Canguro

 

The Kongouro from New Holland (Kangaroo) 1772 by George Stubbs. National Maritime Museum object reference ZBA5754

It was darkening, the La Niña grass waving green in front of the house. The house was full of furniture that was much too large and grand for it. Oil paintings jostled for prominence in the tight space and the plaster needed to be repainted. Every week a new culinary experiment took centre-stage in the kitchen. On the first visit it was an aquarium-sized bowl of water kefir with lemons in lieu of goldfish. Then there was a whole leg of prosciutto under a tea towel - lifting the covering revealed the meat staged baroquely over a cutting board. To exit the space, one had to shimmy around the inlaid wood dining table, then proceed through the sliding door. Out there was the lawn with the vista. The ranges around to the right, dissolving into yellowing pasture with Fred Williams-like daubs, and then the wind farms which appeared smaller than candle wicks from here.

The men were out hunting. I imagined the quiet folding in around them, just the wind, the snap of branches underfoot, and the rustling of clothes. 

At the long grass in front of the house, the women (of which I was one of two) were cooking dinner on a portable barbecue, keeping watch over walking, running and crawling children, as well as a mob of domestic animals that were driven back to their wild states by the scent of cooking meat. Babies were held, put down, placated, and animals were shooed off outdoor tables laden with food.

The men drew breaths of alpine air. Beers were shared. So easy and sure, I thought.

I was so busy removing a kitten's face from a pear tart that I missed the gun shot.

Back home, it was almost midnight. The kids tumbled into their beds in their clothes and fell asleep with open mouths and unbrushed teeth. In the kitchen, I labelled vacuum sealed bags: Roo backstrap. Roo leg. The vacuum sealer whirred into life, upsetting the stillness of the cool summer night, threatening to dislodge children from dreams. Legs were deboned and lean, plum-red meat filled bags. 

***

At the start of our La Niña summer it rained for weeks. The grass was so green that horses got fat and suffered from laminitis. I watched a video of a guru talking about suffering. He said that we exist between memory, present experience and imagination - if we lose the distinction between these dimensions then everything hurts. If our suffering has ended, we need to move on, not luxuriate and relive our previous agony because it is fashionable to suffer. The guru had a smooth, beatific face and yet looked exasperated.

Saint Anthony the Great talked about the three traps - dwelling on past regrets, fear of the future, and ingratitude in the present. The rain continued. My face appeared in different windows of the house looking out over the tall grass. The kangaroos boxing near an ice-rink sized puddle in our front yard ignored me too. When the rain finally stopped, I could hazard a guess at the joy of Noah. 

***

Kids, I say. I have a funny story about a kangaroo. Remember I worked at a fashion magazine?  I was the art and culture editor. I lined up an interview with an Italian film director, he was an Oscar winner. 

I was driving, the baby was asleep. My daughters craned forward a little. 

I was at the supermarket, I continued. At Piedimonte's, and a publicist called me from the London Film Festival asking if I was ready to talk to Paolo Sorrentino. I stood in the deli section looking at my shopping basket in shock. I said, 'give me 15,' and I ran home to take the call in Papa's studio because I needed a quiet space. I sat on bags of clay and talked to the director. He was writing a TV series about the Pope, called The Young Pope. He said that the Neopolitans and English have the same sense of humour. We were talking through a translator but I think he understood English pretty well. I asked him how he views the world - through emotions or through experience. He said firstly through intuition, then revelation. 

I turned briefly to see if the kids were still listening. Augustine had a slight arch in her eyebrow.

We talked about music, and he recommended Andrew Bird to me. Then Papa and I watched the series and guess what he added? The director put in a story where the Australian foreign minister to the Vatican gives the newly appointed pope a kangaroo as a gift. The kangaroo hops around the Vatican gardens in the series. Perhaps he put that in for me after our talk?  The kangaroo wasn't real obviously, it was computer generated but that made it even more surreal. Maybe if it was just the kangaroo, I wouldn't think anything, but he also used a song from an Australian musician in the series that I had mentioned on the magazine's website. 

There was another two hours of driving ahead and we were all lost in our own thoughts as we passed by the fields of long grass.

Pope Pius XII played by Jude Law in Paolo Sorrentino's The Young Pope.  On using a kangaroo in the series he said: "It's funny; it makes you laugh when men start meeting atypical animals, exotic animals. Also because uncommon animals, not cats and dogs, but kangaroos or giraffes, they put you in front of the mystery of yourself."