emerald

Living with Carol ends in tears—hers, not mine. I walk out in January 1989, my departure undercut by having to walk out of someone else’s house, not Carol’s. We are visiting her friend Rosie in Flemington when the last straw breaks my camel’s back. I quit Rosie’s house in high dudgeon, go back to Chum Creek, begin packing.

The kids are nine and seven when we move into a rental at 14 Crichton Road in Emerald, a simple brick veneer, painted white, opposite the gate into the old Nobelius nursery. The Nobelius Siding packing shed is right there and Puffing Billy runs along a shallow embankment across the road.

I retain scant memory of our time there. I teach at Berengarra, my kids go to Menzies Creek Primary where their cousins are, not Emerald. But I can’t remember taking them to school each morning or where they go after school before I pick them up. My mother? My sister?

Only one significant event comes to mind. We have a break-in—kids’ bedroom window—and stuff is stolen: a VCR, my expensive new red 85 litre Macpac backpack, and two porn videos. I’d not worn the backpack one step into the bush; its departure hurts, especially as I guess it to be of no interest to the robber other than as a receptacle for the VCR.

The ancient dog fails to protect our property. She’s 15, diabetic, almost blind, partially deaf, comatose in a bamboo grove separating our place from the next.

The break-in destroys any affection I have for Crichton Road. The house is pleasant enough, but I’m desperate to get to Menzies Creek where all my family are. Mid-year a teacher is unexpectedly transferred and her family’s rented log cabin in Menzies Creek is available.

I break my lease on Crichton Road quick as a flash, ferry my meagre possessions from Emerald to the Creek and get used to a life without sun on a southern slope in Moroney Crescent.

Rock on.