Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Man Next Door. Chapter 11.

Mother: Did you find out anything interesting from the owner of our house when he visited today?


Daughter: Lots of interesting things. For one thing, when the owner bought this house he bought it unseen, from an elderly bag-lady type of woman, whose relatives had persuaded her to sell the house. She moved out of the house reluctantly, leaving behind such a terrible mess that when the owner came to look at the house for the first time he was unable to open the front door because of the overwhelming amount of rubbish filling the hallway. He said that the stench of rotting food was terrible.

The whole house was in such a filthy, neglected state that it took a whole year's work to make it fit to live in.


Mother: The owner did a really good job of renovating this house. It's now so nice and pleasant inside that it seems that no trace of the bag lady has been left behind.


Daughter: The owner of our house also told me that when the man next door bought his house it was in an even worse state of neglect, disrepair and filth than his house had been. Two elderly brothers had lived in the house all their lives, without electricity, or a bathroom. Their parents had owned the house from the time it was built, until they died.


Mother: When the man next door once told me that he had managed to get rid of the termites, fleas and bedbugs in his house, I didn't realise that they must have been there when he bought it. Now he seems to have got rid of the rats too. I would sometimes see a rat climbing up an electric cable, and into his house through an upstairs window.


Daughter: I used to see rats running along the tops of fences.


Mother: And I once saw a rat climbing over the bars of one of our windows, trying to find a way in.


Daughter: Who knows what decay and grime, and evidence of the lives of the elderly brothers, the man next door has had to contend with.


Mother: Maybe the ghosts of the elderly brothers remain in the house. You can imagine them, clinging to the house, filling it with their presences, both before and after the men's deaths, resisting any change, and hampering the man next door's efforts to renovate the house.


Daughter: The ghosts must really resent new people in the house, particularly women, and all the noise, and activity, and drinking, and loud music, and drumming, and the banging, and knocking, and destruction that has been going on next door.


Mother: Now I can see that the man next door has been knocking the shit out of his house, and has had to almost destroy it, in order to try to get rid of all traces, and influence, of the brothers and their ghosts.

No wonder it is so hard for him to make progress on his house.

There's a battle going on. And now he seems to have given up the battle for a while, the way he is away from his house for weeks at a time, and when he returns with his girlfriend they only stay there briefly.


Daughter: He must have got sick of living in chaos, struggling for so long to renovate his house, but with so much work left to do.


Mother: Have the ghosts in fact won? Or will the man next door eventually make another assault on them?

Who will win in the end?


Daughter: Talking about ghosts.... I wonder what other ghosts there are in the houses in this street.


Mother: I'm sure there are quite a few, hanging onto times past, in this long row of terrace houses.

One is the ghost of the mother of the extremely fat man who lives a few doors up. One day he told me about her as he stood out the front of his house. You know how he stands there occasionally, arms wide apart, as he leans forward on his cast iron fence, his body so large that it is not possible to take it all in, in one glance.

He has lived in that house all his life. His mother spent all her life there too. She was born in the house, and she died there too, while he was away on holidays overseas.

On his return he saw her ghost in the house, dressed in a nighty, brushing her long hair.

It must have been after this that he grew so fat, because he once worked as a doorman at a big, posh hotel in the city, and he must have looked very presentable then.


Daughter: You know, the houses in this street are starting to give me the creeps.


Mother: It's a good thing we are each going out tonight. Maybe the trouble is just that it's boring around here, while the man next door is away.



A WEEK LATER
(There were lights on next door, loud music was playing, and lots of very loud banging was shaking both houses alarmingly.)


Mother: It sounds as though the man next door is back with a vengeance!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Man Next Door. Chapter 10.

Daughter: Apparently the man next door didn't murder his girlfriend after all.


Mother: How do you know that? Why haven't we seen her around then?


Daughter: Alpha told me what he has found out about her. She's still around, but she's changed a lot. Now she smokes, and gets drunk, and he thinks she's turning into an alcoholic. She slips into the house next door at one am in the morning, after leaving the pub with the man next door.


Mother: He has obviously given up trying to impress her by showing how well he can look after himself. I can't see any food in his kitchen, and for a long time there has only been something white at the bottom of his wire fruit basket. I can't tell whether it's garlic, or just a crumpled up piece of paper.



A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER.
(Mother and Peter were saying goodbye, after a lovely time together)

Peter: I'll park here to kiss you goodbye, rather than kiss you near your house, in case someone is watching us.


Mother: That reminds me about something strange that happened to me yesterday. I was waiting to cross the road outside the station, (on my way to my daughter's house,) when I turned my head just in time to see a young Asian man close to me, with a camera to his eye, pressing the button and taking my photo. Why on earth would he be taking my photo?


Peter: That's strange. You have to be careful. Maybe he wants to steal your identity or something. Has any of your mail gone missing lately?


Mother: I'm still waiting for some things to arrive.

(Mother hadn't told Peter anything about the madman and the small red car, in case he got anxious.)



WEEKS LATER.
Mother: I've just seen something very interesting. On my way here, as I walked down the lane, I saw a small red car driving in through the side gate behind the house at the bottom of the lane.

This may have been the car that frightened me in the lane that night. The most interesting thing is that it had different number plates from the madman's small red car, and it was being driven by a young Asian woman.

I felt so glad I hadn't rung the police to complain about a madman in a small red car chasing me, and trying to kill me
.
On the other hand, if it was this car that followed me up the lane that night, maybe there is some connection between the Asian woman driving it, and the Asian man who took my photo near the station recently.



Older Daughter: But the car that frightened you that night might have been another small red car.


Mother: Of course. It could still have been the madman's car, or it could have been yet another small red car.



WEEKS LATER:
Mother: I just saw the madman's red car being pulled up onto the back of an NRMA tow truck. It was the same car. I know the number plates by heart. But there was a dark haired young woman there. I could hear her voice, then I saw her sitting in the passenger seat of the tow truck. Her thick, tousled black hair was cut in a boyish bob.

So I wonder, does this red car really belong to the madman, or does it belong to this girl?
Was this girl in fact the madman?


Older Daughter: I think you made the whole story up.


Mother: I did not! It's all true.

Maybe the car was always her's, and never the madman's. Maybe it was just a coincidence that, on two occasions when I saw the madman, he was close to that small red car, so that I assumed it was his.



WEEKS WENT BY.
Mother (to Older Daughter): I often see "the madman's" car parked in the street, but I haven't seen the madman again. I haven't seen the girl with tousled black hair again either.
Have you seen them?


Older Daughter: Not that I know of.


Mother: After I crossed the road to your place, on my way here, I turned around and saw "the madman's" small red car pull up in front of the flats across the road, and I wondered who would get out.

What happened is what always happens. Whenever I see "the madman's" car pulling up I look to see who will get out, but no one ever does.

(To be continued.)

Monday, September 6, 2010

The Man Next Door. Chapter 9.

Son (who was visiting):  What is the man next door up to these days?


Daughter:  He seems to have been working lately.


Son:  I gather that he has gone downhill quite a lot since he moved into his house, which was about the same time as I moved in here, when I lived in this house. I thought he seemed very nice in those days, bright and enthusiastic, and not at all derelict. But he did make mistakes even then.

One day when I was at home I heard a lot of noise on the roof. I went out into our yard, where I could see the roof and what was going on. There was a long ladder leaning up against the back wall of the house next door, and sitting right on top of his high roof was the man next door.

I called out to see if he was OK.

"Yes", he said. "I've lost my keys, and I'm getting inside through a hole in the roof."


There was no obvious hole in his roof, but there must have been some loose roofing iron that he was trying to move, so he could lift up one edge and squeeze inside, into the roof space.


Alpha:  I witnessed something similar one day. First, there was a big crash into the side yard of the house next door, just after I saw a long ladder fall backwards, away from the house. At the same time I heard loud scratching, and angry exclamations from the roof.

When I got outside to see what was happening, there was the man next door perched on top of his high roof, ringing someone on his mobile phone. He was stuck up there, maybe because it was no longer possible for him to get inside by moving sheets of roofing iron. He must have wanted someone to put the ladder back up, so he could come down. It took half an hour for someone to come and rescue him.



ONE EVENING. (The sound of the man next door chopping up firewood.)

Daughter:  No matter what time he gets home from the pub at night I hear the man next door outside, chopping up firewood. It must be so cold in his house, now it is winter.


Mother:  Yes. Especially with no glass in so many windows upstairs. When the lights are on at night you can see the blue of the back of the sisalation he has installed under the roofing iron. I guess it will be a long time before he replaces the upstairs ceilings.

I wonder how his girlfriend copes with his cold house.



SOME WEEKS LATER.
Mother:  I'm pleased to see that the man next door has put sisalation over the glass-less windows upstairs, to keep out the cold and wind and rain.

Have you seen his girlfriend lately?


Daughter:  No, she disappeared suddenly a few weeks ago. Since then his old girlfriend seems to be back sometimes, the one who pisses in a bucket outside. He was at the front of the house with her last night, and this morning an empty wine bottle had been left out there.


Mother:  I wonder what happened to his nice girlfriend, the one that once laughed a lot?


Older Daughter (who was visiting):  Maybe he murdered her!


Mother:  I've seen a big hole in his kitchen floor, inside his back door. Now there is a big piece of wood over the hole. Maybe he buried her there.



ANOTHER DAY.
Daughter:  The man next door's ute was towed away again yesterday. That must be about the fourth time lately. If it is continually breaking down I wonder if he still has his job? The ute is out the front today with the big tool boxes still on the back, but no ladders. Alpha saw him making his lunch a few weeks ago, no doubt before he went to work. It was avocado in a roll.

There's nothing happy to say about the man next door at the moment. You just wonder how long he can keep going. He definitely seems to be going down hill.

We saw him outside the pub the other day, and he looked quite derelict. He seems to just match his derelict-looking house, which he is supposed to be doing up.