Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
At its peak the party had about 60 or so people, most of whom were up on the decking. But as the night progressed the people on the deck dispersed and the stayers, about 10-15 of us, all ended up downstairs on the back lawn, sitting or standing. It was about 2am and the temperature was just perfect – I hadn’t needed to put on a cardigan over my new op-shop dress to keep my shoulders warm. My son and two of his mates were in his bedroom watching tv or playing xbox.
I was standing in the backyard leaning against the posts of the decking and something made me turn around. It was two police officers walking towards me. The male officer asked who the owner of the house was. I said that I was, as I turned around and stumbled on a couple of empty bottles near my feet, and asked if they were here because of the noise. The same officer said – quite apologetically as he looked at the remaining, well behaved 10 or so guests – ‘yes, there’s been a complaint’.
I said, ‘As you can see it’s winding up. We’ll keep the noise down.’
I didn’t think we’d been that loud. I’d intentionally setup the music inside so it could be heard outside, being aware that noise travels a lot on a still, hot night. I’d also done a letter box drop to close neighbours with pre-warning that there would be a 50th at my address that night so I was surprised that some had their knickers in a twist over what I thought wasn’t that much noise.
My last guests left about 3.30am and I went to bed. About mid-morning the next day I was having a couch break inbetween cleaning up and picking up empty bottles when the doorbell rang.
I answered the door and the woman at the door looked somewhat familiar. I knew that I knew her but couldn’t quite remember where from. However, I said hello as if I did know her because I realised I would remember very soon – or I hoped I would. Maybe turning 50 meant that part of my brain left me as I left my 40s and I wouldn’t. She held up a bag of watermelon and rockmelon rinds and told me that about 1.30am the boys were throwing them at the back of their house from my deck and they were hitting the glass and made quite a bit of noise. She said that she didn’t mind that I had a party, but didn’t like things being thrown at their house.
I said that obviously I was really unaware of what was going on because obviously I don’t condone that sort of behaviour but a few things fell into place at that moment. One: I remembered who she was – my neighbour from over the back fence. Two: that big bang on my back fence was a stray piece of fruit rind not making it to the neighbour’s window. I remember at the time yelling out ‘oy’ because I could sense it was one of the boys scrambling around on the decking. Now I knew what they’d been doing. Three: this was why the police were called and responded to a complaint.
I called to my son who came out of his bedroom, told him why our neighbour was there and asked him if he knew anything about this. He started to say that he knew nothing, and very very quickly realised that the truth was better and admitted to doing it. He listened to her say her piece, he apologised, and the neighbour went on her way.
We had a bit of a chat about it afterwards then continued on doing our own thing, but during the day, any time that I asked for help he was very willing – for a change. I needed a lot of help that day!
He sat down next to me later on that afternoon and we started talking about it and he admitted that he hadn’t thought that it might not be the right thing to do. It was just a bit of fun and any thought of potential consequences weren’t at all present.
I’d told this story to a few friends and everyone has had a similar story to tell from when they were about the same age so I guess he’s done that rite of passage and hopefully he gets through the next one just as unscathed.