just wouldnât let her anymore. By ten in the morning, though, after Ron had completed half the rooms of the house, old Min was up the paint-flecked telescopic PMG ladder cleaning out the spouting.
When Ron had mentioned to his friend Sweet William that Min still did this job, Sweet William couldnât help himself and before long virtually the whole town knew about the ninety-eight year old lady being up the ladder. It became a public measure of Minâs state of health. As long as she could still see her way clear to climb that ladder, with her son dutifully holding it for her back down on the ground, everyone knew she was fit as a fiddle. Of courseRon and Min both knew that she had slipped a bit healthwise, but you climbed a ladder with your feet and hands not with your crook lung, and you never had to bend, so, for the time being at least, there would be no stopping her getting up there.
It was a day of significance and from up where she stood in her slacks and apron and rubber dishwashing gloves, Min could see the whole blue expanse of the ocean spread before her. A large blunt-looking ship was quite close in. And the usual dozen or so black cormorants, with their wings spread like monsignors perched on top of the Two Pointer rocks.
The contents of the spouting were the same as ever: pine needles, leaves, galah-down, she-oak nuts. There were also the usual miscellaneous items and oddities that she would never have imagined ending up on a roof. This time it was a pink plastic bait-holder from a craypot, a golf ball, and a half-full pouch of Champion Ruby tobacco. She figured that Ron could have absentmindedly thrown the golf ball up there but as for the rest of it, well, it mustâve been the birds. Magpies, currawongs, kookaburras and sometimes even seagulls and cormorants scuttled and roosted on their roof from time to time. They were all scavengers of sorts.
Ron waited patiently at the bottom of the ladder, seemingly unfussed that his tiny old mother was doing a job he probably could have done a little more efficiently. She enjoyed it, and there was no telling her otherwise. And he was no spring chicken anymore, anyway.
When Rhyll Traherne had wondered aloud whether or not Min had any say in the selling of the land, Min had assured her oldest friend that she had agreed wholeheartedly with the idea. Ron wasnât getting any younger, heâd turned seventy-four that April, and with her catarrh and the scarring the doctors had picked up on her lung it was silly not to consider it.
In the kitchen one night over crumbed tupong, Ron had run it byher and was genuinely surprised she thought it so sensible. Her lack of resistance meant he had to go away and think about it a bit more himself and over the next month the idea proved itself in his mind. Min hadnât any specific thoughts in her head about how much of the land they should sell, where any new boundaries would be or whether or not they should advertise it on the market, so Ron took charge. Min was happy for him to do so. All she was concerned about was them having enough money to see her through any illness and that the property didnât become a millstone around her sonâs neck. It wasnât as if they had need of the space anymore. The land was just idle, and Ron had to keep mowing it. This way he would only have half as much to mow and he could afford a ride-on mower to do it with, anyway.
When Min considered what her dead husband might have thought about the whole thing she came to no obvious conclusion. On the one hand, Len McCoy had been attached to the land he had bought with his own sense of independence and initiative, but he was also the least sentimental man she had ever known. So bugger thinking about Len, she decided, not out of disrespect for his memory but because once again she couldnât really fathom him either way.
Of course they couldnât sell the house side of the block, so all the graves would be safe.
When Ron had mentioned to his friend Sweet William that Min still did this job, Sweet William couldnât help himself and before long virtually the whole town knew about the ninety-eight year old lady being up the ladder. It became a public measure of Minâs state of health. As long as she could still see her way clear to climb that ladder, with her son dutifully holding it for her back down on the ground, everyone knew she was fit as a fiddle. Of courseRon and Min both knew that she had slipped a bit healthwise, but you climbed a ladder with your feet and hands not with your crook lung, and you never had to bend, so, for the time being at least, there would be no stopping her getting up there.
It was a day of significance and from up where she stood in her slacks and apron and rubber dishwashing gloves, Min could see the whole blue expanse of the ocean spread before her. A large blunt-looking ship was quite close in. And the usual dozen or so black cormorants, with their wings spread like monsignors perched on top of the Two Pointer rocks.
The contents of the spouting were the same as ever: pine needles, leaves, galah-down, she-oak nuts. There were also the usual miscellaneous items and oddities that she would never have imagined ending up on a roof. This time it was a pink plastic bait-holder from a craypot, a golf ball, and a half-full pouch of Champion Ruby tobacco. She figured that Ron could have absentmindedly thrown the golf ball up there but as for the rest of it, well, it mustâve been the birds. Magpies, currawongs, kookaburras and sometimes even seagulls and cormorants scuttled and roosted on their roof from time to time. They were all scavengers of sorts.
Ron waited patiently at the bottom of the ladder, seemingly unfussed that his tiny old mother was doing a job he probably could have done a little more efficiently. She enjoyed it, and there was no telling her otherwise. And he was no spring chicken anymore, anyway.
When Rhyll Traherne had wondered aloud whether or not Min had any say in the selling of the land, Min had assured her oldest friend that she had agreed wholeheartedly with the idea. Ron wasnât getting any younger, heâd turned seventy-four that April, and with her catarrh and the scarring the doctors had picked up on her lung it was silly not to consider it.
In the kitchen one night over crumbed tupong, Ron had run it byher and was genuinely surprised she thought it so sensible. Her lack of resistance meant he had to go away and think about it a bit more himself and over the next month the idea proved itself in his mind. Min hadnât any specific thoughts in her head about how much of the land they should sell, where any new boundaries would be or whether or not they should advertise it on the market, so Ron took charge. Min was happy for him to do so. All she was concerned about was them having enough money to see her through any illness and that the property didnât become a millstone around her sonâs neck. It wasnât as if they had need of the space anymore. The land was just idle, and Ron had to keep mowing it. This way he would only have half as much to mow and he could afford a ride-on mower to do it with, anyway.
When Min considered what her dead husband might have thought about the whole thing she came to no obvious conclusion. On the one hand, Len McCoy had been attached to the land he had bought with his own sense of independence and initiative, but he was also the least sentimental man she had ever known. So bugger thinking about Len, she decided, not out of disrespect for his memory but because once again she couldnât really fathom him either way.
Of course they couldnât sell the house side of the block, so all the graves would be safe.
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