A Letter From The Other Side, (Mates) 2011, No 7

Mates.



Someone seeing the two chairs on our back veranda may have assumed that I had been sorting clothing ready for the recycling depot. As they approached they would have heard voices coming from each scruffy pile. The voices were those of Teddy and his Irish friend Hughie returned from a morning’s fishing, or at least dangling their lines in the river.
Despite their protests they were about as welcome inside the house and seated at the kitchen table as any dog would be after recently rolling in a steaming, fresh cow pat.
This is why they sat outside in the fresh air.

Protruding from each pile was a hand holding a bottle of beer and the discussion that was proceeding in a desultorily way was about the beer and its merits and whether it came up to the heights of the previous batch of home-brew and its comparison with the batch before that one. Judging by the number of bottles decorating the path around their feet, it needed quite a lot of sampling to be made before a judgment was to be reached.

Eventually the subject turned to the activities of a small spider about the size of a twenty cent piece which was making its way up one of the veranda posts and bets were laid and estimates made about the length of time it would take the spider to reach the top of the post.

It was the ideal occupation for the afternoon because both of them were well beyond doing anything which required greater exercise. Hughie was gradually seeping further down into his clothing and was slowly assuming the look of a friendly Cane toad which had somehow managed to grow a tousled crest of grey hair.

As the spider wandered upward oblivious to the interest of the inebriated humans watching, I heard Teddy say.

‘I feel a bit bad taking the bet Hughie because your eyesight isn’t as good as mine and I will be able to see when the first front leg gets to the top more easily that you can.’

‘Hhmm’ Hughie agree, ‘but my hearing is much better than yours, so I’ll be able to hear its first footfall more easily than you can mate.’

‘True, true’ agreed Teddy ‘Well that’s settled then.’

They sat in companionable silence until the spider inconsiderately decided it would circumnavigate the pole and begin going back down the post.

‘Stupid thing. It must be a woman changing its mind like that,’ muttered Hughie.

‘Yep, nothing quite like the female of a species to alter its mind.’ agreed Teddy.

All was quiet once again as they contemplated the fickleness of the female spider making its way slowly toward the ground.

Evidently her actions reminded Hughie of something which had occurred to him last week.

‘You know that woman called Sonia Hepall?’

‘No can’t say I do’ replied Teddy.

‘ Doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you anyway and you’ll know to keep away from her.’

‘Sounds an ominous woman’

‘She’s deadly, I’ll tell you.’ Hughie sank a little lower in the chair.

‘I met her coming out of Bingo last week and offered her a lift home. It was coming on dark and she has always been pleasant enough. She accepted the lift and we set off for her place.
We were getting along fine until she said to me that if I turned left at the next road it would be shorter.
I don’t know that area of the town very well and it was coming on evening as I say. Well I took the next left and all of a sudden the car felt as if the wheels were falling off and she began screaming hard enough to shatter me eardrums. ‘Stop, Stop Hughie’ she kept screaming at me and made me get even more panicky so by the time I got my wits about me, I was going down the second flight of steps before I realized I had turned left through into the park entrance instead of the laneway.’

‘Oooh that was a bit rough Hughie. What did you do?’ Teddy queried.

‘Well she was swearing and calling me every name she could muster up and I can tell you she had some in that lot of spiel I hadn’t even heard before. Telling me what a stupid bugger I was and doing a great job of imitating a banshee on steroids.
Naturally I pointed out it hadn’t been my entire fault because she had been the one to say ‘next left’ which meant she was at fault also. Well, that set her off even more!’

‘Not very conciliatory then?’ Teddy sympathised.

‘Bloody unreasonable I thought.’ replied Hughie. ‘She moves away from me now when we meet and won’t speak to me at all. Not that it worries me much now I’ve had a decco ( Aussie for seen) what she is like when she is upset.’

‘Not very understanding woman obviously’

‘No Teddy she isn’t. I suppose telling her to bugger off home didn’t help.’

‘Holds a grudge does she? A bit of a chip on her shoulder?’

“Oh, I think the grudge is too heavy to hold at this stage. Everywhere she goes I think you’ll see a lorry parked out the front with a Mountain Ash tree on its tray!
She hasn’t helped my reputation with the ladies at all. I catch them looking at me with weird expressions and eyeing me from over their tea cups as if they suddenly expect me to leap up and begin Morris dancing or take out a sabre and charge around the room.’

‘Oh they’ll get over it when some other bloke does something they think is silly. You know what the women are like.’ Teddy soothed. ‘How is your car?’

‘Huh, it sounds as if it has a few tin cans full of stones rattling about in it and I know it’s only my imagination, or maybe a trick of the light or something, but sometimes I seem to catch it wearing an expression of condemnation over what happened.’

‘Must be a female car.’ Teddy said in a knowledgeable manner.’Whatever goes wrong has to ultimately be your fault.You can’t escape their reasoning you know.’

‘You’re right mate, I hadn’t considered that ass…..as,’ his pronunciation faltered as he began another bottle and tried the word again. ‘Aspect.’




I left the house to go for a walk to reassure myself the rest of the word was still as I had left it and as close to being sane as it is possible, at least in our neighbourhood.

Cheers Cynthia.

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