Siddon Rock by Glenda Guest

Author:Glenda Guest
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2009-01-20T22:00:00+00:00

The houses on the outside streets of Siddon Rock turned their faces towards the town centre and their backs to the bush. Maureen Mather lived in one of these houses, one that had ramps, and doorways altered so she could move her wheelchair easily between house and garden.

The Mathers’ backyard, like all those bordering the town edge, had a high back fence made of pickets nailed close together to form a solid wall and as much of a civilised garden as the indifferent rainfall and scorching summer sun would allow. Maureen’s grandmother had started the plantings some sixty years before when the fence had been made of brush cut from the surrounding bush and tied with wire. The grandmother said that she could not sleep peacefully with the wild bush so close to her bedroom window, and that the fence at least gave a semblance of control over her home. She was also the first woman in the Mather family to see a wild woman squatting on the fence who, she said to the one or two women she could tell such things to, seemed to have two faces and could look in two directions at the same time, as if she was trying to decide whether to jump into the enclosed yard or out into the wild bush.

Since Maureen was two years old she knew the woman as part of the landscape and had no need to comment on her appearances. Macha Connor was the only other person who saw the wild woman. She said to Maureen that one day Maureen would have to help the woman decide which way to jump. Maureen just laughed. She’s been there forever, she said. Nothing will change.

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