Yesterday the possums were still there. For some reason, perhaps because it was raining so much, they had decided to stay in one night. Much as I wanted to believe in the trap door, it occurred to me that there could be reasons the possums would not go out that particular pot, and so were trapped. And as Elizabeth pointed out, with two possums it's a whole new ball game. What if one stays home to let the other back in?
Stella and I built chair barricades to block off the kitchen. I opened the back folding doors wide. I closed off the doors to the rest of the house. Then I put on what I hoped were possum proof gloves and opened the iron flue gate on the living room fireplace. When it grated against the iron frame, the possum snarled, right next to my ear. It was behind the left tile facing of the fireplace.
A brush tailed possum snarl is like the sound a zombie makes when, despite wounds that would incapacitate a living human, it is preparing for the final charge that can be stopped only by a double tap to the head, ideally with soft nosed bullets. Sometimes the snarl is periodic, with a decrescendo and a falling cadence like a classic bandit laugh. You hear this when possum territory is in dispute, with another possum or a cat.
This snarl was happening more and more often. I had jammed various bits of cardboard in the fireplaces, and we no longer had incidents when a possum would fall out, with a sudden clashing of heavy wrought iron fittings, and charge around the bedroom screaming in the middle of the night. It could take ages to round it up, and direct it out the door.
But now one of them had taken to objecting when we had a conversation in the living room, or watched TV. You could see its point. It was on night shift and it needed its sleep. But what with the jets flying overhead, which basically forced you to shut down brain function for twenty seconds at a time, and the possum snarling whenever you opened your mouth, it was getting hard to keep your thoughts straight.
I jerked back convulsively and managed to avoid smashing my head on the mantelpiece. Stella took cover behind the barricades. I tried making more noise, to drive the possum either up the chimney or out the flue. I went to the fireplace on the other side and made more noise there. Apart from the occasional snarl the possums made no sign. They were bunkered in.
Maybe, even under threat, they wouldn't leave until nightfall. They were probably right. If they left now and started blundering about blinded by the glare of full daylight, they'd be sitting ducks. Stella and I decided to leave it until after eight. When the last light faded, if the possums didn't make a move, we would.
After dinner we heard the faint scrabbling of possum toenails climbing inside the chimney. I went out and took a look. It was dark and rainy, and there was just a silhouette on top of the roof ridge, but it didn't look like the shape of the chimney pot with added trap door fitting. Then it moved slightly. Two possums were sitting on top of the trap door platform. It's not easy to read possum body language. They're all pink, wet look noses and enormous black eyes. But there was something defeated in the set of their ears.
I tried snapping a picture from tiptoe on top of the garden chair, but the flash wouldn't reach. So I climbed up on the air conditioner, then on the back fence, and up onto the kitchen roof. I took it very slowly. All the surfaces were slippery and apart from any health and safety issues, I didn't want to fall into the neighbours' side passage and have them run out and have to explain the whole thing while lying winded on my back.
I walked carefully, stepping from one row of corrugated iron roofing fasteners to another. The possums watched me approach without outward signs of agitation. I took a few pictures along the way, but it was plain I was going to have to be right at the edge of the sloping slate tiled section before I could get a good shot. Too far and I might topple over into the street below. Lose my footing and I might slide down over the guttering and crash through the pergola.
At last I was only a few metres away. I took a couple of shots just to be sure. Then I picked my way carefully across the fasteners and back down onto the fence. I think they'll be all right. Like rainbow lorikeets and sulphur crested cockatoos and huntsman spiders, brush tailed possums are one of the success stories of Sydney suburban wildlife.
