MISSING - CHAPTER ONE
By Steve Gray
I’m ‘up country’ as they say, every two to three weeks I drive to a place we have on the edge of a country town, Keroona, it’s our retreat from the city. Up country, well in Australia that would be more of a thing people would say after many hours on some dusty road, with miles after mile of bugger all scenery, not quite the same for us, well me, I’m usually up here on my own, chillin’ with a book, taking it easy. It’s up the freeway for a chunk of time, the house is on a short dusty road if that’s any consolation, but yeah ‘up country.’
Here it’s about a two to three hour drive from home. We walked away from our small business we ran for many years and I now work three days a week, doing personal support work. It suits me, I have time for appointments, reading, walking the dogs, and so forth, then time up here. Catching up with people I have met over the past few years and getting involved in things. I bring one of our dogs for company and we have a cat up here that looks after things. I guess it’s semi-retirement of sorts.
After a while things just ‘tick over’ you get used to doing things and being here we have certainly done that, you get into a groove, you do major things to begin with and then lots of little things to keep things nice. The humdrum of life, until something punctuates it and here we are.
I never saw what was coming, life has a way of throwing us in the deep end with things. I was about to be thrown headlong into an extraordinary set of circumstances, some of it would be easy enough to handle, but bundled together it would be a nasty big thing I would have rather not have happened at all, but here I am, mostly living a cruisy life. I can assure you I didn’t put my ‘hand up’ for any of this, I had never thought about it I must say.
I sometimes get up here early, today not so much, rather a late morning, car stops for fuel etc, Anyway I’m here now. Dog out, cat watching through a dirty window, every time I see it I think I must clean that window, by the time the weekend is over I drive off saying, well maybe next time. Not sure why I don’t think of it when I get things settled after arriving, hello cat. Andy my Ex doesn’t see the dirty window, being an Artist he likes the patina of it all. Yeah whatever.
I grab my raggedy disheveled bags and keys. The main bag needs serious emptying and sorting, but that’s not happened in months. Last time I found tickets to an event I was meant to attend but completely forgot about. I think I was too drunk to go anyway. I didn’t tell Andy he would have probably said, “Yep, you piss head.”
I head for the door. It’s funny how we don’t seem to use the front door so much, well at least I don’t, not sure about Andy and the kids, the busted steps at the back are a reminder there’s still things to do about the place, mind you we have achieved a lot.
I get to the screen door, yep another reminder. It has a lazy laconic screech as it’s opened then when the main door is opened it shuts with an almighty BANG. Screen door wobbles badly as it closes. The cat does a runner out the door, I forget it’s going to do that, but it gets out through a split in the flywire once the main door is ajar, barely ajar. The dog turns quickly to give chase but has learnt that’s a sure fire way to get a whack on the nose from the cat.
My usual routine on arrival is more to do with having a look to see if all is in order, no stray animals like possums that have got in somehow. All good, the kettle then goes on and the cat is now at the back window ledge going crazy to be let back in. The dog has searched for any morsels the cat may have flipped off the bench where it’s food is at. Then when the cat comes in the dog goes out, where it does a full on check of the yard.
Cat in, I glance across the road, Mrs K across the road, now in her late 80’s, she has her blinds up, a signal to me that she’s up and ready to face the day. I remember going into her house the first time I introduced myself. The place was dark, that type of Australian theory about keeping the place dark with the blinds down somehow helps to keep the place cool in the summer, and it certainly was a hot summer that year.
Her place always, but always, had a sense of mystery about it. As you arrived and walked past the trees in the front yard that hid most of the place visually. There was a sense of something different each time, sometimes the dappled light through the trees casting flickering light onto the door, windows and verandah floor boards, then other times it was a new thing on a table on the verandah, or more likely an old thing moved to a new position.
It always felt like there was a breath of fresh calming air as you stepped onto the wide verandah that greeted you, it was such a graceful feeling, I'd call out through the screen door “Hi Mrs K you there?” Mostly she would call back “Come on in if you dare!” She was one of the few people I allowed to call me by my full name, Stephanie, everyone else including my parents called me “Steph.” Mrs K was a rare exception, and it’s funny in most cases when people called me by my full name a part of me twitches, not with Mrs K.
Her screen door wasn’t at all like ours, it opened with ease and was delicately sprung to ensure it didn’t bang closed like ours did. You would glide down the wide hallway and again, things were moved about, small objects. I felt sure she had this huge collection of bric a brac stacked up in one of her closed off rooms and to get use out of them she would shuffle them about where they could be seen.
Her 80 plus years on the planet reflected in her collection of things, some family photos, previous generations of furniture and various knick knacks. Squeaky floor boards and the delightful delicate aroma of an older person’s abode, talcum powder mixed with, I don’t know what, musty, manky but yeah alright, she’s old.
A big old Victorian house, she simply closes the doors on the rooms she doesn’t use. At the front is a formal lounge she sits in in the evenings to watch TV, I’ve only been in there once. The door is closed the rest of the time. Her house has a wide verandah, old school, it added to the darkness with the house being in shade most of the time. The high trees added to that and gave a sense of mystery as you arrived at the front of the house.
Out the back it’s kind of different, rather light, the morning sun seems to come in nicely illuminating everything, the back has few plants but it’s mainly grass, it's got a nice area to sit out in the sun on the grass. The gardener built her a very useful ramp so she can get out easily, she loves it. Many a morning has been spent out there chatting in the warm sun. Up here the weather is warmer than back in the city, which is fantastic in the winter.
Her daughter drops in two or three times a week and up until recently Mrs K had mowed the grass and kept the garden in place. Now a gardener comes to keep things in check, between the gardener, myself, Andy and her daughter, we keep a casual, yet firm eye on how she is doing. Some weeks I would be over there for coffee and cake, she still cooked and did a fine job. We would chat for hours, each filling the other in on how our kids were doing, hers were my age, mine in their late teens in a mad rush to get to their twenties. Still, the chats would easily go on for ages.
She is a warm wonderful font of knowledge. In the time I have known her, she has become slower to get about. I’m not sure how long before she stops driving but in this small town she can get to the things she needs to. Very content and happy enough in her old age. I often wondered how she managed to keep the place clean and virtually dust free, given we lived on a dirt road, noting however that it was the end of a dirt road so not a lot of traffic. I also figured that a paid cleaner would go nuts moving things to dust the tables and so forth in each area.
With a bit of effort I could see if her car was in the carport at the side of the house, if I was early enough and she knew I was there she would pull out of the driveway honk her horn twice and head off. Today she was already out and about. Maybe there would be a honk or two as she arrived home.
Both our places are on large blocks, we have a double block and it meant double the mowing. Hers was big, with a small, now unused paddock, branches from the large trees both in the paddock and beside it dropped branches and these had not been picked up for ages, the gardener stuck to her yard, the grass and pruning her main plants. Next to her house is a paddock she lets out to a local to run a few head of sheep, that grass stays low enough with the sheep and she’s happy about that.
This area is loaded with big trees, dropping branches, the birds pick at the fresh leaves and make an absolute mess. Every now and then you hear a ka-bang and a big branch has fallen somewhere. Yeah I know if I wasn’t here there would be no one to hear the ka-bang, right? Yeah, nah, whatever. Big branches fall.
Our place has a big tree to one side and one out the front with some smaller ones. In the blank block next door which we can use but can not build on, some caveat on the title. There’s a palm tree. Why do people do that? I bet it started out small and yes of course it grew into this enormous freaking’ beast, not overly tall just freakin’ big. Thankfully it was way over to the edge of the block up the front, we mowed around it and did our best to ignore it.
My usual morning routine, I feed the cat, bleary eyed, I make a coffee, breakfast, walk the dog, not far some days, if there was a bit of wind that made things a bit challenging and just plain not nice. It often cleared later in the morning. There would be a freight train breaking the morning calm. The birds, so many BIRDS, cockatoos and Corellas screeching and flitting about in the high trees, ripping off leaves, small branches and making a mess. Oh wait, I mentioned that earlier.
Today was a bit different. It's later in the morning and I want to think more about lunch, a bit late for breakfast. I had a drive through coffee on the way and a breakfast burger, still a bit whoopsie daisy, ‘tiddley woo’ after a few too many drinks the other night, it pushed into yesterday and that last red wine about 10 last night made me hungry, not sure if I would have blown .05 if asked, thank you very much, but the drive was ok, a few trucks but most were already gone, long gone.
Inside I faff about and do a bit of cleaning up, something I was not really known for until my recent job helping out an elderly lady back home. Vacuuming shopping, cleaning etc chats of course and more cleaning. So here I am cleaning. Andy swaps weekends and he tends to leave a ‘clean mess’, a few arguments about “When I arrive there’s crap everywhere!” Well in the kitchen mostly. I clear the few things there and vac, the cat hates the vac, the dog just ‘lollops about’ moving to a spot away from where I just vacuumed.
I’m now standing at the front window, looking out, the crazy birds up here make so much noise, it’s kind of pleasant in a way and at times rather jarring. Details come into focus, my mind wanders, the kids and what they are up to. Phone rings, it's Lexi, she’s usually on the phone a few times a day, and needs to download. Ten minutes chat about work and mowing her yard yesterday. More details about nothing really, it’s just her ‘thing’ ring mum, she rarely seems to ring Andy. Never quite sure why that is, actually I’m really not sure how often she rings him.
Phone call from Mother, concerned, that she hasn’t heard from Helen or Gary so I call them, no answer. I figure they are doing their own thing. Mostly H and G keep in contact with mum, sometimes mum does something to annoy H and therefore there’s a silent break that gives both parties a chance to breathe a little. Mind you H normally calls me to download on what mum said and so I have an insight. Not this time, mum said it’s been about a week since she heard from H and G, but with Mum that could easily be two weeks.
Ready for chapter two?