It’s with a sense of elation that I move into the large, old house on the hill. Set on 10 acres, there are also two separate, unoccupied cabins, in prime positions on the land. They are former Bed and Breakfast guest accommodation, untenanted since the height of the pandemic. It’s virtually impossible for my mind to leave alone the subject that preoccupies me almost constantly these days: privilege versus homelessness. It’s personal!
I have the run of the property, and am looking forward to five weeks of uninterrupted bliss. How hard can looking after two cavoodles be?
The first hiccup to life in paradise becomes apparent at the end of the first day. The oven won't ignite. Wondering if the gas is low, and finding the bottles, I deduce one is virtually empty, so switch them over. Via a WhatsApp conversation with the owner in the UK, I’m rebuked, and told to switch them back. The oven is temperamental, he explains. I'm given a ten-minute virtual lesson on how to light an oven; the mansplaining is astonishing. I refrain from sharing my 40+ years’ experience of maintaining house and garden! There’s a portable electric oven in the cabin, go fetch it, he directs. Baking malfunction, averted!
It doesn’t take long before I’m feeling routinely and
perversely annoyed. The theme this time
is sleep! I’m a cow when I don’t get
enough of it. I’ve been informed the
dogs like to sleep a la human, on the bed. Their fetching preamble before retiring is to jump on
the bed, and scratch the bejesus out of the doona. To the extent they’ve now scratched ragged
holes in it.
Gus, 13 years old, deaf as a doornail, one-eyed, and with a growth the size of a tennis ball projecting from his side, is surprisingly less needy than Peggy who is 3. She insists on not exactly lying on top of me, but lying so desperately and tightly close that she might as well be a tumour extending from my chest. I’m not humoured. The reality is I haven’t shared my bed with anyone of note for decades, and I’m not about to relinquish my precious sleep for anyone, let alone two by four hairy legs! I lie fitfully wide awake for hours, plotting not only how I’m going to cope with this for five weeks, but how to relax into it. In the morning I receive a message from Mr UK. How did you sleep? No point in lying I figure, so I respond ‘in stages’. The response is empathic, but the alternative is not. It’s suggested I leave them in the frigid 19th century kitchen, and block the door with a stool and the vegetable rack to stop them from scratching it to death. I let them howl for about an hour, my head under the pillow, under the doona, deep breaths, lalalala, etc. It’s no use. It was never remotely possible for me to leave my babies to cry. I consider it a form of abuse. They’re back on the bed in a blink. Suck it up, housesitter!
A few days later, the maximum I can tolerate being alone with two dogs minus the sight of another human, I bundle the pooches into the car and head to Brunswick Heads beach. I recall distant advice to the effect the dogs are exercised on the land, where they have free run of the vast acreage. It’s not till later that I realise this is code for the dogs are unaccustomed to being on a leash. At Brunswick Heads I fasten their harnesses, and set off. Within 5 minutes, their leashes look like a synthetic version of my plait; a matted, knotty crisis, a criss-cross of entanglement. They’re strong dogs, and I’ve become less strong as the years roll on. The walk is a nightmare, it's impossible to contain their boundlessness. They continue to twist themselves into knots and jump around like delinquents. If the force of their combined muscle wasn’t pulling my arm out of its socket, I’d almost laugh. I haven’t slept well. I’m cranky. Their unruly, erratic, never-been-to-the-beach-before type behaviour is too much for me, and we return to the car. I feel like a frazzled 70-year old mother with twin toddlers.
Barely a week has passed. I take what's left of the white wine out of the fridge, the remainder of the bottle Mr UK and I shared the evening before he left, and take a large gulp. Turning the music up loud, I begin grating turmeric for the jamu, all the while thinking of Mary Leunig and her famous cartoon that includes a grater. Look it up! I throw the grater into the sink and begin old person dancing while the dogs gaze at me with confused disinterest. When all else fails ...
A few days later, I awaken to the sound of what can only be described as a loud, watery, breathy growl. I follow the noise to its source. The water feature out the back door is having a seizure. I take a sound recording and hit send. Back comes the advice: unplug the pump, leave it off. I look for the pump, and locate a serious looking vessel around the corner.
Following the leads to the switch, I apply a series of mini tugs. Nothing. Feeling completely out of my depth, and annoyed (again) at Mr UK’s lack of detail, I send a pic of the vessel and enquiry; which lead? He rings. With thinly veiled panic, he asks whether I’ve turned off the water to the house? I've disconnected nothing, I respond, with as much buddha in my voice as I can muster. Equilibrium restored.
Interruption number five comes in the form of the ancient combustion fireplace. I’m told the house is over 100 years old; the fireplace most likely isn’t that old, but it’s certainly a relic of another era. The volume of rust fragments that eventually begin raining out of it attests to this. At first, something in the structure of the beast begins to bend and warp, and it becomes difficult to open and close the door without manipulating the grille. A couple of days later, the grille collapses. In its death throes, it is left to dangle by the air vent handle. I now need three hands to work it. I phone a friend, a neighbour who happens to know the owner. I'm vulnerable, and beginning to feel my juju is all wrong. It takes strength of will to convince myself that I’m the not the cause of all the breakdowns. Friend reassures me owners only fix things ‘when they’re broken’. The entire vent from the fireplace is removed. For the remainder of my stay, the ballroom-sized loungeroom needs all seven doors leading outside opened to save my lungs from collapsing due to smoke inhalation. Is the fire smoking? Mr UK asks when he receives a report from friend. Yeah, all great, I respond! There’s only so much whingeing you can do.
But wait, there's more.
Scarcely a day later, I put a load of washing in the large, industrial-looking dryer located in the three-walled shed in the back yard. When I return two hours later, the wet mass of clothes lies at the bottom of the drum. I turn it on again. It fires up, and within 20 seconds, emits a high-pitched shriek, and stops. I’ve killed the dryer as well. I want to cry.
Three weeks down, two to go. I’m beginning to wish out!
In my depleted state of being, I contract covid, and with as much effort as I can muster, withdraw from ‘doing’. Building myself a nest of a hundred cushions and lying in front of the fire, the dogs finally stop too. Because in fact, that’s all they want to do, lie down and nap the day long. I have difficulty stopping; it’s genetic! When you’re forced to stop moving, and rest, the world takes on a radically different hue. The heart rests at a different frequency, the sky turns blue, all manner of colour and vigour enter your vision, and the camilias and magnolia burst into bloom.
Within a week of my convalescence, the dogs begin dragging their sorry arses across the now-not-so-lovely kilims in the bedroom. Whether it's irritated gland syndrome or worms, it's gross. Mr UK‘s remedy: a wad of kitchen roll and a dab of washing up liquid! No, it’s unlikely to be worms, he says. They’re smelly as fuck; can I bathe them? No, same treatment, a wad of kitchen paper … if they’ve rolled in something green and slimy, get the outdoor hose onto them. But it’s a two person job. Good luck!
I’m verging on not caring anymore. One week to go ...
One day in the last week, I notice, not for the first time, the large mound of ginger mushrooming out of the soil off the deck at the front door. It's desperate for harvesting, I think. Wielding a large garden fork, on the first day, I yield about a kilo and a half of ginger root. I repeat the process the next couple of days. It’s obvious it hasn’t been reaped in years, the roots are a layered and twisted mess of years of growth. A not insubstantial portion of it is ruined; untended for too long. On the grass, under the noon day sun, I pelt it with the hose, five kgs of it. It’s labour intensive, especially the intricate scrubbing of the hard to get to places like the knees and elbows and other skin folds of the root.
I send this image and an enthusiastic text to Mr UK, with the bold suggestion that I can put aside a couple of kgs for he and his wife, and donate a couple of kgs to Liberation Larder in Byron Bay, the organisation that feeds hundreds of homeless people each week. Hours later my joy at what I thought was a good deed, has the thrill deflated. ‘Have you left any in the ground?’ Oho! ‘There’s plenty in the ground’ I respond, with a partial stretch of the truth. I do in fact return the spoilt bits to the soil, aware that some of them will shoot, but they won't be ready for a while.‘We use it every day in our juice’ he continues. I experience a sharp stab in the chest; my inner child has been rejected, is feeling wronged, again. ‘I’ll freeze it’ I offer.
My mistake was not asking! With an apology for acting spontaneously, I send an image of their first jonquil for the season.
Housesitting can be so much fun ... if you've got the skin of a crocodile!
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