a squall eight hours out of Hastings that ripped the mainsail. I was so sick I couldn't move from my bunk. I lay there for three days in full wet-weather gear with a bucket tucked into the crook of my arm, stinking like a dead fish. But Bob promised me Refuge Cove would answer all my prayers. I dreamed of hot showers, café latte, clean clothes, a rental car. We arrived in the dead of a black winter night, so I didn't realise we were in the middle of a perfectly pristine national park until the sun came up.

  'Where's the marina?' I wailed.

  'There's a freshwater creek,' Bob offered enthusiastically. 'You can have a good wash.'

  The smell of toasted egg and bacon sandwiches filled the boat. My stomach lurched, settled, then erupted.

  'Great honeymoon, huh?' he joked, emptying my bucket while I considered calling off the wedding.

  When we made it to Eden, I stood under a hot shower in a motel room for thirty minutes then booked a flight to Sydney. Then bad weather delayed the boat for so long, Bob nearly missed our wedding. Stacky offered to act as proxy 'as long as there's full conjugal rights, mate', he teased. Miracle, really, that Bob and I ended up married. Thing is, he always made me laugh, no matter how crook I felt.

  Fleury is aware that the trip to Tasmania will be a repeat performance. People who get chronic seasickness rarely get over it. But I don't want to be held back by a body that won't always do as it is told. 'I'll call you from Hobart,' I tell her. And all she can do is shake her head.

  Two weeks later, departure time is set for 10 am and Bob and I wait for Big Dave to come by in his commuter boat to pick us up from the Lovett Bay ferry wharf. There was some drizzly rain overnight and it is still overcast, which takes the worry out of leaving Pittwater at this time of the year. The damp should stall any bushfires for at least a couple of weeks. But it's not enough to end the drought. A cool breeze flutters over smooth waters, changing the colour of the sea to deep grey. We clutch our favourite pillows. At our feet, there're insulated bags filled with food: chicken with olives, tomatoes and preserved lemon, boeuf bourguignon, lamb stew with dried figs, cold roasted pork for sandwiches. The fruit cake. Some stewed apple and rhubarb with a few frozen raspberries added, to have with our breakfast cereal. A dozen fresh eggs from the E-chicks, along with the teapot, loose tea, some cheese, dry biscuits, milk and yoghurt. Just in case . . .

  'Looks like we're setting off on an international expedition,' Bob says, taking stock of the supplies.

  'Well, we're going to Tasmania. That's sort of overseas.'

  He sighs. It is excessive, I know it is, but I cannot help myself.

  Big Dave's boat comes into view, a bright yellow plastic tub taking a short cut through the moorings instead of hugging the honeycomb shoreline. No-one follows that route at night. It's too easy to run up the nose of a yacht and take your head off.

  'Morning,' he says, smiling and skilfully bringing the boat alongside the wharf with a quarter of an inch to spare. He reaches out and grabs a step to hold the vessel steady. Bob passes him our pillows, wet-weather gear, kit bags, boxes, food bags and tightly packed reuseable supermarket bags. The laptop, the GPS and navigational software. When we're securely loaded, he points south east to Intrepid's mooring. He doesn't say a word about all our gear.

  'This is so exciting,' I gush idiotically. I'm not sure why because what I really feel is anxious.

  Big Dave grins. Up ahead, Intrepid sparkles: glossy white paintwork, varnished woodwork, buffed stainless steel. She's ready for the Hobart Wooden Boat Show.

  'Morning,' Jackie calls, leaning over the stern and waving. She looks excited. In a worried way. If we are lucky, we will live the dream of days and nights rocked gently by kindly seas. The engine will never falter and the head will never get bunged up. But we all know oceans are capricious.

  Bainy emerges from the main cabin. 'G'day,' he says, touching the peak of his black cap politely.

  'Bainy! Come to say goodbye?' we ask hoping he's not here to repair the engine . . . or anything.

  'Having a few problems with the oil gauge light,' Big Dave explains.

  'Oh.'

  The back deck is chockers when we clamber up from the commuter boat, knee-deep with food. Bob was right. There's enough for a voyage from one side of the world to the other. It's reassuring – and mortifying. Truth is, missing a few meals here and there wouldn't hurt any of us.

  I grab our clothing bags to put in our cabin. Whack! Bang my head on the edge of the stairwell. I tell myself to get used to it. Jackie's made the beds with matching sheets and doonas. It looks so cosy I feel like lying down already. Oh no. Queasy. Not even off the mooring yet. Am I mad? Should I climb into a tinny and motor home, turning back only to wave goodbye? No. One day, if I am lucky, I will be truly too old for this, but not yet. Bugger, where are the pills? I dash from below to the fresh air of the back deck, almost tripping over Bainy's backside which is half in, half out of a cupboard full of wires. Jackie's got the kettle on, bless her. Tea always sorts chaos. And what we've got is chaos on a major scale.

  'What time do you think we'll be away?' Bob asks casually.

  'Depends on Bainy,' Big Dave replies, looking enquiringly at his rear end.

  'No pressure or I'll walk off the boat,' Bainy shouts from his wire cupboard.

  Big Dave rolls his eyes. Bob laughs. Bainy's running true to form.

  Jackie passes around the tea and opens a plastic container. She's baked a spice cake and a banana cake. It is only the second time she's baked cakes in her life, and her thoughtfulness makes me teary. Then I greedily grab a slice of each and hit the back deck where my stomach settles instantly. I whack a couple of seasick pills down my throat to be sure. What's the rule for a dodgy belly? Stare at the land. I gaze at Bells Wharf, the pale blue shed and canary-yellow steps like a waterfront doll's house. Further
along, there's the brown timber house I rented when I first moved to Pittwater, raised a metre higher and with new deck rails. Nothing stays the same.

  As Bainy labours, the southerly swings around to a nor'easter, a perfect rear-end shove for the journey ahead. Everyone cheers. Around us, yellow moorings pop out of the water. Fenders hang over the sides of boats like giant teeth. In Jackie and Dave's front yard, a mahogany Buddha looks down on us benignly. Once I would have seen it as an omen, but I've long stopped searching for omens to have the courage of conviction.

  Bainy is struggling. Sweat pours down his face, the wire cupboard's cramped and stuffy. Bob stands alongside to give him a hand. Bainy's too buggered to tell him to piss off.

  Tony delivers Annette and her pile of bags to Intrepid in one of the new plastic boats that seem to be gradually replacing the banged-up tinnies on Pittwater. Perhaps they're a sign of the increasing affluence of the area. Today's technology gives many more people the choice of working from home. The new 'bathtubs', as I like to call the plastic boats, come in rainbow colours – canary yellow, sky blue, hot pink, purple, red, grey, green and white. They are easy to maintain and manoeuvre, and stable enough for a person to balance on a corner of the stern with the risk of going overboard. They're the best thing that's ever happened at Commuter Dock: no more worries about jumping into a boat and sinking it.

  Tony, Annette's husband, ties the boat to the stern and comes on board to wish us luck. Most of Annette's bags are full of food, too. What are we all frightened of? But I know. We could get blown off course, hit a horror of a storm and end up lost at sea for weeks. Ancient fears that don't really fit in the age of satellite navigation. But they lurk in the bottom of every bag of food.

  Kerry's still missing.

  Dave's dry goods get stored in rough order under the green banquettes. There are nibbles to have with drinks, and rice, pasta, pasta sauces, tinned fruit and vegetables. No. No chance we'll starve.

  Kerry and her husband Pete finally nuzzle up to the splashboard at the stern. Kerry's dithery. The leap from tinny to boat has her flummoxed. When to jump? Now? Or now? Big Dave reaches across, grabs her and pulls. She wails, looks tippy for a second then straightens in triumph. Pete ties up and comes on board. Tinnies hang off the stern like baby ducklings. The last link with land.