I’ve never been able to take conspiracy theories too seriously or too personally. I’ve always found it hard to believe anyone could win very much by making me lose, because life doesn’t seem to be a game where anyone really wins or loses, and we all break even in the end. Besides, any conspiracy which generates theories doesn’t seem to be a conspiracy to be too concerned about anyway ... though that could be exactly what ‘they’ want me to believe.
So I’m a sceptic. In fact, I’m even sceptical about being a sceptic. I never know whether I should rejoice in my scepticism and join a Sceptic Tank, or denounce scepticism and join a church, since faith is an anti-sceptic for the soul. But I’m more of an old-fashioned Sceptic with a capital ‘S’, because I don’t so much disbelieve, as refuse to believe on the basis that most things are unprovable, and it doesn’t bother me either way anyway.
I’ve never seen a ghost or had a spiritual experience, so I might doubt, but I don’t deny the possibility of their existence. I’ve never seen anything vaguely reminiscent of a UFO, and will likely never meet an alien, but I still have a soft spot for their notional existence. (Though filmed footage of such purported encounters always leaves me despairing of human gullibility. Why does it seem so easy to believe in the existence of an entirely alien culture, but not alien air traffic regulations?) But the concept of alien abductions troubles me. Not because it could be happening, but because of the aliens’ choice of abductees. Like the factory worker from Auckland who claims he’s been abducted every night for several years, no matter where he is, and without his wife, sleeping beside him, noticing. Could he possibly be that interesting, physically or intellectually, that anyone would want to spend every night with him? Maybe if he was Stephen Hawking or Arnold Schwarzenegger even, it might make some sense. The thought of aliens travelling light years just to abduct a factory worker from Auckland, simply fills me with unease. That’s just not the kind of aliens I want to believe in.
Yet that doesn’t make it not true. Maybe we all look alike to them, and maybe there’s nothing any of us could say that would be of any interest to them. After all, do vivisectionists converse with their victims? Still, you have to wonder at the rationale for abducting humans then letting them go on national TV to talk about it. Either it’s supposed to be a secret, or it’s not. So are they just space hoons playing practical jokes, or did they buy their memory erasers from some cosmic Warehouse?
Yet there are moments when the thought of being abducted by aliens and taken to some faraway planet does have an appeal ... even if just to have some memories erased. (Assuming, of course, that they’re an advanced species in every way, so the worst I could expect would be to end my days being gawped at in a comfortably humane zoo, and not on some slave planet shovelling nuclear waste.) Now, after six months of building, half a year of splinters, bruises, cuts and throbbing thumbs, endless muscle-weary days and infinite world-weary nights, was one of those moments.
For a fleeting, ecstatic moment I’d believed I had glimpsed the end shimmering on the horizon. Then the scorching rays of loss and futility flared anew, blistering my tender soul, and my momentary elation evaporated like a mirage. Suddenly it seemed a lifetime had passed since drought had first begun to ravage these fertile plains, transforming them almost overnight into a barren wasteland parched by the hostile sun, and Marion had abandoned me to my foolish fate. Why had I pushed stubbornly on, crawling across the emptiness until I’d gone too far to return, until I no longer had the energy to continue? And now, now that the last financial well had dried up, now that the vultures of loneliness and despair circled overhead, now that I could feel winter’s cold breath against my neck, only now did I understand that I could never reach the end. Not alone. Because finishing the house wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning.
I had been a King Midas, turning everything I touched, everything I owned, everything, not into gold, but into a house. I’d thought it would make me rich. Only now did I realise that as long as there was no life to fill it, the house could only make me poor. So desperately poor.
At that moment, being abducted by aliens would have been a blessed relief. But there were no aliens in the clear Central Otago sky (though, reportedly, just over the hill towards Tapanui is a major UFO convention centre), so any decision to be made was in my hands. I knew I couldn’t stay, but I also knew I couldn’t leave until the roof and floor were completed. And where would I go? This was my home, the only place I belonged. But I knew I had to leave, and I couldn’t return until I again discovered a reason to return, until I had a life to bring back.
June was slowly unravelling and the days were rapidly shortening. Most days were generally fine and sunny, making work bearable, if not entirely pleasant, but the nightly frosts were beginning to make shed-life uncomfortable, particularly in the mornings when the small gas heater struggled to thaw our breaths, and our numb fingers impotently fondled the icy tools. The temperature of the creek had also crossed the threshold from ‘bracing’ to ‘mind-numbing’ (not to mention what it did to all your other parts), so bathing was reduced to a minimum.
It was a simple, hermitic existence in our galvanised igloo, though occasionally we’d escape the evening cold by cycling to the village to shower at the motor-camp before heading to the tavern for a few warm hours by the fire. Such nights were always an adventure.
Firstly because cycling in almost-total darkness is always an adventure. Of course we had a torch, but it was an unwieldy thing, more suited to spotlighting possums than potholes, and it was impossible to grip the torch and the handlebars at the same time. If I didn’t have such poor balance, I could have ridden with no hands and illuminated a safe path home, but after my previous attempts at hand-less riding, I knew such a strategy could only illuminate a path to the nearest hospital. Of course I also still had the tandem bike-light, but as we’d discovered on that windswept night in Ireland when we’d needed it for the first and only time, it cast more light into my eyes than onto the road ahead. Besides, on a traffic-less, light-less road, your eyes quickly adjust to following that pale ribbon of road unwinding beneath your feet, and the feeling of detachment which overwhelms you makes it a strangely soothing experience.
Secondly, because I never knew what we’d find upon our return. One night a possum turning away in embarrassment over being caught dancing among the rafters by the sudden revealing light. Another frosty night a black-and-white tomcat huddled on the sofa between Momo and Spindle. Wasn’t it nice that they had a new friend, I thought as the tomcat dashed past us into the darkness. It was only later, after David had departed, that I realised the tomcat hadn’t been there for friendship.
By now we were both beginning to get itchy, and very cold, feet, so we were anxious to get the house to a waterproof, and insulated, state. In fact, I would have liked to move the entire house to a warmer state as well. So we tried to wring every drop of usefulness out of each hour of daylight. Unfortunately the prevalent frosty weather often meant the roof was icy until mid-morning, so there was often little we could do but drink coffee and wait for it to thaw (the roof, not the coffee... it wasn’t that cold). Because the front faces north, it usually defrosted reasonably swiftly, so we started work there, moving over to the south for a few hours as the poplar shadows lengthened across the verandah.
Preparing the roof for its meadow of grass required a number of stages.
Firstly, a framework of purlins had to be constructed. Followed by a layer of plywood to provide a smooth, flat surface for the butynol to adhere to. It was the butynol - an impervious rubber sheeting normally used for lining ponds - which would guarantee no moisture penetrated into the house. Operating from the verandah roof, with David cutting the required lengths as I nailed them onto the ceiling, the entire process proceeded smoothly, especially once we avoided working anywhere there were still patches of the night’s frosty residue.
A grass roof has an insulation value of approximately 6.0, which is more than two times the standard insulation values of a typical New Zealand home, but in a climate with harsh winter frosts and intense summer heat, every extra bit helps. So I’d opted to include another layer of insulation. Unfortunately, at the time I’d never heard of wool batts, and my initial queries regarding alternatives to fibreglass had been met with such bewilderment (as though I were seeking alternatives to oxygen), that I assumed fibreglass was the only insulation material available.
Suppliers usually exhibit symptoms of selective deafness at the first mention of insulation. When I eventually decided to insulate the shed, I was initially amazed at how abundant, and competitive, wool batts had seemingly become. “Wool batts? Yeh, we’ve got a whole warehouse full of them.” But when I went to pick them up, they’d direct me towards the vast pink mountain looming overhead. “But they’re not wool batts.” “Well, some of them are ceiling batts, but most are wall batts.” “No, we’re looking for wool batts, not wall batts. Batts made of wool? You know... baaaa!?” “Wool batts? No, we don’t have any wool batts.” It was to become a familiar conversation before the manufacturer finally gave me the name of a local stockist.
At the time, I’d never really considered pink batts as being potentially hazardous to your health anyway, so I wasn’t too concerned. When it comes to handling strange, artificial substances, I generally heed the manufacturer’s safety instructions. In this case, their only warning involved the threat of excessive inhalation of glass fibres while working with the material in a confined space. Since there was nothing whatsoever confined about standing on top of my roof exposed to the elements, I thought it would be relatively simple.
David was well versed in their perils and wasn’t taking any chances. Not only was he reluctant to handle them with his bare hands more than absolutely necessary, but draped his handkerchief across his mouth to avoid inhaling any glass-fibre fragments. This is not meant in any way to disparage David’s cautious approach - precautions, like religion, are a question of personal choice. I admit my own throat was itchy with sympathy by the end of the day.
But each time I glimpsed his bandana-covered face, I felt like we were recreating a famous train-top chase scene from one of those old westerns, though it required quite a stretch of the imagination to picture David as a ruthless desperado.
Now that all the major construction was complete, David felt free to leave. He not only wanted to escape the cold, but in the meantime had begun to contemplate establishing an environmental information centre in Dunedin. Not that he had any affiliation with the city, but it was one of the few major towns in New Zealand (apart from Invercargill) without such a centre. So he decided to spend the next two months travelling the South Island gathering information and assessing the degree of support from Dunedin’s green community.
While David set off on his journey of discovery, I continued building with renewed vigour. The sooner I could finish, the sooner I could also consider my options. There was still the floor to be completed, but I wanted to get the roof fully waterproof before lining inside.
Butynol is a relatively expensive material, but it seems to be the only option available if you want a grass roof. We’d investigated other possibilities, of course, but we doubted the building inspector would ever go for any of the more traditional methods such as birch-bark and pitch. It was a little daunting to think we’d have to replace our roof every ten years or so. (It was certainly less of a problem in the days when there was no expensive furniture or appliances to worry about. What’s a few leaks on a rough wooden, or even an earthen, floor?) So we’d had to settle on butynol, despite the cost of over $20 per square metre.
At first glance, a standard galvanised iron roof appears to be a much cheaper option. There are savings to be made not only on the roofing material itself, but also on the quantity of timber required for the heavy roof structure, the layer of plywood sarking, and the complicated guttering system. But when you consider galvanised iron’s maintenance requirements, then add the insulative and aesthetic values of grass (not to mention the sheer vindictive joy of depriving starlings of their traditional, first-choice nesting sites), the cost differences wilt faster than a cabbage sprayed with Roundup. Besides, costs suddenly become irrelevant when it comes between creating your ‘dream house’ and settling for an unsatisfactory compromise.
Meanwhile, the rolls of butynol had arrived, along with two drums of specially-formulated glue, which together smelt like I was about to repair the world’s largest puncture rather than waterproof a roof. After reading through the application instructions, I realised there was a slight hitch in my plans - it required the surface to be completely dry, and after two weeks of frosts and almost-constant drizzle, the plywood was anything but dry. So it would have to wait until I had a series of fine, dry days and frost-free nights ... quite a request for the middle of July.
In the meantime, there was a floor to be finished.
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