Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
It was brilliant. It was better than that it was bloody brilliant. Bonza even. He couldn’t believe his luck. What were the chances that when he picked up the mangled brown suitcase on the side of the road, the one that looked like it had weathered many days outdoors and been deliberately abandoned, that when he opened it he would find $25,000? The timing couldn’t be better. The bills were piled sky high and shoved to the corner of one of the laminex benches in the kitchen of his 1950s 2 bedroom weatherboard home. Sandwiched between the yellowing bread bin with the peeling flower motifs and the Tupperware container holding the cake from his neighbour Mrs Watson. He hated cake so he’d have to wait a polite amount of time then return the container and proclaim that that was the best cake he had ever had. The man never could quite just throw the bills in the bin but at the same time couldn’t just put them neatly in a to do pile either. Instead they sat in half opened jagged window faced envelopes between that bread bin and the tupperware. The man didn’t really need either pile to remind him they were still outstanding. He woke with that nagging feeling every day.
***
This day felt different though. As he woke and the early morning heat of January streamed through his partially lifted blind he felt that something had shifted. That something different or special or unusual was going to happen that day. He didn’t know what but he knew it was going to change things. He pondered on that idea as he flicked on the gas of the stove for the kettle and placed dog biscuits in the bowl outside for Bob. Bob stirred a little as the hard morsels rattled into the metal bowl. Bob was old now and spent most of his days sleeping on the mound of hessian bags that the man had collected from one of his recent trips to the tip. He still managed to look up at the man and his tail flicked a few times to say thank you. Once a upon of time he would have jumped high and wolfed the biscuits but those days were gone.
You’re a good boy Bob the man said as he half knelt to pat him on the head.
Ooops there’s the kettle boy, you stay there, the man said.
The kettle whistled. The man still had one of those old kettles that whistled. He knew it was old fashioned but he couldn’t bring himself to throw it out. It was his mothers.
He poured the hot water on the teabag and left it to brew staring aimlessly out the window and down the street. He could hear the kids next door with their early morning school holiday chatter. He could see Fred across the road just starting to mow his front lawn. Marian was just making her way out her front door with Jack her Scottish terrier – he knew they were on their usual morning walk to the park 3 streets away. The scent of honeysuckle had started to make its way through the open window and the smell of freshly cut grass was lingering on the edge threatening to take over. January in Australia, he thought, seriously how good is Australia in summer.
The infusion of the smells and the sounds reminded the man of his mother. He knew he missed her, she was his biological family after all, but really it was this here and now, the sights, those smells, the familiar sounds that made today, these surroundings, his logical family. This is what he knew, what he felt comfortable with and in. This, made sense. He loved his mother but she had driven him mad. When she died he took less than 4 days to gather everything up and take to the tip. That’s when he found the hessian bags for Bob. Everything went. Every thing except that bloody kettle. He couldn’t bring himself to throw out that kettle.
The man felt different living in this house now.
Why he thought? I used to live in this house, but now I REALLY live in this house.
But that was enough. The past was the past and there was work to be done. No use lingering. The man poured the last of his tea down the sink and shot a glance at the kettle as he made his way to the back door. That bloody kettle.
Cmon boy we gotta make it up to Macca’s place this morning….he wants that fencing finished up today. The man held the back flywire door open so Bob could come into the kitchen. Ill just get me boots on boy and then we are on our way. Bob shuffled to the front door his nails clicking on the floor boards as he went, he knew the man would put his socks on sitting at the kitchen table and then go to the front porch to put his boots on out there. It was the same every day.
Whew its gettin hot already Bob the man said as he let the front door slam behind him and signaled for Bob to go towards the car. Best we get a move on so we can finish up early today, he said.
As Bob and the man jumped in the ute neither of them knew just how much their day was about to change…..