Author: Chris Burchett

Animals

An exotic wallpaper

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Animals

We are all keyed up, flying from Alice, stopping in Adelaide before the haul across to Perth. There are six of us, two taxis depositing us at our rented premises, our home, five bedrooms and a couch for the next four days.

The National Folk Festival starts tomorrow, and despite the long flights, nobody wants to down tools – we are keen to see the venue, the staging, if possible, to test the acoustics – gain a sense of ‘the vibe’. We drop our bags and are off.

It is early evening when we get back to the rental; time to collect bags from the heap on the loungeroom floor, identify bedrooms, the possibility of a shower, dinner. I have drawn the short-straw – the couch is my home-from-home.

I am the first to notice the unusual wallpaper, small black intermittent, heart-shaped motifs against a crème background. Not unpleasant, just unusual. Pizzas are ordered, a few beers chugged and we are into bed early.

Our first concert is in the late morning, taxis get us there by ten. Our hour-long workshop focuses on the 1830s, NSW’s early penal settlement at Emu Plains. It is well received. It will be repeated tomorrow afternoon, and we are now free to catch other workshops, network with other Folkie-mates, and, when ready, make our own way back to the rental.

Bob and I both need a break and are home by three. I have had a few beers and fall onto the couch. I scrunch around inside the sleeping bag, getting comfy. I glance at the wallpaper. Something is changing – the design looks to pulse, the heart-shaped motifs are actually alive, moving. I call Bob to come into the lounge.

The whole wall, in fact all the walls, are moving! In all directions, a noticeable drift, and I have a really close look. “Oh hell, the dots are bloody ticks, millions of the buggers,” I scream. I manically throw off the sleeping bag, I look at the carpet. Oh Jesus, they are crawling there, too! We are both dancing around, lifting bags, finding them already crawling on and into everything.

We start throwing the luggage out onto the lawn. I have an absolute hatred of ticks; and leeches, lice, mossies and any other bastard that wants to drink my vital forces.  I am hopping around, not sure where to prop: Bob swears loudly and I notice he is performing quite a theatrical war dance.

Outside, we inspect each other closely. He finds a couple of the buggers on my back, otherwise we are both ‘clean.’  We go back inside, grabbing the remaining gear from the bedrooms. I alert the others, still at the show, and we are lucky to find two equipped tents at the Festival’s campground.

We all spend an hour on the front lawn, unpacking, closely inspecting, occasionally removing unwanted nasties. The Estate Agent isn’t overly concerned by our outrage but promises a refund.

I have ticks on my brain for days.

Peccadillos and Pecados

It was preordained

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Peccadillos and Pecados

Quod erat demonstrandum, ‘that which is to be demonstrated’ had been drummed into me in Year One science. The facts must be accepted as irrefutable evidence. But these results – 99.9% likely paternity – utterly unbelievable – I always wore protection!

I reread both the pathology report, and her letter. If Mum were still here, she’d skin me alive, and then pester me for details of her new granddaughter. I realise I’m humming the 23rd Psalm’s wonderful descant – when stressed, it’s always such a comfort.

There is a small photo, a petite redhead, glasses suggesting a slightly schoolmarmish young woman. She is thirty-two years old, born in November 1993. My mind swirls back.

I’d just finished Uni, living in that grungy three-bedroom flat in North Carlton, with Roberto and Stavros. There had been outrageous parties, a lot of booze, girls, music, not much sleep. I reckon I must have just met Anna! I clearly remember her insistence on the need to get out of that flat, gain some privacy, an early precondition, she said, if we were to become ‘an item’.

I remember some indignation at her ‘Terms of Engagement’; we blokes had been together since high school. I recall stringing Anna along, assuring her that I had started looking for a new rental. The parties continue:  she is getting antsy, threatening. I lie:  I tell her I have found new digs, but they will not be available for another eight weeks.

Jeez, there was that fantastic weekend. Late summer, we’d hired a shack. It was somewhere on the Goulburn River. There are indelible memories of sheep, green paddocks, still waters; an outdoor table setting: we all bought swags, mobs of booze and a few snags. Anna had an exam coming up. She didn’t come.

What was her name? She had red hair, a great body, just finished her Pharmacy at Latrobe and was trotting out with Roberto: somehow, we ended up in the river together. One thing led to another, swish-oh, and there it was. Roberto stumbled upon us entwined, asleep, compromised. He was furious, and drove back to Carlton that afternoon, alone!

I tried to explain to Roberto that it’d been a ‘spiritual, preordained encounter’: the green pastures, the river, I was being led: there was nothing personal. It took years to achieve a reproachment!

I move out, and then in, with Anna. We set up house in Northcote, settle down, start a family and eventually get married. Three wonderful kids, the eldest just turning 30, is about to get married.

I never did give Anna many details of that Goulburn River weekend. My memory suggests I probably fudged most of the specifics: time erased the rest.

I scrunch the pages into my pocket as I wander purposefully outside. I climb the railway embankment behind the house, following the path to the high street and its café.

I order my usual long black, dropping the scrunched paperwork into the bin. QED be buggered. Not me: no way, Gungor Din!

Poems

Meredith’s cat

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Poems

The girl was adopted by a wandering puss

And that meant quite flatly nought left to discuss

After snacking and play throughout that first day

The moggie said “Yes, I think I will stay.”

 

Tinned chicken, warmed milk and other soft treats

It was obvious there would be plenty of eats

A comfy soft bed, mice toys to pursue

Curtains to shred and discreet litter, for poo.

 

Drawn curtains keep cold winter chills well away

Rugged up and comfy, of course I will stay

No need for dead lizards or birdies to stalk

I now have an owner, my God how we talk.

 

My skills as a hunter in previous times

Were writ largely and often recording my crimes

But those days are behind, because of the glass

And the doorway that closes to forestall hurried pass!

 

She tickles my tum and if needed wipes bum

We both enjoy music, and that’s why we hum

As she sits at her desk composing her prose

I lie at the window, purring softly and doze.

 

She hails from the Taylors, of proud lineage

Meredith, yes, that’s right, through matrilineage

And pardon me dear, did you say Ereeka

No, no I correct her, my name is Gemima.

Characters

Hairy Henry

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Characters

I left school after Intermediate and started working at Myer(s). It felt so grown up to be wearing that black uniform: the ladies in their finery, coming and going.

My girlfriends used to call me a flirt. They had it wrong; I just liked being around moustached men. It was probably my brother’s Air Force growth – it extended well beyond his cheeks, curling down at the ends, always his pride and joy. I had consequently come to place a certain measure of a man’s worth by his facial hair. Henry’s moustache got my attention.

I started work on the second floor, in Lingerie. Lift operator Henry’s hirsute offerings set my mind a-tingle. He sat on a little three-legged stool in the corner of the wood-paneled elevator. He slid open the grille door, reminding us to “Watch your step, Ladies”, then engaged the circular brass controller to transport us:  left sent us down to the Ground Floor; to the right, up to our individual floors.

We girls often took extra trips, just to engage Henry. His left leg gently thumped the floor in time to some inwardly followed beat, his right stump had the trouser leg deftly tucked back under the knee, and pinned. He wore a neat row of medal miniatures on his left chest.

I knew there was something special about that moustache, and the man behind it.  If I got to work fifteen minutes early, I had Henry to myself. He sometimes stopped the lift mid-floor, we chatted, our conversations increasingly moving towards our shared interests. I mentioned my brother, in the Air Force at the end of the War. I once even bought his Swagger Stick to work – a conversation piece, that upon reflection, was a bit silly. Henry volunteered that he had had one too, once, but he would not be drawn on his military service, or amputation.

I had to share him at ‘elevenses, as we girls rode up to the 3rd floor Cafeteria – Staff Section, but I sensed he especially liked me. His hand once darted out to steady me as I stumbled at the cage door – such soft hands. I stumbled a few times in the weeks ahead.

I occasionally rode the lift during business hours, listening to his spiel: “Level One, Women’s Fashions”, then “Level Two – Lingerie, Shoes, Accessories ”; then Cafeteria; Furnishings; Haberdashery; Kitchenware; Men’s Fashions, and on up to the spectacular transformation of the top floor at Christmas – Santa’s Cave and the Toy Department.

Henry had an invaluable sense of the customer, even a lift full of excited four-year-olds and was able to adjust his patter accordingly.  I was dazzled.

I was working up the courage to invite him out for tea, to our local Café, but he disappeared. I came to work on Monday and a clean-shaven face greeted me!  “Nah, Henry left last Friday. I’m not sure, but I think someone said this morning that he had had to go up to Sydney. My name’s Trevor.”

Domestics

Ageing indiscretions

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Domestics

Miffy, our adorable little fluffball, rules our later lives. We had been determined to have a dog-free retirement, but you know how these things can change; we dropped our guard, just the once, and she moved in! That was nine years ago and our Shih Tzu lives ‘…the life of Riley.’

It is Tuesday, an hour after breakfast; Miffy and I are riding the elevator downstairs for her morning exercise. Just the two of us at Level 9.  On her lead, she has her favourite plastic toy in her mouth: off-lead, I have my walking stick, my woollen beanie, pulled firmly down, a thick overcoat and wet weather boots. We are both ready for the elements outside.

There is a brief hesitation as I cross the foyer to the elevator – the bathroom – to be, or not to be – you know those little gut ripples – I make a Captain’s Pick, things will be fine until we return!

The door slowly opens, an invitation to journey. In we go, Miffy wriggles in anticipation, a couple of short, sharp barks, and then she scrapes the carpet – I know the signs, we definitely need to get a move on!

The doors close with the usual thump, a couple of bounces and down we go.  Opps, maybe I should have taken a detour before we left. Things are brewing; Miffy’s wriggles are becoming more intense, and I am certainly sharing some of her discomfort. I take a gamble and relieve just a little pressure. At that moment, we stop at Level 3.

The doors open to Janet’s serene, morning face. Miffy barks, I squirm, the doors close. Janet covers her gagging by facing the wall and starts urgently pressing the button. The lift doors obligingly move, she manically inserts her hands to move the doors quicker.

I adopt my sternest voice and, to Janet’s back, loudly berate Miffy. I inwardly acknowledge a decorous failure and wonder if my indiscretion will be brought up at the Village meeting later that afternoon.

I see Janet in the foyer a few hours later. I approach, intending to explain Miffy’s diet, but she glares at me and passes on. I decide it’s best to leave digestive discussions alone, and I make my way to the cafe.

Over coffee, I spend some quiet time musing over this morning’s encounter. I note the invaluable lesson from having the dog with you during morning lift excursions. While they may not provide an immutable cover for an accidental zinger, they certainly raise the possibility of doubt and/or blame – a legal defence!

On Wednesdays, I share a gym session with Janet. I take great delight noting her slightly strangled backdoor burp, loosed during her squats and her evident embarrassment. I acknowledge our shared humanity – it happens in the best of circles. She immediately leaves the workout.

Janet remains a little cool. But I sense an emerging détente, an understanding of our aging weaknesses, to be avoided, wherever possible, but accepted as a reality.

Family

Christmas Lasagna

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Family

My expletive follows the paring knife’s momentary slip, it’s a small nick across both my pinky and index fingers. I suck the fingers as I go to the bathroom cupboard and apply a couple of band aids. I briefly reflect on my four-year-old grandson’s probable jealousy of my colourful strips!

I go back into the kitchen, the large mixing bowl has quite a few drops of blood on the sides and down, across the onions. Bugger, they were my last ones. I chuck the vegetables out. What else do I need from the shops, I ponder as I grab a couple of bags, phone, keys and leave the house.

The family Christmas lunch; my contribution: two large trays of Lasagna. Thank God I was at the beginning of the prep. I buy a bag of onions, I still have everything else, but maybe another box of wine and I think Matthew needs another whiskey. Maybe a couple of bottles of fizz, the Skillogalee Sparkling Riesling is on special.

Home again. I wander into the garden and pick a small bunch of oregano, a handful of basil and from the shed, break off a garlic clove from one of the dried braids. Back in the kitchen I have the onions diced, the blended pork and beef mince browning, the water is on the hob, ready to soften the noodles.  The tide has gone out in my glass. Just another small splash.

I transfer the meat, onion, the finely chopped herbs and a jar of our tomato passata to a saucepan and gently cook the brew. My secret ingredient, a slug of Sweet Vermouth goes in. I use the booze instead of sugar, to offset the acidic tomatoes.

I butter the trays, Mum’s old Figgjo ones; she loved them, bought on one of her European sojourns, in Oslo. They’re perfect for Lasagna; 2” deep, 12” long and they have assumed treasured status in my own cookware cupboard. I flick the oven onto 180.

My cheese sauce is made – Cottage cheese, parmesan, an egg, seasoning and then the first layer goes into the trays. A meat layer follows, pasta, another sauce, meat, pasta, three layers in total and a final heavy-handed layer of mozzarella.

Two beautiful lasagnas but as I open the oven door, horror of horrors: I only have one band aid on my hand!  I search the bench. I tip out the compost bucket and inspect the onion peel and the dag ends of the herbs. Nope, nothing. Not in the sink, on the floor. Oh bloody hell!

I gently lift the edges of the layers. I dig a little deeper in the hope of a find. Nothing! I take a slug of wine. Hey, Matthew and I can eat these, so while still in the trays, I cut each of them into four double meal portions and pop them into the oven. I will ring the local takeaway and order two family-sized Lasagnas: nobody will ever know the difference.

Characters

Drained anxiety

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Characters

I check the gate monitor and confirm it is the usual Coles delivery guy: Joe, I think his name is. I hit the remote and watch as the gate slid smoothly aside. The truck parks in the driveway and I watch the gate close.

Four boxes of groceries, two chiller bags of perishables and a box of booze (six pinot grigio and two scotch) are deposited on the porch. I acknowledge Joe with a wave through the window.  He has delivered here before and understands the drill. He smiles and waves, climbing back into his truck and waits for me to open the grill.

It is shut and I unlatch the mortice deadlock, the security chain, and the security screen, quickly moving the supplies into the hallway. Both doors are secured and I start sorting out the boxes; transferring the chiller and frozen goods first. The booze goes onto the racks in the study and the groceries I unpack onto their labelled shelves in the pantry, ensuring the new tins sit behind the existing stock, to maintain best before date order. Bottles stand separately, and I refill the labelled jars with self-raising and plain flour, cous cous, pasta, rock salt. All OK.

Everything is ticked off my list save … wait a minute. I go back into the pantry. Nope, they are not here. I upend the various empty boxes and bags. Oh hell, bugger, they have forgotten them!

I am almost out and I specifically asked Coles for two dozen. How could this happen? They did this once last year, too! I send off a curt email expressing my anger at their oversight. I demand acknowledgment and immediate delivery.

Six o’clock, and they still haven’t arrived! I retreat upstairs, to the bedroom. I am not panicking, although I am now perspiring and the fingers on my right hand are starting to drum a tattoo on the bedside table.

What if there’s a power outage during the night? Or there is a burglar or a car accident in the street and they hit the buzzer, looking for help? It’s been four hours since I emailed them: still no response or deliveries!

There is a chill in the room and I slip under the covers. My phone emits a soft ‘brrring’, presaging a text. “Sorry for the mix-up. Your order is important to us but all of our staff are busy fulfilling deliveries. We will have them on the first available truck tomorrow morning. Again, our sincere apologies. Andy”

I hunker further under the covers, my mind races, possible deadly scenarios swirl. What if … oh hell. I am shaking, sweat stings my eyes. I’m starting to panic!

I climb into the wardrobe, pushing blouses and slacks aside and find security on the shelf above the draws. Fingertips and toes establish my boundaries, a warm comforting fug: I doze.

Daylight. I shower, dress and cook raisin bread. 9 am and the gate buzzes. My AA batteries are delivered. Finally. Thank God!

Characters

Towards closure

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Characters

Is it Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday? I know it’s not Wednesday – we didn’t have porridge today. I heard an ambulance yesterday.

I nurse my strong black tea and shortbread biscuit, ruminating, hunkered down on the verandah at the Old Folk’s home. A privacy screen separates me from his now empty room. It also protects me from the chill wind. The sun struggles, a patch of weak blue between a wash of blotchy grey clouds.

We have been close mates for decades – first, in the mid-70s sharing an old, semi-ruined stone hut in the bush, north of town; then a flash, three-bedroom house in the ’burbs. He is the best man at my wedding, and also the midwife when the dog delivers six pups on my waterbed. We often sing together at the folk club, using his old guitar to accompany our doleful duets.

I’m transferred 500 kilometres northward, with occasional catch-ups serving as the umbilical. My work demands are full-on, incessant travel, partnered interests, we lose that close intimacy until about a year later, another transfer, further north and we’re both back in the same office: work trips, weekend parties, dinners, camping expeditions.

A year on and I transfer to the ‘big smoke’. He follows not long after, and we both buy 5-acre blocks two kilometres apart, both building ‘unusual’ houses: ours of bluestone his, exposed corrugated iron. He is now partnered and our foursome enjoy close camaraderie. Our kids arrive, he moves south, and we are reduced to sporadic snippets. We hear that he and his gal have ‘split the blanket’.

Our kids grow, I change careers and start unending travel around the globe. I take it for eight years before resigning and eventually another significant shift into southern climbs, albeit we’re still eight hundred kilometres apart.

But we do manage to catch up. Maybe twice yearly we roll swags, gather billy cans, tucker, booze and head out into the bush: seated fireside, reminiscing and quiet enjoyment in each other’s company. We’ve both gained fifteen years, but we’re still travelling well.

Another fifteen years pass. I move again. We now share the same State, now just 200 kilometres apart. I make the trip up to his place every couple of months and we take off further north, across the wide, flat plains. He occasionally comes down to our place.

Body’s ache, bladders and memories falter, frustrations intrude. He takes up an offer of a daughter’s Granny-Flat, only an hour away. I undertake regular grandchildren’s minding. Contact decreases.

Months pass, and countless suggested camping trips are rejected. I am told weeding, building new vegetable beds, fencing, family and medical commitments, feeding and watering livestock – all take precedence! Things drift. Have I offended him or is it something else?

Mind and body start to fail. Fifty years and we’re back into direct physical contact, but mental frailties erode function, awareness and conviviality. We share a table at mealtimes, but … sad tears flow as the empty, dark eternity approaches.

Imagined

Gas-induced mayhem

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Imagined

He wanted his photo taken standing in front of the old Burrumbeet pub! He explained that it was sentimental, his great-grandfather had been the first publican and hence he dragged me out of the car beside the highway for this snap.

The pub sits alongside a bald, oddly shaped hill named Mount Callender. Many similarly-shaped hills run back towards Clunes, others eastwards to Mount Macedon, south and west, and across to South Australia’s Mount Gambier.  They are all old volcanoes, extinct for millennia. The oral traditions handed down through generations of Wadawurrung custodians, record the creator spirit’s violent capacities, mythic battles weaponising the ‘volcanic’ fire across the land.

But here today I look at an industrial landscape. Each of the hills is now interconnected, part of a massive fracking infrastructure, tapping rich, proven fields of natural gas. Thousands of kilometres of underground piping, huge white storage tanks, steel columns, roads, all connecting the hills into the international gas-export facilities at Portland. The pub now sits abandoned, derelict, with the glistening steel backdrop nearby.

In the 2030s, successive Federal Governments had largely addressed the national energy emergency ineffectively. Coal had gone, wind and solar were generating 90% of the country’s needs. But high-voltage distribution remained a weakness, still more than a decade away from completion. Bickering between those pushing a nuclear industry, others wanting green hydrogen, and some of the landholders refusing high-voltage towers across their land, meant successive governments had allowed the electrical grid to slowly fragment.

Gas came back onto the agenda. Huge Chinese, US and European investment flowed, the old volcanic caldera were progressively tapped and a massive, underground network of interconnect pipes spread out. Gone were the bald, green hills of yore, as the extraction headworks sat immutable upon the hills. We were inundated with much-hyped media about the possible development of carbon sequestration: into the space recently vacated by the gas! A win:win, we were told!

So much for the pristine hills! I fiddled with the camera and got several pics – him smirking, another with one eye closed, looking away from the lens and eventually a nice smile, the pub identifiable, off to the right and the jet of smoke streaming upwards, on the left.

What the … At that moment there was an almighty, deafening explosion. Steam and a molten red column shot into the air. A fissure, unzipping rapidly, widened as it snaked forward, a ripped mantel vomiting red, hot terrestrial innards. He and the pub disappeared into the vortex.

The car was being pelted, rocks falling: but I ran. The ignition behaved and it started. Stunned, snivelling I drove erratically, confused – away from a rearview vision of unmitigated terror.

The media reported that six other caldera erupted that day. Mt Buninyong disappeared, along with its township, and more were to follow. In the days and weeks that followed, the old ‘extinct’ volcanoes went off, one by one. Much of Western Victoria slid into the abyss.

His photo sits on my mantlepiece, a memory.

Imagined

Rigoletto

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Imagined

This was my swansong, my finale, a farewell from thirteen wonderful years with the Ukrainian National Opera.  Rehearsals had been perfunctory; necessarily short with Kyiv’s ongoing power disruptions, security alerts and the overarching tensions across the country as the Russian invasion ground on.

But theatre-goers are resilient, balancing inconveniences and uncertainties, sometimes, particularly in the Kyiv of 2024, even life and limb, against entertainment. But like moths to the flame, they come, never shrinking from the operatic excitement, drawn inexorably through this wretchedness to take their seats for three hours of magical, masterful escape.

Tonight is to be no exception. The crowds know of my departure, but also, they’ll thrill to the opportunity to be part of this audience, with Iryna Petrova, Pyotr Oleksander and me in the three key roles: Pyotr playing that dastardly, morally bankrupt Duke of Mantua, Iryna, Gilda, my unfortunate, love-struck daughter and me, the cursed, luckless hunchback, Rigoletto.

The third act is reaching a climax. The Duke, Gilda, the Duke’s mate Borsa, and I come together in that wonderful quartet. The Duke continues to loudly declare his love from the castle battlements. Gilda’s takes the melody, rising above the rest of us and the audience are on the edge of their seats. The house holds its collective breath as she delivers her cadenza, from top C, trilling between D and E flat.

The orchestra is restless, another crescendo building, and the conductor, with practiced mastery, holds back the energy, massaging and directing, skilfully allowing the groundswell to build. And then, the orchestra stills.

The massive chandelier, above the orchestra pit, falls. I see the movement from the stage, a dreamy catastrophe unfolding, ever so slowly. First dust, plaster flakes, then tiny individual glass filaments following. Maybe another five seconds and the superstructure groans massively, lights flicker, sparks and then it descends onto the musicians.

A moment’s stunned silence. Loose plaster continues to float down from the ceiling as the collective mayhem erupts. Screams, the crowd unsure but they struggle: along, over, even under the seating, desperation and panic as they surge towards the exits. I watch, still rooted to the stage.

A moment’s reflection – flashes from a hundred cameras underscore the uncomfortable reality of a 21st-century crowd: record the moment first, help later! The venality of the crowd!

People are now in the pit, citizenry, helpers assisting the injured and removing the debris. I presume the white coats are medicos, others carry stretchers. I remain fixed above, witness but divorced from the carnage. It takes me a few minutes to get down into the pit. I am instructed to hold two separate intravenous saline bottles, one going into the arm of a violinist and the other, into the bass player.

I will never forget that Kyiv farewell. Investigators were unable to determine whether terrorism, the vibrations from repeated, nearby bombardments or a failure of a maintenance schedule were responsible for the tragedy. Remarkably, there were only two deaths.

Tragedy on and off the stage!

Family

Circles of life

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Family

As we sit down for dinner there are introductions. I miss her surname, but get Rhonda, with some fleeting, residual name tickling my memory . But as often happens at first meetings, surnames evaporate. She is a delightfully engaging individual, sitting across the table: laughter, and a little historical banter establishes that we have both lived in Ararat in the recent past.

It is at the next week’s dinner that I finally catch her surname: Vitinski, Rhonda Vitinski. Bells are ringing louder now. Vitinski; Vitinski, but again, as the evening gets underway, I let the bells quieten, something to pursue at home, later on.

As it happens, Rhonda leaves town the following weekend, to join a 10-day Broome to Darwin cruise. I have time to start examining my memories. I am sure Mum used to talk about her best mate, a girl she trained with in Adelaide, who was her bridesmaid and who married some chap named Vitinski. Probably just one of life’s little coincidences: but that is an unusual surname!

I have memories of sitting in the kitchen, Mum reminiscing about her times nursing at the Repat. I can’t remember her first name, but that unusual surname Vitinski; it was often included in her stories.

I ring my sister to see if her memory holds that unusual name. She came up trumps and reckons there is a photo in her album, of Mum and her nursing mate. Oh yes, I remember the pic, I have it too, taken outside the Ru Rua private hospital, in North Adelaide; both in uniform, capes and veils. My enthusiasm quickens as I sense Rhonda and I are on the same train, albeit tracking back seventy years or so. If only I could ask Mum!

I get the step ladder and take down the albums. I settle my growing excitement with a cuppa, then sit in the lounge to pursue this possible coincidence.

There’s that pic of the girls. Both looked gorgeous, laughter creasing their faces, eyes twinkling. And here’s another; Dad, bare-chested, smiling into the camera, leaning over the bonnet of an old Morrie – he loved those cars. There are others taken in Alice Springs – his 1944 wartime posting. There’s an army-uniformed bloke in another Central Australian pic. The tag identifies him as Ferko Vitinski.

I flick the page. Christmas 1945 and there’s a foursome, Mum, Dad, Ferko and the girl from the earlier photos, finally with a name – Annalise. That’s it, that’s who Mum used to talk about!

I’m busting to talk to Rhonda. I have a mobile number. I ring, and then blurt, “Was your father-in-law’s name Ferko?” There’s a moment’s hesitation, then “Jees; how’d you know that?”

“Can’t say too much. But let’s catch up when you get back!”

We find the same pics in each of our old albums. Each couple in the formal wedding photos of the other – Groom and Bridesmaid for each other!

What are the odds, eh? A chance introduction. Circles reconnecting in 2024 Ballarat!

Imagined

The Bridge at Langlois, Arles

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Imagined

I can see the laser cameras, four of them, each overlapping to provide impenetrable beams around the Van Gogh painting – the Bridge at Langlois, Arles, hanging on the wall in front of me. We have just flown in from Amsterdam, having spent the previous two days at the Van Gogh Museum, studying the security surrounding two of the other Langlois bridge paintings. My preliminary assessment of this one, at Cologne’s Wallraf-Richartz Museum, is that the lasers can be beaten!

Daytime security only relies upon the eyes of two security guards, each monitoring three separate rooms, constantly moving between the spaces.  I time their circuits at 180 seconds. I take high-resolution photos of the jointing on the picture’s frame. I map the exit: three turns, and then the automated doors. Nothing to fear here.

I leave the gallery and note the high lavender hedge that runs as an ornamental wall 100 metres from the entrance. I return to our hotel. Wendy’s hired motorised wheelchair has arrived and she is rapidly gaining confidence at the controls, running up and down the corridor. She comes back into the room and we spend the next few hours reviewing our MO.

The century-old frame will not be an issue. Zooming into my photo, we can see the old mitre joints – a fine, well-placed chisel will quickly tease the timbers apart. I have an overly large umbrella tube assembled and attached to the back of Wendy’s wheelchair.  We now just need some wet weather.

The following day is sunny, we schedule a late afternoon visit to the Museum, anticipating weary guards as museum closure approaches. Wendy is in the chair, powering along the footpath, me at a trot, trying to keep up. Inside, we introduce ourselves to the security staff, Wendy suitably schmoozy, gushing over the wonderful collection, to beguile and imprint ourselves on their memory.

Mid-afternoon drizzle arrives the next day. The large umbrella keeps us dry between the hotel and the Museum, but the wheelchair drops water in the foyer. I conscientiously use a hotel bath towel to mop up the puddle. Security nods their approval.

Inside we admire the Rembrandts, the impressive collection of Albrecht Durer drawings, and the comprehensive collection of French Impressionist’s. Van Gogh is in an adjacent gallery and while Wendy engages the guards, I walk purposefully towards my appointment with Vincent.

The guards resume patrolling, and I have the painting off the wall and my chisel easing the timbers apart. I remove the top and bottom sides of the frame, quickly rolling the painting around the remaining two sides. Wendy arrives on cue, and the painting disappears into the umbrella tube.

We are outside, on the footpath, shielded by the lavender bushes and moving fast towards the hotel. Behind us, distantly, alarms wail as we collect hand luggage from the concierge and loudly flag a cab to the airport. A prearranged plan has the taxi dropping us at the train station: first class SNCF to Brussels.

 

 

 

 

Imagined

Memories

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Imagined

Those tiny, impossibly beautiful ‘Peacock’ spiders. I lie here, still, and they dance on the inside of my eyelids, opal-coloured backs held aloft, displayed for my enjoyment. I recall finding a whole family nestled amongst the potted succulents on the verandah. They love to dance in the early morning, backlit as those first rays reach the window sills; me snug, well-wrapped, nursing my first short black.

But now? I lie here, still. I know the curtain has been drawn back, I can feel those streaks of warmth sneaking through the venetian blinds. They touch the blankets. I have been restless, sheets scrunched, pillows damp and I sense, maybe smell the stale, fetid room. Mum is in the corner, watching, waiting; she’s still wearing that same old orange nightie, worn when attending my nighttime asthma attacks. It was always such a comfort.

I lie here, still. I cough; a phlegmy gurgle, reluctant or unable to move anything. Breathing difficulties have increased recently, and my throat hosts several musical vibrations. I listen to the symphony. There is a thin, raspy cadence, a quick, painful swallow and the pitch changes, deeper, around an obstruction.

I remember the enjoyment of getting seats at the theatre that enabled me to look down into the orchestra pit. The delicate strings, the bold bass, trumpets and trombones, sometimes, the magical harp, and the timpani working with the conductor to keep everyone together. We went to Sydney once, the Opera House: what a wonderful occasion!

I lie here, still. Someone settles a moist face washer on my dry, chapped lips.  Gentle movements as the bed linen is changed. My old body is being washed and I have fresh pajamas. Do you remember those midnight bedside visits: “Gran, I’ve had an accident” and we all went into the laundry and bed-making routine? They’ve grown up now. There are six grandchildren, I think, or is it seven?

We all loved the beach, the shack we rented, the same one each year down at Rosebud, hot sand, shallow, safe swimming, sunburn, fish and chips, barbeques and the youthful experiments with the sweet cream sherry and the cigarettes! I don’t think any of them smoke now, thank God!

There’s a light shining; not bright but it is disturbing the dancing spiders.  I think someone is talking, quietly, importantly. I lie here, still.

There is a terror in my system: it upsets the spiders. It comes to me at night, rummaging around in my pelvis, near my kidneys, sometimes up in my chest; always unwelcome, always painful!

I feel the prick of a needle in my arm. That’ll be the morphine – such wonderful medicine, but in recent days it has been losing the battle. Everyone knows my wishes. No pussy-footing around when the time comes!

I lie here, still. Mum is coming over to see how I am. She suggests we go outside and start to deadhead the roses. She has secateurs. That light is getting brighter, but I’ll just lie here, still.

Characters

Marj’s grit

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Characters

“I’m a pensioner. How much to mow the grass?” I suggested I come around; a time was set for the following Tuesday.

The place was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. There was no front gate, but a high, locked metal barrier divided off the front and back yards. I rang the bell and a slight, white-haired ‘granny’ opened the door behind the locked security grill. I identified myself and was told to “Hang on; I’ll go and unlock the side gate. I’ll meet ya there.” A minute later and “Hello, I’m Marj.” Two small children were hanging around her legs; one I reckon was about two, sucking her thumb earnestly, big blue eyes full of enquiring wonder at the stranger talking to Gran.

I was introduced to Stevie, I thought about four and Charlotte, the blue-eyed thumb sucker. Both were forcibly held back while I was quickly ushered through the barrier. It was secured behind me, despite the pleas from both children to go and join the other kids in the street.

It was a huge, bare backyard; long, matted, drying grass and little else, reflecting an allotment at the end of a cul de sac – narrow frontage and wide back. It must have been nearly seventy metres, from side to side.

We established a ‘mate’s rate’ for the mowing, and over the next couple of years, I learnt to appreciate the strengths of this gritty powerhouse. Three grandkids living with her, two daughters, both enjoying ‘Her Majesty’s’ pleasure and an aged pension to cover all necessaries. She held a pervading mistrust of the world, balanced against a kindness that flowed up and around her. There was an occasional sense of humour.

The third child, Bailey was maybe thirteen. He was sometimes present during my visits. He loved mechanics and I found him an old mower to fiddle with. I saw evidence that he had got it working, but he’d disappeared. Marg told me he went to Queensland, to be with his dad.

Her mission, as she put it, was to break ‘the cycle’; to provide a safe, happy environment for the ‘littuns’. It meant a fairly isolated existence for them, but she was determined to minimise the influence of her disadvantage on the kids.

We occasionally talked, a glass of water midway through mowing provided some conversational insights into her world. I gathered she’d had her unfair share of tribulations. The kids occasionally played outside during my mowing, but not often. Marg’s eyes were ever watchful!

I had to remove a couple of fruit trees at another job. I asked Marg if she could use them. The apricot and peach trees were being regularly watered and fertilised by the children and in my final year, after harvest, they helped me do a light prune.

I retired. I now help to look after my own two grandkids, one or two nights a week. It is a delight, but an aging body constrains capacities. An admiring memory of Marj surfaces.

Childhood Memories

Is this madness?

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Childhood Memories

I think things can be traced back to my early childhood; Mum’s penchant for Christopher Robin: the need to avoid the cracks in the pavement. Don’t worry, I have already alerted the grandchildren on the necessity to jump right over the lines! At 75, I still do. Take a close look when I am walking down the street, note that sudden elongated step taken just in the nick of time!

But things have gotten much worse. I bought a Subaru. I now count Subaru cars on the road, estimating a number in my head before heading off – I will pass four on the trip to the supermarket, ten to drop the grandchildren off, forty-five on the trip to Daylesford, one way. There are rules too – the cars must be on the road, you can’t count parked cars, or those sitting in driveways! I admit that if things are close, I do include my own Subaru in the count. You’d be amazed at the accuracy of my estimations!

Oh, and then there is the number plate reading. Look at this one, I muse, as I am sitting behind 1AM 5FG. It has a complementary red ‘p’ plate. Later that day I see WHY BHV, a rather cheeky rego for us aficionados.

As soon as my mind registers any repetition, I start to count. It might be a fence – 142 pickets, seven magpies on the corner, traffic lights: wow, I just got five green lights; there’s ten identical cottages in that terrace, 11 pairs of jocks drying on the line, the library has three flights, each with ten steps and the bedside clock registers 4.56am.

SBS’s On Demand film menus are regimented in lines, with nine movies in each; there are 187 longish steps to the Milk Bar – if you start at our front gate, not the front door: that adds an extra 12 steps! I see a picture of a public housing tower – 21 stories and I note that only every second window has an air conditioner sticking out. And so it goes – a never ending cornucopia of things to count.

My MS Word program counts words – I wonder if that was ever somebody’s job? Wouldn’t that be a great way to earn a crust. But it tells me that you can fit about 742 words on a page, if you stick to 11 pt Calibri font. Wonderful really; imagine all the different length words you write, lots of really small ones, just three or four letters long, and then those that run out to nine, or ten letters, some even 14! The word count is pretty consistent! I’m amazed how it all works? I now restrict myself to 500 words to a page.

I sometimes consider whether I am alone with my counting. If I had analytical skills, I could research this, maybe start a support group – a web page for others similarly fixated.

For now, I’ll just spend a moment counting the words in this story. Mmmm exactly 500!

Whenever I walk in a London street,
I’m ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street

Lines and Squares, A.A.Milne

Domestics

Anna’s way

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Domestics

Her death has necessarily rescheduled the family meeting, September in lieu of November. Dad’s solicitor is politely moving around the room, a cold fish dispensing insincerity, whispered condolences! Sadness, some tension and a distinct chill best describes the lounge atmosphere!

Elizabeth, the youngest sibling, is acting as ‘mother’, liaising with the housekeeper on the refreshments and generally fluffing around the room. Lachie sits in one of the corner chesterfields, his Cuban cigar threatening to trip the fire alarms: silent, brooding, disregarding the increasing discomfort of his asthmatic brother James, who, in an adjacent armchair, is sucking deeply from his medical turbuhaler!

Dad’s wheelchair is positioned at the unlit fireplace; his legal honcho, now seated beside him. Dad’s stony-faced expression says everything about the meeting’s anticipated, predetermined outcome. He has donned his favourite Perry Mason’s Ironside costume – pompous, oratorical, egotistical: a ‘my way or the highway’ persona to both his family and his business dealings.  God how I hate these gatherings.

But I determine this time will be different. She was closest to me, she used to cower from his morning rants, it was me who accompanied her on the morning walks. How we loved the tranquillity of the ramble, the open fields, the wildlife darting off, the creek at the bottom of the hill, the birdsong. Always such a restorative escapade that we both thoroughly enjoyed. And when she started to lose her mobility, it was me that was at her side.

“Would you put that infernal cigar out. And Elizabeth, for God’s sake, stop running around, sit down!” The meeting starts. “OK. I have decided that her cremation will be next Monday. No service, no fuss, just a simple family acknowledgement. Agreed?” Lachie and Elizabeth both automatically start to nod.  James focuses on his inhaler.

“No way. This is not the way she would have wanted things to be handled!” I felt my upper lip start to quiver, my eyes are filling, but … “This is not how we are farewelling her,” I hiccup. The family just sits there, staring at me in disbelief. James sucks noisily and from the corner of my eye I can see Lachie fumble with his lighter. I think Elizabeth is actually nodding her head slightly. Dad is turning puce, his blood pressure rising dramatically.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he bellows.

“Dad, this is not your decision. For once, just shut up and bloody listen.” I am shaking: not rage, but determination. My jaw is set, my eyes clear and I sniff, noisily. “We kids all loved her, and in our own various ways, drew enormous comfort from her companionship, her uncompromised love, her role as the actual matriarch of this household, ever since Mum died.”

“This is absurd. I’ve already …”

“Dad. No, not this time. We will make all the arrangements. I, for one, fancy her buried at the bottom of the garden, where she can chase the rabbits and birds forever.”

I can see Lachie and the others nodding agreement.

Imagined

And here I come

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Imagined

Life is just wonderful. I have been snuggling in here for months, room service providing regular inputs of snips, snails, sugar and spice, my every need on hand in this all-encompassing, secure capsule, even taking the garbage out, as necessary. Really, what more could I ask?

But I know things need to change. I’ve been ready for weeks. There is a new pulse, excitement, some trepidation but adventure awaits. I start to kick, to alert the assembled masses that there is a need to move the dial to an ‘all systems go’ setting. My efforts are not getting the necessary responses. I try another kick. I hear a soft murmur, a grunt.

I hear lots of gentle murmurs from ‘outside’ – are they lullabies on the airwaves? There is singing, out of tune, softly as I’m trying to do a little stretching; getting myself ready for a final manoeuvre.

My thumb disappears. Its long slippery surface confirms calm in this moist, dark warmth. I refine my technique – gotta line it up, then in it goes; slurp, suck and hold. Mmm yep, that’s it. I’m ready.

I think I’ve been here forever. I try to pinpoint when I first arrived, but can’t get a handle on it. I have just always been here.

The room is getting tight, space is becoming a premium. There are nearby rooms that regularly intrude. One moment they’re full, cramping my style: the next, they’re empty. I’m squished, but I have learnt to push back against their intrusions successfully.

I realise that if you want something done, you’re better off rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself. I start by squirming around. Oh, that’s different. But hang on, hey, I think I have turned around, I’m sort of standing on my head. I’m not sure if I like this. I try stretching my legs. Things are changing. What have I started? The tide is going out. I reckon I better skip this evening’s exercise: there’s a new, demanding schedule at hand.

The exit looks ridiculously narrow. You expect me to get down there! Come on, give me a break. I muscle down, head first. The walls are pulsing, rhythmic, urging me down, onwards and something close by is screaming blue-murder; fit to bring the house down. What is going on? A journey has started.

I’m out of puff. I need a breather: this is hard work and these walls are making things tricky. I’ll just take a short break. But things are now out of my control. I have to keep going and I start to squidge forward again. The ruckus is getting louder but I hear another, gentler sound – a quiet, deep, soothing noise. It’s syncopated, against the panting, pushing and moaning that has me moving along.

Then suddenly there is light, and release. I blink and while I don’t know why, I join in the screaming. Somebody is commenting upon my wrinkly skin. Hey, cut it: I’m here, aren’t I? Better late than never!

Tripping

Commuting

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Tripping

I shuffle agedly along the platform; the guard sees my efforts and delays the departure for 30 seconds. My grateful smile is reciprocated as I climb aboard the Quiet Carriage and settle into one of the few remaining, forward-facing seats.

I have often considered the pros and cons of a train’s forward or backward-facing seating. In the event of a crash does the backwards position provide some additional restraint? Or, if seated forward, is there a greater risk of becoming airborne. It’s all academic really, I deem the risk acceptable as I always want to see things approaching, not disappearing. Railway easements offer such an ever-changing cornucopia of interest. 90 minutes to Ballarat.

We pass the still incomplete Heavenly Queen temple. Maribyrnong riverside, its ethereal beauty dramatically compromised by the surrounding construction detritus; broken terracotta tiles, piles of aggregate and clumps of dried, dead grass.

Tagging on easement-facing walls takes the train through the ‘burbs. There is an intriguing little bird’s head sprayed, and repeated endlessly, for kilometres. Are there proprietorial IP rights on design motifs – is this the same artist, travelling the railway corridors, claiming signatural rights to an expanding empire?

What’s on that guy’s T-shirt. OMG that’s great. “Don’t rush me. I’m waiting for the Last Minute.” That proffers such a wonderful prompt for a story! I make a note on my phone.

Caroline Springs. Loud swearing. A bloke is wrestling to retrieve his cycle from the carriage’s bike rack. The doors are about to close as he frees it. The wheel gets caught in the doors – him outside, commuters inside trying to hit the door-release button. The guy is swearing, yanking on the frame. He is yelling, the bike is freed. He rates Public Transport Victoria with an upwardly pointed index finger.

There’s an old, broken trampoline. A car body rusts quietly – the backside of suburbia exposed, the railway corridor providing a convenient dispose-and-forget repository – Styrofoam, plastic sheeting, Macca’s wrappers, an unending reflection on our Age of Chuckit. Unkempt greenery replaces houses – fennel, blackberries, broom, hemlock: a commuter’s bespoke landscape.

There is a muffled conversation, indistinct, but definitely in breach of the Quiet Carriage rules! Who is it? I scan my fellow commuters. The turbaned Sikhs in front, shared earbuds are engrossed in a Bollywood extravaganza. There are two tattooed girls further along – giggling quietly. At the far end, a hand flutters, a head nods: an ear is engaged to a mobile telephone. I watch and confirm a synchronised movement of his head, hands and facial expressions matching the intonations. I conclude a contemptible, arrogant sod!

Our train passes high above Djerriwarrh Creek. Fishers seen this morning are gone; the banks are empty, save for seagulls mooching around a deserted car park.  What determines morning or afternoon fishing – maybe insect movements?

The bloke talks endlessly through to Ballarat. He is still yakking on the platform. I want to accost him. Would he hit a pensioner? Possibly. I shuffle on, trumpeting my strongest, most disdainful glare!

Characters

The sun and I

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Characters

Why on earth do they schedule tennis during the summer months? I understand it is a traditional summer sport, but the infrastructure going into things these days; the huge, indoor centres with their capacity to close the roofs, the air conditioning: I mean, why is it still necessary to follow the sun?

I have been on the international circuit for ten years, another ten as a junior: the early coaching, the local, and eventual national competitions maturing and honing my game. But the long exposures: days, and weeks in the baking, unrelenting sun have taken a toll on my skin; long ago losing its supple, smooth tone. Visiting the skin cancer clinic is a part of my off-season professional routine.

I carry a small brush in my bag to lather myself in suncream before the matches. It’s actually one of Dad’s small paintbrushes. My Celtic heritage, the trademark reddish hair, the fair skin, the freckles all provide countless column inches for the tabloids.

I suffer and after last January’s outing in Melbourne, I realised I have had enough. At the pressa’, following my loss to Raffa, I gave the media a bit of a spray. Australia, with its rampant skin cancer statistics, still think it’s acceptable to expose us to this extreme southern hemisphere slow roast.

The administrators introduced on-court ice-packs and chilled water, ever our own eskies next to the couches: umbrellas, to boot, but then they just sit back, happily counting the numbers, calculating the profits, while we entertain the crowds, sometimes with five sets on court temperatures reaching 50+ degrees. Something has to change!

My game suffered. No matter the gruelling gym routines, the unending practice sessions, the endurance training; as the seasons rolled around: Melbourne, London, Paris and New York, the hotels, the constant, pressured environment; it all took a toll. I saw one headline accusing me of being a lazy player, always favouring the drop shot and the backhand slice, reducing court movement to a minimum, instead of their preferred baseline play. I instructed my agent to write a ‘stinger’ to that bloody journo.

Yes, I’m giving it away. I have three Grand Slam singles titles and two Olympic golds to my name. I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. I have climbed the ‘tree’, but the input is unsustainable. Yep, I know I’m in a rarified club, able to bring Kim, and the kids along as we swing around the globe, but enough is enough. After New York – finito!

I feel a slight prick as the needle goes into my shoulder. As I lie back on the table, I reflect on that last slice against Novak, it dropped ineffectually into the net. The match was lost, but the crowd were appreciatively cheering; on their feet, whistling, clapping loudly as we both made our way to the net. Holding back tears, I bade farewell to the circuit.

The surgeon takes up her scalpel. I doubt if this will be the last slice!

Domestics

Toil and trouble

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Domestics

Was it a buttercup, or a dandelion? I remember childhood explanations about the import of holding a blossom under your chin – it meant that ‘love was close at hand’, but which bloody flower was it? I could use a bit of loving right now, but another bit of residual memory dictated that disaster would befall if you held the wrong flower.

That same youthful oracle had also whispered knowledge of money for lost teeth, behaviour affecting the size and value of Christmas presents, the necessity to avoid pavement cracks and ladders, immediate mopping of spilt milk and salt, avoiding black cats, and a hundred other necessary curbs on my behaviour. In the intervening years, I reckon I had probably transgressed all of them, at one time or another. And look at the mess I was in now!

I left last month: a suitcase, the dog, one of the cars, and a shouted promise thrown over my shoulder to use the courts to pursue half the house and our super! It took a while to arrange but I eventually found a solicitor. There was a flicker of recognition as I walked into his office. He had been at our nuptials. He reminded me of the heavy rain on that auspicious Day!

On our honeymoon, I remember asking Tabitha if she had any superstitious thoughts about the torrential downpour. She scoffed at my question; “… just old wives’ tales…”. I did note her grandmother’s garter, hitched high on her thigh, and a delicately woven, silk horseshoe nestled within her bouquet. You should have seen the hullabaloo from her mother when, during his speech, her brother Duncan knocked over a tumbler of water, which in turn shattered the salt shaker! Nah, definitely no superstitions in her family!

Maybe it was the deluge that doomed the marriage. Tell-tale foreboding continued to trail inextricably through our lives. We found a wonderful block of land: commanding views, affordable, but the sale was abandoned when she realised it sat at number 13. And then, when another block was found and the build set to start, she insisted that we bury a bag of coins and a pot of fresh urine under the foundations. That had me flummoxed.

Feng Shei inveigled everything: mirrors, pictures, plants and furnishings were placed specifically. Our children’s names were selected on the advice of a Baby Name consultant; holidays never included a Friday 13th; we always fed the magpies, and carefully escorted Daddy Longlegs spiders outside.

As the years passed, I found it easier just to ‘go with the flow’. The bizarre possibility, maybe even the probable, preordained potential apocalypse was perceived as a presence, awaiting an ill-considered trigger. Her obsessions dominated our lives.

The final straw came when I walked into the kitchen to find a cauldron on the stove, a diabolical stench filling the room as she stirred up a brew of frog and lizard bits, a possum’s tail and fresh oak leaves. I didn’t ask. I just packed a bag.

Domestics

I love ‘em, but …

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Domestics

I’ve just about had enough of their self-serving, belittling attitudes. Things just don’t change.

I remember the cute, beret-wearing, goateed guitarist at the festival. His guitar work was spellbinding and I intentionally positioned myself to loiter within his orbit. A couple of my friends knew him from elsewhere and raised eyebrows when I whispered my intentions. I ignored their advice, and before I knew it, I was in his bed. He grew his own weed, and ‘tabs’ were often included in the party mix. Fun times, for a while, but I found him in bed with my girlfriend.

I took stock and tried to be more circumspect in selecting future partners. But the next special ‘other’ arrived at an end-of-year party. I had seen him in the corridors, and once or twice we rode the elevator together. Boozy parties were still my weakness; I fell into his clutches that December. His flowers arrived weekly, we ate out regularly at fancy restaurants and he was forever bringing me expensive clothes, perfume and jewellery. Tres-romantique but the cops arrived one night, and he went down for a string of home invasions.

Then there was the gym instructor. Muscle upon muscle and skimpy shorts suggestive of stimulating adventure. We moved in together and he organised and supervised my fitness program. His dietary demands were testing: I learnt to hate almond milk, lentil soups, and leafy green salads, but he did manage to wean me off ciggies. The booze and red meat were my undoing. He found the receipt for The Steakhouse luncheon in my purse. How dare he! We fought – him about my meat break-out; me about his bloody intrusion.

Other men tumbled in and out of my life but then, I turned 30! The biological clock gave a flicker, anxiety arrived at about the same time as Bruce. We were both post-grad students at Melbourne, me completing a post-graduate Sociology degree, him a Masters in Residual Rangeland protection. We clicked, sharing books, fine dining, bushwalking and camping.

We married, had two wonderful kids, serviced a huge mortgage and developed our individual careers satisfactorily.  There were occasional flareups, but always patchable. But snide barbs started to be thrown. They were bitchy, targeting my studies, insinuating that I put them ahead of the kids, a preference for reading over shared intimacies, and coldness. I responded with a query about his incessant overnight work trips.

I took it for a while, assuming that his dandelions and weeds, or whatever it was he studied, were out of kilter, but his constant niggling was wearing thin. A close friend suggested I watch my rear-guard. I did and his affair came to light. He announced an intention to leave. I had his clothes, library, seed collection and camping gear on the nature strip by day’s end.

Is it me; my chemistry, or something else? I ponder life’s dealt hand. I reframe it and decide that, well, I mean, … oh men, they just work very differently than me!

Tripping

The Beachside line

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Tripping

The distant, mournful hoot announces the approach of the old train. It will wheeze into view shortly, predictably, just another journey along this beachside railway line, first taken one hundred and sixty years earlier!

The railway was originally built to move the wheat and wool coming from inland Australia, down the Murray River, finally connecting to the nearby saltwater port, and from there, into square-rigged clippers destined for distant markets. The train nowadays mostly entertains holidaymakers, tourists on the South Coast thrilling to the experience of riding a steam loco beside the popular surf beaches.

Jacob van Straalen trained as an engine driver back in the 60’s, following in his father’s footsteps, and still delights when at the controls of these steam-driven behemoths. The soot-laced steam envelops everything, and everyone in the cab as his Fireman feverishly feeds the flames. The black dust settles into his pores, dark rivulets coursing down his old, stubbled face: a taste, maybe it was a smell that will challenge even tonight’s shower.

The coal rivals the smell of the rotten egg gas that rises on the low tides from the crusty, exposed seaweed at the water’s edge. He is never sure which he associates more with the job: the dust, or the weed. No matter really, they both instantly place him in this cab, an indelible combination that regularly seeps into his subconscious.

There are the occasional holiday specials that have the loco travelling north, beyond the riverport, into the hillside towns beyond. Jacob is always at the controls, thrilling at the anticipated opportunity to use the old bridge north of town: but first, the cemetery.  It sits on the left, just before the bridge.

He releases a blast of steam into the whistle, in part salute to the departed souls, in part just for the hell of it. He smiles – that hoot will be heard for kilometres – he hopes the cemetery residents appreciate his habitual gesture.

He is approaching the high fly-over above the creek, 20 metres down to the burbling water below. Jacob slows the loco, gently easing onto the bridge, the engine’s pistons slow to a soft hiss and suck, hiss and suck, moving forward carefully, while from below he hears the distant echoey rumble off the bridge’s stone and brick palisade. The train sets up a low repetitive vibration: it grows in intensity as they pass the bridge’s midpoint, and then that puckered kiss as the compressed air bounces off the far wall, and the train returns to terra firma.

The final run for the day: back along the coast, now with a south-westerly pushing up the surf, drawing the body and board riders into the swells, a high tide reclaiming much of the sand, the setting sun abandoning those remaining pleasure-seekers to their evening pursuits. The several roads accessing the beach provide Jacob with the excuse to hoot, toot and whistle with total abandon, the beach crowd smile, they’ve heard his salute before, just another beach run complete.

 

Imagined

Contingency planning

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Imagined

Date:                     22rd November 2023

Venue:                  Phoenix, a gated mansion owned by General Sebastian Makepeace

Agenda:               Contingency planning for the US, post-November 2024 Presidential elections

Participants:

  • General Guy Warren, Chairman, Joint Chief of Staff
  • General Sebastion Tippett, Commander, National Guard
  • Mr David Rubicon, Director Federal Bureau of Investigations
  • Ms Lucy Oswald, National Reconnaissance Office
  • Ms Susan Connally, Director, Central Intelligence Agency

Status: PEO Lv 1 (participant’s eyes only).

General Warren: “Ladies and Gentlemen: friends. I believe there is a problem of national significance brewing, so I thank you for coming at such short notice This meeting has no official status, and I hasten to assure you all that there will be no minutes of our discussions.”

“I won’t worry too much about preliminaries, but I have been considering calling this group together for the past several weeks. Today marks the sixty-second anniversary since the sensitive work of our collective agencies was last on public display. I believe we are approaching another momentous moment of equal stature. I believe that we are facing similarly dark times.”

“Our Nation is on the brink of the abyss. The upcoming election might well determine our future. I believe that apart from the Civil War, there has only been one other occasion – that pesky upstart populist taking the White House in 1960 – when our great nation has been exposed to such a potential unravelling of both our civil society and our international standing. We cannot sit idly by and allow this to happen. It is beholden on us to intervene.”

“I want to take a moment now to put several scenarios before you. I think we need to think urgently upon them.”

Scenario One has our incumbent, an aging President dying in office, with the Vice assuming the Presidency for the interregnum period through until the scheduled November elections. A temporary solution! The residual scenarios are still in play.

“Scenario Two sees our incumbent leader re-elected into the Whitehouse. I not only have a privately sourced, medical assessment of his advancing incapacities, but I think we all share the horror of the insurrection that followed his elevation two years ago. A repeat of that result will most likely see another mob uprising, but probably with a much sharper zealotry. Our failure to bring legal redress to those January events will embolden participants.”

“Scenario Three will have the Republican candidate taking the House. God help us, given the utter contempt he shows for our international allies, and our institutions. His dalliance with our enemies, his empty, populist rhetoric across the Nation underscores his total lack of expertise for this high office. I believe our mighty country will not survive another round of his idiocy!”

Scenario Four will follow a close result, giving life to the growing divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘malcontents.’ We assess that there are somewhere close to thirty-five million military-grade weapons held in private hands. On top of that, the NRA estimates the number of personal guns in the hundreds of millions! Social media amply demonstrates its capacity to galvanise a general ‘call to arms’, local vigilante groups, warring against each other, fighting in the streets, a national uprising.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, desperate times call for desperate measures.”

There is a sombre mood across the room. David Rubicon clears his throat, about to speak, but settles back into his seat, reflectively. There is a knock on the door and coffee arrives, providing the necessary opportunity for members to move from the table, to stretch their legs.

Susan walks across to the large bay window and surveys the manicured gardens, the distant hills, the cloudless blue skies. Sébastion takes the opportunity to use the bathroom. The delegates quietly sip their coffee, separately, introspectively and privately mulling over the presentation.

General Warren returns to the table. The rest follow. “As I said, these are dark times” reaffirms Adams. “The question that remains in my mind is whether or not the country is ready to accept an alternative, interim President?”

David squirms slightly, coughs and addresses the ‘elephant in the room’. “Are we suggesting a ‘strategic removal’ of both contenders?”

“Yes, it’s on the table” says Warren. There is a collective, audible intake of breath.

“Like Kennedy and Oswald?” queries Susan, her voice breaking, as she spoke. Warren nods. “Oh, my God.” She remembers the sometimes mooted rumours heard when she was first recruited into the Agency, the involvement in preliminary planning and support for Dallas, all those years ago. Her mind swam, in partial disbelieve that were approaching the same platform, again!

“Precisely, yes. As I said before, these are perilous times and I believe America is close to an irreversible slide into oblivion!”

“But how can we do it? Surely a civil breakdown would erupt, slaughter, towns against towns, States against States. It will put the Civil War antics into the shadows” proffers Sebastion.

The enormity of the discussions swirl around the table for the next sixty minutes. The illegality, the logistics, the blowback, the outrage that will inevitably follow. General Warren gently massages the discussions, letting the discussions move around the room, the logic of the proposal, and eventually arriving at the pointy end of how to possibly achieve such an outcome.

“Our man in Moscow uses Novichok. In North Korea the same. “My God, I am amazed that we are sitting around this room discussing this”, opines Susan.

Warren straightens himself. “We have nine or ten months to work on the logistics. The assignment, the assassinations,”  that word, its first use in the meeting, fell like an axe across the heads of the assembled members, “… ah, will need to be simultaneous, to avoid the obvious suggestion that the party apparatchiks are responsible. No, we will need to have a foreign patsy again.” He was warming to his subject! Both Israel and Ukrainian owe us, big time.”

“I admit to liking the Novichok method, but the simultaneous delivery will be tricky. A marksman won’t gain necessary access, given security logistics. Their staff try to ensure that their schedules don’t overlap. No, I think it will involve those mini drones., somehow”

“I anticipate there will be some televised debate between the two contenders. Probably in September. We need to have our planning well and truly concluded by that date.

I suggest we meet again in a month. Meanwhile, can you individually ensure that any travel documents created in getting to this venue are redacted from your official records.”

STOP PRESS:

Authorities are calling for calm as they investigate yesterday evening’s simultaneous shootings of General Guy Warren, Chairman, Joint Chief of Staff; General Sebastion Tippett, Commander, of the National Guard and Mr David Rubicon, Director Federal Bureau of Investigations. Each has been gunned down at their respective Washington offices. The CIA’s Director, Susan Connally was also an apparent target, but was away from her office as assailants stormed the building. Breaking news; more details as they come to hand.

 

Peccadillos and Pecados

The deadly Dragon

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Peccadillos and Pecados

I am two-thirds through my degree, but the course is starting to do my head in. I sit in the Union bar, the fire provides warmth, its flickering light illuminating the gloom of my thoughts. Do I really want to be a Social Worker?

There are two empty schooner glasses on the table beside me, I am working on the third as my mind continues to wrestle with the realisation that I am pursuing the wrong career path!  Why on earth do I think listening to other people’s problems, offering a sounding board, a reflective space is for me? I have enough demons running through my own system without loading extra baggage!

Despite enthusiasm, and promises made in the dead of night to walk a new, redemptive road, I fall off my perch regularly. Two years wasted, and I am also now the owner of a significant HECS debt.

My entertainment, my escapes have broadened somewhat from my earlier dalliance with weed. I now have a serious engagement with ‘the dragon.’

It is easily found, in the right quarter. It’s where I meet Sheila, a final year Med student and we quickly become companions: bonded journeymen. When the Student Allowance hits my account, I have the wherewithal to buy us a snorted entre’, and a few hours later, an injected piece de resistance. We fly to exotic destinations, places where life’s worries and cares are just a breeze. Long-sleeved shirts conveniently cover our travail.

Sheila finishes her basic medical studies, an Internship at St Vinnies follows. Her script-pad provides a wonderfully handy accoutrement.  But she gets sprung early in her placement and is now receiving rehab servicing at Long Bay. That’s an absolute bugger, as treats become just that much harder to score!

Despite my self-assurance, my studies slip. My feelings about the course harden: I skip classes, a new crowd gathers in the dark recesses of my days. I still occasionally catch the bus to Uni; at the back of the Union is a good place to score.

A couple from the Salvos find me: in amongst the refuse skips off Victoria Street. Several of the staff at St Vinnies remember Sheila. One of the nurses tells me she visits Sheila every other month: she is clean and uses her time to study for a Social Work qualification.

I ease my withdrawal with naloxone, pampered but after three weeks, I discharge myself. I walk with high intentions into the bright sunshine and score a kip with Mum and Dad for a few weeks. I even start to attend lectures again.

But it’s not long before the uppity lecturers start to climb my nostrils again: how on earth would they know what the people on the streets need? Listen, show compassion, offer advice, provide advocacy: yarda, yarda, yarda.

I tell Mum I have an offer of a shared flat. I meet Tom, Gary and Felix at the back of the Union. We score, and share a couple of preliminary hits.

Peccadillos and Pecados

Beating the Dragon

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Peccadillos and Pecados

I have one semester left for my doctorate, and then the hard slog of the Internship starts.  Both Mum and Dad were here before me, it’s a natural fit. They anticipate me joining their practice. To be honest I have never considered any other career options.

Uni hasn’t been too taxing; a lot of friends on the same medical course, great parties, camping trips, a few special mates.  There has been a bit of weed shared around, several monumental hangovers – I so like that sparkling tipple. But yes, at twenty-five, I am looking forward to settling into the hard grind of the next couple of years.

I have accepted an Internship at St Vincent’s Hospital and my Paddington flat will mean I can cycle to work in the daylight, or easily Uber home after a night shift.  Things look to be working out.

I meet a cool guy at the Union during the last few months. We click – Luca’s almost finished his Social Work, although he sometimes confides that he is unsure if his degree is the right fit. We party hard, a lot of laughs: we snorted coke together, my first.

St Vinnies is demanding, more than expected. The occasional double shifts are exhausting; fifteen hours straight and then a daytime, fitful sleep. Luca, and the coke help me relax, some rest before the next shift. My enthusiasm is being sorely tested.

I cop a bollocking from the Director of Nursing after I blow a shift; she isn’t interested in my explanation of the four double shifts, and I don’t tell her about the South Coast party!  What a crowd.  Luca had a surprise and thinking back, I met the Devil that weekend. The Dragon, Skag, Smack, China White – a syringe by any other name -could be so sweet!

Funds are sometimes strained: I have the idea of using my script pad. It is mine; nobody will ever know. It takes five scripts for the cops to arrive.

I am now a resident at Long Bay, for a stretch of reformation. No more treats, although they do give me Naloxone, to handle the withdrawals.

But Long Bay is my saviour. Six months in: I’m clean and there’s lots of time to consider the road I am on. Mum comes in every couple of weeks. The early tears are way behind us, we talk of the future. It will not be Medicine; I’ve burnt that bridge, but she is talking of Practice Manager, as an interim, when I get out next year.

One of my mates from St Vinnies catches the bus and pops in every couple of months. She is always full of the latest doings; she confides that the Salvos brought Luca in. He was in for a few weeks, before self-discharging. He died a few weeks later – a bad batch of something!

The bloody Dragon. I still have lots of time to contemplate my relationship with that terror, to harden my resolves, my defences. I’m ready!

Childhood Memories

Not a life-changing event.

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Childhood Memories

Our youngest grandson started school yesterday. He was as excited as a coiled spring; keyed up for weeks, egged on by his much older six-and-a-half-year-old brother. I spoke to the debutante on the phone last night and he was tumbling over himself, telling me about drawing a huge lion, and the teacher telling the class about dinosaurs. He mentioned his surprise of not having Olivia, Trent and Becky in the class. They were not even at the school!

My mind started to spin back to my own introduction to primary school, entry into the ‘Bubs at the Rosebud Primary. I have vivid memories, the large sandpit, the shaded playground and my dawning realisation over the first couple of days that I was not going to use plasticine in class. With absolute clarity, I recall my disappointment, and my belief that the squishy balls were just delayed, they would be offered tomorrow, or the next day, surely.

That was 70 years ago. I sit on the couch as emotions swirl, I realise that my disappointment, all those years ago is still within, remembered as a visceral milestone of that transition. I wonder what a ‘shrink might make of this!

At kinder the individual, coloured sticks had long ago melded into a uniformly dark grey splodge, but nobody seemed to mind. I kept up a lively chatter as I rolled, cut, pressed and constructed, sometimes with John and Jane helping, other times, just by myself.  The adventures on offer were fabulous: Mum was told that I was sometimes even reluctant to leave the tables for morning cake and juice.

Kinder ended with the arrival of hot sunny days, daily trips down to the nearby beach, occasional ice cream treats, my elder brother and sister supervising my sandcastle constructions, sometimes joining in. That summer went on forever.

There was mention of going to the big school ‘Next Year’, but the import of that milestone was mostly buried by the sandcastles, and the delicately placed shell and seaweed ornamentation. Mum and I went to town on the bus and I was kitted out with Clarkes’ shoes, a couple of pairs of shorts, new shirts and socks. We lunched at the Coles cafeteria and I remember ice cream with strawberry topping. That cafeteria – such a highlight!

But the big day arrived. I was at school. We had a story and we were each asked to talk about our holiday activities. There was drawing, we even had an early afternoon nap, but there was no plasticine?  I asked the other kids. They didn’t know. I asked my big brother – he told me they didn’t do it in the big school.

I never forgot the plasticine, and despite frequent consideration, was never able to adequately explain that lingering memory. It just remains as a little bump, an insignificant ‘significance’.

Memories exist, but I have managed to avoid potential plasticine-linked trauma, albeit with the memory of plasticine still occasionally surfacing!

The North

That’s not a fish

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in The North

We are sitting in the boat for maybe 15 minutes, the sandflies are making life miserable, my brother fiddles with the bloody outboard. Why on earth have I agreed to this fishing expedition? I have lots of gardening I could be doing.

It is late October, the ‘Build-Up’, that notorious local, pre-Monsoon weather phenomena is upon us. It delivers hot, humid conditions, spectacular electrical storms, sleepless nights and brittle tempers. But the fish love it, and the fishermen trade some discomfort for promised rewards.

John has the cowling off the motor, has removed the spark plug and sprayed something into the motor. He is tiring fast as he repeatedly pulls the starter chord – veroompah, veroompah, veroompah. The outboard eventually coughs, throws a smoky cloud, awakens, and our fishing expedition begins!

He replaces the cover, dials back the throttle and I untie our umbilical from the mangroves. There is a slight breeze that dispatches a few thousand biting insects.

Open water – Shoal Bay, just east of Darwin, the sun rapidly making headway against last night’s cooling reprieve. I am told that the ebb tide provides ideal conditions for landing Barramundi, Threadfin salmon, Mangrove jack and Spanish mackerel.

We are heading down to The Rock, an outlier on the edge of the Bay. It has an enviable reputation among the fraternity for its Barra, Salmon and Mackerel.

We throttle back, the motor just ticking over as we start to troll. 30 meters of line, an orangey-blue lure moving provocatively at the end of each line, and we turn and repeat our pass of the outlier. Nothing, although John has a 2nd line that he is flicking from the side of the boat. He lands a couple of Mangrove jacks.

On our third pass my line hooks up, a squeal as the line plays out, a splash, I apply the reel’s brake, another large splash. I am excited as I pull in a smallish, eight kilo Barra.

We turn and make another pass as I reset my line. John hooks up, I take over the controls as he starts to battle a monster. The engine is in neutral: there is a battle royal playing out at the end of his line. Ten minutes of bi-play: frantic line retrieval, line whirring frenetically out, more retrieval – repetitive antics from both participants. Finally, his line breaks; there is swearing, then silence, before he proffers a considered analysis of what just happened.

I am looking over the gunnels, towards the Rock. There is a swirling eddy, splashing, a coil of something large out above the water, writhing and then a length of a long snakelike body, maybe a foot in diameter. There is a head, a wide gaping maw, eyes staring accusingly back at me.

Then nothing; the wash from its indignation settles back into the gentle, unbroken surface of the Bay. I turn to confirm the sighting with John. His eyes are down, focusing on retying a new lure.

“Did you see that?”

“What?”

“I wonder!”

History

The Canton Lead

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in History

Two men and a woman had me pinned to the ground. The woman had a pair of shears. She roughly turned my head and cut off my queue, holding it aloft, a growl of triumph as she brandished my hair for the mob. I struggled, a leg free, finding a groin, hearing a grunt, and I was up and running.

The mostly European ‘gweilo’ were fiery drunk, and baying for blood, as they came for us at the mine. Chants of “slanty chinks”, “murderous chinamen” “poxed coolies” could be heard as the mob came up the hill, picks and shovels shouldered to do battle. There were fifty or sixty, men and women in the chanting mass – we were five, all family, and I was just taking my place at our workings, to relieve my cousin Zhang Wei.

As I rushed to the mine, I saw my younger brother, Junjie Xi fall to the ground, blood pouring from his head with two men, picks held high, about to strike. Bo Wei, my elder cousin was surrounded by a group wielding shovels, and I saw him take a cut to the side of his head! As the evening closed in, Hell was upon us.

A snarling, bearded man saw me, yelling to alert the mob as I ran. I ran, and I ran, up and over the hill, down the other side, into a gully. I found a hollow log. My pursuers, initially rampaging, fell behind as I ran. I remained in that log until daybreak.

I tentatively inched out, I could smell smoke but all was quiet, save for a kookaburra laughing, somewhere in the distance! I couldn’t see the humour, and cursed the silly bird!

I buried three souls that morning! There was no way to ease their journey into the ‘afterlife’, no joss or incense to burn, just my humiliation, anger, tears and frustrations. Why had we come to this new country, this Tsin Chin Shan?

I remembered the trouble at home, the opium dens, the corruption back in our village in Sze Yup and my parents urging us boys to pursue the fabulous wealth being found in California. The lure of the yellow metal. It would mean eternal security for our families beside the beautiful Pearl River.

We boarded the ship to America, but it meant three years of hard toil, few rewards, abuse and regular discrimination against our families. We heard the stories that gold could be picked up off the ground in Australia. Surely it would be better than here?

My cousins and I had a letter written to our Shanghai sponsor, seeking an agreement to extend our indenture and provide passage to Ballarat. It took a few months but we were once again embarked, another ten weeks of seasick wallowing, and finally off the schooner for the long walk to the Ballarat field.

We joined forces with several other groups from the boat and collectively hired a guide for the five-week, overland walk. We had avoided the Victorian colonial tax by landing in South Australia, at Robe, but we all agreed that it might have been better to have paid the hefty £10s, rather than the long hot days, tramping to ‘Baallalat’.

Our guide was a drunken lout, driving a bullock dray loaded with supplies for the growing settlements along South Australia’s coast. He took our money and disappeared on the third night out from Robe. Other spivs were on the track, ever ready to take our few resources. We knew there was safety in numbers and drew comfort from the extra family groupings, particularly at night when we shared guard duties, campfire stories and homeland reminiscences.

It was a gruelling walk; at times a narrow path, enabling just a single file. When spirits flagged, Bo Wei started to chant ‘Baallalat, Baallalat, Baallalat’, maintaining a rhythmic chant that we all took up. I can only imagine the strange picture we must have presented to those large hopping animals we occasionally saw.

We had been on the track for two weeks, each with our worldly positions in the two baskets balancing across our shouldered, bamboo pole. The head of another family group, Zhang Yong had bought a precious wooden wheelbarrow from California. We enviously noted the extra provisions he was able to carry.

The dry hot summer made the trek that much more tortuous. Water and food were precious commodities and there was relief when an old black man showed us a small spring, just off the track. Somebody had already cut limestone blocks and started to line the spring. We took two days off our trek, cutting and fitting three more limestone blocks into the well’s sides.

Food was a constant issue. We spent a lot of our savings on rice at the store in Robe, but we supplemented supplies with grasses and any berries we found. We had unsuccessfully chased the hopping animal, drooling over the possible meat. Zhang found some fungi and cooked them up. He died in agony two days later, and I fought several contenders and took over his wheelbarrow.

We arrived at the small settlement of Penola. Several Chinese families had already given up on the lure of the yellow metal, settling and establishing market gardens on the rich, grassy plains. We were able to revictual ourselves, picking up advice from the storekeeper, Wang Wei, about the onward journey.

There were strange nighttime cries, maybe just birds, but eerie, ghost-like. We had heard stories of hostile natives, and bushrangers. Their attacks on unwary travellers meant we slept fitfully, and someone was always awake and alert.

We approached a mountain range and the pathway divided, one track going to the northeast, the other, southeast. We went north, spending a few days in the cool bushland gullies of the ranges.

Our party walked around the mountains. We came upon another smaller series of hills and made camp. Bo had been to the toilet and came running back into our camp excitedly waving a small lump of rock. He pointed, we gathered and saw the yellow flecks. Was it gold? Bo assured us it was, and the decision was made to abandon our Ballarat quest; temporarily. We jokingly called our find Gwóngdūng Kwongmak – the Canton Lead. The name stuck.

Over the next few days, we scratched around in the creeks. Other parties joined us – the excited chatter saw upwards of two hundred men on the creeks within the week. Flecks, small nuggets, the hills echoed with the ring of picks, axes, scraping shovels and the creeks quickly turning into muddy brown sluices. A thousand buffalo couldn’t have turned over the hillsides quicker than our enthusiasm. Gold, gold, gold.  Our excitement drove us hard.

News of our find spread quickly and within two weeks we were outnumbered by the ‘gweilo’: colonials, Americans, Italians, Irish, British, and Germans. At first, they were quite friendly, but as their numbers increased, and the alluvial gold became harder to find, frustrations and tensions grew.

They came at sunset. From the store, from their hearths and tents, armed with picks, shovels, sticks and bloodlust. I escaped over the hill as they overpowered our family camp.

I returned the next morning. Our camp had been ransacked; tents burnt, our few possessions strewn or missing, and the vegetable garden trampled. The only positive was that they never found our yellow metal’s hiding place. We had an old tobacco tin and every evening we deposited our finds into the tin before returning it to the wire suspended into our toilet trench.

So much for the lucky future, anticipated those three years ago as we left Shanghai.  I sat, unsure of my next move. Would the mob return?

My mind ranged back over the years since I left the Pearl River; the voyage to California, my outstanding debts, the decision to extend the indenture and head to the riches of Ballarat, the eventual landing in Robe, the five-week overland trek, Bo’s discovery of the nugget, final success, then the ambush.

With nobody to share the gold, I made my way to Ballarat. I found my countrymen, a little work, even a little more gold, but I was humiliated, debt-ridden, and without the anticipated golden future for myself or the family back in Sze Yup.

I sent our collected gold ore home to my parents. I arranged to have a letter written that explained what had befallen us at the Canton Lead, asking that they pray for the departed, and share the meagre offerings across the family.

I never saw the Pearl River again! I settled on the banks of a small creek below the Canton Lead and started a vegetable garden. I built a small shack and store, I learnt a little English, and eventually married a local girl. Kids arrived, five sons and two daughters. There was a steady demand for our goods, and we prospered. Canton Lead was renamed, at first to Mount Ararat, then shortened to Ararat.

Background:

This story relates to the Ararat gold rush, beginning in 1857 with the chance discovery of alluvial gold by a family of Chinese diggers, enroute from South Australia’s Robe to the Ballarat diggings. As happened elsewhere, discrimination, jealousies and Chinese successes led to deadly, civil unrest at Canton Lead, resulting in at least three murders.  Commercial gold mining continued in the area up until the outbreak of WW1. Ararat today celebrates its history as the only Australian city founded by the Chinese.

 

The North

Balang’s instruction

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in The North

This is Dungbon country, about 80 kilometres south of Maningrida, Central Arnhem land. I am sitting with my ngadjadj. You call him my mother’s brother, my uncle. We are on a ledge; high and shaded, a commanding position with the soft early morning light casting deep shadows across the valley below. Over the past few weeks, we have been here often, always early, surrounded by the detritus of a thousand generations of stone tool makers. This quarry, a resource that underpins so much of our lives, will one day be my responsibility, but for the moment, it’s my classroom. Lessons here will ensure my abilities as a hunter, as a provider.

Bangardi is teaching me the essential skills of knapping, making ‘gadarda’, or spearheads, scrappers and knives from the finely-grained orange chert found across our country. I sense some frustrations at this morning’s efforts. “Balang, not like that. You’ve got to keep your thumbs and fingers clear, bring your hammer down confidently, sharply across the top, flat surface.”

I am flaking chips, but they are small: sharp but useless as spearheads. Bangardi took the paperbark-wrapped hammer from my hand and executes a short, sharp blow that flakes a long sliver of stone, jagged, but razor sharp!

He admits that his knapping was not always so precise; his own ngadjadi spent months with him on this same ledge, honing his skills, teaching him to find the right block of stone, one with a receding underside that would flake satisfactorily. He relates being taught how to select the right hammer from the creek below, refining his posture to deliver the strike, and about the necessary songs that will ensure satisfactory protocols are observed.

Uncle also explains why the hammer needs the paperbark wrapping. He describes how the bark helps distribute the blow evenly, but also how it deadens the echoes from within the stone. Mimih spirits live in the caves and nearby rocks. It is important not to disturb them.

Before the sun sends the animals back into their shady daytime refuges, he picks up two spears, and his woomera, and we leave the ledge. This morning’s knapping lessons are over; another class is about to begin. “So don’t forget, Balang. Always look for the stone with an overhang. Practise getting it right, it will ensure success!”

We quietly follow the creek upstream. A mob of wallabies graze on the dewy grass tufts, and with a practised arm, Bangardi raises and dispatches his spear with deadly accuracy. One of the animals falls, twitching momentarily, and a quick blow to its head finishes the hunt.

The long sinews are drawn from the animal’s hind legs, coiled and placed into his dilly bag looped off his shoulder. I know he will use the cords, fixed with spinifex resin, to adhere a spearhead to a long, straight haft, if I ever manage to produce a suitable flake!

The deep blue, early morning sky is washing out as we gather dry grass, light it and singe off the animal’s fur. We snack on its sweetmeats before making our way back home.

 

Domestics

Skinning the cat

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Domestics

I’m not going to let this develop into a row, but … I mean, we’ve taken the long drive down to her place every year since the kids were little. I know Margaret’s getting on, but she talks incessantly and blathers about the doings of her neighbours and distant relatives: I’ve never met most of them! And the bloody football. Who cares if her team won or lost last season? No; not this year. This is going to be our beachside Christmas!

I need pre-emptive strategies. Should I book a beachside Airbnb now, claiming I forgot about Margaret’s Christmas expectations? Would that wash? Probably not, given the previous twelve-year protocols.

The kids need to be onside? They have each privately complained to me about Nanna, her hugs and kisses, her overpowering lavender whiff, her predictable menus, the repetitive quips, and the tiny, boring backyard!

Yes: this’ll work. I will introduce some innocent, after-school kitchen chatter about the upcoming Christmas holidays, I’ll remind everyone of the fun during previous visits to Nanna’s! I’ll need a segway at the dinner table to get the discussion going. I’ll give it a whirl over the next few days!

I need to introduce alternative Christmas ideas. I am pretty sure Betsy’s Mum says that they book a beachside cabin every year. And Damian’s Mum talks about the surfing lessons he took last summer.

Righto. I don’t want to ‘overcook the pudding’ but I reckon these inputs will deliver the beachside. Maybe I can suggest Charlie and I drive down to see Margaret the weekend after next. I can arrange sleepovers for the kids. Yep, and it’ll give Charlie and me a break.

Next Friday night, over dinner, the chatter starts with the declaration “Mum is suggesting we don’t go to Nanna’s for…”. The icy, silent treatment dampens the weekend mood.

Things well and truly go ‘south’ when Charlie gets a call from his sister suggesting Mum is starting to display signs of dementia. The prospect of moving out of the family home is the end of independent living. Charlie and his sister talk for an hour or so. Our impending visit is locked in, and timely!

We find her in good spirits. She tells us about the neighbour’s ginger cat, caught in the drain; and her constipation! We help her with the crossword and enjoy chicken salad sandwiches. I notice occasional conversational lapses, the right word proving elusive, but this is hardly dementia. We all do it, from time to time!

About a week after our trip, we’re in the snug, whiskeys in hand. The kids are in the lounge watching TV. Charlie says “Ya know, I reckon that idea the kids were talking about, the beach Christmas, is a great idea. Why don’t I book us a cottage, maybe at Port Arlington, Barwon Heads or somewhere?”

“But what about your Mum? She’ll be expecting us for Christmas.”

“I reckon Sis can bring her down for a couple of days.”

I’m innocent, Your Honour!

Imagined

A contracted trip

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Imagined

It’s six in the evening and a westward sky has that slightly indefinable band of Paines Grey washing up against the burnished, retreating sun. At thirty-eight thousand feet, I stare out at the nothingness, the steady, low-pitched hum of engines felt, maybe just imagined, comfortably reassuring, somewhere behind.

The flight is interminable, a generous scotch, over ice, already in hand. I see the staff in the galley preparing dinner. I have the roast beef on order, Bearnaise sauce, chat potatoes and a green salad on the side. There are fresh berries over a delicate, coffee-based gelato, following. On medical advice, I will have just the one glass of red, but it will be the best that the house can offer. On the flight up to London last month, they had a wonderful Hill of Grace Syrah, I was hoping for another drop – 1998 was such a wonderful year! But on this Emirates flight, I have to doubt such offerings.

Through the window, never-ending emptiness, I can feel the silence. I note icy cold beads of moisture trapped between the double glazing are battling existence; the exterior hostility and the comparative ambience of the cabin. I idly wonder how the moisture gets into the cavity.

Another assignment. This time, two targets; the first in Muscat, then up the Gulf to Dubai. Two tobacco traders, both in breach of contracts, both to be reminded of Australian commitments, both to be forcefully told of the cost associated with delivery failures! I am acutely aware of the on-ground turf wars, following Border Force’s interception of our most recent consignments: but that is not my concern. I am just the Contract Enforcer!

I recall the cynical banter from the family – accusations of me; the lush, on the company purse, drifting around the globe wining and dining. I try unsuccessfully to paint a judicious slice of my international routines; the endless, lonely hotel suites, living out of a suitcase, the late-night encounters. I think they saw my life as some sort of permanent junket – if only they knew.

This trip should only take a couple of weeks. On arrival, I will secure a ‘piece’, packed with the essential silencer and ammunition. It’s prearranged but always just a little risky, I’m ever alert for possible slipups. Then the stakeout, the last-minute refinements to maximise the educational outcomes and my all-important exit strategies.

I like using the anonymity of bicycles for my getaway, although in some circumstances tuk-tuks or rickshaws also give me that capacity to disappear into a crowd. In the UAE, I think a small motorbike will do the trick.

I can see reflective silver slivers out of my window: other planes, pods of travellers, other destinations, their sleekness reflecting the last of the sunset, their cometlike vapours, trailing. There is a change in background noise, the engines are slowing—thirty minutes to arrival.

The pointy end of this assignment is drawing nigh. I briefly review my operational imperatives. I smile; yep, all my ducks are aligned!

Politics

A policy wonk’s morning

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Politics

You sense that today will be the start of something different. The signs look good – no burnt toast, your new coffee beans deliver a delicious complexity, and your decision to iron your underpants and shirt last night means arrival at the bus station just as your bus arrives. Your favourite upstairs seat is vacant! Can it get much better? You settle, hat and brolly resting on the vacant seat.

My gosh, things are all falling into place wonderfully. Your newspaper has a full report of your team’s success last night, they won by a point, on the siren! The front page confirms the Government’s decision to accept your Cabinet Briefing Paper. You recommended ditching those ridiculous nuclear submarines. They also agree with your recommendations about stronger resourcing of cyber-security and greater emphasis on diplomatic discourse!

The bus winds through suburbia as you surreptitiously peel and eat your breakfast banana. You imagine a parallel scenario within the tree-lined streets, a myriad families at their breakfast tables, some childish squabbles, but school departure schedules on track.

Your mood responds to the dappled sunshine coming through the trees, you sense a minty freshness in the air as you ponder the day ahead. Sitting, gently jiggled in your elevated seat, you’re distracted momentarily by the number of rooftop solar installations. Could you engineer some federal assistance against the hugely expensive battery storage packs? You note the yellow-topped wheelie bins lining the curbs, sentinel to their smaller, red-topped companions. A moment’s panic: did you remember to put your bin out this morning? Of course!

The bus pulls in. Just a five-minute walk to the revolving door, through Security – “Morning George”, into the lift and your twenty-six-second ride to the thirtieth floor. Another coffee? Why not as you greet colleagues and close your office door.

You prepare to pick up from yesterday. Your laptop’s startup throws a duck-egg blue complexion around the walls. As programs load, your mind is briefly drawn to the window, to the miles of leafy enclaves running out to the distant mountain range. Roofs are mostly hidden; the trees and general greenery dominate the vista. You are keenly aware that much of your policy work will impact the residents inside those homes and you are beholden to political masters to ensure nationally-protective securities are in place, are effective and judiciously legitimate.

But the rigours attaching to yesterday’s challenge reengage your focus. You sense success. The weeks of tangled cogitations and considerations, Pythonesque in their defying complexities are nearing resolution; solutions identified, now merely needing execution.

A sharp knock on the door. It opens. Your PA asks “Have you heard the news? Both of the candidates have been ‘taken out’. Separate events, but the Signals Directorate think they’re connected.” She senses your overriding irritation at the interruption and withdraws.

For a moment, you ponder the news. A smile acknowledges that things can only get better from here. You pick up the secured mobile “Well done, guys!” You return to the Budget Estimates.

Peccadillos and Pecados

Screentime

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Peccadillos and Pecados

Why do I venture out on such a miserable, Melbourne winter’s day? The simple truth is that I miss the smells, the hubbub and the clamour of the South Melbourne market. It’s been three years since I moved away, but I still journey to Coventry Street when possible.

My tram interchange means a brief exposure to the cold winds of Collins Street. Some early 20th century wit describes these drafts as the “laziest winds in the world, their habit of blowing straight through you, not around…” and so it seems on this Wednesday. My jumper, puffer jacket and beanie are just no match.

Fellow travellers, eyes ever downcast, screen lights reflecting individual pockets of intimacy. I seek shelter in the lee of others more directly exposed to the weather. Rural folk would no doubt recognise this ovine, defensive positioning, as we wait, coldly, at the tram stop.

The 234 tram glides quietly to the stop: it’s one of those new ones that move gently along the streets, engineered without the acoustics of yore – the clangs, screeches and bells so intrinsically linked to the Melbourne tramways. My shopping trolley, and I, muscle aboard.

Everyone’s glued to their telephones, flicking up and down, some with white earplugs, further distancing themselves from social intercourse. The tram jiggles along, but nary a face lifts off their screens. I consider using my leather to join the network. What the heck, I take off my shoe, punch the sole viciously and ask to speak to the operator. Still no reaction. I speak louder. “Hello, is anybody there?” I see a singular face lift briefly, a quizzical expression before it drops down screenward.

At the market I beeline towards the fish shop, I am tossing up between Tuna and Flathead. I’ve heard some tuna fisheries have a big impact on dolphins, so I am leaning towards the flathead. I buy baby Brussel sprouts; they will complement the fish wonderfully. A cauliflower, carrots, olive oil, freshly roasted St Ali beans and a 12-pack of toilet paper. Despite medical advice, I am also budgeting a few shekels at the Fromagerie. They usually have a wonderfully rich Limburger and a few weeks ago they even had the Vieux Boulogne, that impossibly smelly, beer-washed northern French offering.

I am meeting Geraldine at Clement’s for coffee. She and I have both bought mobile machines and U3A classes are teaching us about texting, photography, and being on the alert for scalpers. She will send me a note from her telephone when her shopping’s complete.

I am making my way across to the café. I realise I have forgotten potatoes and detour to buy kipflers, Spanish onions, avocados and some mandarins.

OK. I am now ready for a cappuccino! I see Geraldine on the corner, head down, focussing on what must be her new telephone. She is punching wildly at the keyboard. She looks up, I wave and she abandons her device. “Bloody telephone” is her only greeting.

We enjoy croissants, coffee and camaraderie.

History

An old letter resurfaces

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in History

Old books are as good as old friends, and second-hand bookshops are my go-to when the weather is lousy. I am meeting friends in Castlemaine; I’m very early. Yet again I pass that bookshop in Campbell’s Creek, the one I have been passing for years, always promising to pop in, one day. Today’s the day.

The hoarding outside advises there are 100,000 volumes inside, but the towering shelves, floor to ceiling, room upon room suggests that estimate is outdated. As I enter, the musty, delicious old-book smell envelopes me.

The usual stash of romance, thrillers, fantasy and historical novels fill the front rooms. I wander deeper, finding a small room dedicated to Australiana.

My neck is cricked badly after an hour of reading spines, moving through Astley; Bolderwood; Carey; Clarke; Flannery; Franklin, Garner; Grenfell; Stead, Tsiolkas; White; Winton, Wright. So many wonderful authors. I return to a battered, almost illegible leather-bound copy of Bolderwood’s Robbery under Arms!

I draw it out gingerly and open the flyleaf. ‘Second printing 1889’. The inscription reads ‘3rd August 1906 Alfred, Happy 50th Birthday, regards, Toby’. There is a pencilled price of $55 – that’s a steal. I take my prize to the counter.

I find the book a few days later. It has slipped off and under the car seat. I settle into my study, a small snifter of scotch at my elbow, and explore my latest purchase. A couple of old, browned pages float to the floor. My jaw drops as I take in the significance of the document in my hand. The Alfred and Toby on the flyleaf reference are identified!

On Australian High Court letterhead, the writer is identified as the former Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, (Toby), writing in a flourishing copperplate to his long-time friend and ally, the current Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin. Enthralled to be privy to this personal exchange, I read:

“Dear Fred,
50 years under your belt! My heartiest birthday wishes, trusting that the attached tome may entertain and while away possible spare hours, maybe on that regular, but quite tiresome train journey back to Ballarat.

I want to thank you for your tactical leadership as we move towards this referendum. The capacity to have members of both the Senate and the House elected at the same time will provide significant financial gains for the Commonwealth. Linking the plebiscite to the General Election should also auger well for your continued leadership. Well done, and I am sure you are set for a resounding endorsement.

Thinking back over the years, I am constantly reminded of your significant input into this new Federation. I am aware of the many hundreds of hours you were away from family and friends as you crisscrossed the country cajoling the colonies towards our proposed unification. The work you put into our founding documents, securing the necessary legislative capacities; and the tactical work at Westminster to ensure our charter was successfully legislated. While we missed securing the New Zealanders, you brought those pesky Sandgropers into the fold. Again, and in particular, the successful passage of the Immigration Restriction Bill wouldn’t have happened without your judicious and timely oversight.

So many issues delicately handled, I think your legacy will long be sung in the parliamentary corridors.

Again, the very happiest birthday wishes.

Sincerely
‘Toby’
Justice Edmund Barton,
High Court of Australia
3rd August, 1906”

Domestics

The north wind

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Domestics

Summer heat, the bedroom air conditioning system is going flat out against the Bureau’s advice that it is unlikely to drop below 25 degrees overnight. At 8 pm it’s still 35. The north wind is bringing Central Australia to town. Even the vegetable patch is withdrawn, wilting to preserve some hydration.

Our breeding program is also under severe threat, with sprinklers constantly misting their enclosures, but I fear the girls might abandon their egg production. That would put us back nearly six months! We have Pet Shop contracts that are due to be delivered in the next couple of months.

We are stretched after three days of constant, howling winds. Broken sleep, even with the AC; dry, croaky throats, dust everywhere, and the air – crackly, almost electric. Tempers are short. I can’t remember a wind like this. Julie sits inside, nursing a bottomless glass of Chardonnay.

Was this climate change? No doubt industry and the pollies would be prevaricating; splitting hairs on the explanation first espoused by that ‘unflushable’ man the populace elected back in the 90’s. “This is just a passing faze! Nothing to do with human intervention.”

I’ve been running around like a headless chook. The water in the breeding ponds must be held below 30, proving to be the issue. The wind’s evaporative greed means the misters are on constantly, but are no match for these conditions.

Why hadn’t we enclosed the shed properly, and installed the air conditioner we’d discussed last year? I argued for the installation but Julie got her way and the bedroom now has a reverse cycle split system.

Things are going pear-shaped, rapidly unless; unless … to be honest, I was running out of ideas! The girls were starting to voice their discomfort, and the blokes were certainly not holding back: their ruckus filling the shed, a deafening crescendo long into the evening. But their calls are changing, the pitch more constrained, choked, a distressed growl.

I voice my fears with Julie over dinner and am quite surprised at her lack of empathetic concern. “You give them more attention than you do me”, she bitterly throws across the table. “Come on”, I counter, “surely you don’t mean that.” “I certainly do. I am starting to wonder why on earth I moved in!”

We had been together for almost two years, since that chance meeting at the Show. I thought she was as keen as me, but as I reflect back on the intervening months, I realise her program engagement has only ever been begrudging. She increasingly retreats into that damned green bottle!

The shed is dangerously overheating. I surmise most of the stock won’t survive another night of this! I need to cut my losses.

I collect my best breeders into a small, portable container and retreat into the air-conditioned bedroom.

Julie packs her bags, throwing the keys on the table before slamming the front door.

My Pobblebonk frogs and I breathe a little easier!

Animals

Claude and I

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Animals

It’s strange how quickly some relationships develop. Claude and I had only met about three weeks ago. He was scurrying across the workshop, carrying some edible titbits: he later explained – the ‘elevenses’ for the crew. And me? Well I was a recent transferee from another part of the factory, an involuntary refugee, moved as part of a reorganisation of the workshop floor.

But we quickly bonded, finding common ground in our love of flying, our svelte, dark uniforms that we wore ‘on the wing’, meal preferences and humour. We quickly realised that we were also neighbours, living only a few crevices apart. How had we never crossed paths before?

We lived in the wonderfully aromatic darkness of the workshop’s cellar, with plenty of space to fulfill an adventurous existence. Above us, when the light was strong, the Big Ones trod; backwards and forwards, their never-ending movements raining dusty motes down across our space. We didn’t mind, as the vibrations often brought down edible scrapes.

Our style of humour, some might say ‘gutter-humour’ brought both of us near to tears. A whispered scenario, usually coming from Claude’s over-active imagination, would see us corralled in some dark corner, hushed discussions, giggling and a final agreement on an approach to our latest foray. It sometimes involved interaction with those above –these were far more dangerous escapades. But most times, we just did things to annoy our brethren.

There was a popular light-time resting hole that many of the crew liked to use. Claude, again, came up with a plan. Above the entrance to the space was a paper box. He and I secretly worked on that box for several days, nibbling and excavating one side of the box. We unbalanced it, and while the crew were at rest, we managed to send the box down across the entrance, trapping our colleagues. We thought it a hilarious joke, while angry, hungry and thirsty friends finally chewed their way out at the end of the dark time.

There was this huge jar of sweet sticky stuff, sometimes left open on the counter at the back of the crib room above. In the quiet of the night, Claude and I would crawl through the cracks in the floor above, then launch ourselves up and onto that jar. Care was needed to avoid the semi-hard blobs on the neck of the container – Claude once got his wings caught on the jar’s neck and spent an uncomfortable and anxious night attached. By nibbling the edges of the sticky stuff, I was eventually able to free him, just as the morning light arrived.

Big Black Cockroaches

Another upstairs foray, again heading for the jar. This time our timing was bad. We had just launched ourselves when a Big One started yelling, a wad of paper swatted furiously. A lucky blow caught Claude and knocked him for a six. As I flew into the darkness, I had a fleeting glimpse of Claude impaled, needled and the Big One heard to curse “Bloody cockroaches.”

Family

A gardening soliloquy

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Family

John corners me as I come into the kitchen this morning. “Here’s your long black. Are you OK if we revisit the garden redevelopment ideas?” This was the third time he raised it this week, and to be honest, his OCD was starting to wear thin!

We were planning a vegetable patch, but his military approach to the task had me wondering about Aldi’s vegetable aisles. His ideas run expansively over several pages and include:

• Soil analysis and additives, to counter acid or alkaline soils;
• the location for a three-bin compost facility;
• fencing to keep cats, blackbirds and possibly invading Tasmanian Tigers out;
• drainage considerations and the possibility of raised beds, maybe self-watering wicking beds;
• water access – consider the tap near the back verandah, and
• morning shade from nearby trees – to prune heavily, or remove?

And he was still on page one! John was warming to his subject: I note telltale spittle at the corners of his mouth and his excitable page fiddling. “Don’t just stand there. What do you think of the plans, so far?”

He overlooks the imposition of his non-stop blather of the past fifteen minutes. I hesitate, then start to talk about my research into wicking beds. ”Google says we’ll need to ensure that …” but alas, poor me: his soliloquies are set to challenge even Hamlet!

“What about the white cabbage moth? They’re butterflies actually, but nonetheless, they’ll ravage our brassicas. Sweet corn will be a treat in late summer – fresh cobs, drizzled with butter, rock salt and ground pepper. Mum used to grow acres of the stuff. Will we have enough room to put onions in? We use so many of them. Successive plantings will be the go. What about a green manure crop for soil conditioning?”

I calculate his eye is focussing about halfway down page two, and he is now onto Bunnings and a wicking bed shopping list. “2400mm x 200mm x 50mm sleepers: we’ll need nine for each bed. Bunnings have them for $19 each. Bugle batons, 100mm and 75mm, about thirty of each. They also sell the plastic liners and the plumbing fittings.”

I drift back into the kitchen and turn on the coffee machine. I need another long black. I can hear him mumbling to himself on the verandah. When I reemerge, he is out in the yard and is stepping out potential space for the wicking beds. He has a tape measure, a small hammer and several wooden pegs. “I reckon we will have room for four of the beds. What do you think?”

“Those trees will have to go. It’s eleven, and their shade will be over the beds for at least another hour.”

“Yep, whatever you think’s a fair thing, John!” I take another noisy slurp of my coffee and idly scratch my ear.

“What do you mean by that? I need your input. This is our family’s big project. Me, you and the kids. It will provide them with a life-defining love of gardening.”

Animals

Svelte Claude flies

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Animals

How often do you see a sign advertising Cockroach racing? I reread the aging, fly-spotted notice. Half of it is missing but still advises ‘Thoroughbred Cockroach racing … BYO ‘roaches. $1,000 prize pool. If interested, call this numb…’

It is dark, late Autumn and I’m being kicked out of the Empress of India for pissing against the bar. OK, yer, not nice, but in the crowded space, we frontline ‘bar-props’ are loath to vacate for the dunnies. We all do it occasionally, more so as the clock ticks towards six. We no longer think it is controversial or unusual!

Flo’s professionalism barely misses a beat as she plonks six pots down onto the bar in front of Bluey, Billy and Gerry. She glares momentarily at me and then orders me out! I reckon she has seen my telltale arm movements, wrestling with the bloody buttons of my fly!

Tongues click in sympathy as I’m unceremoniously ejected from the warm, fuggy space. “Bugger it”, as I realise I’m goin’ to miss my final couple of pots.

I stumble along Scotchmer Street; not my usual route home. The missus is gonna be surprised to see me home early. The ‘roach racing idea swirls. I could certainly use the cash! I wonder what’s involved in training a cockroach?

I’ve a dodgy prostate: I desperately need another leak. It’s dark and I smile as my bladder drains. I nimbly sidestep the slipstream off the wall and circuitously continue towards our cottage, tucker and bed.

Enormous cockroaches swarm. I’m in the maw of a monster and with a single swipe, it has my entrails strewn across the pavement — the bedside clock’s alarm erupts.

Over breakfast, I’m thinking about that $1,000. The factory crawls with ‘roaches – any stray scuttling sees lethal footwork! I’m wondering about what I do after I catch one, how will I train it?

It’s Saturday morning, with meat, veg and groceries straining the trusty old shopping cart. The café provides our usual tea and scones, and I casually scan the nearby Community notice board. Here it is again: ‘Cockroach Racing Saturday 24th, Flemington, BYO cockroaches. That’s it. I’m in. I’ll have three weeks to whip a winner into shape.

On Monday I snare a beauty – about an inch and a half long, sleek blackness, feelers another inch, at least. If I could find a small saddle I’d have a Melbourne Cup starter. I place ‘Claude’ into an Old Holborn tobacco tin and add a few crumbs. They’re gone when I let him out for a run later on. He has cake for dinner.

Over the next three weeks, he eats regularly, and richly. Leftovers off my plate, snacks from the ice chest, lunch crumbs. He continues to impress, every inch a winner. Svelte condition, I reckon; no excess baggage, muscles toned and ready to fly.

Saturday 24th and we’re at Flemington. I’m pumped. We’re at the Mounting Enclosure, I open his tin and he is away. I never see Claude again!

Imagined

A mining tale.

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Imagined

Can you imagine a house simply disappearing? One moment it’s there, the next it folds in on itself, like closing one of those kid’s 3D panorama storybooks, concertina-like, and just disappears into a hitherto unknown abyss. Our house slides into an old gold mine!

Thank God we’re all at the supermarket. We turn into our street and confront a phalanx of emergency vehicles: cops; ambos; fire engines; red and blue flashing lights everywhere – the whole nine yards, as they say in the movies! We park and join the crowd, fifty metres back from the large hole that is replacing our house.

We muscle our way through the police cordon and identify ourselves. “Yep, we’re all here, we’ve been to the shops”, I tell the cops. There is an immediate and discernible shift of tempo, a collective relaxation of shoulders. It might’ve been imaginative, but my “Hang on. Has anyone seen Roger” sees those same shoulders stiffen again. “Our dog!”, I explain.

There is a chopper above. A TV camera is in my face and a reporter is insinuating herself into the conversation. “Do you know about the gold mine”, she asks, but before I can answer, follows up with “Who is Roger?” She is shouldered from the posse of Emergency personnel. I hear another question yelled over their shoulders. “Do you have any idea why?”

The ground burps. There is a tearing screech of tortured metal and then a thunderous crescendo as we see our neighbour’s house do a little shimmy, one side slumps, and then the house completes an ever so graceful slide into ‘our’ hole.

That gets everything moving. The next thirty minutes sees the whole street empty. The neighbours desperately collect a few valuables before we end up in the park at the end of the street!

Turns out Roger took off when things went pear-shaped. We reunite at the motel that night.

I reassure the family that everything will be OK. Probably false bravado, but I believe that this madness will somehow resolve itself. Maybe we will wake up!

We stay in the motel for several months. Bureaucratic prevarications are never-ending. We establish that the City Council knows of the old mine’s location. It also establishes that my work to restump the house has had no impact on subsequent events.

Letters arrived in the post advising that last century, the Council took the legal precaution to absolve itself of any possible repercussions from suburban development over the old diggings. They reassure us that they are here to help. Our legal class action confirms the efficacy of their earlier legal precautions.

Our group successfully challenge the insurer’s suggestion that the collapse is an ‘Act of God’, contesting that God never worked in the mine! They settle with a pittance, enough for us to build a Tiny House.

While the rug is effectively pulled from under us, we are survivors. We move to another town, well away from gold mining activity! We don’t reinsure with anybody. Stuff ‘em!

History, The North

Tracy and I

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in History, The North

I’d just about had enough. We were both working on a remote island north of Darwin, but Tracey had taken a few weeks’ leave; “to get her head straight!” She was now home, things were tense, but there were moments of rekindled joy, intimacies, hopeful signs that we could get on top of ‘things’. Then during lunch, she suggested a trial separation, maybe after the holidays. The wind fairly flew from my sails.

Christmas was here. We had a friend’s house in Darwin to use over the holidays and traditionally we gather with mates.

We forced civility, and while we skirted around each other, we continued to plan late-night Christmas shopping, in town. I felt that the cracks were merely papered over, winds were continuing to find their way under the veneer.

Work demands provided a safety valve for some of the tension. The daily routine saw final pays made up and distributed, Social Security pension cheques cashed, and a special pre-Christmas barge arrived with all hands helping to unload the provisions. The school’s Christmas concert went ahead and, as always, was a huge hit.

Mid-afternoon saw a dog taken off the beach by a large croc. A witness said the croc chased the dog right through the middle of the dozen kids playing at the water’s edge. Rangers from town were due shortly – they asked me to reconstruct the portable trap that I had in storage from last year’s crocodile episode. We positioned it in the saltwater estuary behind the community. As the rangers arrived, I had it loaded with a goat carcass.

There was nothing left to do but board the small plane for Darwin. For forty minutes, we bucked and side-slipped our way across the Arafura Sea, huge banks of dark blue/black cumulous clouds in the east confirmed the Bureau’s suggestion that another big blow was heading our way.

Our gear was quickly dropped off at the house and we hit the shops. Food, booze, presents and the intoxicating delights of being back within the mayhem of the Christmas Eve shopping crowds.

There was no alcohol allowed in the community, so festive booze attracted a lot of our attention. We gave scant attention to the Bureau’s advice of an approaching full-blown cyclone: that was a mistake.

We were drunk when the house’s roof disappeared into the night. The roar of a million jet engines saw off the walls.

The bathroom, with its deep bath, remained. Huddled inside, we clung tightly to each other for five hours as countless sheets of ripped, twisted roofing iron, furniture, trees, cats and probably even dogs screeched past. Darkness, a drenching deluge, ear-splitting noise and terror enveloped us.

Tracy bought Tracey and I back together. Those strengths that first attracted us were reforged in that bathroom.

As the fiftieth-anniversary approaches, our kids and grandchildren are now a testament to the power of that night.

But that noise is never, ever forgotten, replaying on some stormy, southern nights!

Domestics

Magpies and fairies

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Domestics

Morning sunshine is sneaking onto the front verandah, erasing memories of recent cold, gloomy days. As is my want at such a time, I’m outside, wrapped warmly and seated, expectant, waiting for the daily Magpie Chorus to start.

On queue, they arrive. There’s a bit of jostling; four, five, now six members executing some preliminary circle work, then undercarriages deploy, dropping down onto the power pole’s crossbar. Immediate carolling acknowledges successful perches!

As a youngster, my Gran tells me that six magpies herald ‘…gold in the offing …’ In this instance, it’s maybe the gold-trimmed, fluffy clouds disappearing into the west.

One bird lifts off, there’s a tiff, a squabble that has necks taut, all straining upwards into the day’s soft light, raucous chortles, a competition to outdo each other. A moment’s quiet, and then they are aflight, swooping, skylarking. I go and make another coffee. These performances set the tone for my day!

With a long black, stiffened with a nip of whiskey, I breathily whistle along as Classic FM play Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntaire. I resume my seat and sip, reflectively.

The kids will be here shortly. I have promised to take them across to the playground later. It’s also LSD (Lolly-Shop Day). I’ll need to load their wallets, each with a gold coin. Where can I scrounge coins?

I take another slurp and continue to ponder what, if any further gold the maggies might be offering. I make a mental note to include a new can opener on the shopping list: the old one finally gave up the ghost last night, trying to open the tinned dolmades. The sunshine suggests it’s probably also a good laundry day, and the quince tree’s perfume is filling the front yard – a reminder that their poaching is nigh!

The radio announcer mentions a comet viewing tonight. Will the kids be interested? I still have that old telescope somewhere. I’ll need to do some planning as a clear westward horizon is essential, in position about an hour after sunset. Maybe a barbeque somewhere elevated? But not too late, as the children have school and daycare tomorrow.

I consider options. There’s that clearing in the pine forest atop Mt Parrwang*, the fireplace, a picnic table and minimal light-spill from westward settlement. Perfect!

I buy sausages, rolls, tomato sauce, ice cream, and the can opener. We’re on-site by five, the snags cooked and eaten well before sunset. We settle in. I have the telescope set up but Thomas suddenly lets out a cry of dismay. His front tooth has fallen out. It’s on the ground somewhere. All focus is on the potential loss and implications for a Tooth Fairy’s visitation!

We are on hands and knees, minutely searching the grass. Thomas simpers. A magpie chortles a tenor melody while from somewhere distant, kookaburras provide baritone harmonies. I see an enamel glint, the tooth is wrapped in tissue and pocketed safely, the Fairy’s visit secured!

Indisputable priorities, between fairies and comets, are made. We head home.

*- Djadja Warrung word for Magpie

Childhood Memories

Fantasy’s freedom

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Childhood Memories

“Next!” That was my dismissal. He’d asked me if I’d ever sung in a choir. I hadn’t and I told him so.

“Here endeth the lesson” a phrase that comes to mind in an unguarded moment, when I wander back to that audition, sixty-five years ago. Week three, the school chaplain had one hundred new, eleven-year-old boys yarded, drafting speedily, hopeful that somewhere in the flock he might come across a choired prodigy.

He had a prestigious reputation as a Choir Master, relocating from Kings College, Cambridge. Some nights I still wrestle with my failure to remonstrate. Maybe he might have reassessed my dismissal if I had just broken out with a few lines from a G&S operetta or a “Please Sir, I’d like…”. But of course, I didn’t. I meekly left the room.

I was aware that I was from the other side of the tracks. I perceived this private boarding school, afforded because of a dramatic change in family fortunes, would forever pin me to the bottom of a pre-ordained pecking order. I was from Rosebud, they all seemed to live in Toorak and beachside holidays were at Barwon Heads. The mismatch was crushing.

My social acceptability was not being helped by newspaper headlines reporting my uncle for his villainous, anti-Australian activities. His vociferous opposition to our involvement in the Vietnam conflict was gaining national traction, but not among my fellow students. Menzies was suggesting treason, the tabloids were having a field day, and me, desperate for admission, fell further into the mire.

My sister and I were both sopranos. We knew all the lyrics, and harmonies within the G&S repertoire, from South Pacific, Oklahoma, High Society, Fiddler on the Roof and any other stray musical exposures we came across. We even picked up and inserted harmonies against Dad’s breathy whistling of childhood-learned hymns and could entertain, me taking the upper registry of the 23rd Psalm.

I didn’t appreciate the significance of missed voice training, vital to taking my voice through puberty in any meaningful way. Rather, I just saw my exclusion from a wonderous four-part singing opportunity, that I badly wanted to be part of! But I still didn’t pluck up the courage to say anything.

In my last year, I finally had the sense, and self-worth, to approach the choirmaster and join. I was part of their chorale. Dio mio! Those wasted years! As a tenor, I revelled in that year.

Singing stayed with me as a favourite, but generally private pursuit. I joined regional choirs and musical repertory groups, the occasional solo performances from Mozart, Handel and Bizet, but more so, as a folk festival entertainer. I became a Rogers and Hammerstein bathroom singer, not Luciano at La Scala: more a pub performing Mario Lanza.

I was left with an unanswerable question. What if, as an 11-year-old, I had been more forthcoming? Dreams continued to titillate, to explore the what-ifs of a missed musical career. I still sing in the car, by myself.

Characters

My dad, and me

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Characters

Can ya be in love with ya memories? That’s the question swirling around me head, ever since last June’s bust-up with Bruce.

He reckons we have ta move closer to town! Can you imagine? Three bedrooms on a quarter acre, lawn mowing, neighbours, traffic and kids hooning around. I betcha the Holden will be stolen to do burnouts down the street. “Bruce, we’ll be up to our necks in humbug. Jees, we’ll have to get one of those phones to talk on, as you walk around. And we don’t even know anyone’s number!”

We come from different sides of the ‘tracks’: him, the posh side. I live with Dad, forty miles up a dirt track, in the hills behind town. Dad builds our shack when he gets Mum up the duff. I come along, and with the dogs, me bi-cycle and the horses, we’re as happy as Larry.

Mum eventually pisses off, and that suits me and Dad fine. No more empty flagons smashed at the bottom of the hill! She takes off with the petrol station bloke. Never hear from ‘er again.

I go to school, sometimes: when Dad needs to buy stuff in town. The dogs ride in the back, tails an tongues flyin’, thirsty as buggery when Dad leaves them in the Ute while he has a few frothies. He’s pissed when he picks me up, but outta town, I take over the driving!

I meet Bruce at school. At lunchtimes, we sneak down behind the dunnies for a ciggie. Over time it becomes a bit of a grope-session, but it gets us outta class. Everyone reckons we’re sweethearts. I suppose we are, and it’s no surprise when he eventually moves in.

Dad gets lung cancer. I take him to the doctor. Sargeant Whatsit pulls me over at the edge of town but when he sees Dad, we get a right-royal express trip, sirens and all, straight to the hospital.

There is an old hayshed near town. I sleep here for a few weeks, seeing Dad every day. I go into the shop and buy him some grapes. It’s a bit of a joke, but he laughs and laughs, in between coughing.

Three weeks and he tells me to take him home. I argue, but he’s a stubborn old bastard. The nurses chucked his old clobber out, so I drop into the clothes shop – The Leisure Wear Emporium – and get him some new stuff. He looked bloody flash.

Back home he lasts a few months. The Doc comes out with some pills. Dad prefers my huge, home-rolled joints. God, I miss him!

The shack is my own temple now. A ginormous photo of Dad hangs on my bedroom wall.

Bruce moves in after the funeral. It lasts a couple of years before he pisses off. I hear he takes up with the sheila at the pub: the blond floozy! They’re living in a townhouse, garden, lawns, the whole shebang!

Bugger ‘em. Me, and my dad, are happy!

Tripping

A cloudy, cold day in July

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Tripping

So who suggests this bloody walk, anyway? The brochure and the hotel concierge both say the trek between Lake Louise across to Lake Agnes is clearly marked, spectacular and takes 5 to 6 hours return. We’ll be at the point where, before global warming, six individual glaciers converge.

Late summer, a cloudy, cold day but with sunshine forecast. Our day-packs include an expensive bottle of French fizz, several chocolate bars and smoked salmon wraps. We each wear hiking boots, jumpers and windcheaters, with the capacity to strip down later. We are on the track by 10 am, with excitement and smartphone-cameras setting the pace.

Sheila and I have been planning the trek for months, a highlight of our Canadian sojourn. We tackle the steepish gradient, stopping often to savour the jagged, snow-capped peaks high above. The lakes below have this opaque, impossibly whitish-blue, snow-melt colour.

Off the trail, we wander and find a perfect picnic spot. The scenery is breathtaking, a magical setting and the sun appears. The bottle of Verve Clique induces a post-lunch snooze.

We oversleep. The chill air and long shadows lend an urgency to our return. The sun is disappearing behind the mountains. Ten minutes and we still aren’t back on the trail. Strange, as we both think our lunch spot is close by!

Thank God for the windcheaters. We know the track is somewhere close, as our pace quickens, hearts pump just that little bit faster.

After an hour of blundering about, dusk comes and goes. We share a mild panic. Are there bears in this part of Banff? What other beasties are there in the Canadian wilderness? A branch snaps somewhere; the sound echoes eerily in the stillness.

“We’ll be right”, I proffer, my croaky voice discredits my confidence. What do the Mounties suggest we do? If lost in Australia’s Outback, you always stay with the car or sit tight; take stock. With no car, we sit.

What if we light a fire? Will that help searchers find us, or will it just attract curious wildlife? Kindling is plentiful and we huddle close to the fire’s comforting glow.

No Mounties arrive and we endure a cold, sleepless night. There is little talk, but our imaginations work overtime. A couple of owls begin a mournful duet; real or imagined terrors lurk in the darkness. Are those wolves howling in the distance?

First light, a dead fire and suddenly a moose lumbers into our clearing. We scream. I wonder who gets the bigger shock. Wow, those antlers? Do moose attack people? We’re up and running.

We’re on the trail before we realise, it’s just a hundred metres from last night’s encampment! To the right, it goes slightly uphill. We go left.

A misplaced step. I trip over a tree root. My ankle’s not happy! I try to hobble but it’s too painful. We’re sitting anxiously, wondering. Tears don’t help.

We hear, then see the chopper. It circles. Salvation. Thank God I have Comprehensive Travel Insurance!

The North

The eyes have it

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in The North

It’s the yellow eyes my mind returns to. Nightmares feature those unblinking orbs, set high on its head, half a metre back from a snout, above a row of pearly whites. Even after all these years, a shiver works its way up my spine.

The family holiday, in Darwin. Someone suggests the visit to Crocodile Cove, the ‘ultimate Top End holiday challenge’.

We sit in the grandstand watching a squealing mob of kids take the plunge, four of them caged, snorkel-equipped and lowered slowly into the glass tank. The huge croc appears lazily disinterested, but my sphincter makes up for any apparent lack of activity. It’s working overtime!

My breath catches, and my heart rate accelerates. it’s so hot. I gotta get outta here. I sit on a bench outside in the street.

I’m back thirty years, a memory sparks of me, and a boat, stuck on a sandbar in a croc-infested, tidal river. I had chartered the skippered boat to visit a client living on an island in the Gulf, off the mouth of the river. The meeting finished, the skipper suggests a shortcut he knows. It’s going to take 30 minutes off the return trip.

Shallow, sunlit patches of sand pass close below, the outboard bumps a couple of times and before I know it, we’re caught on a sandbar. We jump out, desperate to get the boat back into deeper water.

The water abandons us faster than the proverbial ‘speeding bullet’. Ten minutes and we are high and dry, the ‘bar now half a metre above the water.

It’s midday, full sun, forty degrees, one hundred per cent humidity and four or five hours to wait before the tide turns. We make camp, a struggle but get the boat turned over, one side propped up on its oars, a makeshift shade. Then the sandflies arrive. It can’t get any worse!

A length of rope, attached to an anchor and a water bottle tumble out from the bow as the boat tips. I grab the bottle. It’s empty!

I see the hint of a browny-green rock at the edge of the water. Dios mio: my worst fear takes shape as the rock morphs into a snout and those black-pupiled, yellow eyes emerge. Jaws connect the eyes and snout, an enormous body, a gentle, swaying tale. It’s staring, motionless, us its total focus.

We have a whispered discussion and on the count of three, we run to the other side of the boat, heaving manically and right it. Inside, seated, some semblance of security settles.

The croc idly lumbers over for a closer look. It bumps the boat. It circles, slowly. We hold our collective breath. It slumps onto its stomach, along the length of the boat. Surely, it’s not going to sleep?

For two hours we sit, silent, motionless. For reasons best known to crocodiles, it then stands and moves back towards the water!

The kids are talking excitedly about the show. Those yellow eyes remain, etched, indelible.

Family

Grandpa’s treasure

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Family

He remembers seeing a Thylacine, in the glade, staring. For maybe a minute it lingers before it quietly moves off into the bush. There are other stories. Bullocks crushed when the jinker’s brakes fail; several near misses, as behemoths fall the wrong way, mateship and his lifelong love of the bush.

But now, the sandwiches are mostly eaten, some lamingtons remain and I see coconut crumbs caught in the spider web below the buffet. Late afternoon sunlight picks out the delicate patterns. Empty cans of Grandpa’s favourite beer now sit along the top of the piano, at the edge of the stage and on table tops around the Hall. Queen Elizabeth looks down inscrutably.

A collection of near-new Akubras perch above rheumy old faces, long white beards and sun-darkened arms. They are over on the mainland for the send-off. We hear the old stories, slight variations but much laughter and banter.

An evening chill wafts into the Hall and the mob start to drift toward farewells. Commitments are being made for future catch-ups, and contact details are being updated as we three start to collect rubbish, plates and glasses. It is a fitting goodbye, an occasion he would approve.

Julie, Rob and I are in the kitchen. The mood remains reflective. It takes Rob to say “Do you remember Grandpa talking about …” and the floodgates open. We are individually back in his bed, our early morning ritual, a black jelly bean, from his stash, and a story before breakfast and school.

A timber cutter, working a Tarkine timber coupe early last century– tall tales of derry-do, monster trees crashing to earth, near misses, runaway bullock drays, wildlife, sometimes gentle reminisce – a boiling billy, lunch beside burbling streams, catching giant yabbies for dinner. We fall into these stories effortlessly.

He leaves Tassie and comes to live with us after Mum and Dad are killed in the car accident. Over the years, holiday camping and bushwalks are anticipated escapades and he effectively instils our lifelong love for the bush.

We all remember the trip on the ferry from Melbourne to Devonport. We drive to the little settlement of Marrawah, out from Stanley, on Tassie’s northwest tip. We visit his old two-room cottage, gravity now slowly drawing it earthward. We visit the cemetery, weeding and placing flowers on Grandma’s grave. There are a few moist eyes but as we drive into the Tarkine, an almost youthful exuberance arrives.

None of us will ever forget that last trip. Now some twenty years ago, it continues to resonate. I take many bits and pieces from his stories to entertain my own children.

We are now in the solicitor’s office. Just her and us three grandkids. She hands each of us a sealed envelope and reads his Will. The envelopes have identical copies of a Land Title. We now share five hundred hectares of wilderness in the northern Tarkine, next to the Montagu Swamp Forest reserve. There is a hand-drawn map defining his treasure’s boundary.

Domestics

Friday’s focus

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Domestics

I had half an eye on the catastrophe unfolding in the Grampians, terrifying images flash across the screen. Rampant flames swallow grasslands, trees and houses, insistent red and blue emergency lights wink furiously. Yellow Hi-Viz bedecked men and women hold hoses, hopeful, but powerless against this de-bottled genie.

The Bureau predict the maelstrom; dry summer bush, high temperatures, cyclonic wind speeds and probable lightning. A perfect coalition. It arrives. I reflect on my recent fishing trip to the Grampians’ Lake Bellfield.

My mind refocuses back on the crossword. “Oh, of course,” I exclaim, waking old Barak, snoozing below the table. He stands, barks uncertainly and drops a malodorous fart. ‘Significant Australian summer event.’ 8 letters ‘Bushfire’, why didn’t I think of it before? It’s going to fit with both 7 and 12 down, too. I use the puzzle to blot out the TV and its coverage of the conflagration.

Janet and I have agreed sunset is our deadline; forty-five minutes left and I note that she is going gangbusters. Her pen slashes across the page in furious endeavour.

Concentrate. 3 down ‘Traditional evil expulsion’ – 6 letters. Jesus. Oops, No I don’t mean him – only five letters anyway! Traditions. Could it be an Indigenous evil? Kaditja? Nah, that doesn’t fit. Ummm, I’ll come back to it.

OK, 8 across. 6 letters ‘A bad omen, Caesar.’ Janet wanders into the kitchen. I hear the jug being filled. “Do you want a cuppa?” How can she afford the break – only 35 minutes left? “Yep, thanks.”

“How are you doing? What about that bloody clue for 3 down!” I stretch things a bit and I hunker down further on the couch. I cross my fingers and legs, moving the newspaper closer to my chest, away from potentially prying eyes. “Yer, how sneaky is that!”

I can feel beads of sweat on my upper lip. Time is of the essence. I realise I shouldn’t cross my legs: or is it my fingers? Which one brings bad luck? One of them is lucky, and provides immunity when telling a porky. I can’t remember, but anyway, it’s just an old wives’ tale. Maintain focus!

The ‘Traditional evil expulsion’ remains unresolved. My phone sits beside me on the couch. Nah that’d be cheating.

Am I spelling ‘expulsion’ correctly? I take a peek at Danword’s crossword solutions. ‘Evil expulsion’, a sneeze is traditionally thought to be evil leaving the body. Sneeze. That’s a bloody stretch. That’s worth a letter to the editor. I insert it.

8 across. ‘Nighttime cosmology.’ I have blank, blank, T, blank, blank, R. Is this another Aboriginal spiritual reference? The night skies were certainly always on their agenda. Comet, Star, hang on, of course, Meteor.

I am almost there – 3 minutes left on the clock! Will Janet guess I cheated?

Her pen slams down onto the kitchen table. Wack. “I’m done” she yells, a look of absolute glee writ across her dial. Barak is rudely awake again, stands and another deadly fart fills the room!

Characters

An aged chick, checking out

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Characters

Things were looking grim. My part-pension and small nest-egg just weren’t covering the ever-increasing cost of the overheads for myself and the five cats. Tears and sleepless nights didn’t help. I needed a job. I had retired from a Nursing Home carer’s role a few years ago. I felt totally lost!

Pension Day and I saw the note stuck to our local supermarket’s window. “Help wanted.”

I only knew her as Anne but she was friendly when I made my approach. “Yep, deary. Maybe. We generally get kids after school filling these jobs, but … er. I’ll let yer know.” I gave her my number, collected a few groceries and tripped off home, my nerves jingling, but with a sense of achievement quietly boosting my ego and mood.

“Have you ever worked these new-fangled tills” Anne asked, when she called me the next day? I stretched things a little, remembering my regular shifts in the school canteen. “I was a check-out chick a few years ago, it has been a while, probably a bit rusty but I am a quick learner,” I replied.

I got the job, and despite a sleepless night, here I was, Day One, the early morning shift, mostly milk, bread, papers and forgotten lunchbox fillers.

The barcode reader did the heavy lifting. Anne kept an eye on me but my confidence grew as the morning progressed. Standing up for hours was going to be an issue – at least toilet breaks got me off my feet!

A lady asked me about the triangle, next to the recycling advice on the bottom of a packet of biscuits. I had to admit I had no idea what it meant! She was a bit huffy but Anne reassured me that “the silly old Biddy asks the same question every time she comes into the shop. Don’t worry about her.” I was getting into the swing, even offering “Got much on for the rest of today” with sincere disinterest!

Lunchtime – my feet were killing me and my lower back felt like a vice had been applied. But I was still going strong and I hadn’t messed up too many items. The vegetables were the trickiest – I had never come across Endive, or Celeriac. Both of those transactions were helped by the customer providing guidance as I flicked through the online menu.

Anne asked me if I could do the afternoon shift. “OK”, I bravely said. Three thirty and the kids started to arrive. Anne warned me to be on the lookout for “… the little smart arses”. I was totally swamped – it was a tsunami of lollies, muesli bars, chips and soft drinks. I suspected one girl had a bag of chips up her jumper. I queried her overly plumped chest – she swore, called me an old cow and ran out of the shop.

That flummoxed me, but again, Anne came across and reassured me. “Yep, we get ‘em. She’ll be back in a week’s time. We’ll be ready for her.”

The North

A master painter

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in The North

My mind was buzzing, memories swirling and ideas flying towards a central concept in these few moments after reading the fly leaf of the paperback sent via a friend’s ‘declutter’!

Stephen Scheding’s “A small unsigned painting” brought my brother’s email about six months ago rushing, faster than the proverbial ‘cheetah’ back into my consciousness. He had attached an image, an old bark painting from Arnhem Land, now belonging to a Melbourne-based acquaintance of his, wondering if I might be able to help identify the artist.

I opened the attachment to enable a closer look. Mmm, Central Arnhem, somewhere between the Cadell and Liverpool Rivers was my initial guess. I immediately had an artist in mind, but for the moment wanted to keep my powder dry.

The rrark cross hatching, the condition of the bark and the subject matter – a single, Saratoga fish, found in the freshwater creeks of the stone country inland from Maningrida, confirmed in my mind’s eye a master painter’s work, late 1960s, maybe early 1970s. I used a magnifying glass to take a closer look at the paint, and while I knew I was only looking at an image probably captured on a mobile phone, it was still able to confirm that the paint remained well adhered to the bark. This narrowed the timeline down definitely before the mid-1970s.

I would like to see the painting. I emailed my brother and made arrangements to visit the owner at their inner Melbourne, Thornbury address.

It was only an hour’s drive from home “So where did you and the painting first meet,” I pose, as a cuppa and bickies were laid out. Her expression suggested she was wandering back through the years, and answered “We were on a trip to the Top End. We went to a gallery on Knuckey Street and that painting just leapt off the wall.”

Raintree Gallery – always a treat and proprietor Shirley Collins and her buyer, Dorothy Bennett both knew their stuff. I was a regular visitor and an occasional buyer, when I worked out of Darwin. I reflect for a moment and realise that the statue of the Jabiru in my hallway also came from Raintree. They carried a wide range of styles: the distinctive colours of the Tiwi artists of Bathurst and Melville; the finely delineated Rrark favoured by the East Arnhem painters; wonderful woven pandanus mats and baskets, statuary, the recently developing Western Desert ‘dot’ paintings, coming into vogue from Papunya, Yuendumu and other Central Australian centres. I often spent my lunch breaks admiring the offerings.

“I remember that the lady in the gallery admitted she didn’t know the artist. It had apparently come in many years earlier, part of a buying trip undertaken by the previous owner of the gallery.”

I could see through the doorway from the kitchen into a lounge where several barks were hanging and we took our coffees through. “It’s that large fish, the landscape-orientated bark. I think it is a barramundi.” It was a beautiful piece, with finely executed cross-hatching, or rrark, and the backbone, ribs and major organs depicted in what has been labelled as X-Ray painting. “I think it is a Saratogo, not a Barra,” I suggested. The sharply upturned mouth sets the two species apart and they are found in the rivers and creeks of the ‘Stone country’, the central Arnhem Land plateau.

I wandered over and stood below the bark. My earlier thoughts, when looking at the photo were undoubtedly correct – Central Arnhem, Upper Cadell river area, I reckoned. ”Can I get it down off the wall?”

I turned it over and there was still very feint chalked ‘U’ and what looked like an ‘N’. Dusty chalk might also be a ‘D’.

I had brought a magnifying glass with me and held it in front of the painting closely. The absence of the telltale pinprick-sized dots across the front of the painting confirmed that the work had been made ‘properly’, the artist using the crushed juice of the dendrobium orchid as the colour fixative and it would not need protection. I had witnessed the Curator, the AIM Missionary, Gowan Armstrong several times giving barks a solid smack on the back of the sheets to assess the fixative qualities. He had adapted an old manual fly spray pump, filled with water and Aquahere, applied where there were signs that the various ochre, kaolin and charcoal colours were flaky.

I sat on the settee with the bark across my knees and reflected back upon the many occasions of being with this old man and his large family, at several of his seasonal encampments: at Yaimini, at Nanggalod and at the Upper Cadell river crossing that I think is called Benebenemdi.

I told her briefly about the painter, Mundark, a man of many talents, a man considered by many to have magical powers, a medical knowledge, a bushman of high degree and a little about his country.

That evening my memory set off wandering back to those times, the early 70’s through until the early 90s, when I was living, working and then work-trips at Maningrida and my various interactions with that old man.

It’s amazing how the brain can sometimes set up a chronological set of memories. I remembered my first contact with the women folk of the family on an early Pension Day at Maningrida. Rosie Mialpi and her daughter Lena Rungawanga came in to cash their Social Security benefit cheques. A few weeks later I had reason to drive down to their encampment at Benebenemdi.

I dug out an old photo from that trip of the kids, I remember Lena, David Galbuma, a very young George Waduna, Hilda Rostron and several other youngsters.

Childhood Memories

The three musketeers

Written by Chris Burchett
Posted in Childhood Memories

It has been a couple of decades, and I was pleasantly surprised at my reaction to the email. He was going to be in Melbourne for a conference. “What about a catch-up?” I am waiting at the terminal.

We were the ultimate Three Musketeers, Stephen, Becky and I. We were in Bubs together, throughout Primary and for most of our early Secondary schooling. We shared the same classes, the same interests; inseparable in, and out of school. There were sleep overs, parties; three sets of parents sharing the responsibilities.

There was some competitive banter, but not enough to ever strain things. I remember our lunch boxes used to create a bit of friction. Mum was forever putting little paper-twists of last night’s leftovers, a wedge of smelly cheese, a few dry biscuits, a taramasalata, gherkin and egg sandwich. Steve or Beck’s Mum loaded peanut butter, or cheese and vegemite sandwiches on de-crusted, white bread, a slice of cake, and a fruit juice box. Nobody wanted to swap anything from my box!

Bye and bye, puberty arrived. Stephen and I were early casualties, as Beck found the older boys had already thrown away the train sets, the tree house and bikes! I saw Beck coughing on a ciggie, behind the Shelter Shed one afternoon!

We did eventually achieve a half-way sense of masculinity, squeaky, unpredictable voices, fluff forming on our cheeks and things changing ‘down below’. Steve found some magazines and we poured over the ‘educational’ pictures.

Beck’s eighteenth birthday was a bit of a watershed. She looked fabulous – her blond hair, her figure and outfit. Steve and I were in awe, both quite openly appreciating the changes that had occurred, envious of the current guy at her command, our own girlfriends, both still in fifth form, unable to cut the mustard.

We all breezed into Uni, Steve into Vet Science at Flinders, in Adelaide, Beck and I into Medicine, at Melbourne. Beck and I continued to party together, and for a few brief months in our final year, we became a discrete, albeit furiously erotic ‘item’. Our affaire remained off the radar; I don’t think Steve ever knew.

I still mull over what might have been. How did she end up marrying Steve? He took up an offer of a post-graduate posting in Sri Lanka, working with the privately-funded Elephants for Life organisation. Beck ended up at the Women and Children’s Hospital while I went interstate, into private practice.

Contact between us drifted, as work, and my own family commitments took centre stage. There were the Christmas Letters, the occasional email but their wedding invitation knocked me for a six! I had no idea they were even in the same hemisphere.

That corner of memory that holds the wistful emotions had never comfortably ‘placed’ or settled Beck. The unbidden longing occasionally resurfaced. When I saw both of them, coming down the concourse, my emotions fell apart. The hugs had me tearing up, loudly – a spectacle that I couldn’t quite explain.

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