Page 188 - Exile-ebook

188 AN EXILE OF THE MIND WHERE THE COWS SLEEP AT NIGHT 189

Each chook was then placed on the he was never to show his ugly mug in
roof of the pen in a neat row. I was the pub again and banned him for life.
about to take them to the kitchen Unfazed, Bogtrotter showed up at the
with a heavy heart when they pub the following week, unrecognised
revived and flapped down to my feet with a clean face and using sign
to continue pecking at my boots. language to order his beer. Careful
Bogtrotter, sent to do the deed, not to betray his cockney accent.
came back with three ducks obedi- Anna had been ill for several
ently following in his wake. Each years and could no longer work on
wearing the name of a politician the farm. We decided to sell up and
on a tag around its neck. He said move into town. A title search
it would be easier this way revealed a dastardly plan
as he handed me the by the electricity network
axe. We had a leg of to radiate our property
ham for dinner that with high-powered transmis-
Christmas. sion lines.
Long before face painting be- The self-sufficient house, which Jacaranda City, Grafton in New South Wales.
came fashionable with small had taken five years to build, was
children, Bogtrotter daubed his especially designed to run on chak of a helicopter sent the horse blown away by the great acoustics.
face with leftover house paint and the natural power of wind and and donkeys galloping in fright into The design of the roof structure,
took off to the local pub to cele- sun. It was now destined to lie the forest. The chopper landed in with its many angles, absorbed
brate Halloween. The more he drank, in the shadow of large metal pylons. a nearby paddock, its passenger and reflected sound waves more
the more obnoxious he became. A My thriving acres of pure-grown running bent double under swishing sonorously than the Sydney Opera
large Aboriginal woman took an al- tea tree were about to be nuked by blades towards the house. House. Anna and I moved into the
mighty swing and belted Bogtrotter electro-magnetic fields. A top official from the network had purple embrace of Jacaranda City.
a skull-rattling slap across the face The local MP, and also State come in person to see what the fuss Hoping a change of country
leaving an imprint of his bozo face on Minister of Natural Resources, was was all about. He left two hours later and climate would help Anna’s
her hand. She thought he was poking quickly commandeered to right the impressed by the house, its free energy health, we travelled to Fiji, and
fun at tribal body art. wrongs of this unwelcome invasion and a bottle of home-made parsnip into the chaos of a dusty, rubbish-
Reaching over the bar the publican which discouraged prospective buy- wine. The march of the pylons was strewn Suva, the country’s capital.
grabbed a concussed Bogtrotter by ers looking for a healthy lifestyle in to be diverted alongside a state forest We planned to stay for at least
the front of his grim reaper’s costume. the pristine countryside. several kilometres to the west. six months so I set about finding
His feet swung wildly above the floor Letters and phone calls went Tanglewood was eventually sold a cleaner and quieter part of ‘the
as the publican shouted in his face that unheeded until the chakka-chak- to a lawyer. His wife, a pianist, was Cannibal Isles’.