The Woman on the Mountain (6 page)

As the kids grew, so did the expenses, but unfortunately not the financial help. There was never enough money to meet demands, from big ones like a school excursion to the snow, to middling and too-frequent necessities like a new pair of sneakers, to the terrible weekly stretch of $10 each for music lessons. Being constantly worried about money made me more of a ratty mother than I wanted to be, or than my kids needed.

To supplement my earnings, I tried waitressing in an Indian restaurant a few nights a week, until I realised that my son was not meeting his Year 10 assignment deadlines. He needed supervision. Instead I took up proofreading at home, for a small desktop publishing company.

Then my current day job company closed my branch. They’d imported exquisite Italian designer door furniture. This job had at least given me a brief flash of luxury, in a rushed trip to Port Douglas and the Reef, and my first and only helicopter ride, showing the Italian principals around, since we could communicate in French—sort of.

Janet, the manager of a nearby trade-only fabric showroom, took me on, knowing I needed an income quickly. It was several steps down in pay and position, but they were fabulous English and French fabrics—Warner, Liberty, Osgood & Little, Pierre Frey—and I loved handling them and learning about this whole new field from Janet, who was only a few years older than me. Like Sue, she had a mischievous sense of humour, and also became my friend.

But it couldn’t pay enough, so as the desktop company expanded, I took the offered full-time job. I’d already been organising sales literature for wherever I was, designing the brochures, writing the copy. Here I learnt how to use a Mac computer and do ‘typesetting’ and layout. But, having made the classic mistake of being involved with the boss, I lost the job when I no longer wanted the relationship to continue.

That was all very unpleasant, but after fifteen years the scars had faded, so when he came across my name on the Internet as a prize-winning writer, he made email contact. Now in Tasmania, a publisher, editor and reviewer, graphic designer and artist, and as articulate, erudite and witty as ever, Fred’s a valued friend and dependable e-correspondent—especially when I get desperate for ‘proper English’.

But back then, being jobless was a frightening prospect—no income, even for a few weeks, with rent to pay, nothing in the bank and two kids to support. I made quirky flyers and hand-delivered them to potential employers, although my lack of official qualifications, plus being in my forties, made my chances slim. Only one replied. Weavers, a design and production company, offered me temporary work, which led to a permanent job. Soon I began to do their copywriting as well as layout.

I still do some freelance work for Weavers Design Group, mostly turning corporate-speak into readable prose for newsletters, brochures or website copy, often for their credit union clients. So although I have no money, or loans, I am quite knowledgeable about finance!

Weavers were very supportive. In a way it’s as if I remained part of the company even after I’d left and moved back here for good. They used to call me ‘our woman on the mountain’, as one says ‘our man in New York’, although the connotations of gumleaves and gumboots were probably less impressive.

They had to tolerate a long and turbulent teething period in those pre-email communication days. We were using a program called Carbon Copy (I think) where my computer linked to theirs via a primitive modem. I’d try to get the modem to work on my dreadful phone line, waiting for that magic sound, the electronic gargle of a successful connection. Someone had to sit at a computer at their end to receive it, and stay there to respond, even if it was unbelievably slow. I’d be sitting here trying to get it through, never sure if the person down there had given up, or wandered off to make a coffee or take a phone call. To find out, I’d have to disconnect and ring them, as I only had one line. Then we’d have to start all over again. Hair-tearingly not ideal.

I think that was when I first discovered the release to be derived from screaming Charlie Brown one-liners—‘A-a-a-a-rgh!’—from the verandah.

Unfortunately it was before I discovered Hunter techno-genius and problem solver Greg Norris, of Singleton Comptech Support. He has saved me from nervous breakdowns and loss of income umpteen times over the years, often talking me through to a solution over the phone. I may be a techno-dill, but I simply could not function here without his unflappable support. The curlier the problem, the better he likes it, which is just as well, since I toss him quite a few.

But at least I was living and working here, even if conditions weren’t ideal. My partner was perfecting his guitars in his separate workshop, which had a pot belly stove, necessary to keep the humidity down for the timbers and for gluing as much as to keep him warm. Meanwhile I’d be shivering at my desk at the other end of the cabin from the combustion stove. Working on the computer, I’d be wearing fingerless gloves, beanie, thick socks and boots, tights, leggings, long woollen skirt, singlet, skivvy, woollen jumper, vest, cardigan and shawl, with a rug over my knees. Dead elegant—and cold. I cursed again the uninsulated roof.

After a few years he bought and installed a wood heater up my end of the house. Each winter I am grateful to him, as I am for the hot shower, even if that’s still alfresco! Earning a living from here was the overriding critical issue for us both and we only just managed—and sometimes we didn’t.

Having once subscribed to
The Owner Builder
magazine, I often looked through my back copies for ideas or information. The last page, ‘The Back Porch’, was for readers to volunteer their musings, so I sent in what I thought was a humorous piece on our unfinished building projects. I included a short note which mentioned I was a writer.

The then editor, Russell Andrews, liked it; he rang and asked if I’d write for them. That was about eight years ago, and it’s been the major source of my small income since, and the most pleasant. Owner builders are a subculture of terrifically energetic, persevering and inspiring people who combine creativity with practicality. I find and follow up leads on interesting owner-built homes, preferably sustainable, ideally handmade. I interview the owner builders, take photos and write the articles, one or two per bi-monthly issue.

Yet it’s always hard to make the initial phone call, which after all is cold calling, even though most people welcome the idea of sharing the story of their efforts. Then it takes bravado to leave my hermitage and front up, apparently full of confidence, to people I’ve never actually met. Sometimes I feel out of sync, wonder if I’m raving, having been on my own so long. Yet with many of my subjects I have much in common—environmentally, artistically and philosophically.

And I’ve made friends amongst them, mostly only seen when I return to their regions for another story. Robert Bignell, who took the photo on the back flap, is one who lives in the Hunter. We were sitting outside his Old Brush Studio, watching the waterbirds on his lagoon, having a coffee and sorting out what was wrong with the world, when he said, ‘Hang on a tick’, and nipped inside. I avoid cameras, but he’s a professional, so he snapped me suddenly and sneakily, which is why I have a rather odd look on my face. His excuse was that the light was too good to pass up.

Close friends are rare in my experience—and precious. One of the reasons I’d been determined to return to the bush and live the life I felt was right for me was that I’d been forced to accept the fragility of the future. The only two female friends I’d made in Sydney had died.

Susan, younger than I was, stumbled and fell for no apparent reason one day at the office; she was found to have a brain tumour. I watched her fight against dying, sharing it when she’d let me. It seemed particularly unfair that it was her clever brain being attacked. She was justly angry—and brave.

Janet, so shy of internal examinations that she never had pap smears, was finally diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer. We’d been swapping wind remedies, which didn’t help because her problem was secondary bowel cancer. I shared her battle to the end too, more closely, at home, hospital, hospice. Janet was scared—and brave.

Then just before I moved back to the bush I learnt that my old friend Tony had liver cancer. I’d known Tony for 30 years; my ex-husband’s best friend, once. He’d let the friendship with Tony drop, but I hadn’t. An ABC journalist, Tony had made a happy second marriage, with Jo. When I first went to Sydney to look for work they put me up—and put up with my teary marital post-mortems. We’d had less contact since they moved to Tasmania.

He and I grew closer through letters over the two years of life that he fought for and won. He read my first attempts at short stories and I read his new poems. I went down to Sydney whenever he flew over for treatment, and the last time, knowingly to say goodbye. I managed to bring him up to the mountain twice. He knew it from the early days. ‘I always thought this was one of the great escapes, ’ he said.

How Tony dealt with his cancer was typical: he involved himself totally with his specialist’s radical theories and treatments; enrolled in French at uni (so he could read Proust in the original, he said); started writing poetry again—he had true talent but life had somehow sidetracked him; and took surfing lessons. From my desk I can see my favourite photo of him. On a beach, he’s dripping wet, grinning through his greying beard, wearing a purple and black wetsuit. Hey, Tony.

His encouragement kick-started my formal writing. His dying made me even more determined not to be similarly sidetracked by daily life.

A few years ago, short of an
Owner Builder
story, I wrote about my own place, ‘Confessions of a Bad Muddie’. Looking at archival photos of me making mudbricks, in shorts and Indian shirt, or flared jeans and cheesecloth top, 1979 seemed long, long ago. My floppy straw work hat was actually a relic of my civil ceremony wedding, where I’d worn a cream trouser suit that hadn’t even been bought especially for the occasion.

The lack of frills and fancies and romantic notions in my wedding was a fair indicator of the relationship. I didn’t know any better at nineteen, having been brainwashed into thinking that romance was an invention of
Woman’s Day
and Mills & Boon, and quite beneath any thinking person. I’ve learnt a little since then about romance.

After visiting over 100 home-made houses, I’ve learnt a lot more about building. I still can’t explain why my husband and I did such an erratic job. Maybe because it was mud, and not ‘proper’ building materials, so it felt more like play?

We came here with G.F Middleton’s classic
Build Your House of Earth
as our bible. It was so confidence-inspiring that we lurched into building our 8 metre x 5 metre one-room mudbrick cabin (meant to be Stage 1) with great enthusiasm untempered by any other knowledge or experience. It was also untempered by taking his advice to practise on something small first.

Yet nearly 30 years later the cabin is still standing, giving me shelter plus offering a perfect example of what not to do when building in mudbrick. It will outlast me, and maybe those who inherit it. And as every one of the 1475 bricks was pressed into the moulds by my hands, it’s very personal—another bond with this place.

The old bloke who sold us the land said he’d bulldoze a track in and level the house site as part of the deal. We got him to push the topsoil layer forward, and that became my interim vegie garden. A foot depth of the clayey subsoil was pushed sideways into a pile that gave enough material for our bricks, as well as a play ‘mountain’ for the kids. They were desolate whenever we had to dig into one of their elaborately constructed labryinths of roads, tunnels and quarries, when they had to dismantle their ‘sheds’ made of sticks and bark, and relocate their Matchbox toy vehicles.

Building seemed so simple. I cut the tussock grass for straw to add to the mix, and carried buckets of water up from the spring, where the water trickled out of a clay slip in the hillside into a small hole that we’d edged with rocks. Clear and drinkable, and always a wonder.

Over a pit we’d dug, we’d balance a chickenwire and timber screen. My husband would shovel the dirt onto that and I’d rub it through the ‘sieve’ with a piece of wood, which gradually wore to a smooth ellipse.

We’d lift off the netting frame and my husband would hop in as the mixer. He’d be barefoot, as gumboots would refuse to part company with the mud base after a very short while. I’d start adding the water and straw.

When it was the right consistency, he’d fill the barrow and wheel it over to the rows of hessian-covered platforms that we’d set up for brickmaking. We couldn’t do it on the ground because the ground wasn’t flat enough. In fact it was sloping enough for a full barrow or two to get away from him en route.

I’d kneel beside the oiled timber double mould. With bare hands I’d spread and poke and pat the mix to fill the corners as he plopped the shovelfuls in. I’d stand to level the top, then ease the mould off, when, ever-magically, the bricks would emerge, just sitting there, slightly quivering, glistening dark grey-brown. With a stiff brush, in the tin bathtub of water, I’d quickly clean the mud off the mould and we’d do it again, and again. I can still feel the icy water on the wrinkled-prune skin of my fingers, and the gritty mud under my nails.

We’d cover the bricks to slow down the drying at first and in a day or two we could stand them up. A few more days and we could stack them. Mudbricks
were
simple!

At first we’d panic if we saw rain clouds moving across the valley towards us, and would race to pull across and weigh down black plastic over the piles of bricks, or later, the rising walls. If we did, the rain would not reach us; if we didn’t, it would be a downpour. Eventually, tired of wrestling with long strips of windblown plastic, and with the elements, we gave up. The bricks coped better than we did.

Our legs and arms became very strong: mine from carrying water uphill, his from tromping and shovelling mud. At the end of a batch, we’d trudge up to our camp to make a fire for desperately needed coffee. Covered in flakes of drying mud, our heads drooping with weariness, aching arms hanging heavily at our sides, we felt as Neanderthal as we probably looked.

But we had the brickmaking sussed. We got quite efficient at laying them too: slap the mud mortar on thickly; wriggle a brick down into it, mud squeezing out; catch that with the trowel and use it for the next brick—easy.

It was what we made as we laid the bricks that didn’t prove so easy. We broke two of the three basic rules in the old proverb ‘Give a house a good hat, a good coat, and a stout pair of boots and you can’t go wrong.’

We went wrong.

The hat was good, as it should be, given that the olive-green corrugated roofing and its supporting timbers were the major new materials bought, taking a great deal of the $2000 our cabin cost. The mud was free and the recycled doors and windows were dirt cheap! To my everlasting regret and mystification, we didn’t insulate that roof when it would have been easy and we had the money.

The boots were bad. My excuse is that the site was meant to be flat. The old bloke can’t have had his eye in the day he ‘levelled’ it, as, although it was closer to level than before, one front corner was more than a metre lower than the diagonally opposite one.

Not only would more bricks be needed, but stepped footings instead of flat. With all the hassle of working these out to fit brick lengths, we forgot about reinforcing the footings. We just threw rocks into the trenches and poured cement in to fill. In the next drought year, as the clay shrank, the unreinforced stepped footings cracked. The walls did too, but only up to window and door sills, and they were only skinny cracks. I filled them, and that’s how they’ve remained.

Keen to start laying our mudbricks, we’d also forgotten about the cement-stabilised mudbricks that were supposed to be laid first; we just rolled out the dampcourse and slapped on the mud. What saved the base of the walls over the years was the brim of the hat; we’d at least done as told in extending the eaves.

As for the bad coat, I don’t know why we didn’t render the walls like the book said. Some render recipes used cow dung, and they emphasised that it had to be fresh! Maybe that put me off all renders. I also now see that our bricks were too clayey, and yet I’m sure we did tests on the soil. We were proud of the ‘natural’ look of the bricks and didn’t want to cover them up, but why didn’t we do even a light rubbing over to smooth the craggy bits into the inevitable cracks that such clayey bricks developed?

Perhaps because we’d never seen anyone else doing mudbrick, only read about it. Or perhaps because, with the tent disintegrating, we just needed to move in. When mere mortals do this, things remain at that stage for a long time, if not forever. But it could also have been because our relationship was starting to break down, the bush dream showing signs of becoming a nightmare. We’d probably ceased to care. Sorry, house.

The lack of a good coat most greatly affected the western wall, our bad weather side. Since that gable end was intended to join up with Stage 2 of the house, we even used an internal quality door. It was, after all, going to be an internal wall one day soon. ‘Soon’ still hasn’t arrived.

The first big summer storm raked that western wall into millions of corrugations, most obviously in the mortar but also in any dips in the bricks. Succeeding storms over twenty years deepened them. It looked dreadful, but it was only superficial damage. Mudbrick walls are tough.

When I moved back here, my new partner and I immediately added a front verandah, almost as big as the cabin, and slapdash enough to be the subject of a tongue-in-cheek article for
Owner Builder,
‘
The
Nah Mate Building Standard’. I grew deciduous vines to cover up the roughest bits, as well as for summer shade under the clear roof inserts in front of the doors and windows. I practically live out there in warm weather. It’s popular with a few of my wild neighbours too.

After a while it got too hard managing overnight visitors in the one-room cabin, so we decided to build some quick bedrooms by adding a narrow skillion off the back wall, tucking into the bank behind. Except the bank turned out to be mostly bedrock, a slow crowbar job. The new back wall was built up in rock against the bank, well protected from damp.

On top of the rocks is a window wall of diamond-paned scavenged sash windows, halved and turned on their sides into Tudor-type casements. Through them I can watch the crimson rosellas feeding on the blue flowers of the rosemary or the pale orange claws of the grevillea, only a foot away, at my eye level—one of the advantages of building into the hill. Beyond them rise the smooth trunks of the blue gums above the track.

The eastern end was built up in rock to low window height, that is, my bed height. A slab of white mahogany from a large fallen branch made a broad sill for two double casement windows from our magpie collection. I love casement windows because they can open right back, disappear, and let the outdoors flow in. From my bed I look out to the distant mountains, and in winter I often wish I felt just a little unwell, so I could lie on my sunny bed and read without guilt. Those nuns have a lot to answer for!

As no heat gets through my old western wall on the worst summer day, the new one had to be of mudbrick, on top of rock. Making mudbricks for this, I could feel every one of the twenty years’ difference in my muscles. Mixing the mud in a wheelbarrow was heavy going, and by the time I’d added the dried grass, I could barely drag the larry (like a hoe blade with two round holes in it) through the mix.

This time I enjoyed using mud in a more free-form, sensual way, to meet the uneven rocks and around the green bottles inset for decoration and light, moulding, wetting, smoothing. When the bedroom addition was weatherproof we removed a central window in the back wall of the original house and I cut through the wall below it with a bush saw, for the internal doorway. It felt sacrilegious to be doing this.

Dampening it first, wearing an old leather glove, I did rub down the new mud wall. It was easy, and made such a difference that I turned again to the adjoining original western wall. This looked even worse by comparison, and was a great embarrassment now I was writing for
Owner Builder.
People expected me to not only know what to do right, but to have done it. But I, me, grey-haired mature me, hadn’t done this; some young ignorant thing had, all that time ago. Yet it was clear I had to fix up her mistakes or I’d get no peace.

I tried hosing it down and rubbing, but it was old and stubborn and behaved like stone; the bumps needed rasping before they would merge into mud again and fill the dips. This was extremely hard on the arthritic wrists; I could only do a little patch a day, and some of the ruts were so deep that all I could do was blur them, but it looked much better.

Last Christmas, panicked by expected first-time visitors whom I feared would be justifiably critical, I also rubbed down the walls on the verandah, which was far easier work. Although not weather-damaged, their crannies had been expanded by wasps taking mud for their nests, crannies which would not have existed if I’d rubbed the walls in the first place. Mud is so forgiving.

Sometime, I will do the remaining east wall, and then paint them all with linseed oil and turps, which also should have been done in the first place. Maybe next autumn, when it’s cooler, and my wrists have recovered...

The bedrooms’ windows are still not sanded or sealed or re-puttied; we were keen to move in, and my partner assured me that he’d take them off one by one and finish them, later. ‘Later’ is a very stretchy word. Now I have them on my own running list of things to do sometime. Later.

At least since I’ve been on my own I’ve got round to hiding the silver foil backing of the addition’s roof insulation, after staring up at it for years, counting the tape ‘bandaids’ where the bush rats had got in once and made holes in the foil. Unable to afford lining boards, I bought cream hessian and tacked it up. It sags a bit and resembles a poor man’s seraglio, but it’s an improvement.

And I can see the spiders clearly against such a pale background, which is a comfort at night. In the warmer months, last thing before I turn out my reading light, I always look up; it’s surprising how often I spot a spider. No doubt if I hadn’t looked, it would have gone about its business and disappeared by morning. But once I know, I have to put it outside—what if it dropped onto my face!

When I was young, we used to scream for Dad, who’d splat spiders against the wall with the broom. Big hairy spiders make very large and fleshy splats. Ugh. Now I’m more civilised, and braver. Well, I have to be; there’s no one to scream for.

Before I tackle the job, I turn on all the lights, open the window in readiness, and have the torch handy in case the creature escapes into the shadows—I’d need to know where to. Standing on the bed to reach the low ‘ceiling’, I place a large glass over the spider, then slide a piece of card between the rim and the hessian, to make a lid. This is tricky because the hessian isn’t rigid. The reason why I must use clear glass and not a mug is so I can see, to be sure I’ve got it and that it’s not running up my sleeve instead. Then I can empty it out the window. Ugh. I’m shuddering now at the spider-up-the-sleeve thought.

My other good building deed in the bedroom was to put the missing timber stripping around the windows, so the wind no longer whistles through. It involved rather a lot of bent small nails, but it works.

I realise that, when I had a male partner, building was his province by natural right, as mine was the cooking and the gardening. All I could do was try not to nag as the years passed and the jobs remained unfinished under the endless time pressures of being self-employed. Alone, I was free to have a go.