Vignettes
Henry & Imran
Henry shambles along the busy city footpath, a bulging plastic shopping bag hanging from each hand. Although he is moving against the busy pedestrian traffic on its way to after-work trains, he collides with no-one. It’s as if he carries a force field with him. The well-dressed office workers give him a wide berth, assuming Henry is smelly or infested with vermin. He is neither of these.
Henry’s clothes are ragged and don’t fit him well, but they are freshly washed, as he is. Each of his two sets of clothes goes through the laundromat on alternate weeks. Henry himself showers every other day at the city baths.
Henry turns into a laneway, leaving the noise behind. Halfway along he lowers his shopping onto the platform of a deep alcove. He greets his ‘co-resident’, Imran, a homeless refugee.
Imran helps store the shopping, except for the hot take-away meals, in an old, broken-down, doorless wardrobe standing against the huge doors of the old warehouse, which have not been used since the days of horse-drawn carts.
Before dusk disappears the two men pull bed rolls out of the wardrobe and spread them on the wooden flooring of the alcove. Over their chicken and chips Henry asks Imran how he fared at the refugee support centre.
“I have interview tomorrow for job, again. They not like refugee, most bosses.”
“Just keep at it, Imran. If I still had my business, I’d have no hesitation employing you. A real shame you can’t practice medicine in this country. A real shame.”
“Why you don’t start business again, Henry?”
“No money. I’m still waiting for the authorities to make up their minds about my crooked partner and if they can release the money they’re holding.”
“So then everything will be good again.”
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s on the cards my ex-wife will try and get her hands on most of it.”
“That is wrong!”
“Tell me about it. Especially as she made it possible for that good-for-nothing crook to screw me out of my business — and my marriage.”
“What you do if I get job and can rent place?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find someone else to split the rent on this luxury accommodation.”
They both laugh.
Miriam
Miriam sits at a table, her wheely walker beside her. She watches other nursing home residents with their family visitors, chatting, laughing.
One of the carers approaches her. “Would you like a cuppa while you’re waiting?”
“No thanks, Dear. They should be here soon.” Miriam sighs. “It is Tuesday, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. Do you want me to phone your daughter to check? We have her mobile number.”
“That’s okay. Thank you.” She hesitates. “Maybe a glass of orange juice. That would be nice.”
When the carer comes back with the juice, Miriam says, “Perhaps you would phone Hannah for me. Just in case something has gone wrong.”
“Of course. I’ll be right back.”
Miriam sips her drink, slowly, careful not to choke. She is half-way through it when the carer returns.
“Hannah’s phone is ringing out, Miriam.”
“What does that mean? Is that bad?”
“It means no-one’s answering it. It could mean that she has left her phone at home, or she has the ringer turned off. I’ll try again in a while if she hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Thank you. That would be good.” Miriam plays with her glass, turning it around and around, then moving it through the condensation puddle on the table. She observes the three family groups having a happy time. She notices one of the male residents sitting in his wheelchair on his own, also watching the visitors. He notices Miriam looking at him and raises a hand. She waves back. She knows he never has visitors and she feels teary.
“Why are you crying, Mum?”
Miriam jerks her head around to look at her daughter with her two grandsons standing behind her. “Oh, thank God you’re alright. I was worried. Chelsea phoned you, but you didn’t answer.”
Hannah opens her handbag and hunts through its contents. “I must have left it home. Why the tears, though?”
Miriam inclines her head towards the old man in the wheelchair. “Stavros is totally on his own. He seems to have no family and no visitors since his wife died last year. He comes out to watch the other residents with their visitors. It’s so sad.”
Hannah turns to her elder son. “Josh, perhaps you could go and ask that gentleman if he’d like to be taken around the garden.”
“Really, Mum?”
“Really. You could talk to him and even ask him about when he was your age. Could be useful for your history project even.”
Miriam watches her grandson reluctantly go over to Stavros. He introduces himself and points back to his mother. Stavros shakes Josh’s hand and they talk, before Stavros points down the corridor and Josh wheels him away.
Miriam turns back to Hannah and the younger boy. She pats her daughter’s arm. “I’m so fortunate to have you and your family, and Eduard. I’m so lucky.”
Hannah sits down and turns to her son. “Tea for two, please Mick. And whatever you would like.” She turns back to her mother. “I’m lucky, too. And so are the boys.”
Abby, Libby & Bobby
“Did you see what Cindy was wearing?”
“Yeah. Straight out of her granny’s cupboard. That stuff hasn’t been worn for, like, two hundred years.”
“I reckon she looked cool.”
“Really? You’re joking me.”
“Nah. Mind you, I wouldn’t wear it, but.”
The three high school girls are sitting in a café, after school. Private school uniforms, shirts hanging out in an I-am-only-wearing-this-because-I-have-to kind of nonchalance.
“Mum & Dad are going to Bali next week. Got to look after my little brother. Yeach, he’s such a nuisance.”
“Better than having your older brother looking after me when my folks went to some island in Queensland last year.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t like that. Mind, I’d love to have a brother or sister. It’d be cool … sort of … I guess.”
“It is, sometimes. My brother has some cool friends. Some are … nice.”
“What, like sexy?”
“One of them, yeah.”
“Libby, you’re blushing, girl.”
“Shut up, Bo! I’m not. It’s the coffee.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Libby, you haven’t, have you?”
“Stop it, both of you. No … I …”
“Lib, you’ve done it!”
“Oh, my God. What was it like?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Abby.”
“Yes you do.”
“No!”
“Come on, Lib. Was it good?”
“Cut it out, Bobby.”
“No, really, we want to know.”
“We didn’t. OK? Not properly, anyway.”
“More, girl. Give us more. Your best friends need to know.”
“Well, we tried. I had to get him to stop.”
“Poor guy.”
“Poor me, actually. It was hurting.”
“Was he rough on you?”
“No, nothing like that. It was … you know … I probably need to stretch, or something.”
“Stretch? What … Oh, I see. Abby, you could borrow your mum’s thing for her.”
“No way. Mum’d kill me if she found out. I shouldn’t even have told you about it.”
“Cut it out, both of you. I’ll be OK. I’ll figure it out. I’ll leave it for a bit. I’m not ready for that sort of grief. It’s supposed to be fun, but it wasn’t.”
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