Current Issue + contents + contributors + thanks News Next Issue Submit Links About Contact Archive       So it’s come to this, Mr T Lombard, tonight. Not that you know it, but some time after you drive off at 11.30 pm as per every Tuesday, I’ll know your secret. Away as you are for no more than one and a half hours at this time, in this town, all I can say is there’s something you don’t want known. Oh, you could say I’m just a busybody with too much time on his hands and to rack off, but as the oldest resident of these units, I think I have a responsibility to keep an eye out. To make sure that nothing nefarious threatens our way of life. And in that regard, sir, the jury is out. It didn’t have to be like this, but you’ve rejected my offers of friendship and help and, if I may say so, none too politely. A pity, for we’re the only single blokes in the whole block and that could’ve been a start. OK, you might be a good bit younger than I am, about forty I reckon, the same age as my Brett. I don’t know your situation but you never have any visitors and neither do I, what with Brett, Shauna and young Leo living in Melbourne. Just love a bit more involvement with them, especially Leo. Perhaps to help introduce him to the finer things of life? I’ve made a start—I sent him a classical music CD for his eleventh birthday a couple of weeks ago—nothing heavy—but I haven’t heard a word about whether he liked it or not. After all, it only takes a phone call to keep in touch and since Laura’s death—a mercy really; bastard, cancer—it does get pretty lonely. The units help fill some of the gap, but they’re not really enough. I had hopes for a friendship up until that day when you spotted me half way down the drive with your wheelie bin. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m Sam Morris from number one.’ I stuck out my hand. You ignored it. ‘I’m kind of the unofficial caretaker. I do a few odd jobs, run out the bins on garbo day, that sort of stuff.’ ‘I’ll take out my own bin, thanks,’ you replied pretty smartly. I felt a bit miffed, as you had already snubbed me over the mail. You must have seen me taking stuff from the letterboxes to the old dears who can’t walk very well, so you slapped a padlock on your box, opening it when you come home from work. A bit paranoid. I’m not a stickybeak, hell, I only know your name from a letter you’d dropped and I’d put back in your box, not that I told you that. I feel you think I can’t be trusted. But it was the music fiasco that really put the kybosh on any ideas of friendship. I like classical stuff as much as anybody, but really, a symphony at full bore on a Sunday morning? Bouncing off the walls it was, so I went over to where you were fiddling with the hood of your BMW. ‘Morning, Mr Lombard.’ As you looked up, that ponytail of carrot red hair swung around like a whip. ‘What.?’ Flat—it wasn’t a question. ‘Sounds like we have something in common. Classical music. Got quite a library myself. Gave my grandson a CD of Peter and the Wolf for his eleventh. Spread the good oil, you know. Can’t start them too young, I always say and after all, Prokofiev wrote it for kids, didn’t...’ I trailed off didn’t I, embarrassed about rabbiting on. But you were amused. You glanced at the car then back to me. ‘So, Mr Unofficial Caretaker, where’s all this leading?’ ‘Well, music played as loud as that on a Sunday morning mightn’t be everybody’s cup of tea …’ Your amusement evaporated. Those odd green eyes that redheads often have bored into me. ‘Nobody else has complained.’ ‘Not a complaint, exactly, Mr Lombard, more a little, regard. Perhaps, turn it down a bit?’ You started to flush and took a step forward. I thought you were going to hit me, but after glaring, you reached into the car and, instead of turning the stereo down, turned it off. There was an uncomfortable silence. ‘There. Satisfied now?’ ‘Yes, thanks, but you didn’t have to turn it right off…’ ‘Listen, mate. Symphonies are nothing unless played loudly. And if I can’t, then… Was there anything else?’ There wasn’t. But from then on we’ve been like strangers. That was the first week. Since then there’s been the Tuesday nights. You’re like clockwork. Lights out, with sports exhaust rattling and the sweetish smell of fuel additive, your BMW turns onto Croydon Road and off into the night, who knows where, and always back by 1.05 am. Are you up to something dodgy? I think I’ve a right to know. Look at it from my side—how would you feel? Of course, you might be going to the pokies, but why so late? And I know you don’t go to the grog shop as there’s never any bottles in your rubbish. And that, worse luck, leaves just two things I can think of that are better done late at night. God, they make me shiver. So you don’t look like a druggy, always clear-eyed, and you drive that car; okay, but maybe a fix, just once a week? And the other—surely not. But there is a ‘beat’ on Smyth St, not too far away, both sexes I believe—not that I mind the women so much, I mean you’re only youngish, but men—that makes my skin crawl. If it is drugs or men—What’s that? Here you come and me daydreaming. Right on time, too The BMW’s top’s down, headlights off as usual and that smell drifting in my window. Yep, into Croydon Rd. Come on, Sam, shift yourself. Hell, you can drive, Mr T Lombard, the Corolla’s doing 80 just to keep your tail lights in sight, but mercifully there’s no traffic. We’ve just passed ‘The Bucket o’ Gold’ so it’s not pokies. Wonder what Brett and young Leo would think about me acting like some sleazy private eye? Even their disapproval would be better than the nothing I have from them now. Oh, shit, where’d you go? Left or right? If I’ve lost you—ah, can smell that additive stuff. There you are, caught at the lights. Smyth St’s close. Dingy place. Wouldn’t want to be a lady of the night, or a bloke either for that matter. Shit, I was right, you are turning into Smyth St. Better hang back. Look at them all, flaunting their goods and they all look so young—you’re not stopping though, still going like the clappers. Been driving about twenty-five minutes and you still haven’t stopped. Maybe you just like driving at night. Hullo, you’re turning into Hillview Avenue. Big government housing estate here, welfare country; a long, wide road, deserted except for a few parked cars and only the streetlights on. You slow, changing down through the gears. You pull into the kerb, headlights already off; and you kill the motor. I pull into the kerb and do likewise. You’ve stopped about 250 metres ahead in the shadow between two street lights. A low whine—up goes the BMW’s top. A slight noise from the house alongside me. A window opens. A slim figure wearing one of those hoody things climbs out, vaults the low front wall and starts to jog towards your car. The passenger door opens. Exactly midnight. The romantic hour. So that’s it. A lover’s tryst. That explains the top. Some poor bugger’s being cuckolded by you, Mr T Lombard. While he’s asleep or working shifts his missus is getting her jollies with you. You bastard. And you bitch. I’m not proud of tonight’s effort, but at least I know you’re doing nothing criminal, just the old eternal triangle. Funny though, if that’s what’s going on it’s a strange sort of tryst, for the car’s not rocking and I can just see the silhouettes of two heads, quite separate. It looks like you’re just talking. But, if that’s what turns you on… 12.15. You’re both still there. I have to see this through, because if I start the Corolla now you might recognise it. 12.40. The passenger door’s opening and the hoody is jogging back. I duck down and watch as the figure again vaults the wall, but in doing so the hood falls back. It’s a boy, aged about eleven, Leo’s age, with a shock of carrot red hair. But I am almost sprung, for you’ve done a U-turn and your headlights sweep across the Corolla. I duck as you go past with the top down again, and I can hear on your stereo, very loudly, the triumphal march from Peter and the Wolf. Do you have a comment about this piece? email your thoughts to Harbinger.