Last Monday, August 7, Mrs.Cunliffe died.
That won't mean anything to any reader except Punjab. Jod told me she died the next day, after he'd seen the notice in the obituaries in the Herald Sun. Jod also told me that August 7 was Wayne's bithday. Had Wayne been alive he would have turned 57.
The Cunliffe's lived around the corner from us in Mt.Waverley. There were 3 children. Wayne was the same age as brother Jod, Barbara went through primary school in the same year as me, and Gary was in sister Meredith's year. We were baby boomers in the then outer suburban Mt. Waverley, which teemed with children and youth in the 1950's and 60's.
I don't remember a lot of Mrs. Cunliffe, except that it seemed every other day she would come to our door looking for Wayne. My mother was a working mother in the the 1960's and as many friend's mothers did, Mrs C. frowned on the freedom the neighbourhood kids had at the Williams house. She thought Jod and Wayne and their mates would be getting up to mischief, and she was often right. I remember once there was hell to pay when they'd been identified as the culprits marauding the streets tossing eggs at the front doors of people they didn't like. A step up from knick knock which had become boring.
Often she would send Barbara looking for Wayne with the message that if he wasn't home by such and such a time for his meal it would be given to the dog and he would get a hiding form his father. They must have kept to strict mealtimes at the Cunliffe's, something unknown in the Williams' house.
I remember one day Barbara came to the door, later in those Mt Waverley years, and I answered the knock. She said, "Wayne's been killed in a truck accident." That's all, just like that. She was in a state of high excitement, like shock in reverse. I asked was Joddy alright and she replied she didn't know, all she knew was that Wayne was dead.
Last Friday at the farm, Jod asked me to sign a card of condolence he was sending from our family to Mr. Cunliffe and family. I asked him what year it was that Wayne was killed and he told me with no hesitation, "It was 20th November 1970." Wayne was 21. Jod, Wayne, Ian (Punjab) and Ray McLoed, all mates through Mt Waverley primary school, had joined the Victorian Railways after leaving Syndal tech. and were firemen or trainee drivers. Jod and Wayne, perhaps looking for new adventure, had taken extended annual leave from the railways and made a trip to the Northern Territory for a working holiday. Wayne got work at the Darwin brickworks and Jod teamed up with a buffalo hunter and fisherman, or a "professional poacher" as Jod called him, and went fishing in Arnhemland where you weren't supposed to fish.
After 3 weeks, in which period Jod would have turned 21, they met in the Victoria Hotel in Darwin and had a few beers. Wayne had had enough of working in the heat at the brickworks and said he was getting out of there and going home. He could stand the humidity no longer and there was months of wet season ahead. He wanted Jod to come home with him as they had a chance to get a lift south from the mail truck driver whom they knew. Jod wavered, but at the last minute decided to stay for another trip into the bush for barramundi and the odd crocodile belly skin which sold even then for $3.45 per square inch. Jod's memory for detail never ceases to amaze me, and this despite the consumption of much beer for most of his adult life, which I think was the lure of the fishing trips into the bush, as the 'fisherman' had portable refrigeration. Wayne left in a shitty with Jod for not going back with him, which troubled Jod for many years, but the decision may well have saved his life because the truck left the road near Katherine and rolled on Wayne who was thrown from the cabin.
Jod didn't know this had happened. The police didn't know where to find him. Six days later after returning from the bush he was drinking in a pub when someone recognized him him as the mate of the young bloke who was killed in the recent truck accident. This was an enormous shock for Jod and he returned home straightaway.
I thought about all this on my morning walk today. It was 1 degree celsius when I left the house in a lifting fog at 7.00am. There were cockatoos screeching and magpies warbling as I went up Quinn Rd. The magpies must be close to feeding young so I could well be ducking swoops before long. I picked a bunch of grape hyacinths outside St. Silas church and teased the fenced in dogs that wait for me to pass their place. I hiss at them and do a threatening stance which infuriates them, but I'm sure it makes their day that much brighter, and it's a bit of fun for me and Snowy.
My new glasses are terrific. I can see the heavy budding on the messmate trees. Given stable weather next summer there could be a huge honey flow right here, like there was in 2003/4. And the other eucies are well budded too.
On the return towards home I saw a group of nine galahs sitting on the wires in front of Leo Buckley's house. They looked larger than normal galahs and it made me think so I stopped and looked back at them. They were enjoying the sun after a cold night and had feathers fluffed out to take in the warmth. Then I noticed several more doing the same thing in the top of a liquid amber in Leo's yard. I stood there for a few minutes watching them and many other birds in the top of a tall dead tree further back. They were minahs and mudlarks as well as galahs and possibly starlings, they were too far away to name by sight but when one took off and flew it could be identified by the flight. They were sunbaking, at 8.00am. In the the distance behind the dead tree a jet airliner was clearly visible, it's silvery fuselage catching the bright morning sun and reflecting it back. It was a wonderful morning to gaze about from a good site. (As I stood looking a neighbour, Anne, who also walks, came by. We discussed the basking galahs and I asked her had she ever seen them hanging upside down from the wires in a rainstorm after dry weather to which she replied she hadn't. I told her to watch for it in the warm weather. Funny buggers, galahs.) The twigs and branches of the deciduous trees make a stunning contrast with the bright morning sky. I will enjoy each type of tree bursting into leaf at different times and in different shades of green more than any spring before. I'm lucky to live in a place as scenic and peaceful as Gembrook. We've been here 25 years. In many ways it's a bit odd as far as towns or communities go, which I'll try to expand on another day, but it has much to recommend it.
