THE VOICE

I suppose I should at the beginning but …
Sometimes it’s nice living in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and other days you just want to be by yourself.
I can remember it being different. It doesn’t seem long ago when I didn’t live here and spent large parts of each day just sitting on the train trying not to make eye contact with any of the other passenger, because if they said, “Hello Izaak,” I’d be forced to try to remember their name. The next thing I know is I’m being woken by a middle-aged woman dressed in a purple kaftan carrying a crumpled carpetbag. A pretty scary sign at the best of times, I knew it must be Belgrave - the end of the line in so many ways.
“Your home now.” She reassured me. By some strange quirk of fate she was actually wrong. I have had to sleep in the odd Railway Station, but I’ve never actually lived in one.
When I first moved to Melbourne from England I got off the plane and because it was raining, surprisingly for Melbourne, I’d hopped into a taxi. Anyway this voice was on the taxi radio saying something like, “Hi, this is the Kevin and Fifi show on triple K. Unfortunately Fifi isn’t here yet - she’s stuck on the Monash.” For over a year I’d thought that “the Monash” was local colloquium for the toilet. Later of course I’d discovered it was a road, but only after I’d tried to blend in as a local by using it in a Restaurant. “Excuse me waiter but where’s the Monash.” “About three Kilometres down the road.” I think from that point on I’d decided to avoid Melbourne’s public sanitation system and drink as little as possible when I’m out. After I discovery of the real meaning I adjusted my resolution and have steered clear of road network and to commute on the train whenever possible, which ironically has the advantage that I could drink as much as I liked.
On arriving in Melbourne I was at once faced with the decision of where to live. The soulless suburbs with their endless executive style split level brick veneer barbecues had ruled themselves out a possible home, I’ve seen too many episodes of Neighbours for that, although I do rate the Stepford Wives as one of my favourite all time movies much to my wife’s disgust (the original not the dreadful remake with Nichole Kidman.) Anyway I moved into a rented house in semi-rural Emerald. The house, last redecorated in 1971, had silver wallpaper left over from an outer suburban discotheque. All that was missing was a mirror ball and a Boney M 8-track. Almost everything else in the house was orange or chromed. Above a blocked off fireplace, home to a one bar electric fire which when lit actually would have worked better as an air conditioner, hung an embroidered picture of huge orange poppies. Before living there I had never seen myself reflected in a chrome toilet. That the house needed decorating was undeniable, but as a new arrival I wondered if the whole of Australia was in a style time warp, a Bermuda Triangle of good taste with it’s inhabitants just pioneer settlers too busy stayin’ alive. From that base I started searching the valley for a more suitable family home close to the river. My family was to join me in two weeks time.
The house I found was actually the first I looked at. Either a sign that it was just what I wanted or of my sheer desperation to return from living in the seventies before I started wearing flared trousers.
The house was, as the real estate agent pointed out twenty three times, only five minutes from the Railway Station, what’s more these were special real estate agents minutes each lasting four times longer than an average minute. Going home via the school added perhaps an additional five minutes. I used to normally get home before my wife; sometimes I’d pick the kids up from school on the way, so they didn’t have to go to after school care. Once I made a special effort to be on time, I thought they would be pleased to see me but it turned out that as it was after school video club day and they were looking forward to it because it was going to be a Disney. They couldn’t have hated me more if I’d just shot Bambi’s mum myself. (Am I the only person who sees that film from the hunter’s point of view and wonders if they fish too, maybe they even used the deer hair to make little fishing flies?)
I say that I commuted into Melbourne. This isn’t strictly true. From time to time in order to make a living I have worked in Melbourne. It wasn’t exactly my dream when I immigrated with re-runs of Skippy in my head, but it pays the mortgage, just about. OK my wife has a real job that pays the mortgage, but contract work has its compensations, for one it frees up large chunks of the year to go fishing. Anyway on the day in question I’d been to Melbourne and seen an agency about a “real job”.
The kids fixed themselves home-time snacks while I swept the drive, a Zen Buddhist’s occupation in a eucalypt forest with a gravel drive.
As I was doing this, a black limousine drove down the road and stopped. Two men in matching black suits and black glasses marched out. Either the Mafia had a contract out on me or they were very rich Mormons.
“Excuse me is this number 8?” The one talking had an Italian accent. It was difficult to tell about the one not talking.
“Num-ber 8,” repeated the second.
Now my house is number eight, and seeing that it has a big bronze “8” on the gate it seemed pretty silly denying it.
“Yes,” I replied “but they’re out. I’m just the gardener.”
“One minute.” said the first suit.
“One min-ute” repeated the second.
The two went back to the car and consulted whoever was on the back seat. Then returned with an envelope.
“Make sure he gets this” sneered the first suit, “it’s important.”
“Im-por-tant” agreed the second suit.
That was all. They just left.
Terrified I waited ten minutes after they were out of sight before I opened the envelope. It contained just two words, “April fool!”
Later I went down to the station to meet my wife off the 6.55 as her car was in dry dock having the barnacles scraped from the carburettor or some such adjustment. As I was standing next to the car I noticed the woman in the kaftan was still there, surrounded by plastics bags, and looking like a refuge from Woodstock. As I was looking at her she turned round and we made eye contact. I looked away, but it was too late, she was coming over.
“Hello again Izaak, you can’t keep away.”
The voice of a small man sitting on my right shoulder, ”Oh God she knows my name. Say something, anything,” while a similar little man on my left shoulder remarked, “ignore him he’s just an illusion.”
“Hello again, I keep trying not to come to the station, but somehow can’t train myself not to.” I replied in an unparalleled display of repartee.
“Are you meeting Vicky?” she asked.
The voice said, “She knows your wife, she knows your family, she probably knows where you live, think, quickly……or run away.”
“I suppose your here to meet, er, sorry I can’t remember your husbands name.”
“David, and he died two weeks ago.”
The voice in my head gave a sigh of relief and said, “It’s Elizabeth Quinn, mother of Franny who’s in the same class as Connie. Husband was a bus driver, had a heart attack at the wheel, ten people killed.”
Some days it’s good to be by yourself, with only the voices in your head.
……and now a sort of beginning.