For two weeks Damon did not see Esther. She was nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be found. He worried. What on earth could have happened to her? He worried more. Three, four times he took the long walk down to the old warehouse. No sign of her. No sign at all. It was almost as if she had never existed other than in his mind. He would knock on her door, wait. The door was locked – he tried it each time he visited. He thought there may be access to her room from other parts of the old building. If there was, he couldn’t find it. Those parts of the interior of the crumbling warehouse that were safe enough to navigate did not seem to have any relationship or connection to that place that Esther called home.
Once he saw the cat. ‘Hey, puss! Where is the old girl?’ he called. Tumbler hissed. ‘Here kitty kitty kitty kitty,’ sweet and soft, but Tumbler, not to be fooled, hissed with a greater intensity and vehemence and slunk off and away in its drunken three-leg roll. ‘Yeah. Wise cat,’ whispered Damon. ‘Reckon you’ve got my number. Least you don’t look to be bloody starving. Where the hell is she?’
He thought of battering down the door. She could be inside. Could be injured from some fall, from some other low-life hoon knocking her into some other gutter. Could be dead! No, not dead. Not old Esther.
Give it another day, two days. Go to the cops? Like hell! Like as not the old woman should not even be squatting in this slum and they, the bloody cops, would just turf her out on the street, sick or not. Cops’d land anyone with a load of shit – even old Esther! Give it another day or two and then bash, batter down the door.
He wasn’t required to break and enter. Quite by chance, he spotted her on the street. For the first time in weeks there was a fitful ray of sun – very early spring sun. Damon had left the library. He sat in a sliver of park that was doing its best to grow a couple of trees in the canyon between two high-rise office blocks. He lay back, enjoying what little there was of the fitful ray along with his usual lunch – bag of crisps, can of Coke, a couple of cigarettes.
There she was. Esther. She worked her way around the edge of the tiny park, checking rubbish bins, fossicking. Not food! Not for bloody food, Damon prayed very hard. Please God do not let the old trout be looking for bloody food. His prayer was answered. It wasn’t food she was hunting. Esther carried a short stick, a sort of poker. She ferreted within the contents of each bin. Methodical. Into a sack that she half-carried, half-dragged behind her she stashed her trove; forking out from the accumulated trash in each bin a haul of aluminium drink cans. ‘So that’s how you pay for the damn catfood and the tea,’ Damon whispered to himself. He let her be.
Damon gave his afternoon to the intricacies of the cardiovascular system and to Romeo and Juliet. He kept an eye on the entrance door to the library. Esther did not come. ‘Stupid old cow,’ he muttered, as he left the library. ‘You better be home this time,’ he pulled up the hood of his jacket. There had been no more than the one fitful ray. He helped himself to a good-sized container of fried rice at the Lame Duck. At the Indian open-all-hours next door, he bought half a dozen tins of catfood.
‘Didn’t know you had a cat, Damon,’ said the Indian.
‘Don’t know everything, do you?’ said Damon.
But she was not home. ‘Shit!’ he hissed. ‘Have you bloody moved on then?’ he huddled in the doorway, hunkered down, decided to give her ten more minutes, smoked.
‘Aha!’ she startled him. ‘What do we have here?’
‘You got me here. Where the hell have you been? I been bloody looking for you.’
‘Have you?’
‘Not good enough to let your mates know where you’re going, where you been? Oh, no. Where have you been? You haven’t been here for bloody weeks. Shit!’
‘Come in, boy. It is cold and damp out here.’
‘As if you’d care! Of course it’s bloody cold and damp out here and I been coming down here for bloody weeks.’
‘I shall put the kettle on,’ said Esther.
‘Stuff the kettle! I been worried.’
‘Goodness, boy. Why, for heaven sake?’
‘You could’ve been dead.’
‘Yes. I guess I could have,’ said Esther. ‘But now, as you see, I’m not.’
‘Serve you right if you had been.’
Then she laughed very loudly. ‘Ah me. Ah me. A fine young man worried about me. A young man concerned for my welfare. I am so lucky. But so late in life.’
‘Are you making fun of me?’
‘And so angry. What is it you have carried in here?’
‘Just shit for your cat and some Chinese.’
She looked at him. A slight, light smile seemed to play with her lips. ‘Thank you, boy. There is no need for you to bring me things.’
‘I’ll bring you stuff if I bloody want to. You given me stuff. I got my pot plant. It’s still growing, you know.’
‘I should hope so,’ said Esther. ‘It was a good and strong healthy plant.’
‘We got it on the table at home. My mum likes it. She was going to put it in a new pot.’
‘Why?’
‘Remember? The old pot’s all cracked.’
‘As I told you, boy, it continues to fulfill its function – it does what it was designed to do.’
‘Yeah. Right. I told her not to. It’s got a cool colour, that old pot. I think that plant whatsit – what the hell is it?’
‘Geranium.’
‘Yeah. That’s the one. I think it’s going to flower real soon.’
‘So,’ she looked at him. ‘Now tell me, boy, why did you need to see me?’
‘I didn’t need to see you,’ said Damon.
‘Why did you want to see me, then?’
Damon took off his sunglasses and stared straight at her, making no attempt to either cover or hide his face. ‘Well, Esther, I guess it’s like this. I thought that you’n me had become, well… er… sort of mates. I thought we were friends.’
‘I thank you for saying so,’ said Esther.
‘Me? Well, I never ever had what you’d call a friend and I guess I don’t know too much about what you do and, well, how you behave…’
‘Seems to me, boy, that you have learnt very quickly and very well exactly how to behave,’ said Esther.
‘I reckon friends, mates, are allowed to be a bit worried about each other.’
Esther leaned across the small table and, for the first time, touched the boy. She placed her hand over his. Damon did not move from her touch. The touch was gentle, the feel of that touch soothed, her hand was dry, warm. ‘Thank you, Damon. Thank you for your concern and for your worrying. There was no need… no need at all. But it is a good feeling to know that someone else thinks of you. I make you a promise that, for as long as I am around these parts, I will stay in touch with you. There,’ and she withdrew her hand.
‘There? Bloody nothing! For as long as you’re around these parts? What the hell does that mean? You planning to piss off?’
‘So,’ as she poured more tea. ‘Your mother likes your geranium plant? That’s nice.’
‘Yep,’ something told him he would not be answered. He allowed the diversion. ‘Yes, she does. Mum hasn’t always had very many pretty things.’
‘Has she not?’ as she handed his cup across to him.
‘Well, she’s had it a bit hard bringing up a kid, me, all by herself.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Do you want me to tell you about her?’
‘Only if you wish. Only if you choose. I didn’t ask,’ said Esther.
‘I think you sort of just did,’ said Damon.
‘Nonsense, boy. Rubbish!’
Rubbish? Damon was reminded of the old woman’s refuse bin fossicking but said nothing about this. ‘I am quite sure you lead me on to talk about things.’
‘Well, maybe that is another thing about being friends. Another thing, maybe, about having friends.’
‘If you say so. Where’s the cat?’
‘Yeah, well, I brought him a whole heap of stuff to eat.’
‘I am sure he will be most grateful.’
‘Bloody crap,’ said Damon. ‘Bloody cats aren’t ever bloody grateful for anything!’
‘It’s in their nature,’ said Esther.
‘Yeah, yeah. You’ve said that before, old lady.’ He looked at her, rubbed the scarred side of his face. ‘I’ll tell you how I got this.’
She said nothing.