Armitage Shanks: Chapter 7 (fragment)

[a Bruny Island cliff-hanger? Sandstone formation near Dennes Point, North Bruny Island]

[an incomplete chapter, the last from my yet-to-be-finished story. If you watch this space expecting more, you're going to need some patience! However comments and suggestions - of a polite and encouraging nature - are most welcome.]

Shanks’ revenge was neither as sweet nor as long lasting as he had expected. When Peg found out about the toilet and the “toe tapping” (as Shanks put it), she had gone so quiet that Shanks took her silence as disapproval. In fact it was closer to stunned shock mixed with a deep indecision about what to do next.

And Terrence had given Shanks little satisfaction either. He’d made himself scarce by day, presumably to go fishing or to take the dog for a walk. And at night he had taken to staying up late with his grandparents in front of the TV – despite their stern commands that he go to bed – even falling asleep in the battered old sofa, and having to be carried into bed by his Pa.

To tell the truth his Nan and Pa were rather touched by this “regression to childhood” (as they saw it). He’d never been what they’d have called a sweet child. But he had been a little more open to the odd hug than the edgy pre-teen he had now become. So despite their stern words they, and especially his Pa, were more than happy to have this close contact with T, albeit that he was a comatose, leggy bundle as he snuggled into his Pa’s shoulder.

* * *

He may have been hard for others to find but, try as he might, Terrence couldn’t avoid Geoffrey Boycat. The cat had an uncanny way of just appearing around whichever corner you next turned. And then, whatever you did, his eyes would hold you, and his feline voice draw you towards him.

So on a wet and windy afternoon Terrence found himself being grilled yet again by a cat who seemed to simmer just beneath the point of anger.

“And this flushing . . . it was your idea?” Terrence began to open his mouth, but Geoffrey continued. “It was NOT a good idea!” …

“The idea BOY… was to wait for Bonfire Night. Remember? ….

* * *

“Does de dame want I should take ‘er out wid me fer a picnic, yeah?” Shanks made a woeful gangster. Despite his hard-boiled looks, something in his facial anatomy prevented him from sounding truly gruff. Husky yes, but dark and threatening? Never.

Still Peg knew he was doing his best to be light-hearted, to cheer her up after a frosty few days of all but avoiding Terrence. Even her Pa had seemed hard to reach, spending more time being awkwardly attentive to T., and leaving her too much in her Nan’s fussy, food-centred company.

So Peg was relieved when they again found themselves out for a stroll, though this time Peg used a small back-pack instead of the doll’s pram. “You gonna put me in dat ting, huh? You really tink so?” he wheezed as Peg unzipped the top pocket for him. She simply held it wide open and made no comment, so he mockingly muttered under his breath and clambered into the pocket.

Armitage Shanks: Chapter 6

[Shanks is back with a vengeance in the next exciting episode ...]

After his couple of days of mischief, Terrence went to bed feeling contented. He stretched out in the lumpy bed and stared up at the sagging, discoloured ceiling without really seeing it. He wriggled his toes free of the bed clothes and began to tap them on the wooden bed-end in a military sort of way. Geoffrey Boycat had been almost pleased with the boy's report, and had shown it by not sitting on his lap, and not sharpening his claws on him.

He looked over at his sleeping sister and smiled. It was not a "good-night-sleep-tight-hope-the-mozzies-don't-bite" sort of smile. It was more primitive. The sort that younger children smile just after they've poked their tongues out and said "nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa." Terrence secretly wished he was still young enough to do that, but he knew it might look a bit silly. Right now nothing was worse than looking foolish, or at least looking foolish in public. He was aware that talking to a cat, and even more taking orders from a cat, would not have looked too good. But he was content that no-one knew about it. To Terrence that was as good as it not being foolish at all.

But Peg's talking to animals was another story altogether. She'd made the mistake of doing it so someone else knew. Worse still she'd tried to be a smarty pants and pretend it had never happened. And by being smart she meant to make him look dumb like she always did, sticking her nose in books all the time; giggling when he got his words wrong; giving his mum hints about trouble he'd got into at school; and just generally making him feel dumb. These were things Terrence had brooded on for a long time. Today's effort had been a satisfying start to his pay-back plans.

All of this left Terrence wide awake, his mind a slurry of vengeful and happy thoughts. In a drawer next to his bed were some old books his Pa had left for the grandchildren. Though he was not a great reader, he pulled out a couple of large and musty volumes and started looking at them. They might help him sleep. Two cowboy books, and a laughably old-fashioned space adventure were discarded before he finally settled on one called `The Bumper Book for Boys'. It had a picture of a boy about his own age on the cover, cradling a football in his arms and running away from a cluster of other boys. His brow was furrowed and mouth turned down. Perhaps he was supposed to look determined, but to Terrence he just looked sad. Somehow that odd combination of feelings drew Terrence in.

He turned over the thick, stained pages, looking first at the drawings. He chose a story mid-way through the book. It had quite a few drawings, and the intriguing title `The Dormitory 'Tecs'. Above all it was only a few pages long. Terrence wrinkled his nose at the musty smell, but settled back and read: "Huge was a bully, likewise a glutton. Queer, isn't it, how the two things go together; anyway, they did so in old Huge." By the second line Terrence found he was reading in a different accent. It was a very proper English accent such as he'd heard on wildlife documentaries.

But instead of telling him about the mating habits of badgers, this story was full of `chaps', and `chums' who saved up their `prog' from `exeat days'. And how one chap nicknamed Holmes did a bit of `super-'tecking' in the `dorms'. It was a world Terrence could barely find any connection with, but he read on, anxious for some reason to know what would happen to `old Huge'.

It was more than a disappointment to get to the end and find that Matron and Holmes had caught Huge out for stealing `prog'. "Huge got a swishing, and deserved it; next term he was moved to pastures new." Terrence threw the book to the floor. More smarty pantses and pushy females getting the better of people. Irritably he turned on his side and flicked the lamp off.

As the boy lay in his bed, he was watched from the top of the cupboard by a very interested cluster of eyes. The eyes had watched him staring and smiling at the girl asleep in the other bed; had seen him throw his shorts and shirt at the foot of his bed; had observed him pull on his pyjamas and get into bed. The spider had also noticed the wriggling toes that protruded from the end of the bed, tapping a happy tune. Shanks had lifted a couple of his legs involuntarily, as though to do a march of his own. But he stilled them and smiled. A little patience. When the boy finished reading, the light would be turned off, and his breathing would soon match the girl's. Then it might be time to do a little light-footed marching.

* * *

At the end of a long dark tunnel stood a severe bespectacled woman holding a long stick. She tapped one foot impatiently as she waited for the boy to come and get his punishment. The boy tried to look away, hiding a plastic bag full of something that wasn't his. "Come on Boy. Give it here to me!" He looked up, and saw that the woman was now a huge cat, ginger coat flecked with grey, and a pair of rimless glasses perched on her nose. She/it still held a long cane, but now it curved and tapered at the end like a giant claw.

He reached into the bag and took out one item, as if it might appease her. It was a chocolate-coated fish head. The woman/cat began howling angrily. He dropped the bag, turned and tried to run, but suddenly the tunnel filled with water, and he was washed towards the cat. In the dream the boy had forgotten how to swim. The water slapped coldly into his face. He took one, two huge unwanted draughts, before going under completely. Wildly his arms thrashed about for something to pull him up. Almost at the height of his panic he felt something long and spindly and inflexible grip him. He was hauled out of the water by an enormous spider. Though he had no air for it, he screamed violently as the spider softly began to say "You shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't have done it."

Terrence was shaking uncontrollably, his heart beating to bursting point, as he woke out of the nightmare. He frantically looked around the half-familiar room, trying to remember where he was. It took one awful minute for him to convince himself that everything was alright. He was at his Nan and Pa's shack, he'd had a bad dream, but there was nothing to worry about. There was nothing to worry about.

Just as his heart beat was slowing, he heard softly but distinctly in his left ear "you shouldn't have done it to poor old Shanks". Terrence threw his bedclothes off and leapt up, thrashing his arms about his head as if swishing at deadly wasps. He reached for his bedside lamp, but knocked it to the floor, breaking the globe with a thin audible crack. He swung around towards the main light, fumbling for fully thirty seconds before finally turning it on.

In the full light he desperately reached for his slippers, shaking them carefully before putting them on. Then he looked right around the room, all the time breathing quick and shallow. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he did it thoroughly. And he found nothing. He even checked under Peg's pillow. She stayed asleep the whole time, a peaceful blankness on her face.

Terrence finally sat back on his bed. It was time to think a bit more calmly. He'd had a rough couple of days after all. He'd met and fallen in with a very smart cat, and a very ... well, a dog as well. And he'd fought a cunning battle with a nasty spider, having to overcome his fear of creepy things. Of course it wouldn't be unusual to dream about these things, given the circumstances. That's all it was. The darkness plus his fears had made the dream seem more real than most. If he just relaxed for a while, he'd soon be able to sleep again.

Still, Terrence left his light on for another twenty minutes before deciding he'd be okay again. He then gave his bedclothes another thorough check, looked in all the drawers, and even under the bed. When he was sure everything was clear, he crept over and turned off the light. He then jumped back into bed almost without touching the floor and pulled the sheet up around his ears with a shiver. The steady breathing of Peg became a surprising comfort to him, and he decided he was glad she was there. But he was still occasionally shivering when at last he floated off to sleep again.

From the dark peace of this dream-free sleep, Terrence fell suddenly into the waking world of voices. Again, as small and clear as a pimple he heard "shouldn't have done it. He'll haunt you. Shanks'll haunt you." It was all he could do not to scream. He repeated his mad tarantella, then rushed straight for the door, this time without his slippers. He wasn't staying in that room for any money.

So Terrence spent the rest of a very long night huddled up in a wicker chair in the living room. He kept warm under his grandfather's woollen duffle coat, but slept only fitfully. He was in that position when his Pa came out to fill the kettle at 6.30.

Armitage Shanks: Chapter 2

[an Armitage Shanks toilet, newer than the one at the Bruny Island shack. Photo courtesy heatandplumb.com]

[the plot thickens ... with some more action in the toilet]

Shanks had some difficulty understanding what happened next. From the T.V. he had learned what a male needed in order to be popular with females. He could check himself off against the list. Handsome? Yes. Slim? Yes. Tall? Yes. Tanned? Yes. He was all these things and more.

So it was something of a blow when Peg's first reaction to him was to stifle a scream, haul up her pants, and reach for the door. Fortunately Shanks did two things to save the situation. Firstly, he did nothing. That is he stayed perfectly still. Then, and he had no good reason for doing so, he began humming "God Save The Queen." Perhaps his royalist streak came out under pressure. Whatever the reason, it had the desired effect.

Peg's hand froze on the doorknob. She stood there gawping. A tinsel-thin tuneful rattle was coming from the direction of a spider on the toilet wall! It crossed her mind that Terrence had put a trick spider there - one of those things with a computerised tune inside it. But the sound was too random, too "animal", to be electronic. It wasn't even in tune. And the creature she was staring at looked far too realistic. Then, as she stood there open-mouthed, the sound changed. The spider was speaking. She swallowed hard to clear her ears, but it altered nothing. The spider was speaking to her.

In his mind Shanks had gone through all kinds of clever opening lines. Perhaps he'd try "Do you come here often?", or "We must stop meeting like this", or even "Hello, this is Armitage Shanks. First the headlines." There was no shortage of patter he'd picked up. Yet somehow when it came to it, he fell back on old spider habits. "Like a bit of cockroach?" was all he could manage.

Peg closed her mouth, and appeared to swallow, before she replied. "I ... err... thanks. I mean no thanks. I ..?" She seemed just as lost for words as her host. Suddenly Shanks remembered his manners. "Oh ... please sit down." With that he gave a broad friendly smile. What Peg thought of it was unclear, but she accepted his invitation and sat back on the toilet seat (this time its cover was down.) She adjusted her clothing, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on the spider.

"Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm Armitage Shanks, Benign Huntsman, Lord Of All That You Survey." He bowed and flourished one of his front legs as he said this. All the chivalry he'd learned from a recent television series was being recalled. Peg strained forward, unable to hear clearly the wispy speech coming from her host. But she picked up the name. Armitage Shanks. Where had she heard that before? She had no time to think now. The spider was rocking gently up and down on his feet, obviously waiting for a returned introduction from the squatting figure.

***

"Oh.. um, I'm Peg Priddle. But everyone calls me Square Peg ... 'cause I don't fit in." She gave a little laugh, but she didn't really look amused. Shanks wasn't either. Peg began to blush, but quickly covered it up by blurting out "Anyhow, how come you can talk?" Shanks hadn't expected that question. It crossed his mind that being benign might mean you could talk to humans. But Aunty Scuttle was benign too, and she'd never said a word to a person as far as he knew.

"I watch the old box" he replied, slipping into Televisionese. Peg just looked puzzled. "You what?" "I learned it from the telly. You know, Play School, Sesame Street, Neighbours, Eastenders.." He would have gone on to list his Top Forty programs, but Peg interrupted. "You mean you learned how to speak by watching television?" "Correct. Please wait till I say your name." Shanks was still quite nervous. It was only with a conscious effort that he didn't break into "God Save The Queen" again.

"But I thought all spiders were .." Peg stopped herself from insulting her host. "Were what?" Shanks asked innocently. Before she had a chance to think up a good reply, they both heard footsteps followed by a voice calling out. "PAIRG...Peggy". They recognised Peg's Grandfather. "Coming Pa," she bellowed, then turned to Shanks as she got up to leave. "Look I'm gonna have to go. Can I meet you here again? After lunch?" He nodded. "Sure thing. Adios till then." With a quick if still bewildered grin, Peg left his room.

Shanks sat there stunned. Then he slowly began to feel warm all over. He'd actually got to meet the girl of his dreams. And what's more, he had a date to see her again. In near ecstasy he bounded off towards the ceiling. "Oh bloated blowfly, what did Shanks do to deserve this. Ah moldy mosquito, my numbers have come up! Oh curdled cockroach..." Which reminded him. He slipped off into the ceiling to have one of these delights. No, blow it all, he might have all three!

As Peg came out of the toilet, her Pa gave her a queer look. "Who were you talking to in there?" With a perfectly straight face Peg said simply "Oh, I was talking to a spider." "Not another bloomin' Huntsman? I oughta spray the whole place." Peg opened her mouth in horror, but her grandfather was continuing. "But I s'pose they'd soon be back. And they say Huntsmen are benign enough. Matter of fact, I parcelled one up in paper and took him out to the garden last night. Don't reckon they bite, but I weren't takin' chances." Then, almost as an afterthought he added, "Besides they give mum the creeps." He'd never met a woman who wasn't scared of spiders, and he wondered at Peg casually talking to one in the confines of the toilet.

***

As Peg walked furtively along the hallway to the toilet, she was sure she was alone. It was three days now since she'd met her extraordinary new friend, but she was still being careful. She had the feeling no-one else was quite ready for him yet. Yet in her own mind she felt she'd always known him. He was so interesting; so little like a spider, or what she had imagined spiders to be like. Other girls could have their dumb rabbits and kittens. She would have her talking Huntsman any day. Cute and cuddly wasn't all there was to look for in an animal friend. Still, just at present he would be her secret friend.

Outside the toilet she gave her special whistle to let Shanks know she was coming. She looked quickly around to see if she had been noticed. Nothing. She turned the wobbly doorknob and went in, looking up to see if Shanks was in his usual spot. Catching sight of him she smiled, greeted him, and turned to latch the door. At the same moment there was a creak and a thump, and the door was suddenly flung open straight into Peg's forehead. She shouted in pain and slumped to the floor, holding her head.

Ignoring her, Terrence pushed his way into the room. "Who do you think you're talking to?" Peg lay moaning on the floor, but as Terrence tried to get past her, she knew she had to stop him. Just as he saw the large brown spider, she started screaming at him. He gave her one hard look; did the same to the spider, then calmly left the room before his grandparents arrived. There'd be plenty of time to get her back, and find out all about this grotesque thing she'd been talking to.

***

The large tom-cat stretched, head low, tail high, a bumpy, gingery slippery dip. Geoffrey had had a hard morning following the sunshine around the veranda. It would still be two more moves before the sun reached his basket. Till then he would have to make do with hard floorboards. Such was the lot of Geoffrey Boycat, retired mouser, ratter, birder and blue-tonguer extraordinaire. Venerable though he was, he felt hard done by. Surely a retired champion should be treated with more respect. Why, for instance, wasn't his basket moved around for him? As he settled back down on the floor-boards, he vaguely wondered whether the sun might be asked to move for him.

As Geoffrey contemplated this, he was disturbed by the one bane of his life. A yap, a shuffle of paws, and a disgusting snuffling sound told him he had a visitor. Lump Sum, the Pekinese dog, had come to see him. Geoffrey should have been impressed. Lump Sum was a profoundly aristocratic dog. He had a long pedigree to prove it. He had blue ribbons from the Electrona and Snug District Dog Show. And he had a venerable Pekinese name, even if he was too stupid or lazy to remember it. (Was it Lap Sang Sou Chong? Or was that the type of tea Mumsy liked?)

Regardless, Geoffrey most definitely did not venerate this pathetic excuse for a dog. The thing would make a better floor mop. Geoffrey turned his face away from the wheezing wimp, and pretended to be asleep. He could not help twitching his ears and wrinkling his nose at the awful smell that hovered around Lump Sum. The dirty thing had been rolling in rotting fish again.

Lump Sum was too thick to notice any of this. He waddled up to Geoffrey and nudged him with a dribbly muzzle. When this brought no response, he barked loudly in the cat's ear. With a slow, measured movement of the head, Geoffrey turned to face the dog. At the same time, he aimed a lightning-fast pawful of claws at the rumpled face. Dumb or not, Lump Sum was also quick. He effortlessly dodged the paw, yapped once more, then launched into excited chatter.

"Guess what ... guess what ... hruhh hruhhh!" He slobbered sibilantly. "Spider can talk! Talk 's good as me! Over nek door. Hruhh hruhh ... Spider talk ... 's good as me!" Geoffrey raised one sarcastic eyebrow, but didn't comment. Despite himself he was interested in what this gibbering idiot was saying. Lump Sum went on. "The girl, the boy, the visders ... hruhh hruhhh ... you know, nek door. Over nek door." He pointed his mangled muzzle in the general direction. ("You're not a pointer old thing", thought Geoffrey with a scornful sneer. "More of a panter, really.") Lump Sum continued to wheeze and waddle as he told more of his news.

The cat lay there waiting. Economy of movement was one of his creeds. He knew the Lump would get to the point eventually. There were several agonising minutes while the dog put the English language through torture. Eventually Geoffrey worked out that something genuinely unique was happening "nek door". Something he could use to add to his already considerable fame and prestige. He might need help, someone to do the dirty work. But he could see that the capture and execution of a notorious spider would set him up for life. He knew how much They (the Feeder and the Adorer) loathed spiders. Especially the Adorer. Please her and you pleased the Feeder. Please the Feeder and ... ahhh ... Food, Fame and Fortune.

As he lay there the wheezing background of Lump Sum's chatter became waves lapping on a tropical shore. As Geoffrey slipped off into a delicious dream, one pearl was washed up on the shore. Among the dog's rabbitings he distinctly heard "... but the boy he hate the spider. The visder, the boy ...oooh my words, he hate the spider." Now that could be useful. Soon. Meanwhile sleep took priority, even over food, fame and fortune. There would be time for those soon enough.

* * *

Armitage Shanks: Chapter 1

[this is NOT a huntsman spider ... but I had to start on you arachnophobiacs somewhere!]

[here begins the unfinished tale of Armitage Shanks - a story for all ages, but mostly for me ... In this episode we are introduced to Armitage Shanks and his friend Peg, and also discover the origins of the name Aunty Scuttle.]

Armitage Shanks was spitting mad. He squeezed up under the rough wooden join between the wall and the ceiling. It was not the squeezing that riled him. He loved nothing better. From the flickering gloom below him came a rattle, a thump and a mumble as the two people settled down to tea in front of the T.V. As usual, he too stared at the shimmering screen, but tonight his heart was not in it. He was fuming. "Three hours! Three scudmungling hours!" He rocked rhythmically from side to side, winding up his anger.

As he moved, the man suddenly looked his way. He froze, then squeezed further back into the shadow. He could still feel the man's fear as fresh as when, three hours before, those trembling hands had wrapped Shanks in paper and cast him out into the cold. And the woman's wild shriek that had come moments before. He felt that again too, though right now the woman was too busy stuffing large slabs of sausage into her mouth to notice him.

"Oh spittle! Why is it always me?" With one final glare over his hairy shoulder, he left the lounge-room and clambered through the ceiling towards his bedroom to nurse his anger. His bedroom was actually the toilet of this modest holiday house, but Shanks thought it particularly well appointed. It had an ample supply of insects including some juicy blow flies. It also had fine access through two huntsman-size cracks in the ceiling, not to mention the door and the window.

But all that was nothing compared with its crowning glory - the special shiny white seat from which he had taken his name. Despite his foul mood, he momentarily felt the same warm glow he always felt when he saw his name in black and white. For one thing, not every Huntsman could read as Armitage Shanks could. (He had taught himself by watching television.) But it also reminded him how distinguished his name was compared with any other spider he knew.

Of course he had great respect for the likes of his grandfather, the legendary Grandpa Grapple. And he dearly loved his Aunty Scuttle, who had brought him up almost single-legged after the Mortein Disaster that took his mother and father. Still, seeing such a distinguished name so boldly proclaimed, and knowing it to be your own, does tend to engender a certain pride.

All of this only served to deepen Shanks' anger. He was not just any spider. He was Armitage Shanks, a spider of distinction from a famous line of Benign Huntsmen. More than once he had heard the humans refer to his kind as `benign', and although he didn't actually know what it meant (a television education has its limits), he didn't feel that being shrieked at, wrapped in newspaper and tossed out into the garden, was quite it. So there Shanks sat, benign but brooding, listening to the louder than usual clatter coming from below. At last he flattened himself into an uneasy sleep.

When Shanks woke up he felt good. Surprisingly so, since his bedtime mosquito had tasted noticeably of spray. With a new spring in his step, he scuttled off towards the living room. He always liked to see what was happening down below. The moment he was within earshot of the humans he knew something was different. Squidging himself into the crack above the stove, he saw to his surprise that there were three people in the kitchen. The sight of the older woman was about to return Shanks to the bad mood of the night before, but before he could properly remember why, something far more important happened. The woman was talking to the newcomer. Even from where he was Shanks could see that this person was a child; a girl to be exact. But what made him open all his eyes wide was what he heard the child say. It came in the middle of a chat with the old woman.

"Deary me Peg, how you've grown. Let me look at you. How old are you now?" Then came the surprise. "I'll be nine in July, Nan." BENIGN! Shanks nearly spun a web on the spot. Benign...the very word which described himself, and now here was someone else who was benign. He felt an instant bond with the lumpy little girl at the kitchen bench below. As her grandmother chatted away, Peg looked casually around the unfamiliar room. Shanks was able to see her chubby freckled face, and her crooked gappy teeth. Such beauty! It was love at first sight. He hadn't known that humans could be benign, but as he stared at Peg's wide friendly face he had no more doubts.

Shanks had to try hard not to rush down there and then to greet his new-found friend. It was only the sight and sound of Peg's grandma that kept him still. He decided to give the whole situation a bit of thought. He would have to wait until he could see Peg by herself. That meant finding out which room she was in. Right, he would scuttle off through the ceiling and scout around. He was about to carry out this plan when another strange sound came from below.

Shanks turned to see a large gangly looking boy walking into the kitchen. His arms, his mouth, his hair were all stretched out in an enormous yawn. If it had been meant to scare a Huntsman, the boy couldn't have done a better job. Shanks took a quick step back.

"Morning sleepy head." His grandmother got up from the kitchen table and ruffled his hair. "What a sight!" " 'mornin' Nan," mumbled the boy, ducking away from the tousling hand to sit beside his sister at the breakfast table. In the next few minutes Shanks pieced together some more details about the new arrival. Terrence was Peg's brother, older by nearly four years. He didn't like breakfast, didn't like mornings, and didn't like being called Terrence. Worse still, he didn't seem to like Peg much either. Shanks began to think there wasn't much to like about this Terrence.

Worse news followed. It seemed that Peg and Terrence were sharing the same bedroom. Shanks' plans would have to change. There would be no chance of properly meeting his dream-girl with that brother around. So with his mood becoming gloomier by the minute, he went back to his room to suck on a wasp. Nothing cleared the mind so well.

Within the hour Shanks had a new plan. He knew that every day the humans came to his room at least four or five times. Sometimes they stayed and sat, sometimes they were in and out very quickly. He would wait until Peg came to his room for her long visit. That would be the right time for him to introduce himself.

He did not have long to wait, though it seemed it. After breakfast there was something of a procession into his room. It was often the time for long visits. As each visitor came, he anxiously crept to his usual vantage point. At one stage he felt sure he heard Peg about to enter the room, but there was a commotion at the door which resulted in Terrence pushing his way in first. And his stay seemed to be deliberately prolonged. He sat there reading something called "Woman's Day." Shanks' anger rose again. He muttered all kinds of dark threats and expletives to himself. "Sale of the Century! He'll feel my fangs on his butt if he doesn't take the money and run!"

But Terrence soon finished reading the latest about some long past royal event. With a touch of the button on Shanks' own royal throne, the thunder of water signalled the boy's departure. His odious presence was rapidly replaced by that of the beloved Peg. She came rushing into the room, bent over and cross-legged, her pants falling towards her ankles. Shanks' throat suddenly caught, overwhelmed again by the beauteous sight of the Benign Miss Peg. He cleared his throat, smoothed down his scopulae, and stepped into full view.

***

A Bruny Reunion

[pic: looking across the D'Entrecasteaux Channel from North Bruny Island]

[some thoughts on our experience of islands, and particularly Tasmania's Bruny Island]

Why do islands grip our hearts so? Peninsulas and promontories are all very well; seaside towns and mountain villages can be a delight. But there is something uniquely seductive about islands.

Island-dwelling novelist David Guterson, famous for Snow Falling on Cedars, offers this explanation.

Islands fill mainlanders with an unabashed yearning for a life simpler than the one they endure, a pared-down life in which all that is elemental - sea, wind, sun, love, the last light of day, the sand beneath fingernails - is brought to the fore-front of existence.

It was more than 30 years ago that our family first visited Bruny Island, across the D’Entrecasteaux Channel south of Hobart. The long, twin landmasses are joined at the Neck, a sand isthmus, but the twins are far from identical. South Bruny is the wild sylvan sister; North Bruny the conservative bucholic brother. The south has high, wet, wooded hills – almost mountains – running down to dramatic capes, strands and headlands. The north is drier, more cleared, laconic like a farmer.

That’s only on the surface, because both Brunies can sneak up on you, each in her or his own way. The north can turn dramatic, like a farmer who fits all the stereotypes but then takes to reading poetry and preparing fillet mignon to perfection in a romantic candle-lit dinner. And the south can be gentle and sweet, bursting with wildflowers, and weather that is full of sweetness and light.

To my initial untrained eye, Bruny’s lack of remoteness – the island can be seen from many of Hobart’s suburbs – lessened its appeal. Back then I was besotted with the grand, remote wilderness places of Tasmania. They were Bach’s B Minor Mass. Bruny aseemed more a snatch from a Bach cantata.

But then Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring fits that category, and how many compositions can match the sublime perfection of that diminutive masterpiece? To return to Bruny is to discover again a down-home, “she’ll-do” shackiness cheek by jowl with the wild. As if to reinforce that one morning our dog walk turns to dolphin spotting as a pod of dolphins sports and cavorts at one end of Nebraska Beach. And another night a curious eatern quoll peers in the deck door.

The weather too is wild. A westerly gale hauls a load of clouds that bounce off the higher mountains to the west. This creates mountain waves, alternating bands of clear sky and cloud. The air thrums deeply. I can’t determine whether it is a frequency created by the abrasion of wind on earth or the beating of waves on the shore.

On one early visit, in the late 1980s, we stayed with friends who had borrowed a shack at Dennes Point, near the northern tip of Bruny. There are shacks and there are shacks. This peculiarly Tasmanian name for a holiday house can apply to anything from a humpy to a seaside mansion. This shack was much nearer to the former than the latter. The ceilings were sagging and stained with possum piss from the resident screeching marsupials. Stealthy legged and noisy winged wildlife also had free rein through the house, most annoyingly in the form of squadrons of mosquitoes. The beds were lumpy and in a dubious hygienic state.

Four adults and 6 children spent two hilarious nights in the shack. That at least is how we came to see it in retrospect. At the time it was a case of roll over; swat; get up; hunt mosquitoes; change a nappy; hush a child; listen to our friends’ children scream; listen to our children scream; scream a bit ourselves; and finally laugh and get up at first light.

Apart from retrospective humour, the shack bequeathed one other long-lasting treasure. From somewhere in my febrile, sleep-deprived mind, a children’s story was hatched. It was inspired by the squalid, wildlife-invaded building. That and the brand name of the shack’s toilet: Armitage Shanks. Somehow a story featuring a huntsman spider who could read and speak was formed.

20 something years later, I confess with some chagrin, the story is still not finished. But getting back to Bruny, the scene of its conception, has inspired me to post the so-far-completed chapters on this blog. Who knows, it may inspire me to finish the story. Perhaps that mosquito at 3am this morning was a sign.