THOSE PINE TREES ACROSS THE STREET

Hush yourself little one, Dad’s got you now, there you go, cuddle up to Dad. You make a lot of noise for such a little baby, don’t you now?

What’s the time? Where’s my phone? It’s just gone six thirty in the morning. Well I suppose I’m getting up early now, aren’t I little one? Your mother and me used to sleep in till ten every Sunday, that’s out the window now isn’t it, Chook?

C’mon, we’ll get your bottle and we’ll sit out on the front porch and let Mum get a bit of sleep. See that sun just coming up? See the way the dawn light hits those pine trees across the street? That’s a beautiful morning, almost worth getting woken up for.

I’ve always loved those big Norfolk Island Pines there across the road. I hope the council never does something stupid like cut them down. Trees like that are a public good in my opinion.

You finished your sooking, little one? Here, have your bottle, you’re lucky you know, you nearly grew up out in the desert where there are no Norfolk Island Pines. Did I ever tell you the story about how me and your Mum met up? No, well since you’ve woken me up and I have nothing better to do while you have your bottle and I watch the dawn rise, I suppose I can tell you the story.

A long time ago, little one, I used to be a bit of a drifter. I travelled around the country working in all sorts of odd places. Mining camps, roadhouses, cattle stations, I’ve done them all, Chook. Free as a bird I was. I’d do a job for six months or a year and then I’d wander off to the next one. Not a care in the world.

Some of those places, little one, my word they were rough, not a place for a little one like you, that’s for sure. I remember this one place, a mining camp up in the NT, we had a mouse plague because of all the rain we had that year. Of course, in the bush nothing happens in isolation; when the mice reached huge numbers, the snakes followed. Found a metre and a half long Taipan in my bed one morning. I’ve never moved that fast before or since.

I worked up in the Kimberley for a while, Chook, on a prawn trawler out of Wyndham, hard work, but the things I saw, little one! Crocodiles, sharks, Barramundi the size of a full-grown man with flesh that melted like butter when you cooked it. When you get off the bottle and onto solid food I’ll get you to try Barramundi, not the crap they serve down here, which is probably not even real Barra. We’ll do a family trip up to the Kimberley one day and get some out of the river. Nothing like it, little one.

Wasn’t all good times, Chook, nothing ever is. You won’t realise this until you get older, but you can actually die from loneliness, and even if you don’t die from it, it can make you strange. That’s the thing about that sort of life, you’re free, but nobody is there for you when it counts. I’ll tell you something for nothing, little one, if I hadn’t met your Mother I reckon I’d have gone proper strange permanently. I’ve seen it happen to other men. It was only meeting your Mother that saved me from that fate, I reckon.

Finished your bottle, have you? God, you’re getting big now, just hoovering down your food, aren’t you? You’ll be walking before I know it. Here, sit on my lap, little one, and watch the sun come up over those pine trees across the street. See if that magpie is going to give us a morning call.

I remember when I met your Mother, she said hello in her Dutch accent and I was sold on her there and then. You know I kissed her for the very first time on a morning just like this, little one? We were both working at a little roadhouse near Tennant Creek; she was a backpacker and I was just a drifter. We’d been up all night with the other staff having too much to drink and just as the sun was coming up we kissed for the first time. No Norfolk Island Pines up there though, just the red dust and scrub.

Six months later we came down south to Port Lincoln. A month later she was pregnant with you, and a month after that we were married. I’ll no doubt tell you that story again when you’re older, more than once probably, but it’s a good story. It does me good to remember how close I came to being lost out there forever. It makes me appreciate what I have now. You, my little Chook, and your Mum; I’m a lucky man when it’s all said and done. I could have very easily spent the rest of my life drifting, another lost soul out in the bush. There’s plenty of them. Instead, I got to have this little family in this little house, across the street from these big old Norfolk Island Pines.

C’mon now, Chook, I reckon your nappy needs changing and I think I can hear your Mum up and about. Let’s get her a cuppa and get you sorted. Those pines will still be there tomorrow.

Lewis Woolston grew up in a small beach bum town in Western Australia. When he left he travelled around Australia living in several cities as well as spending long periods in the bush. He worked at remote roadhouses on the Nullarbor and in the NT for years before settling down in Alice Springs with his wife and newborn daughter.