Schmidt Roover Island...

My young Cousin was only about three years old when he found what was left of our Uncle's segmented tape worm floating in the outside toilet. I can see him now- his little face all grubby; excitedly running around the veranda at our Grandfather's Farm to tell everyone about what he had just seen. That Boofy had worms in the toilet.

We've all been joking for days that this was bound to happen- since the Tick Poison Incident actually; because on closer inspection we discovered that the drench we gave him to drink apparently kills Intestinal Worms as well as providing 'lasting protection' to your cattle against bush ticks...

None of this would have happened, probably- if Grandpa had till been well; I wouldn't have wanted to disappoint him so badly as to try and poison somebody in front of him. But Grandpa had been slowly dying in the nursing home for about two years by this stage of the story; and my Aunt, her husband and their two young kids now lived in the same run-down weekender where my little Super Grover once spent the entire school term sleeping amongst the rafters.

My Aunt eventually buried most of Grandpa under a Mango tree that she planted in the front yard of the Farm; then scattered what was left of him on the Lake- just like he would have wanted...

My Bad Uncle lives over in the large Farmhouse- all alone- in the pig-sty he's created for himself; he lays around for most of the day, drinking, on a pissy old mattress that shows its springs through the thin material it's covered in. He often reads war novels, that he folds in half upon themselves, so that he can manage holding it in only one hand; leaving the other free for his long neck of VB- or glass of Goon- that are his constant bedside companions, regardless of the time of day.

His stained clothes reek of booze and sweat and he probably hasn't washed in a month- not unless he's fallen out of the boat drunk again. His distorted and distended belly on his almost skeletal frame practically gives away the fact that he has Cirrhosis of the Liver. He lives here because he's an alcoholic Bum; all his life he has squatted at one or other of my Grandmother's properties. She didn't get rid of him entirely until he was almost fifty actually; she locked him out of her house on the Hill plenty of times but he somehow always managed to shinny up the tall drainpipe onto the upstairs veranda where 'his' room was and make his way in. Like it was his Right to do so even though he was Never even given a house-key...

We all presume that his being able to climb a forty-foot tall drain pipe when he's blind drunk is a legacy from him being at Vietnam; just as he always managed to silently sneak up behind Robyn the Cleaning Lady- without being detected- to scare the shit out of her while she was quietly dusting Grandma's antiques. She wasn't the only person he scared though. He did that to all of us; especially when we were little- as I've explained earlier.

I remember another time he told us how you could stop someone from swallowing their own tongue by pinning it to the inside of their own cheek with a large Safety pin. I've never had the need for that piece of information.

Anyway; this next story happened in the same year that my Father gave my Aunt and her husband his old Morris Minor- the year that my Aunt's mother-in-law died from cancer. That's as complicated as it gets...

I had only met her twice but I inherited two of her birds- a Peach-Face Parrot that I named Poe and I quail I called Quailey. Not very imaginative I know. I wish that I had a larger aviary at the time so that I could have been given Cunty, also- an angry twenty-five year old Sulpher-Crested Cockatoo that used to bite my fingers through the wire of his too-small cage when I was stupid enough to stick them through the bars. Unsurprisingly, his name was the only word he knew- but I always thought I could have taught him some newer, perhaps nicer, words if he were mine.

My Aunt and her husband dropped Poe and Quailey off in a home-made birdcage- the same one that went on to become the 'starting point' of my Sister's rabbit hutch a few months later- and when they returned to the Farm they took me with them to stay for the week so I could see my beloved Star. My Parents preferred going to the Beach rather than the Farm for their holidays these days- since they had become Nudists I rarely saw my horse anymore- and so I jumped at the chance whenever it was offered- even if it meant spending time with this side of the Family...


All of my Cousins were there; even the Twins- who are actually unrelated to Me but who I have always regarded as cousins seeing as we spent so much time together as kids. My Aunt's drinking Peach Cooler on the veranda and chain smoking Whinny Reds; her husband's drunkenly singing along to Goanna's song 'Solid Rock' as it plays on the small portable radio that's beside him. And even though it's way past his bed time my little Cousin is still riding the old rocking horse; his baby sister asleep in the bassinette at my Aunt's feet. Everyone's off their guts except for me and one of the Twins; my Uncle's starting a fire on the lawn with too much kerosene. He does that a lot...

Me and the sober Twin have decided that in the morning we're going rowing out on the Lake over to the nearest of the small islands- if the old Farmer up the road will lend us his row-boat that is. We want to find the fabled Watermelon and Pumpkin Patch that Grandpa grew; if it actually exists there would probably be a million watermelons there by now.

We set off early the next morning; the Lake as flat and still as a sheet of glass. The boat's heavy- and has a slow leak- so that while one of us is rowing the other uses the bilge pump so that we don't eventually sink somewhere out int he middle. We reach the closest island; and by using a piece of metal from the pump we carve the name we've given Our island- Schmidt Roover- into a Mangrove tree on the bank; alongside the date.

We take a walk around but this island has no secret grove of watermelons; so we dubiously set off for the next one; it doesn't seem all that far away really- though the wind has picked up a fair bit now that we're not in the shelter of the horse-shoe-shaped Bay. But we're really getting into a rhythm now, with the rowing that is- so we decide to give it a go despite the blisters that are filling with fluid as we speak...

About two hours later we reach land- but this island is covered in thick Lantana; so that even though there might once have been a gigantic watermelon patch it is now long gone. We row slowly back to the Boatshed; my fingers eventually so blistered and raw that when I finally managed to get around to catching Star to go for a ride that afternoon I found that my hands were so sore that I couldn't even hold the reins.