Tasmania, tooBy JENNIFER CRAWLEYMy contract as a health centre manager in a remote community in central arnhem land was coming to end. We were OK with that, we were just waiting. We knew something would come. It did one day, with a phonecall. We were standing in the living area of our house. It was open plan with high cathedral ceilings and floor to ceiling louvred windows that looked out into the bush of Arnhem Land. He was standing in the lounge, I was by the kitchen bench. The guy on the other end made his pitch to Geoffrey. He was setting up a rapid detox treatment centre, where wealthy clients from Melbourne would go through 24 hours of rapid detox from narcotics, then have 2 to 3 weeks of acupuncture, naturopathy, massage and therapy. Geoffrey had been recommended for the position of therapist. Geoffrey asked this guy where exactly the clinic was going to be located. I remember the wide-eyed look on his face as he heard, and he held his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and said to me, 'TASMANIA' I grabbed the bench and sank to my knees, sort of gasping in shock, anticipation and horror. TASMANIA?. Never more than a smudge on the map, it now took on an almost a malevolent, supernatural significance. We were on our way ... We were on our way to Tasmania. I used to joke, 'is that the mania that sets in once you cross the Tasman?'or 'is that the mania that happened to Abel Tasman after sailing around the island in a ridiculously small boat - you know Abel Tasmania?' No smart arse, you don't cross the Tasman Sea, it's known as Bass Strait and Abel Tasman was probably a damn sight saner than you. I would rue my words when the real madness overcame us. We knew no-one in Tasmania except a cousin I hadn't spoken to for over 30 years. I rang Mum to get his number. About 200ks north of Melbourne, from an old red phone booth hidden away in a densely forested curve of that beautiful coastal highway I spoke to him, "Hi Simon, this is your cousin, Jenny." He welcomed us with open arms and as I stood outside his house in the foothills of West Hobart I thought, 'Where have we come?' The flattened hills across the river were brown, treeless and smoky. It was the last day in January and the temperature that night in Simon's tiny terrace was 42 degrees. We continued on to Cygnet and Glaziers Bay where we stayed in the mud-brick mansion that was going to be converted into the clinic. It faced the western sun over the Huon River and the Hartz Mountains beyond. It was beautiful. The next few weeks were confusing. It was difficult to contact the guy setting up the clinic. He lived in Canberra and was hard to pin down. Always message bank on his mobile, answering machine at home. This would set the pattern for the next 6 weeks. The kids started school in Cygnet, and they loved it. The community of Cygnet and Glaziers Bay took us in. We finally meet the man. We'll call him Michael. He has a crooked eye and when you look at him you don't know which eye to focus on, the one staring directly at you or the one looking out in another direction. We wanted so much for it to work, we hung on to the dream for a while. Me, staring out the window, writing and feeding the chooks, Geoffrey heading off over the hills, walking to the work he loved and the kids happy as larks. After several weeks of frustrating no-shows by our entrepid entrepreneur, queries from the company in town about payment for the newly arrived flash clinic furniture, queries about payment from the real estate agent in town, from the gardener, from the security guards, queries and confusion from the nurses, naturopath, acupuncturist, massage therapist and chef he had enlisted, we knew we were stuffed. He kept maintaining it was still going ahead, there were just a few 'teething problems'. Geoffrey had signed a contract promising relocation costs, accommodation and a very good salary. We moved out. We had come from the tropical north to end up in a two-bedroom unit in Cygnet where the sun hit the front loungeroom window for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Winter set in, Geoffrey started court proceedings. A few weeks after moving from our mud brick home, Geoffrey drove back to see if the man was there. The furniture had gone, the garden in disrepair. No one there. Driving back to Cygnet along the bottom road that hugs the Huon he saw Michael's BMW coming towards him. He chucked a uee in the troopy on the narrow road and chased the car. They screeched to a stop at the gate at the top of the dirt road. Geoffrey jumped out and confronted him. Michael was with another guy whom he described as a 'co-director'. "We can't talk to you". "Why not?" "Because you've started court proceedings against us". "What a lot of bullshit". They managed to have a conversation. Geoffrey trying to impart exactly what it was he had done and the affect of his actions. Michael insisted the clinic was still going ahead. Geoffrey couldn't believe it, this man still insisting 'everything was fine'. Geoffrey drove off. He pulled over down the road and sat there and cried. He said he knew it was all over. He knew it was all over before, he said, but now he really knew. The next 6 months were hard. A lot of the time I wouldn't get out of my dressing gown, other times we'd go for walks, around Cygnet, or up a little way into the hills. We enjoyed those walks. Often we would look at each other and say, 'What are we doing? Why are we staying here?' But we didn't leave. For some unknown reason we stayed. The kids were really happy. We moved up to town into a house just up from the river in Rose Bay. The house had been built in the fifties by the man who lived here all his life. A neighbour who was close friends with the man said the Eastern Shore was considered wild 'blackfella' country back when he was a boy. The house is surrounded by gardens and we have been told that the owner and his wife spent their lives in the garden. We rented at first but then one night I had a dream . I was walking in the garden surrounded by flowers and fragrance and birdsong and felt a happiness I had never felt before. I asked the young lady who had bought the house as a deceased estate if she was interested in selling. She said, "As a matter of fact, we are". The next week I made an offer, the next day she returned my phonecall . Geoffrey was watching the cricket, he said, 'you take the call'. She made a counter offer, I went under just a fraction, and the house was sold. I went to work in the maternity section of the Royal, Geoffrey has set up his own practice in town and the kids remain happy as. But that's only the beginning.
RAPID RESPONSE EMAIL: What do you think? Monday, December 6, 2004 |