Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 09:58:10 +1000 From: David Spencer Subject: Landlord: Stephen 1 I had bought a two storey detached terrace in Islington. It was about 4 kays from city hall. The old lady who had owned it was in protective custody. She used to run out in the street at 2 in the morning with a knife and a length of old water pipe. The water pipe was for the windscreens and the knife was for the tyres. Or perhaps it was the other way around. I don't think it would have made much difference to her either way. I moved down from Telarah where I had been renting a one bedroom flat for $100 a week. The house was the cheapest on the market and I talked the agent into offering the Protective Commissioner $50,000 for the house. I was lent/given/guaranteed money by the family. I am not sure whether they were feeling sorry for me, feeling guilty, wanting to get rid of me, or taking out some sort of insurance for when they became doddery. Anyway I became the proud possessor of a three bedroom two storey terrace with its hundreds of thousands of other residents. Oh yes. It had termites. Hence the price. Lots and lots of termites. About forty year's worth. There was a lane at the rear, a lane at the side and a gay couple next door. The lanes were used by the street girls for turning their tricks late at night. The gay couple were very, very quiet. Except when Stephen got a little tiddly. Then the voice of the young bloke who drowned in the Mississippi would come floating through the air. And the bass would come rumbling through the floorboards. The house had come through the earthquake all right but had settled even further onto its foundations. I scraped out the loose sand below the floor to restore ventilation to the under house cavity and reduce the wet rot there. Because the house had settled, the floorboards were stretched on the joists and were highly resonant. A bit like the soundboard of a violin. So when Stephen was getting all maudlin late at night and playing Jeff on his stereo, the sound would resonate through my floorboards. Very interesting. I did not know it at the time. It was months later when Stephen wandered into my place one midnight, and told me. He said he was really shy. He said he had not really spoken with anybody in depth for about 10 years, apart from his partner. He had an interesting relationship / non relationship with his parents which I could never really fathom. He took me over there a couple of times. I thought Stephen's partner was very jealous. He greatly disliked me. It didn't take long for him to decide to do that. The day I moved in, he came home, got out of his car, and asked me what I was doing. I said I was measuring the space between the two houses to see how far off the boundary line the fence was. He asked how much. I said about three inches my way, but I wasn't going to insist on him moving the fence. Not just yet anyway. Stephen told me that had done it. The partner took an instant dislike. It became entrenched the next day when he found me on his back doorstep drinking tea with Stephen and talking about renovations. I didn't know I was invading his territory. After all Stephen had invited me to come down off the top of the fence before I fell. Naturally he asked me if I would like a drink. I was still heavily on the cortisone then so I was not drinking alcohol. Tea was fine. But not apparently to the partner's way of thinking. Stephen had a big dog called Seven. There were eight puppies in the litter and he was the second last one. It was big and brown and shorthaired and pure bred. But I never found out the breed, I don't think. Seven had that unfortunate habit of pushing his nose into your groin as soon as he saw you. It didn't worry me much. I usually wore jeans -- almost never anything very clean. Certainly nothing very expensive. Hey, repayments on the house were less than the rent I had been paying in Telarah. Mind you, in Telarah if I wanted to see the sky I had to look out the window or open the door. Here in Islington there were plenty of spaces between the wall boards. And in any of the downstairs rooms I could put my head down through the missing floorboards and look out towards the skyline that way. Upstairs, things were a bit more difficult. The roof didn't leak. Well not that much. But some of the windows onto the side verandah were missing. The door to the front verandah was a replacement of the original which I gathered must have rotted out. It didn't quite match up with the original frame. So I could see the sky those ways when I was upstairs. The second time my mother came down for an inspection, she stayed two weeks. Such consideration. Towards the end of the visit she was so busy rushing down the stairs to eavesdrop on my telephone call, she forgot about the three missing floorboards at the bottom of the stairs. All she ended up hearing was me saying to whoever had called: `goodness me, Mum's just fallen through the floor. I'd better go and see what damage she's done.' She slept the rest of that afternoon and left next morning. Early. About a week later she phoned me and said all her friends at the bowling club were horrified when they heard what I had done to her, and her neighbour was appalled when she saw how extensive the bruising was. It had taken me a good ten minutes to lever her out of the hole. The last time she came was for another extended visit. She announced she could only stay a week this time. Don't cheer. It was still a whole seven days. I don't remember anymore how it happened or what the domestic arrangements were, but my 16 year old son Matthew was staying in the second bedroom. I was in the front bedroom and Dale was staying in the third bedroom. I think Dale gave up his bedroom when Mum arrived and he slept on the couch downstairs. Mum didn't stay the whole time on this occasion either. Dale told me about it later after she had left. I did manage to get out of bed to say goodbye to her. But I didn't have enough time or energy to find out from her why she was leaving early. Actually, I didn't really know she was at the time. Apparently, so Dale told me, she and Dale were sitting downstairs that morning having a cup of tea. Lapsang Souchong, Dale told me he had. She had her usual Earl Grey. She preferred the Earl to Lady Grey. Probably matched her self image better. The room with the chairs was directly under the second bedroom. There was a clunk on the upstairs floor, a shuffle of sandals, the creaking of door hinges, the clatter of Matthew doing his controlled freefall down the stairs, the whump as he hit bottom and then the padding of bare feet out the back door all the way to the toilet. Apparently he missed getting the sandals on. Mum never really liked Matthew. She thought he was an obnoxious snot. One who didn't treat her with the respect she thought due to her. Matthew had seen how my mother always treated me and how I was so cowed by her. His mother made sure that none of our children would ever fall into the trap of being forever suppressed like me. My mother was such a manipulative controlling woman. At least I think she was. Dad once assured me she was. I suppose if anyone should have known whether she was a woman or not, Dad should have. Matthew was still outside in the toilet. Perhaps he was trying to wake up. With everyone sleeping upstairs and with the toilet downstairs and outside, everyone learned to be pretty adept at nocturnal sleep-walking. Mum had just finished commenting to Dale on Matthew's freefall descent, when, there was a clunk on the same upstairs floor, a shuffle of sandals, the creaking of door hinges, the clatter of Stephen negotiating the stairs on the way out. Pause. Yeah, go on Dale. Don't stop there. Bloody hell Dale. C'mon, what happened. Well, Stephen said `good morning Mrs Spencer', smiled, went out the kitchen door, and then wandered up the driveway. His front door could be heard opening and then shutting. He'd gone home. Yes Dale. What then. C'mon Dale .. stop drawing it out. Dale, WHAT DID SHE DO!!! Nothing. She just sat there and said nothing. She was obviously thinking and going over in her head what she had just heard. Didn't she say anything Dale? Has she been in the second bedroom before? Does she know there's only one bed in that bedroom? Yeah, of course she would. She would have stuck her nose into everything. I knew it ever since the time she stuck her nose into my older brother's diaries and found out he was just using Margaret as a front. He was really having it off with Michael, not Margaret. He said so in his diaries. In detail. Graphic detail. So what did she say? What happened next? Dale? Da --a --a --a --le! Nothing, Dale said. He just kept talking to her about the jewellery he was making at the time. She was into jewellery too. Her uncle had owned a couple of sapphire mines. And she said nothing? Nothing? My mother said nothing? In all my life, I have only ever seen her not say something once. That was when I announced I was not going to university but instead going to college. Theological college. The seminary. The catholic seminary. To study to be a priest. A catholic priest. Yes, a religious priest. Yes. Religion. Christian religion. Western Christian religion. Yes. That was the only time I have ever seen her not say something. Apparently from what Dale said, this was the second time it had happened in my life. When she went over in her mind what she had just heard, the replay matched what she thought she remembered. Oh boy. Another one. What would she tell them at the bowling club? About 11 she started packing. She came in to my bedroom to say goodbye. I didn't know what day it was so assumed I had lost a day or two somewhere and she was leaving as planned. She was on the 1.30 train north that afternoon and home about 7.30 the next morning. It was the day she got home or the day after that I twigged that something was not quite kosher. Stephen came to visit me. He was squirming around like someone'd emptied a tin of beachworms down his swimmers. Strange questions. Yeah, mum's gone. Early, what do you mean early. Why, what day is it. Maybe she did leave early. Why was that I wonder. No I don't know. Where's Dale, he should know. Oh of course. At the Barracks. I should have realised he'd be there. No I don't know. Why? Yeah, why? Well, why not? Oh, ok. And we left it. But when Dale got back I did ask him why. Why was Stephen so antsy? How come Mum had left early? Why didn't he tell me she'd left early? That's when Dale told me. [If you would like this story to continue, please email me, David Spencer, davidspencer1@hotmail.com Positive comments are always welcome.]