I woke up in the morning (Day Twenty-one on my calendar) and it was doctor day, chopper day, people-to-talk-to day. Dad was up and cooking eggs. ‘I’ll have mine scrambled,’ I said. ‘Hey, Dad — d’you reckon there’s more tuatara around?’
He looked up from stirring and grinned at me. ‘Possibly. I hope so anyway, it’s pretty exciting.’ He took the spoon out of the pot and pointed it at a book on the table. ‘I unpacked that for you. See if you can find what the blue birds are.’
Okay — he could cook and I could look. Seemed like a fair bargain. I was still looking when he slid a plate of toast and eggs in front of me. ‘They’re not here — hang on, yes they are. Fairy prions. That’s what they are.’ I ate my breakfast and thought about it. ‘Cute name for pretty birds with bad, smelly burrows.’
I kept eating. Had Dad remembered today was doctor day? I wasn’t going to ask him. He bustled about, dragged Noah out of bed, fed him till his temper moved up the scale from snarl to grunt and the two of them departed. ‘Come along, son,’ Dad said. ‘Our mission for the day is to work out how to do our washing.’
‘Nothing wrong with dirt,’ Noah muttered.
They left, then Dad poked his head back in the door. ‘Do the listening watch, will you Min?’
‘Gee, thanks for reminding me,’ I said. ‘Shall I feed the chooks, make the bread, do the gardening and cook the dinner as well?’
He just grinned and disappeared, which was Mum’s cue to appear. She didn’t want any food, she’d just have a cup of tea, thank you Min, darling daughter.
I made it and carried it out to where she sat on the verandah, watching the birds hop around within centimetres of her — sparrows, waxeyes, fantails and a bunch I didn’t know but might look up later in the bird book. ‘Let’s make a bird bath, Min. I think they’d like that.’
I gave her a hug. ‘Great idea. You work out how and what with, while I do the listening watch.’ Then I remembered wind speeds and anemometers. I grabbed it and ran to the landing patch (because no way could it be called a pad). The wind snatched at my hair as I left the shelter of the house. Damn wind, I hoped it wouldn’t be too strong for the chopper to land. How strong was too strong? I took the reading. Thirty-two kilometres.
I ran back and switched the radio on. ‘Maritime Radio, this is Minna on Motutoka Island, Zulu, Mike, Lima, Tango. Over.’
‘Minna on Motutoka Island, this is Maritime Radio. Message from Cara: what is the current wind speed and she wants your list of supplies because today’s flight will also be the monthly supply run. Over.’
Crap. We hadn’t even thought about a list. ‘Minna to Maritime Radio. Wind speed is thirty-two kilometres. List is non-existent right now. Over.’
Maritime Radio chuckled but then told me the bad news. The wind speed was too high for the chopper to land. ‘Try again tomorrow.’
I went and told Mum. I wanted to sit down and bawl my eyes out. She patted my knee. ‘Don’t be disappointed Min. They’ll come tomorrow, or the next day, and we do need to think about the supplies.’
She was right, but disappointment sat like a lump in my throat and gut. I wandered down the path and on to where the land fell away to the cliffs. Out there, just across the water, was my old life. I turned around. And here was my current one of hungry chooks and unmade bread.
I took the camera on the chook expedition. When I got back with the eggs, Mum was still sitting in the sun. She grinned at me. ‘Let’s go and raid the shed. I’m picking there’ll be cement and sand in there somewhere. We’ll mix it up, dig out a shallow hollow and make our bird bath in that.’
There’s nothing like having your mother come back to life for cheering a girl up. She even ate a piece of dry toast while I put the yeast to rise for the bread. Was she feeling better? Well enough to leave? I was too scared to ask, but the words slipped out anyway.
‘Much better, but not better better. Not better enough to get back on that helicopter.’ She put her hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Min. I know it’s hard for you.’
That would be right, and with her being up and around, Dad of course had gone all skittish and wouldn’t stay within a hundred metres of her unless it was to look at a tuatara that might take off if he didn’t seize the opportunity.
The day passed and we had fun, stealing the cement and sand from under Dad’s and Noah’s noses.
Dad: Min, what do you want that for?
Me: (sweetly polite and reasonable) Ask Mum. It’s her idea.
Dad: (grinds teeth and doesn’t answer)
Noah: Why, Mum?
Mum: (looking pointedly at Noah and not at Dad) We’re making a bird bath. Come and help, if you want.
Noah: (looking at thundercloud Dad) Huh, she’s cool, Mum. We’re a bit busy here.
I loaded sand and cement into a wheelbarrow and we left them to it. I have to say, it didn’t look much like a washing machine they were building but I could be wrong. Maybe they found it hiding in a cliff along with the tuatara. I glanced at the land yacht as we left the shed. Still having probs with the struts according to my expert eye.
‘What do you know about concrete?’ I asked Mum.
‘Not a lot,’ she said. She sat down on the edge of the verandah. ‘Sorry, Min, but I don’t feel up to digging. Can you do it?’
Oh well, why not? Just one more skill to add to my list.
‘Make it about this big,’ said Mum holding out her arms. ‘And about so deep.’
Which looked quite a bit deeper than I reckoned I’d want to dig. I was right. ‘Mum,’ I said somewhat later, ‘this is going to do.’
She dragged her eyes back from the sea. ‘Three yachts, four fishing boats and something big have gone past since I’ve been sitting here,’ she said in a dreamy, artistic voice.
Yes. Well. Nice that she was feeling better but there was a bird bath to build. ‘Shall we get this done before Dad comes back?’ I felt he might have something to say about holes in the lawn if he saw it in its current state, i.e. one ragged hollow chopped out of the ragged grass. But there was pride involved here — mine. Damned if I was going to hand him the chance to drop in a smart remark about how I should have waited for him to help me. Our — correct that, my — bird bath was going to be one hell of a lot better than his washing machine. ‘How do we mix up the concrete?’
‘Can’t be that hard,’ Mum murmured. ‘Just chuck stuff in till it looks right.’ She lay back on the verandah and closed her eyes.
Did the Edmonds book have a recipe for concrete?
In the end, I figured out that water must be involved in the process. I sloshed some into the barrow, poured in a bucket of sand and about the same amount of cement, stirred it all up and tipped it into the hollow. Smoothing it out was strangely soothing. I wished I could get down to the beach for some shells to stick into the wet concrete. Hmmm. No shells, but if I could retrieve it, I could have one very broken cup.
One thing about an island is the lack of rubbish collection. The broken cup should be in the bag of stuff to be sent back to the mainland. I looked. It was. I picked out all the pieces bigger than my little fingernail. The concrete still looked okay when I got back to it. It hadn’t sagged or dissolved or whatever else mutant concrete might decide to do. I knelt down and pressed the pieces of cup into it.
‘There!’ I sat back and rubbed my hands on the grass to get rid of the concrete. Would Dad understand the symbolism of the broken cup being stuck together to make something new? I wouldn’t put money on it myself. ‘Hey, Mum! Come and look!’
She woke up. ‘Oh, Min — you’ve finished. You are clever!’ She came over to look. ‘I love it! Where did you get that china? And I love the way you’ve done the M.’
I did too, it had swirly curls. Who said I wasn’t artistic? Minna Hargreaves, maker of bird baths.
Thus, by the end of the day the island was richer by one artistic bird bath and one non-artistic washing contrivance.
‘What is that?’ I asked as they lugged it into the back garden using the wheelbarrow they’d reclaimed.
Dad rubbed his hands, satisfaction oozing out of him. He thumped a fist on a barrel that had been cut in half. ‘This is going to be the copper. We light a fire under it and chuck our clothes in. Boil them up, fish them out with this.’ He picked up a long chunk of wood. ‘And we deposit them into this half which will be full of clean water for rinsing.’
I filmed them installing it. ‘Meet the Hargreaves’ fantastic washing machine,’ I said. ‘Personally, I’m going to stick to hand washing.’
But then again, I hadn’t washed my sheets ever since we’d been here (twenty-one days by my calendar). And the towels were a pain too.
I put my stake in the ground right there and then. ‘I don’t do washing. I do cooking and cleaning and chooking and gardening and bread-making — but no washing. Understand?’
Dad chuckled. ‘Poor Min — worried that the wet washing will be too heavy, are you?’
I chuckled right back. ‘Got it in one, Father dear. Much too heavy for my delicate muscles to cope with.’ Where had he been all my life? That crass piece of psychology had stopped working on me some time around the turn of the century before last. I dragged him and Noah off to admire my bird bath. ‘Cool,’ said Noah.
‘Hmm,’ said Dad, his eyes fixed on the M and a thoughtful look on his face. ‘Very nice. Might even work. Well done, Min.’
What a day of achievements. How long does it take for a bird bath to dry? How long do you boil washing for? How long will the wind blow for? How long is a tuatara? (Forty-nine centimetres.) How long is our incarceration on Isolation Island?
I lay in bed that night listening to the wind and willing it to lie down and die. I fell asleep.