Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 09:58:10 +1000
From: David Spencer <davidspencer1@hotmail.com>
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.]