Written 13 April, 2020
At last the day of our shopping delivery- or the night really ,for our ”window” is 6-9pm at DB’s boatyard in Brooklyn. We all admit to a feeling something will go wrong. We plan to wait in the car, though normally we’d spend time chatting to DB or B. But this is the time of the virus. We calculate exactly when to leave; it normally takes 45 minutes to Brooklyn if GG drives, and hour if I do! Then unexpectedly, Woolworths texts to revise our “window” to just an hour. What a relief! We’d been worrying about coming back up the river late. GG texts DB to tell him what’s going on, and insists he drive the boat, and that we leave before 5pm. K will stay home and keep warm. I email Annie, a neighbour who’s recently arrived, and ask her if something goes wrong, can K ring her. Annie kindly emails back- “Of course”. But what could go wrong?
In the afternoon, Dy arrives and wanders up the track to chat while I’m encouraging my two spinach seedlings and GG’s baiting a crab trap. Dy’s brought a friend to help him lop trees so there’s sun enough for his solar panels, and now the bay rings with sawing. Dy’s a man who leans comfortably against a tree. He reminds me of an old advertisement for Billy Tea, a lanky bushman rolling a cigarette and chatting to an attentive kangaroo.
We mention our new thought to use our spare floating pontoon for our new winter solar panels, because they’d get 2 hours more sun than on the roof, which is shaded by trees from early afternoon.
“Between us in the bay we’ll have lots of power”, he says.
“Maybe we can feed it back to the grid”, I joke.
“We could have our own grid,” he continues. “Why don’t we ask everyone? There are a lot of empty houses generating power that’s not used.”
I shrug my shoulders. Sharing can bring the best and the worst out of people. At Bar Point, when we first came here, people shared jetties and stories about neighbourhood fury were rife: someone’s house ended up being burned down. And in Danger Island, where people shared beach buggies to take their shopping form the wharf to their houses, buggy wars broke out and from then on, buggies had to be strictly controlled.
Later, Dy’s friend comes to borrow a ladder. I ask in return if he’d saw a tree trunk, blown down from the storm, that’s blocking us getting down to our tiny cove. By the time I’m back with the ladder, the tree trunk has gone. I’ll be able to pull my boat up into the cove, instead of typing up to GG’s yacht. I’m delighted: I’d hug him in normal life.
I make dinner early, our last chicken legs, baked in the oven with cardamom and rice. They’ll be here for us when we get home. Then, rugged up in thermals, jumpers, beanies, gloves and coats, we set off, and immediately things go wrong. The night is black, the water is like glass. Beautiful, but in a glass world, reflections are bewildering. GG has no choice but to follow the reflections of the mountains- that way, he hopes, we’ll avoid the huge log in the middle of the bay. I stand at the prow, peering for more logs. We cannot gaze enough at the lit up houses of Milson’s Passage as we pass them- how extravagant you can be with electricity form the grid.
But when we turn at the bridge into the narrow isthmus called The Gut, the glassy water defeats us. Every moored boat with its perfect reflection has a peculiar, unfamiliar geometry-that boat’s so big it seems almost upon us- is it? or is that because of its reflection? And surely that huge shape is a boat sitting on the water’s surface- but that isn’t a boat shape, it’s a boat plus its reflection, and the water surface is not underneath it as reason argues it seems to be, but half-way up. Our perceptions wrestle with what we know to be true. So we travel fearfully and slowly to the boatyard- but there’s still 10 minutes to go by the time we tie up. Then Brutus and B race down the jetty, Brutus barking and B shouting to tell me that the Woolworths man came early, and has gone. He refused to leave our food. B’s handing me out of our boat in his gentlemanly way but I’m so angry wiht Woolworths that I slip, and he has to catch me from falling in.
In vain do I ring customer service and plead and shout and shout and cry. Customer service will only refund our money.
“Just give us our food,” I cry.
Finally, I give up, and we get in the car and drive to the only supermarket in Berowra Coles, though it’s now 9 pm and we don’t know whether or not they’re open. We have only one mask between us, and no gloves except K’s leather gloves I’ve borrowed for the cold. On Corona Cast this morning I heard that men are about twice as likely to die as women, so I decide to be the one to brave the crowds of shoppers, all possibly shedding virus.
We swing into the parking lot and Coles are still open. But there are no shoppers there, only staff re-filling the shelves. Suddenly, a city girl, I’m revelling in the newly astonishing idea of replaceable food! Food that doesn’t depend on the chances of catching it, the skills of growing it. And when we run out, there’ll be more in the shop. Vast trays of it. And more. And more. As long as we can pay. As long as we can sort out a delivery. As long as we can get to a shop.
Never has ordinary old lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, fennel, leeks, onions and asparagus looked larger than life.
“This isn’t a criticism,” says GG afterwards. “But why did you take a whole hour? Were you so shop-deprived you dawdled?”
I didn’t admit that amongst the deserted supermarket aisles, I was so full of joy. I did what I’ve always been wanting to do, I’d tangoed to the musak.
Yes, that’s me; but miss the boring 42 sec intro.
There’s not much more to write, except that at DB’s boatyard, our wishes magic him up, and, always kind whatever the hour, he helps us wheelbarrow our bags down his dark and narrow jetty- otherwise we’d have wheelbarrowed it into the water, or been wheelbarrowing till dawn, I’d bought so much in my delight. The boat is awkwardly moored with other boats in the way, so I use my new system of rolling into boats: I turn my back to the prow, jump up backwards, and swivel on my bottom to get my legs forward and into the boat. GG, who can’t bend, has no choice but to step long-leggedly up onto the prow, walking somewhat shakily along it like a circus clown to our applause until he can lean forward- we’re holding our breath- and grab on to the cabin roof to break his fall.
And the moon is kind, brightening the sky, and the breeze is kind, wrinkling the water, so the flying fox is trundling up the meat and eggs and milk by 11.30pm. I leave the rest of the shopping in the boat till morning, I build K’s fire, we eat our dinner silent with exhaustion, and fall into bed.