The Man Next Door. Chapter 16.

Mother: Thank goodness!

Both houses still intact! No more smoke and heat!

No fire engines!


Daughter: I wonder what happened.


Mother: It must have been a chimney fire, which could in fact have burnt down the man next door's house, but didn't.


Daughter: I hope that's the end of fires in next door.



IN THE HOUSE.

Daughter's studio room is filling up with lovely paintings based on memories and dreams, set in the bushland of her childhood.

She's painting for an exhibition to be held in a nearby gallery.



ONE EVENING.

Mother walks to an exhibition opening at a Redfern gallery she hasn't seen before.

Daughter had gone ahead, so Mother had to find her, after arriving at the large, impressive gallery, joining all the pretentious, smartly-dressed people milling around, enjoying the atmosphere and the wine. No doubt they were enjoying the works of art as well.

Daughter appeared, and led Mother to the room where strange wooden sculptures were on display.

In settings such as a strange wooden car, or a little wooden boat, there were fantastic wooden personages, which you would like to have sitting around in your house for company, or just to be admired.


When Daughter introduced Mother to her sculptor friend, Mother planned to tell him how much she admired and enjoyed the sculptures, but her attention was so fixed on the sculptor's face, that she was struck dumb.


Daughter (soon after, in explanation): He has some problem with his eyes, I think, that causes those big fluid filled bags under his eyes....and he's probably already rather drunk.


Mother: He looks like a nice person.


Daughter: See the man over there. That's the owner of the gallery where I'm to have my exhibition. I'll introduce you to him.


Again Mother couldn't believe her eyes, as she was introduced to a man who was the spitting image of the man next door! .... The same demeanour, the same height, the same figure, the same head, the same face, the same expression, the same seductive blue eyes!


Daughter (later): Yes, he does look just like the man next door. And he knows him, and likes him. They drink together at the pub.



ANOTHER DAY.
Daughter: The man next door is away a lot of the time these days.


Mother: Yes. But I spoke to him yesterday.

He was outside his front door reading his mail when I walked past.

I said "Hello", and he reluctantly looked up. He didn't seem very friendly, and I got the feeling that some of his mail was not good news.

He told me that he's away a lot these days, working up the north coast, and that his house here is on hold because of a serious lack of money.

He added ..."Work has saved a desperate situation, and enabled me to pay my mortgage."

Then he started to say something about "a sunny day", and I noticed that his face looked rather pink, and somewhat swollen.

I wondered if he's been getting a bit too much sunshine up north.

(To be continued.)

The Man Next Door. Chapter 15.

(Knocking, and banging and voices could be heard next door.)


Daughter: The man next door must be happy to have an audience in there, while he knocks down more of his house.

(Then there was laughter next door.)


Older Daughter (who was visiting.): You should call out to the man next door ...."Don't laugh, or your house will fall down!"

"And that will be no laughing matter!"



A WEEK OR SO LATER.
Alpha: I was out on the front verandah, trying to fix the leaking tap near our water meter, when the man who lives on the other side of the man next door, came knocking at his door.

There was no response.

"Have you seen Lertch?", he asked me, and I didn't know where he was.

He added "There's something on fire in his house,.....I have to find him."

"Try the pub", I suggested.

I waited out the front to see what happened, and soon the man next door came hurrying home from the pub, carrying a bucket of water, because no doubt the water is still turned off in his house.

When he opened his front door, smoke billowed out, but he went inside, and he must have managed to put the fire out.

Soon afterwards I had an opportunity to ask the man next door what had happened, and he invited me into his house to see the damage. There were charred floorboards in front of his fireplace, where burning firewood had fallen out onto the floor.


Mother: Imagine if the fire hadn't been noticed in time, and his house had burnt down!



ONE MORNING.
Mother: As I walked past the man next door's house yesterday evening, I glanced in through his open front door and saw young men, and a young woman, all dressed in black, arranged around in the house.

A party was beginning.

Later the party got noisier, and I heard the man next door swearing drunkenly at someone.

Then he said "You've had 40 chances, and wasted them all." ....."No, you can't touch my water!"



ONE DAY, OUT IN THE STREET.
Daughter: See that skinny woman in a summer dress, walking towards us. She dresses like that in all seasons and weather.

(The woman walked towards them in a spritely-enough way, yet a little bit unsteadily, as if she was so light on the ground that a puff of wind could blow her away.

As she passed them Mother noticed the vacant expression on the woman's face, and the big patches of ingrained dirt on her forehead.)


Daughter: Did you notice her fingernalis?..... The way they're curled like claws. They must be nearly two inches long.

And did you notice her hair? It's so matted that it looks like a piece of felt.


Mother: Is she homeless?


Daughter: Although she looks like a homeless woman, I've been told that she owns at least three houses around here.

I can tell you a very surprising story about her.

A few days ago a man up the street was showing me inside his house, when he suddenly called me to the window to look at something, .....something he had only seen once before.

This same skinny, homeless-looking woman, (who lives next door to him) was sitting completely naked in her back yard, leaning back against a wall, arms spread out, and a blissful expression on her face, as she enjoyed the warm sunshine.

It was a freakish sight, and I was struck by her skinny chest, and her little flat breasts, hanging down.

She was very close to us, but she looked quite oblivious.


Mother: I'm so glad she doesn't live next door to us.



EARLY ONE UNEXPECTEDLY COLD MORNING.
Daughter anxiously sang out to Alpha, because she was alarmed by the smell of something burning, and by plumes of smoke coming into her room, apparently from inside the wall, and emerging through cracks where the window met the wall.

She could feel that the dividing wall between her room and the man next door's house was hot, as if the house next door was on fire. Through the wall, Daughter could hear crackling, and little bits of who knows what, falling down.


Daughter: What's happening! What will we do?


(To be continued.)

The Man Next Door. Chapter 14.

Mother: Can you think of any reason why the man next door has a collection of little kiddies' bikes lying around on his front verandah?


Daughter: I've no idea why they would be there, and I'm not really interested at the moment. I had another bad dream last night, and once again I woke up in a bad mood.


Mother: What have you been dreaming about?


Daughter: In my dreams I've been feeling very unsafe. I'm often chased by bad people.


Mother: You need a ray gun, to point at the bad people in your dreams, to kill them.


Daughter: Would the ray gun be called Ronald?



A WEEK OR SO LATER.
On Mother's return home one night she heard something fall from a paperbark tree on the footpath, between the front of her house and the front of the man next door's house. A small branch had fallen from the tree, and next moment she saw the man next door, looking a bit dishevelled, and with little bits of paperbark in his hair.


The Man Next Door (greeting Mother excitedly): Have a look at what I've just done!... Look up there....up in the tree!


Mother: What is that little bike doing up there?


The Man Next Door: I just put it there!


Mother: You could have fallen!


The Man Next Door: I did fall, and brought down that branch......Now look higher up in the tree.


Mother looked again, and saw a really tiny bike suspended up near the top of the tree, looking somewhat like a Christmas fairy on a Christmas tree.


Mother: That's amazing!


The Man Next Door: Look up the next tree!


Mother: More bikes!.....And then three more bikes up the next tree!


The Man Next Door: Come along here. My favourite is the bike hanging from the upside down "Auction" sign.

(The sign was hanging upside down from a post, and the bike was hanging over the sign. It didn't seem to matter that it's front wheel was missing.)


Mother: I'm impressed. You're an artist!


The Man Next Door: You're not impressed enough!.... I'm going back inside.


Mother: I'm sorry. I really am very impressed, but when I try hard to show how impressed I am about something, people don't think I mean it. Maybe it's because I'm trying so hard that I somehow laugh.


The Man Next Door (who must have been reassured, because he continued talking, outside his front door):

My house is at a standstill because I'm seriously out of money.


Mother: Maybe you should marry a rich old woman.


The Man Next Door: What about a rich young woman?


Mother: Where will you find one?


The Man Next Door: I've met some on the North Shore, talking about their doctor fathers, and enthusing about my blue eyes.

My lovely girlfriend, who's very young, doesn't have much money, and her family is very poor.


Mother: That's a pity.


The Man Next Door: I think she's too young for me, but she really cares about me.

(a pause, then he continues with....)

I apologise for all the noise I make in my house.


Mother: What do you hear from our house?


The Man Next Door: The main thing I hear is laughter. I envy your family because you are able to laugh so much.

My family is Jewish, and I grew up in a household where there was no laughter.

My parents haven't visited me for about seven years because they are afraid of what they will find. They are worried about me. I occasionally visit them though.



NEXT EVENING.
(The man next door was sitting on his front doorstep, playing maracas, when mother returned home.)
The Man Next Door: I'm disappointed because I don't think anyone has noticed the bikes I put up in the trees.

I'm out here waiting for my girlfriend to visit me.



THE FOLLOWING EVENING.
As mother returned home she was disappointed to see that all the bikes in the trees were missing.

(At that moment the man next door suddenly appeared.)


Mother: What happened to all the bikes?


The Man Next Door: Council workers removed them. They just happened to come to inspect the trees in this street, when they found the bikes, and considered them to be unsafe. But when they tried to knock the bikes down they found that they were so well secured that it was necessary to bring in a cherrypicker, to get them down.


Mother: What a shame!

I wish I'd photographed the bikes while they were up there. I hope some people did notice them, and feel amazed.



THE NEXT DAY.
Mother: As I was coming back from the shop just now I saw two uniformed police walking along on the other side of the street. By the time I got here the police had arrived outside the man next door's house, and they were talking to him, I'm not sure what about. He was standing at his open front door.

I wanted to hear what was being said, but I couldn't just stand out there, watching, and being watched.

All I heard was a policewoman saying "Do you own the house?"

Once inside here I couldn't hear any more of the conversation. They're probably still out there talking.


Daughter: I guess they're talking to him about the bikes up in the trees.


Mother: I hope he doesn't get into a lot of trouble.

The Man Next Door. Chapter 13.

Mother: I can't believe it. I actually went inside the man next door's house.


Older Daughter: What on earth for?


Mother: We were interested in seeing whether his house is in danger of collapsing. So when he invited me in to see what he's built to support his house, while he knocks out walls, I took the opportunity, and followed him inside.


Older Daughter: What did you find?


Mother: Walking into his house was harder than I had expected. All the floorboards in the hallway had been removed, leaving a very big hole the length and width of the hallway, and about one metre deep. I had to follow the man next door along three narrow, bouncy boards, placed side by side, the length of the hallway. It wasn't reassuring to see that the boards only just overlapped something solid at either end, and that they weren't secured in any way. Underneath the boards was just the big hole.


Older Daughter: I wonder if he's ever fallen into the hole, after returning home drunk from the pub.


Mother: I wouldn't be surprised. I've seen him recently walking along dragging one leg, and holding his back, as if he'd injured himself.

As we walked along the bouncy boards he said "See what I've built".
He was proudly pointing at a bookcase-like structure, in lightweight-looking timber, with "shelves" about 18" apart, and occasional vertical struts. It rose from floor to ceiling, next to the great gaping hole where he has been knocking out the dividing wall between the two main downstairs rooms, shaking our house with all the knocking and banging that has been going on.

He explained, "I've built that to support the weight that used to be taken by the wall I'm knocking out, until I can put in place a pillar on either side, and a suppoting beam across the top.

The structure looked too flimsy to reassure me that his house won't collapse. What do you think? Do you think it would be strong enough?


Older Daughter: It's hard to say, without actually seeing what he's built.


Mother: The wall between the front room and the hall had been taken out too, so I could see a great long line of boxes, and unidentifiable things, stacked high, filling the front room. He explained the assortment of drums spread out on top, with ...

"I'm a drummer, you know."

When I reached the other end of the hallway, and thought it was safe to step off the bouncing boards, the man next door said "Don't step there!" ....."Step here," and we moved into the second room, where it was safe to move around a bit and talk. We were surrounded by a forest of lengths of timber, with other building materials and scaffolding and ladders stacked around.

Everything I could see in the house seemed to be grey, or in colour greys.

Maybe to explain the grey dustiness, the man next door said ..."There's a lot of dust in my house. I think it accumulated over the years during the time when there were steam trains travelling on the railway line over there." 

He added "I've told you how I managed to get rid of the termites, fleas and bedbugs in my house. I've also had to replace rotting and termite- affected timber. That's why I took out all the floorboards in the hall."


THE CONVERSATION CONTINUED.

The Man Next Door: Have you seen my lovely new girlfriend, who comes to help me work on the house?
She even brings her own toilet paper. She's only 25. I think she may be too young for me. I'm 44, but she thinks that's OK.


Mother: What happened to the lovely girlfriend you used to have, the one who used to laugh a lot?


The Man Next Door: I don't know which one you're talking about.


Mother: She seemed to disappear suddenly so we imagined that you had murdered her, and buried her under your kitchen floor!


The Man Next Door: There are various girls I've known on and off for a long time.


Mother: I may as well mention one thing that bothers my daughter, and Alpha.... the constantly running water in your toilet. They would like to offer to fix it for you. They know what to do and its simple.


The Man Next Door: That's kind of them, but I've fixed the problem. I've turned off all the water in my house. It was leaking in other places too. I get bottles of water from the pub.


Mother: What do you do when you need a shower?


The Man Next Door: My friend Phil across the road lets me use his shower. I've just had a shower there.


(Mother noticed that the man next door looked very clean, and soft-skinned. She didn't ask what he does when he needs to use the toilet.)


The Man Next Door: I really like your daughter, and Alpha. They are very kind to me. I need people to say nice things to me. Your daughter said some kind things to me the other day.


(Mother could remember Daughter reporting that she had been embarrassed by what she had said to the man next door....that if he hears us talking about him we are not criticising him. Mother knows that Daughter does feel compassion towards the man next door, knowing that he is an alcoholic, and also because he told her that he had been away recently, after things in his life fell apart.)



THEN SOMETHING UNEXPECTED HAPPENED.

Someone was calling out through the open front door ...."Can I come in too?"


The Man Next Door: Yes come on in.


Daughter (who appeared in the hallway): I was setting out for a walk, when I heard Mum laughing. I was curious about what was going on.


The Man Next Door: I invited your mother to come in to have a look and see how well I've propped up the house, while I'm taking out this wall. See what I've built.

And see my kitchen. It's going to look very different from that. I've got a photo here to show how I want it to look.

(He produced a photo from a magazine, showing a pleasant, spacious, peaceful-looking kitchen, full of light, in subtle shades of green and beige.)

(When he lowered the photo, and the existing kitchen was revealed again, Mother and Daughter both found it hard to believe that such a transformation was possible.)


The Man Next Door: I'm hoping to get permission from the owner of your house to extend the wall of my kitchen to the boundary between our houses.


Mother: I think it would be nice if that wall has lots of glass, or if there is a sloping glass roof.


The Man Next Door: Yes, that's what I'm planning.

And on the subject of glass ... I'm going to use lots of glass in my bathroom. I plan to build a big bathroom above the living room, where you'll walk between walls of glass, enclosing fish tanks on either side.


Daughter: That sounds lovely!


Mother: I hope you don't get drunk, and accidentally break the glass, and cause an avalanche of water, cascading downstairs.


The Man Next Door: That won't happen, because I've got lots of 3/4" thick glass for the fish tanks.

You know, one thing I really enjoy is hearing all the laughter that comes from your house.


Mother (thinks): It's just as well he doesn't know that a lot of our laughter is about him.



(At this stage the man next door's mate Phil, from across the road, arrives, and is introduced. Mother and Daughter then decide to leave.)



BACK AT HOME

Daughter: Its surprising, but in spite of all the drabness and chaos, you have to admit that the house next door has quite a pleasant feel about it.


(To be continued.)

The Man Next Door. Chapter 12.

Daughter: I saw something very funny in Cleveland Street today. An elderly man with a walking frame was crossing the road, but not at the traffic lights. He was crossing half way up the street. He didn't bother looking to see what traffic was coming. He just proceeded across the street in front of the traffic, making it stop for him. I watched, fascinated, wondering if he would be hit by a car. Not only did he get across the street without mishap, he immediately turned around and crossed back the same way. But that wasn't enough for him. For as long as I could be bothered watching him I saw him continue back and forth across the busy road, slowly, using his walking frame.


Mother: I've seen a young woman getting excitement on Cleveland Street too, hurtling down a hill on her bike, just ahead of the traffic. She was having so much fun that she was squealing with delight, freewheeling at speed, her legs sticking out sideways, no helmet on and her hair flying free.


Alpha: I've seen her too. She often rides her bike like that down the Cleveland Street hill. She enjoys it so much that she rides around the block, then hurtles down the hill again and again, with the traffic coming close behind her.

I've had fun on my own bike too, without really trying. Yesterday I was riding along a footpath when I saw a young man snatch a woman's handbag. The woman stood there, bewildered, and the thief hurried away. I just kept on riding along towards him, and he thought I was chasing him, so he began to run. But he soon fell over, and the handbag flew out of his hand and almost onto the road. Luckily I was just in time to pick it up, and return it to the astonished woman.


Mother: I can imagine you wearing a hero's cape at the time.


Alpha: The young man who I'm most likely to see snatching women's handbags waits close to certain corners, particularly on Abercrombie Street, close to Cleveland Street, where he can get away up a side street. One young woman I saw was so involved in a conversation on her mobile phone that she was an easy target for him.


Mother: It seems that nothing really exciting happens around here, apart from the Redfern Riots, which I'm sure were out of character,... and just the occasional murder.

But there's one thing I'm afraid might happen, that would be very exciting for us. The man next door's house might collapse, bringing part of our house down too.The way our house shakes so much as he attacks his house, I wonder if what he's doing is safe.

Have you noticed how his ute gets so overloaded with all the bricks and rubble he takes out of his house that you'd think it would be impossible for it to move. There is a trailer that he loads up too. He must be removing so many walls that you wonder what is left to support the top floor.

I hope he knows what he's doing.


Daughter: Do you think some authority should inspect what he's doing, to make sure it's safe.

Should we ask the Council, or the owner of our house to investigate?


Mother: I wouldn't like to be involved in that. It could get the man next door into trouble.


Daughter: Maybe we should just ask the man next door if we can have a look inside his house.


Mother: I wouldn't go in there if I were you.



A FEW DAYS LATER.
Daughter: Last night the man next door must have invited young people from the pub back to his place for a party.

Suddenly I heard an alarming crash, as if something significant was being destroyed.

Someone called out "You idiot!", and said it again and again as the smashing and crashing continued. There was also laughter. I wonder what was happening.

A bit later, the man next door sounded as though he was crying. And then he was shouting. It sounded as though he was going off his head, as he complained that his life is a mess.


Mother: We think we are observing the man next door's life, but there must be many aspects of his life that we know little about. And who knows the extent of the disappointments and demons he has to deal with.


Daughter: I've heard him having emotional telephone conversations with a woman, maybe his ex partner, telling her how much he loves her, and imploring her to come back.

Alpha has spoken to him and found out that he has a young daughter who lives overseas with her mother. He must miss his daughter too.

Sometimes he has phone conversations in a foreign language that I can't identify, and I've also heard him talking to a relative who was criticising him for his drinking.


Mother: I wonder how old he is.


Daughter: How old do you think he is?


Mother: He must be in his 40's. How old he looks depends on what state he's in.


Daughter: I'd say he is about 45.


Mother: Yes, I'd agree with that.



ANOTHER MORNING.
Daughter: Something funny happened last night. There was a party going on next door and I was annoyed because all the noise was keeping me awake. When I heard the man next door pissing outside his kitchen door, almost under my window, I decided to catch him while he was vulnerable, and I threw up my window and looked down at him, calling out ..."It's really loud."...."We can't sleep."

I said no more because the situation was mutually embarrassing, and that was probably why he didn't respond.



A FEW DAYS LATER.
Mother notices that in the last few days the front door of the house next door is sometimes open.

Going past she looks in to try to make out what can be seen. It is such a grey, dismal, cluttered shambles that it is hard to identify anything.

So she decides to pause for a moment on her way back from the shop to have a better look in through the open front door. When she looks in the first thing she can make out is the face of the man next door, as he emerges from his house.


The Man Next Door: I apologise for all the noise I've been making.


Mother: What we do worry about is whether your house is going to fall down.


The Man Next Door: Well, if it does collapse it will just fall on me. But don't worry, it's well propped up.

Would you like to come inside to see what I've built to hold things up until I can put in a steel beam?


Mother (thinks): Here is the opportunity we have been looking for.

Then, she can hardly believe what is happening, that in spite of the times she has said that she would never go in next door, here she is, about to step inside the man next door's house.