The House At Salvation Creek

by Susan Duncan

'Your mother arranges each plate like an artist, as though she's going to paint it,' Sharon tells me.

  And I begin to see this mother with whom I've battled for so long through the eyes of someone else. I have been judge and bully. Off-hand and unthinking. I have held back praise and affection when it would have cost nothing. I have looked for gratitude for every small gift and given none in return for a lifetime of giving. She nursed me like a heart patient after I had scarlet fever, for God's sake! And through how many other childhood dramas? Adult, too, here and there. Although I never had the guts to tell her about my seediest moments.

  'You have done everything with your life that I dreamed of doing with mine,' she told me one day. And I realised I am who I am because of – not despite – her.

  Did I get my love of cooking from her? Did she insist I listen to music until I heard the passion in it? Did she tell me books were the key to the universe? Did she withhold praise only to make me try harder? Did she know – and of course she did – that there would be times ahead when the framework we all build to make us feel secure would come tumbling down and unless you have learned toughness, you crash with it? Of course she did. Did I dismiss her as frivolous because I failed to see it was her way of handling tragedy? Did I close my eyes to her long empty nights after my father died as I pursued my own dreams?

  If she were someone else's mother, would I see her as my friends tell me they see her? 'She is strong,' they say. 'She is a character. She's tough. And she's very, very funny.'

  ***

  The doctor tells Sharon there is nothing he can do for her. She needs surgery to implant the pacemaker but she is not strong enough to handle it. And even if she were, there is the matter of cancer. All he can do, he says, is make her as comfortable as possible.

  Sharon is devastated. She thought she was getting better and would soon be well enough to return to her villa. For a day or two she reels. Then she puts the small matter of death aside and calls my mother. 'Do you have a needle and thread?' she asks.

  'Yes,' my mother replies.

  'Could you bring them with you the next time you come? I have a button to sew on.'

  'I'll bring it with your fruit.'

  My mother phones to tell me what the doctor has told Sharon.

  'What did you say to her?' I ask.

  'I said, "Sharon, I've never lost a patient yet and you're not going to be the first." '

  'That was good.' But I want to cry, because her words are perfect. And my mother didn't even have to think about it.

  ***

  'I'd like to bring someone to lunch,' my mother says in the middle of the supermarket. She leans forward on the trolley, and it supports her through the aisles. Slower than slow. I am tempted to grab it and whip around quickly while she sits and waits, but I hold back. She is heading for ninety and she still takes care of herself. And Sharon. She is, in fact, amazing.

  Her trolley is full of custardy desserts. 'Would you like some eggs? Bacon?' I suggest, trying to move her beyond sugar.

  'Don't be silly. They're fattening. Oh, shut up,' she adds, although I haven't said a word.

  'So who do you want to bring to lunch?'

  'Just someone I've met at the village. We get along very well. He's extremely interesting.'

  He?

  She reaches for soy milk. 'I'm allergic to dairy,' she explains.

  I look at the desserts, zip my lips. With luck I, too, will be her age one day and able to do as I damn well please.

  'Sounds ok. When do you want to bring him over?'

  'Whenever.'

  'Is this some kind of . . . fling?'

  'Don't be ridiculous. I am an aging woman. We just get along. We think alike.' Then she smiles. Looks coquettish. 'Your mother,' she says, 'has still got it, kid.'

  At home, I tell Bob the news. 'A bloke,' I say, 'she's got a bloke. And he's young enough to have his driver's licence. Maybe she'll be off our hands for a while.'

  Bob looks at me. 'Doubt it. Just means we could have two of them to look after.'

  ***

  I finally contact heritage architect Howard Tanner, and he kindly agrees to take a look at Tarrangaua. This will be my last step in the search to discover who designed the house. I have no regrets about taking on this funny little personal quest to ensure that the correct man doesn't have the credit snatched from him as time blurs the line between fact and fiction.

  Researching the past has opened new doors, led to knowledge, given me a tiny insight into what it must have been like to take on the challenge of settling here in the early days of last century. Mostly, it has stopped my world from shrinking. What was it the Bangalow rug seller said? Knowledge keeps you young?

  Tanner arrives with his wife Mary on 28 January, the final day of a sunny, breezy, Australia Day long weekend. I do not realise, until a few weeks later, that he chose a singularly appropriate date: Barbara first saw the house on 28 January 1993, when she and Bob walked through the bush. The same day a year later, they took possession of it.

  Tanner, a neat man, stands at the front of the house, near where the Australian flag flies strongly from the top of the flagpole with the small plaque: Barbara Story 1943 – 2000. He looks at the roof lines, asks how many foundation piers there are. Bob gives him the information. Then Tanner wanders along the verandah. 'In Mackellar's day,' he tells us, 'summers were often lived on the verandah. People covered them with daybeds, tables and chairs, sofas. It was cooler than the house. And thought to be healthy.'

  'I can never understand why there are so many doors into the main room,' I say, leading the way inside.

  'So the servants could access both ends without walking through it,' he replies.

  'And the locks on every single cupboard?'

  'Servants,' he repeats.

  After he's had a thorough look, we have tea and cake on the verandah, in the same spot the Buddhist nun tells us Mackellar ate her lunch: 'She always kept an eye out for kookaburras. They often waited patiently on the dead bough of a spotted gum for the moment they could safely snatch the steak from her plate,' Adrienne said.

  Two hours after he arrived, Tanner stands to leave.

  'I had a feeling I should have checked the dates about Dods before wondering if he might have been involved in the design,' Tanner says. 'But the columns are such a feature of Dods' style, it seemed to make sense.'

  'What's always had me stumped,' I say, 'is why Wilson, Neave and Berry would have designed a septic tank for the house if they had nothing to do with the rest of it.'

  Tanner smiles. 'A defining point,' he concedes.

  ***

  'Now the rains are here, what do you think about a paella down by the little beach?' I suggest.

  'Do you mean light a fire?' Bob asks.

  'If it's safe enough.'

  'So wet we might not get it to start,' he replies.

  'You're the combustion engineer. And you like a challenge.'

  We load the blackened steel washing machine drum in the back of The Pug along with enamel plates, mismatched cutlery, a camp table, folding camp chairs and an old kilim – with holes chewed in it by one dog or another over the years – that I bought for my brother as a wedding present when I travelled through Afghanistan in my twenties. Before I discovered his new bride preferred silk carpets. We take a plastic groundsheet to go under it.

  There are gas lanterns, fishing rods, bait, two big cast iron pans. I cheat, though, and fry the onion and garlic in the house. The rice, tomatoes, spices, prawns and chorizo go in a plastic container, homemade stock in a plastic screw-top jar. There are crusty baguettes to sop up the juices. Wine and beer, water with home-grown limes and mint from Bob's herb garden in the courtyard. Dessert is butter, almond and coconut cake with blueberries and cream. I've poached some nectarines, too. And made a custard with vanilla beans, cinnamon and star anise. What's a picnic without dessert?

  I call Stewart and Fleury, Nick and Ann, David and Caro and John and Therese, who have moved from the Tin Shed i
nto a home of their own. They are just a little further along the shoreline in Lovett Bay, so we have not lost them from our 'chosen family'.

  'Miss the shiny-headed old bugger poking around the boatshed every morning,' Michael said not long after they set up in their new house on a point with views to Palm Beach. 'He was part of the routine.'

  We call Michael and Mary Beth, Ric and Bella, Jack and Brigitte and the new tenants living in the Tin Shed, Martin and Ulrike, who are from Germany.

  'Maybe the rain has brought back the fish so bring your rods,' we tell everyone on the day of the paella. 'We've got plenty of bait.'

  Under a sky splattered with stars, we friends and neighbours eat and talk and reminisce. I feel like my life really began when I moved to this wondrous little bay. And again, I am struck by the irony that I needed to face death to understand life.

  'This is the stuff of magic,' I say to Bob. He threads bait onto his hook and casts his line from the pontoon where our two tinnies are tied side by side.

  'Life doesn't get much better than this,' he replies.

  I nod, cup my hand around his face and lean against him lightly. The moon is a yellow crescent in a purple sky.

  EPILOGUE

  TO CELEBRATE MY MOTHER'S eighty-seventh birthday, Bob and I take her to a swish restaurant with kind young waiters and views of Whale Beach and the Pacific Ocean. When we ask Esther if she'd like to invite her new beau, she shakes her head. 'He's a friend, I've told you that. Just a friend.'

  'You can still ask him along.'

  'No. I don't mind talking about other people, but I'm not going to have anyone gossiping about me,' my mother states firmly. 'At my age, anyway, you get too selfish. And people think you're nothing but a silly old woman.'

  My mother wears a tan and white suit that hugs her figure. She looks wonderful, and she knows it. She flirts outrageously with the waiter and then kisses him on the cheek as we leave. 'If only I were sixty years younger,' she tells him.

  'If only . . .' he replies, smiling beautifully and playing the game. He makes her feel desirable, which is the best birthday present of all.

  ***

  Big Dave is looking for crew to make the passage across the Pacific Ocean to the island of Vanuatu on Intrepid 11. He spins tales of syrupy tropical nights, white-gold beaches and azure waters when we meet as we pass through The Point. The light of passion flashes in his eyes. Then he looks at me and shakes his head. 'Might be better if you fly and meet us there,' he suggests. 'But Bob . . . what do you think? Want to have a go?'

  So far, Bob has resisted, but as we turn away I see a glimmer of desire on his face. 'Why don't we go?' I ask once or twice.

  'We'll see what happens,' he replies.

  ***

  The rain comes down for thirteen days straight and mould rampages through the cupboards. Leeches become so bold they hover, heads swaying like dancing cobras, at the back door, hoping to latch on to us with their sharp little teeth.

  Then a southerly wind turns the temperature from cool to cold and the idea of a smooth little dish of Spiced Cottage Cheese Custard is irresistible. I follow the directions from Mackellar's handwritten notes perfectly, a first for me. The result is a lovely old-fashioned and very easy dessert, although it's worth mentioning that there's a missing quarter of a cup of sugar in the list of ingredients.

  I make it a second time with a few changes: I infuse the milk with a cinnamon quill and vanilla bean because the cinnamon powder makes the custard look a bit curried in colour which I find a little off-putting. I replace the cottage cheese with ricotta, and instead of stirring the mixture, I whiz all the ingredients in the food processor except the hot milk, which I stir in before pouring the mixture into cups. This method makes a smoother dessert. I use canned baby apricots and canned whole baby pears. The apricots are richer.

  ***

  Just when I think I've put the Tarrangaua architect question to bed forever, John Pearman, whom we invited to see the house a few weeks earlier, calls to say he's been doing some research. Would we care to hear it?

  'Yes!' I reply, emphatically. And Bob and I make a date to meet him at Moonview.

  It is a wet, clammy and cold day but none of us dares to complain. It would be blasphemy to wish the rain away when so much of the country is still powdery and parched. My Uncle Frank says it will take ten years of steady rain in the right season to restore lushness to his land. 'And when have we ever had that in this country?' he asks. For the first time ever, there is a hint of resignation in his voice. The final six rows of peach trees, he then tells me, have just been ploughed in. The old orchard, due to be sown with pasture, will be put up for sale in spring. But I can't help thinking that farmers are optimists and that if it rains this winter and the dams fill to overflowing, the family will plant new trees and stay on. Life is always a gamble of one kind or another, no matter where you are. But Uncle Frank is past eighty now, and bouncing back is no longer so easy.

  At Moonview, John leads the way inside and points at a small square table with two chairs in the library. Bob and I sit down. John steps back a little and in his deep, mellifluous voice says: 'I have had a quick look at Hardy Wilson's houses and I believe there is evidence to support the view that Tarrangaua was built by Wilson, Neave and Berry.'

  Bob and I are silent. John, still wearing his tweed cap, his windcheater zipped over plain, green cotton overalls (he has an identical pair for each day of the week), looks us in the eye. The room is filled with a sense of drama.

  'Tarrangaua is a no-frills house,' he continues. 'There is none of the scholarly detail you would expect from Hardy Wilson. But they were probably left out because of access problems. Or . . . pared back to adapt to the site. The house is brilliantly situated and has a fine sense of proportion, which is what Wilson did best. His imitators are never quite as clever,' he says, making his first point.

  'One of the most obvious missing details is shutters. Wilson used them prolifically and they were his trademark. He believed they were an excellent way to keep houses ventilated. But that doesn't mean he never designed a house without them. In 1926, the year after it is believed Tarrangaua was built, he designed a home for Mrs Ryan in Kiama, also without shutters.' Pearman opens a folder filled with copies of plans of Wilson's buildings. He points to a drawing of Mrs Ryan's house with its unadorned windows.

  'Now, look at this. The back to back – or twin – front steps were used for the first time at Tarrangaua but they appeared again here, at Barford, which was built in 1931 for Hardy Wilson's niece, Betty (Wilson) Fairfax. Admittedly, Wilson was no longer part of the practice, but the precedent is there.'

  Next, Pearman reaches for a copy of A 20th Century Colonial, published by the National Trust to celebrate the centenary of Wilson's birth. He points to a drawing of a cottage in Burwood, built for Mrs Murray in 1914, listed in the 'Inventory of Architectural Works', which I notice was compiled by Howard Tanner. Would Tanner, I can't help wondering, add Tarrangaua to this list in the future?

  'Let us look at columns, such a feature of Wilson's work. He favoured elegant, detailed and tapered columns, yet they are unadorned and muscular at Tarrangaua. Well, the pergola at Macquarie Cottage at Pymble' – Pearman opens Zeny Edwards' biography of Wilson to page 203 and points to a photograph – 'has identical columns. So, too, does Andreas House.'

  He closes the book and returns to the folder of architectural drawings from which he selects a copy of the plans for Andreas House. 'You see? They are substantial. It is also worth noting that the pavilion in the garden of Wilson's home, Purulia, had similar columns.'

  He then makes a series of quick points: 'The sleep-out at the eastern end of the verandah was typical of Wilson. In those days, people were expected to get up with the sun.

  'The bagged brick walls were a Wilson trademark.

  'Wilson also approved of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and on page 160 of his biography, there is a drawing of cupboards designed for a dining room in 1916. The metal latches and
slab doors are similar at Tarrangaua.

  'Although the fireplace at Tarrangaua has been interfered with, the mantelpiece is very similar to the one in Purulia and the large main living room is typical. So, too, is the "circulation" corridor connecting all the rooms.

  'The rear courtyard is also found in many Wilson homes. The Chinese, whom Wilson admired greatly, believed they brought light into dark areas. They were known as "wells of heaven". A wonderful description, don't you think?'

  He closes his books and puts away his reference materials with great care.

  'You have been very kind and diligent, John. Thank you,' I say.

  His face breaks into a smile. 'Oh, not at all. It was great fun. Learning and discovering, well, what else is there?'

  Later, after we have toured his amazing home again, he tells us he's worked hard to regenerate the nature reserve that is his backyard. Once it was infested with lantana and privet and even the wreck of an old Austin car with an English numberplate and the keys still in the ignition. 'There was a skull on the front seat, too, but it was porcelain. Part of an elaborate practical joke.'

  His environmental house, he adds, and the beautifully restored bush, will be bequeathed as an environmental educational centre to show people how they can live sustainably in the city – like Jeanne, who plans to leave her house and garden in trust for the people of Australia to enjoy. 'It is my legacy,' Pearman says.

  Legacy. Such an old-fashioned concept. More noble, somehow, than 'inheritance', which reeks of greed and never seems to do anyone much good anyway. Certainly not Dorothea Mackellar. What would she have been capable of, if she'd had to strive? 'There was too, too much money,' a Mackellar family friend told Jyoti Brunsdon. Mackellar may have left a fortune when she died but she believed her legacy, the single thing that defined her life, was her poem, 'My Country'.

  'In truth, none of us owns anything, especially land. We are only custodians for a very short while,' Pearman says. He gazes through a window. 'Brush and comb gardens are dead compared to living in the bush. When the land is left wild, it is full of wonder.'