Moving my clothes and books into Kevin's home was a breeze and I quickly settled into life at Pennant Hills. But it took some time getting use to living with more one other person, and especially someone who reminded me of Fred Flintstone. At first I was amused by Tony. He was the guy that rabbited on about the minor things in his life like they were some great opera. My amusement changed to annoyance as I discovered that he was just like Fred Flintstone in other ways: regularly left dishes in the sink, never cleaned up after himself and left his boots all over the house. I was beginning to wear a little of his stone age habits.
It wasn�t just the new housemate that I had to get used to. Living so far out in the suburbs was a problem, transport wise. And going out at night meant travelling back was an ordeal. We might as well have lived on the moon when it came to travelling by public transport. One night we decided to catch a cab home. The taxi ride was a scream and it demonstrated far more of Kevin's personality than any meeting of his friends and family could. It was an executive cab and the driver was Indian. Kevin couldn't resist the opportunity for some comic relief.
"So, you're an executive cab?" He began.
"Yes sir".
"That means you always wear an executive cap, executive shirt and executive tie."
" That's right sir. We believe in providing an excellent service to our customers. Which means we always ensure that our cabs are clean and tidy..."
"Just like the drivers?" Kevin interrupted wryly.
"Yes, sir. We have to dress in pants, shirt and tie.�
"And the car. That's executive. The suspension must be executive too."
I could barely restrain myself from laughing. By the time we pulled up Kevin had made just about every joke on the theme of 'executive' you could think of. We burst into laughter as we fell out of the cab.
While life in Pennant Hills was pleasant we quickly discovered that the house was falling down around us. Huge cracks began to appear in the walls. Kevin complained to the land lady but she seemed oblivious to the impending catastrophe. We decided to move to Mosman. It would be the first of our many moves over the next few years and I was to discover that life with Kevin was to be far more action packed than any movie. And it wasn't just action to look forward to. There would be more bizarre and ridiculous situations and more weird characters than even the most zany screwball comedy could possibly prepare me for. Life would never be dull again!
A few short hours before I met Kevin he had taken Tony to see a play at the Sydney Opera House. The play was Shirley Valentine. Now Tony is not the most intellectual person in the world. He could not, for example, understand why a woman would talk to a wall, let alone what the word soliloquy might mean. So he went to sleep. He woke up in the scene where Shirley burns the chips. But being Tony he didn�t just wake up � he bolted upright in his seat and yelled out, �the chips are burning�. Everyone, including the actress on stage, heard. And the whole place exploded with laughter. At the interval, people pointed him out with amusement as the man who had amused the audience unintentionally. But the amusement didn�t end in the first act. Returning to the theatre Tony again went to sleep only to wake up in the scene where Shirley Valentine appears on stage naked. Again, Tony bolted up in his seat and said, �She�s stark naked!� Again the audience exploded into laughter. It was probably the most memorable night at the theatre that the middle-aged, middle-class Opera House audience had ever seen. The night was also memorable for me because Tony is the only person in the world that could ever upstage an event as significant as my meeting Mr Right.
