The Woman on the Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

no savage man-eating animals in the Australian bush, no bears, no tigers, and yet to my movie-fed brain the sound was as if both of those had bred with a rabid dog to produce this offspring. Such a noise had to be accompanied by bared, sharp teeth. One slash of a claw and my children and I would be exposed to this monster of the night!
    Well and truly scared now, but acting the grown-up, I grabbed the torch and rushed to unzip the tent door to the tiny annexe of mosquito netting, where we had stored tools and the kero fridge. Here I seized a hammer on my way to unzip the outer netting door. (Note: circular zips are not a quick or silent way to get out or in or to surprise an intruder.)
    The noise had stopped long before I emerged into the darkness; the torch beam revealed nothing but the gum tree, looming, and the canvas shower bag, swinging. I zipped my way back to bed and lay in trepidation until nearly dawn. The kids woke me shortly after.
    Later that day I lit the fire and boiled the billies for the kids’ shower. We had four billies made from large ex-Golden Circle pineapple juice tins, with fencing-wire handles. From a fairly horizontal branch of the grey gum beside the tent we’d erected a pulley system for the shower bag, which had a luxuriously adjustable copper rose. Four thin poles supported a hessian modesty panel that still allowed great views to the far mountains, and bush rocks prevented muddy feet.
    I let down the bag to fill it—a bucket of cold water and two billies of hot water gave a surprisingly long and satisfying shower. I tipped it up to empty out any leaves first. Instead, a handful of black pellets fell to the rock floor.
    At that stage I was unfamiliar with the various calling cards of my neighbours, so I couldn’t say who’d left these. Next night, and most nights afterwards, the night monster came to loudly mark its territory, wake us up, walk along the branch of the grey gum, shit in the shower bag, and depart. ‘Take that, you ignorant upstarts, you intruders, you!’
    On his return, my husband, who’d grown up in a leafy suburb, had known the noise immediately and had laughed at my terrified descriptions. It was ‘only’ a possum. Perhaps because we’d had a dog but no trees near the house on the farm where I grew up, I’d never heard one.
    After a short time of our tent living, the night monster possum began including us on his route earlier in the evening, so he too could sample the dinner. Any dish placed on the ground or on the washing-up stand would be lumbered up to with his full-nappy gait, inspected, and usually cleaned up. Rice was very popular. No matter if the dish happened to be beside our feet; we were of no importance. We didn’t mind because he then ceased to wake us in the middle of the night, and no longer felt the need to mark his territory in our shower bag.
    The unpredictable weather often caused us access problems until we got a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Being an ex-teacher (Secondary and Infants) I’d been classed as a registered ‘school’, and on the two days when my husband was away I taught my son. Because we felt it important that he mixed with other children, he went to the nearest school three days a week.
    That meant leaving here at 6.45a.m. to make it to the school bus, which turned round near the dairy, at the end of its run. The bus would then take him to the one-teacher school 27 kilometres away. Getting to the bus on time was difficult in winter, when the day began and ended in the dark. The night before, I would boil the billies and fill a large thermos or two with hot water. This was enough for a civilised start, providing a warm wash and warm Weetbix.
    It was understood that if my son didn’t show up we were probably rained in. My daughter started the next year, and both my kids loved that little school. The teacher was young and friendly and funny; his wife, a teacher in town, was a delight. We became friends with them—I still am. He