The address I had for my father was a block of flats opposite a threadbare piece of grass that was supposed to be a park. There was a bench on it, presently unoccupied. It looked like a good place for a kip. A couple of kids skateboarded along the footpath beside the park. Brothers by the look of them, the younger one trying to keep up with the jumps the bigger one was doing with ease.
The block of flats looked like Department of Housing accommodation. A monolithic redbrick cube with rows of small windows. There was a low redbrick fence around the perimeter and grass inside that was better kept than the grass in the park. Despite the hot dry weather, despite the fires, someone was watering this patch of lawn. The windows had some signs of individual difference, attempts to personalise, to make the impersonal structure more like home. Some of the windows had curtains—lace, faded Marimekko designs from the sixties, a checked blanket in one case. Some windows were open, others closed. Some had vases of flowers—hard to tell from the outside whether they were real or artificial. A couple were obviously bathroom windows with toothbrushes sticking their heads out of thick mugs.
Guy Francis Valentine’s address was flat 2. I walked into the vestibule. Flats 1, 2, 3, and 4 were on the ground floor. Everything in here was pretty quiet. All the doors looked the same. I went to flat 2. I stood there ready with my hand up to knock but at the last minute found it surprisingly difficult to do. I listened at the door but no sound was coming out of this flat. I gave a light little tap. No answer. I tried a harder knock. Still no answer. Except for the kids outside on their skateboards this could have been a ghost town. No-one came in or out of the flats. Somewhere in the distance was the sound of talkback radio. I went out of the building but stayed inside the fence.
Number 2 was on the street side of the block. I wondered if my father might be incapacitated, whether he was given this flat because he couldn’t climb stairs. I walked across the grass and looked in his window. Despite the attempts at beautification that I’d observed at some of the other windows, the inside of this flat looked institutional. Neat, tidy, institutional. The floor was cork tiles with a piece of mustard-coloured carpet in front of a TV set. There was a tiled coffee table with a TV program neatly to one side. Even the small plate with a crust of bread and a butter knife resting on it looked neat. A comfy lounge chair, orange and mustard swirls with slightly frayed edges where the hands rested. The only sign of life was a yellow canary in a cage swinging on a miniature trapeze in the corner of the room. It may have been singing but I couldn’t hear it from here. There were curtains at the window, a plain brown material pulled back to let in the light. I tried the window but it was locked.
What the hell did I think I was doing, breaking into my father’s flat? I crossed over the street and sat on the park bench, looking at the dry crisp grass. There was still the smell of smoke. The brown haze hovered over the block of flats, kept up there by the heat of the building. Everywhere you looked the sky was full of it.
A minute later I saw the familiar red and blue uniform of Australia Post. The postwoman had on a hat to keep the sun off her, a bag on her back and a stash of letters in her hand. She deposited the letters into the row of letterboxes for the block of flats.
The skateboarders had gone, the odd car drove by. The canary was a good sign. Guy couldn’t be too far away if he had a pet to look after. Also, given the general neatness of his flat, he didn’t look like the kind of person who would leave his breakfast plate unwashed for very long. At an intersection a few streets away I saw a bus pass by. And finally a sign of life from inside the building. A woman in down-at-heel slippers and lank grey hair held back by a couple of bobby pins came out and looked in the letterbox of number 12. Out of it she pulled a long, window-faced envelope. She shuffled inside again.
From the direction of the passing bus two men approached. They were both elderly, one small and neat-looking with a good head of grey hair and a slight limp, the other completely bald, which made his small round face on a large body look even smaller. Both of them were carrying shopping bags—not heavy items, just the kind of shopping you do on your way home from somewhere. Or if you live alone and get by on the smell of an oily rag. Two nice old gents, battered about by what Life had dealt them but cheery in spite of it. They were walking along at a leisurely pace, the big one bending his head a bit to hear the story the little one was relating to him. When they got to the low wrought iron gate to the flats they opened it and walked in.
‘Coming up for a cuppa?’ said the big one.
‘Yeah, in a minute,’ said the little one, ‘I’m just going to check the mail.’
‘No point in me doing that, no-one ever writes.’ It wasn’t a whinge, more a light-hearted joke.
‘The government writes to you. It’s Thursday, you mug. Pension day.’
‘Jeez, how could I forget! Check mine for me will you, Guy.’
‘Sure thing, Charlie.’
He went to the row of boxes and came away with two letters similar to the one the woman had received. He walked up to the front door and gave one of the letters to Charlie, then both of them went inside and closed the door.
From the minute they’d entered the front gate everything had proceeded in slow motion. He was smaller, thinner than I imagined but it was him. Neither of the men had as much as glanced at the woman sitting on the bench. There was no flying towards each other as it happens in the movies, the atmosphere didn’t thicken with emotion. I just sat there.
There was some movement behind the window. Then it opened a fraction. It must have been quite hot in there but when you live on the ground floor you close the windows when you go out. Jf he caught sight of the woman on the bench now, he didn’t come back for a second look.
I stood up. All I had to do was cross the road and knock on the door. He was home now, there was nothing stopping me. Except myself. As I stood alone in the now deserted street, all the years of my life dissolved away and were reduced to these few seconds. He was not the young cadet of the year, the face that I remembered from childhood. Neither was he the dero lying in the street, the one I would rescue and take home and give a good bath. He’d rescued himself. It was time for me to do the same. He was just an ordinary person, an old man living in a flat, looking after himself and his budgerigar. Watching TV with his TV guide neatly on the table. He had a life and I was no part of it.
I stood there, on the point of leaving. I took a few steps. If he were to look out the window now, right now, maybe I would nod hello to him. Just nod in a neighbourly fashion then walk on. Perhaps he would pop his head out the window, looking down the street after me, wondering. Wondering, but never quite sure.
But he didn’t do any of that. Nothing happened. For all I knew he had already gone upstairs to have his cup of tea with Charlie. I continued on down the street, got in the van and drove away.