David is making mud bricks. A small, young wallaby watches him from less than five metres away.
‘Me little mate’, David explains. ‘Comes here to graze that patch of green next to the shed every time I’m making bricks. He looks up now and then to check on me, make sure I’m not bludgin’, I suppose.’
David is lean and weather-beaten. He looks like Clint Eastwood. Beneath a sinister black Akubra, his high cheekbones shadowing a slight concavity on either side of the face combine with narrowed eyes and a stubbly jaw to give him that brooding, dramatic air that allows Clint to get away with so little dialogue. David likewise is a man of few words but when he uses them, they count. He smiles often, however, and has a sharp, saturnine wit. When David graduated as an industrial chemist, he took to coal mining in direct defiance of his father’s wishes, but years later he decided to live by his wits. A talented builder, furniture maker and a bushman with vast natural know how, he was soon in demand round the district. Three days a week he works here, for Bob and Sally at Long Gully—a paradisal slash of beautiful bush meandering gently uphill between two craggy escarpments, the Elephant and the Lion. ‘Best office there is’, David’s phrase, as he ‘takes a look around’ deep in the forest.
And then there’s Mike, a near neighbour. Conservationist, gardener, horticulturist, timber expert, builder—especially of circular mud-brick structures, in one of which he lives with his wife—Mike wears shorts, usually bright and noticeable, a singlet often red, and socks of many colours. Freezing or wet weather has no effect on this choice of ensemble. Nor, by and large, does formality. Mike turns up to dinner parties and other gatherings in his shorts and, while he might start off with a shirt or sweater covering the singlet, it usually comes off after an hour or so of talk and bonhomie. Sally assures us that he has a special black singlet—for weddings. He always wears sturdy boots over each of which is a sort of gaiter, elasticised at the top, to prevent sand and other bits and pieces invading his feet. Very understandable out in the bush, less so at indoor gatherings, but he wears them then anyway.
Mike is a true environmentalist, which means that while nature benefits from his care and consideration,