Susan and the knowledgeable Plumber
The air in Susan’s backyard was thick with the scent of eucalyptus and the high-pitched, electric scream of a chainsaw. She winced as a thick limb, heavy with grey-green leaves, crashed to the ground, sending a tremor through the earth. The man responsible, a grizzled figure named Barry, killed the saw and the sudden silence was almost deafening.
“Righto, Susan,” he said, his voice a dry rustle like the leaves beneath his boots. “That’s the worst of it. The old girl was a liability. One good southerly and she’d have been through your kitchen window.”
Susan nodded, looking at the remnants of the majestic gum tree. “It’s a shame, though. It was beautiful. The birds loved it.”
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Barry’s face, weathered and lined like a topographical map, split into a grin. “Oh, they’ll find a new perch, don’t you worry. The birdlife in this city is tougher than a boot full of spiders.” He pointed a thick, calloused finger towards the empty space where the canopy had been. “See that flash of red over there? That’s a male Scarlet Robin. A beauty. They’re not as common as they used to be. Prefer the open woodland, not so much the suburbs.”
Susan followed his gaze, spotting a tiny, fiery-breasted bird flitting between the branches of a neighbouring wattle. She’d seen it before, of course, but never really seen it.
Barry continued, his chatter as much a part of his work as his chainsaw. He’d already identified a family of New Holland Honeyeaters, and what he claimed was a restless flycatcher, calling it a “scissor-grinder” due to its grating, mechanical song. He was a walking encyclopedia of ornithology.
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“Over on the north shore,” he said, gesturing vaguely with his hard hat, “I was taking down a dead ironbark. A glorious specimen, full of hollows. I had to stop the job because a pair of Powerful Owls were roosting in there. That’s the biggest owl in Australia, you know. They have these massive, dark eyes and a call that’ll send a shiver down your spine. ‘Woo-hoo… woo-hoo…’ He imitated the deep, resonant hoot perfectly. “I told the homeowner, sorry love, your tree has to wait. The owls are the boss. You don’t mess with an apex predator for the sake of a carport. She wasn’t happy, but the council backed me up. And you know what? Two weeks later, we saw the owlets. Fluffy little grey things, learning to hunt.”
Susan was utterly captivated. “Were you a vet or something?” she asked, genuinely impressed by his depth of knowledge. “A zoologist? Ornithologist?”
Barry let out a dry, wheezing chuckle that turned into a cough. He wiped his brow with a grimy red rag. “Nah, not me. I can’t stand the sight of blood. Or books, for that matter. No, no, I used to be a plumber.”
Susan blinked. “A plumber?”
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“For thirty-five years,” he said, a distant look in his eyes. “And if you think listening to a cockatoo screech is bad, you haven’t lived until you’ve been under a house in Glebe at midnight trying to fix a burst pipe that’s flooded the entire basement, and you’re knee-deep in water with god-knows-what and a family of brush-turkeys is having a conniption on the lawn above you.” He shook his head. “But the birds… the birds were my solace.”
He threw his head back and let out a perfect, startlingly realistic rendition of a magpie’s carolling, a sound that echoed around the quiet street. Then he launched into his stories.
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“I worked on a mansion in Bellevue Hill once. The old pipes were made of clay. The whole system had collapsed. The owner was a florist, spent a fortune on her garden. We had to dig a trench right through her prized rose bed. She was crying. I felt terrible. And then, right at the bottom of the trench, I found a skull. A perfect, pristine wedge-tailed eagle skull, probably fifty years old. It was wedged in the clay pipe. She let me keep it. Still got it on my mantelpiece.”
His voice softened. “One time, in Paddington, I had to replace the entire sewer line for this old terrace. The pipes were choked with roots. It was a nightmare of a job, hot, stinking, and claustrophobic. But in that dark, damp crawlspace, I found the nest of a tawny frogmouth. She was there, on a little clutch of eggs, just staring at me with those huge yellow eyes. I didn’t have the heart to disturb her. I re-routed the whole damn pipe around her nest, cost me a day and the client a fortune. He was furious, but I told him, ‘This is her house, mate. We’re just fixing the plumbing.’”
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He chuckled. “The worst, though, was a high-rise in the city. A burst hot water system on the top floor flooded five stories. The pressure was unbelievable. The ceiling in the penthouse came down in a huge, wet slurry of plaster and water. It was absolute chaos. Soaking wet carpets, panicked hotel guests, the whole shebang. I’m up to my elbows in the mess, trying to find the isolation valve, and I see this tiny creature. A little brown bird, a silvereye, poor thing had flown in through an open window and was completely dazed, sitting on a pile of wet towels, trembling.”
He looked down at Susan, his gaze intense. “You know what I did? I stopped everything. I took that little bird, dried it off gently with my own clean handkerchief, and opened the window. It just sat on my finger for a minute, blinking, then it shot off into the city skyline.” He shrugged, a simple, profound gesture. “It wasn’t saving the world. But those little moments, they made all the dodgy, horrible, shitty jobs worth it. They kept me sane.”
Barry picked up his chainsaw again. “So, you see, I’m not a vet. I’m just a bloke who spent his life looking for the little patches of wild in this big city. And I learned that even when you’re up to your armpits in someone else’s troubles, there’s always a bird out there, singing a story that’s worth more than any pipe.”
He revved the engine, winked at Susan, and got back to work. As the sawdust flew, Susan looked at the empty space where her tree had been, but she didn’t see a loss. She saw a beginning, and she saw a Scarlet Robin, a tiny spark of life against the blue, singing its heart out.
