THOSE FAMOUS STEPS

In unit number 21 lives a statuesque woman who comes out and exuberantly expresses her gratitude at my weeding the garden bed outside her bedroom window, as well as shaping with shears the unruly bay tree to a far more agreeable size. With both hands she blows me kisses. She bows and calls me a darling. Later on a tea break I'm told she used to tread the boards in theatres across cities such as London and Edinburgh.

STAYING ALIVE

If there's any doubt about the importance of the lawns in the minds of those who live here, they'll likely be removed with each encounter, however brief. Some of the residents speak about the abilities of my predecessors as if they're comparing the technique of their favorite tennis players. And yet the qualities of my immediate predecessor, it soon becomes clear, shall not be too difficult to surpass. Apparently, rather than regularly attend to the grounds, he preferred the more solitary pursuit of weightlifting in the privacy of the garden shed. This, no doubt, goes to explain the presence of a full length mirror leaning up against one of the walls, as well as an abandoned dumbbell bar, and a small tube of oil that features the imprint of an overly developed headless torso. Rather than have time on his hands, my predecessor, it seems, had weights in them. Perhaps the proximity of so many near the end of their lives reminded my unknown gardening brother of his own mortality, likely encouraging him all the more to push on harder through another set of repetitions, maybe even with some added weight. Either that, or he was merely vain.

TWEAK OF THE THUMB

In the warmer months the lawns are to be cut at least once every ten days and maybe even more during the peak season, depending on the rain. Any stray grass cuttings (the rules of employment stipulate) that are not caught by the catcher are to be carefully raked and properly disposed of atop the compost heap, which needs to be turned through at least once a week with a pitchfork. And it's important never to forget to go back and trim the lawn edges and afterwards use the leaf blower to blow all the paths clear again. Until seeing it for myself in the shed, I never realized a leaf blower was an actual machine, nor a lawn edger for that matter, either. Up till now they would have sounded like some unfortunate, ill paid position a desperate father might have to undertake most weekends to earn enough to sufficiently feed his brood of eight. As for what Mrs Shearer called a whipper-snipper, a process of elimination helps identify that particular contraption. Fortunately the manuals for each device are neatly piled in an oil stained wooden box, beside a large enough collection of chemicals that look as if they could do serious damage to a herd of elephants.

DUCK AND DIVE

Monday morning and Mrs Shearer's walking me around the grounds. We're gone almost an hour.

Remembering Sol's tip, I stop at random places and pick weeds from garden beds, as if I can't help myself, whipping out now and then some recently acquired secateurs and snipping off here and there the heads from dead or dying flowers. Also on occasion I rub some earth between my fingers as if to show that I'm trying to determine soil condition. Then, before lunch, I take Sol's advice and concentrate firstly on the state of the garden bed directly outside the manager's office, weeding, feeding, mulching it, and afterwards noting Mrs Shearer's nods of appreciation, just as Sol had predicted.

She then takes me into her office and stresses the absolute importance of regularly maintaining and manicuring every lawn on the property, for inattention in that department, she says, is something the residents will never fail to notice.

MONKEY'S COUSIN

When I first came to these parts I started counting different things all the while on the drive up, only ceasing upon reaching the sign that stated I was now a thousand steps higher than the sea. Pulling in to fill up the car, I caught sight of the light on my hand still holding the steering wheel, shining on the sunless ring around my finger where an engraved band of silver used to be.

I was so far from home.

We had called the car Gloria on account of the song, filling the background as our bodies were first starting to get to know each other. Now though, no naked legs were catching the last of the summer's light on the front passenger seat. Instead there was a bag of clothes there, a couple of books, and a spare pair of boots in place of her feet.

Sol called ahead to get my foot in the manager's door at the retirement village. The manager, a Mrs Doreen Shearer, hastily explained the relevant duties to be undertaken around the grounds, in between calling out bingo numbers for the gathered residents. For the most part, the duties consisted largely of mowing the lawns and weeding and pruning the various garden beds around the place. 'It's Friday,' she said, after calling out another number, 'so why don't you come back Monday and show me what you can do.' So on Saturday morning I was scanning the library shelves for any volumes on basic gardening techniques, which at the very least added a few extra words to my vocabulary, such as mulch, and secateurs.

ON THE BORDERLINE

When I woke up the sun was getting ready to sleep and I had pictures of women swimming around inside my head that made me wish for their scent and touch again, but that was going to have to wait, who knows how long. Downstairs was still dry as a desert. And amongst the swimming women there were words too, whole snakes of them, swirling through and around the various arms and limbs and delectable bodies and faces. I could make out a phrase or two here and there but that was all. It only took the short walk back to the bar to convince me though that the sentences and such I could see waving about all over the lovely ladies, like seaweed, were from varying lines of the manuscript Louis had posted a while back, and which I had read, and read again, and had even consulted an appropriate dictionary once or twice to see if I would have translated this or that the same way. But I never went near the ones he had left behind in their original state, no, something there was holding me back from going anywhere beyond the most barest of glances.

The bar was busy. Post work quenching going on. I bought a beer and found a corner from which to watch. Next thing I know it's some drinks later and I'm in conversation with a kind eyed man called Sol who looks as if he could with one hand swing me around like a flag if he so chose. And then he offers me a job lugging rock next morning. He's a landscaper, currently building a dry stone wall down the bottom of an escarpment up at a property in Katoomba, though the residents prefer to say it's somewhere in Leura.

The next day, ably accomplishing the task earlier than expected, a little after lunch, he handed over some cash and mentioned a gardener’s position he knew was going at a nearby old people's home, if I was interested. And after jotting down the details, I drove the car to the edge of the bush and promptly went back to sleep again.  

ANNIE'S PILOT

She'd been granted a wish, and so the next thing I knew she was in my field looking to see it fulfilled. This was when I was earning a little extra flying folk around in a biplane, and maybe she'd heard about it through Louis somehow, as I couldn't think of anyone else who we still both knew in common. And now here she was walking towards me: Louis's aunt Annie. She looked much the same as I remembered her from my childhood, dark wavy hair and dark wide eyes, and the kind of skin that'd make me think of swimming in a pool of melting milk chocolate ... I was standing in the morning shadow of the plane when she came up right before me and told me her wish. Afterwards, I started making excuses. I pointed to the sky and I pointed to the ground. I shook my head. I picked up a tuft of grass and threw it in the air and then showed her my extra unsteady hands and said to touch them to see how cold they were and mentioned the sorry state of my cuticles. Next I tried to convince that I had suddenly misplaced my license and that lately the authorities were especially on the lookout for my kind of pilot. And when that didn't work I showed her the holes in my boots and asked her how could she possibly trust a man with such big holes in his boots. And shrugged my shoulders. But she was a persistent, ageless aunt Annie, she just couldn't be discouraged. And to prove to me, I suppose, just how much she wished to fly, Annie started running around the field in all directions, flapping her outstretched arms, propelling herself forward, ascending, turning, hovering, dipping, diving, and levelling out. All in all miming an aeroplane with considerable ease. Actually she was doing it so well that she soon lost all sense of time somewhere along the line as the act of controlling her plane and maintaining its course was proving to be a much greater need for her attention than anything else. And still she continued on with her manoeuvres, increasing her speed, checking her dials and gauges. Then climbing a little higher, she leveled out again, before deciding to perform some more acrobatics, pursuing each task with all the available resources at her disposal, both within and without. Now here she came again, diving, looping, twirling, swirling. Then she cut the engine, hovered midair a moment and stared into the sun, the orange light transfixing her till she realized she could no longer see anything else but the orange light, and nothing could be heard anymore, no, nothing at all but the orange light, and nothing could be felt anymore, no, nothing at all but the orange light. Then suddenly her arms dropped to her side and she stopped. I thought that she must have finally tired herself out, and was glad that she'd managed to have her wish, even if it mightn't have been what she would have imagined at the start. So I decided to leave her there in the field a while, turned and slowly walked away, thinking of breakfast.

A LAWSON LOUNGE

It was a strange combination of realizing I'd forgotten to pack Louis' gadgets - the laptop, the camera - and strikingly, suddenly, trying to fathom what the hell I was doing. I mean, here I was, midmorning sometime, having quickly packed the old car with a few things and with a feint pencil sketched plan to drive to Melbourne and find Albuquerque. What the hell was I doing? I had no idea where he'd be staying, a hostel of some sort was the extent of my knowledge. No contact details either. And my money situation was lower than low. The best I could say was that I had an old car which still ran well enough and a mattress in the back to sleep on. It was starting to feel a little like a dream, so I checked my legs for pajamas, and my belly rumbled as if in response. Jesus, did I even have breakfast? How long had I been driving anyway? Ah, about ten, maybe fifteen minutes down the highway from Katoomba. The town of Lawson was coming up. I remembered hearing how they were building a new town one street back behind the old, on account of widening the highway, so I took a right at the railway station, wound about here and there, and came to a clearing with some new streets and paths and a car park behind a building that looked like a hotel under reconstruction. I needed to think. I needed to think better. I needed some protein. On a concrete slab out back of the hotel, I saw an elderly couple chatting, seated upon a couple of milk crates, behind a mound of earth and rubble, an idle big yellow digger to their side. He was drinking a mug of something and she had a folded paper in her lap. When asked if they could recommend anywhere around here to eat, the man took another sip from his mug, jerked a finger behind him and said, Right here, if you can wait till noon, when the kitchen opens. While waiting, they told me a little bit more about what was going on. I'd heard right at least about the highway widening, and the strip of shops and businesses being relocated back a little. The hotel too was being completely refurbished. And then it was noon.

What am I doing here?

I start off with a dozen oysters, followed by a caesar salad. The oysters are not long out of the sea, and the salad is fresh and crisp and made as if seemingly determined to impress me. The dressing is superb, makes the taste buds dance. I check the menu again. Everything seems cheaper than what you'd expect, and of a far better quality than any pub I've come across since arriving in these parts. A bottle of pinot gris goes well with it all, that in turns goes well with an order of fish and chips and another bottle of pinot gris. The chips are big and cut by hand and cooked as if they couldn't be cooked any better. The fish is flathead and fine and lightly battered and the accompanying salad is firm and fresh and splashed with a balsamic type dressing that seems suited for competition, if there is a competition for that kind of thing, salad dressing king, or some such thing.

What am I doing here?

For dessert I have the creme brulee, which has real vanilla in it, and a couple of pistachio biscuits on the side. After I pay, and compliment the kitchen, I return to the car, and on the way back begin to remember Louis' aunt Annie making us biscuits when we were kids, the vast white walls of the penthouse where they lived, Charles the doorman who'd test our knowledge of the latest football scores, and other even more fleeting images that'd shoot past my inner vision as if in a race. Then unlocking the boot and climbing in the back of the car, I promptly fall asleep, with grateful thoughts of packing a mattress.

AN AFTERNOON ALL SPENT

JR - Starting with the one between her wedding band and pinkie - With a free hand and lipstick I'd gladly connect - Every mole on her body - Until together we'd reveal and hopefully comprehend - One of the secret words of God we'd lately come to read about - And which I knew, I really knew resided - Somewhere atop her most naked naked flesh - LA

HEADSHOTS

None of the photographs are pleasing.

I should probably press the shutter button less.

At least until I am more still, both inside and out.

It's like I'm waiting for some doom to tap me on the shoulder, scrape my healed over collar bone with a long black finger.

And afterwards, nothing I've seen can be seen on the screen.