Village of fading dreams (2)

VILLAGE OF FADING DREAMS (2) After two years in residence at Chiltern Towers, Maxwell began to sense a changing of the old guard. Those in their eighties and nineties, many forming part of the original intake a decade ago, were beginning to wilt, drop out and fade away. One morning, Maxwell glanced up from The Australian to see a bulky shape beneath a white shroud on a trolley being wheeled out from the main lift and through the lounge by two long-limbed, jaunty ambos. The corpse, he assumed, must belong to Leslie, whose cranky, despairing mood of recent days since returning from hospital had caused ripples of speculation in hushed corners. The husband and wife nonagenarians, Victoria, with the immaculately permed silver hair and hawkish glare daring you to continue reading the communal newspaper while she was waiting with pursed lips for her daily perusal, ‘she who must be obeyed’, as Reg acknowledged with a giggle, the lean and lanky pre-war footballer, whose sole hobby nowadays was poring over the stock prices, were suddenly gone without trace. Percy, the painfully thin, unassuming cove with large molars for a smile, who still plodded in grim-jawed determination but unsteady motion round the pool in water aerobics, together with Dougal, the round-faced, laconic, self-deprecating armchair reader with a mischievous glint in his watery eyes, also departed the scene without ceremony or farewell.

One unforeseen surprise was the imminent departure of Audie and Eydie Bachus.

Audie, a mere seventy-five but a dynamo for the social committee, rang Maxwell to ask if he would accept forty bike magazines at no cost, which contained a multitude of tips on bike maintenance, the latest Lycra fashions and recommendations of great bike rides. ‘After Eydie’s sister died,’ Audie was saying, ‘we have no family here in Australia. So we’re heading off to Spain, Costa del Sol, to stay with our daughter initially. We want to be near our grandchildren. My accountant’s done the sums. We should be able to live comfortably there on $100,000 a year.

‘If we receive a good offer for our apartment, we’d shoot at once, though we’d ask for three months’ settlement. We can’t take Bono. He’s sixteen now and in pretty good health, though deaf as a post and blind with cataracts. It wouldn’t be fair to expect him to make such a long journey. Your carer wouldn’t be interested in taking him in, would she? She lost her fox terrier last year, I remember, and no doubt would love a replacement to keep the pug company. Bono’s no trouble. Papillons are really lovely dogs. We’d be mortified to have to put him down.’

Was it only last year that Audie had been advertising for another mutt of the same breed? Maxwell recalled the American making enquiries about a nine year-old papillon, then decided reluctantly against purchasing a dog set in its ways.

‘No, Audie, now that she’s retired she has neither energy nor inclination to look after two dogs. Besides, it’s inevitable, I’m afraid, that at his age he’s bound to have a few problems with his health. Iris can’t afford any more short-term emotional attachments or vet bills.’ Nor did she find it tolerable to clean another dog’s rump, particularly when the owner refused to cut the signature fantail.

Amrit Cardozo, sprung by Muriel when transfixed gaga by pornographic images on the web, seems unfazed. Maybe he is trying to shock her; maybe he doesn’t care. At times he still has his marbles; other times, he reveals those same confidences that he confided last week and the week before. Certainly at the residents meeting when Maeve reported that the second computer would soon be re-installed in the residents’ business office as soon as certain dubious sites had been blocked out – ‘At least one resident has been looking at pornography,’ which drew forth gasps of incredulity, shock, disgust, a puff of repressed sighs and more than a few mischievous deeper chortles – Amrit, on the outer circle of armchairs, sat quietly slumped, as if oblivious to such scandalous revelations. And why not, knocking on ninety?

Like a morgue, Chiltern Towers, on Saturdays, even the front garden deserted. So quiet that she could hear wind chimes sawing at her brain. Makoto, who had taught Japanese at a girls’ private school for many years, had been persuaded by her guardian, a male friend twenty years her junior with a big toothy grin, to sell her house in Prahran and buy an apartment at the village. Her own property was situated not far from Chiltern Hill, so she was very familiar with the area, but what a huge wrench to surrender a much-loved two-storey townhouse, where she had spent many happy years with her late husband. Now her heart had stopped singing. Lost in thought, she was staring at the small bag of sweet lemons, each one wrapped in cellophane, the final tangible connection with their garden. She couldn’t help but wonder about her guardian’s motives, putting her away like some troublesome dotard in a fourth floor box where she would be closely kept an eye on night and day by several trained staff. No longer would he need worry about her moping away in isolation. Nor did he mind visiting her twice a week, but staying only for a short while to keep her abreast of the protracted sale of her modest house but certainly not to take her for any outing in his Mazda Sport. She felt like a rabbit in the headlights, too timid to leave her apartment except for food shopping and the ten o’clock Sunday service on at St Michael’s. Recently she was walking very slowly with a bad limp, fretful that she might have suffered a minor stroke but Irene, an ex-nurse who fronted the office Wednesday to Friday, thought not. Maxwell wondered whether the problem might be more psychological, as she appeared very listless, seldom interacted with others and spoke in a self-pitying whisper. At eighty years of age, her sticks of legs hidden in black trousers or black stockings were threaded with varicose veins.

Finance was tight, but she was determined to retain one luxury - two visits every year to the Australian Ballet, row 6 in the stalls, the same seat. She was still marvelling over Manon’s pliable body being swept over Des Grieux’s firm muscular back and wore the slightest smile whenever she remembered the heroine’s running jump and flying leap onto the lovers’ bed ‘Such passion!’ she’d suddenly gurgle in an uncharacteristically deep voice, the stress falling on the ‘pash’.

‘Do you play table tennis?’ The president of the social club caught Maxwell immediately she had completed her brisk early-morning round of tidying up the library shelves adjacent to the lounge at the very moment he sprang to his feet, having glossed The Australian, to duck out of the lounge obsequiously as usual.

‘Used to, Sandy, but I haven’t played for all of thirty years.’ Instantly he recollected the men’s residential annexe at London Uni, 35 Gower Street, the recreation room,

where he might play a set or three before or after dinner; that eyebrow-raising blow in the first round of the knock-out tournament, where Taffy Snead simply blocked his superior shots with a dead bat so he couldn’t use his opponent’s pace to launch his forehand smash, steadily losing patience then over-hitting as a consequence. The indignity still rankled fifty years later.

‘Give it a go. We’ve ordered a table,’ she said in her thin matter-of-fact voice, holding a pile of out-of-date magazines ready for tossing into recycling: Time, Gallery, Outback, Australian Geographic, Traveller, Diabetic Living . . .

‘I very much doubt whether I can play, Sandy. I won’t be able to keep my balance.

I’d be afraid of twisting my left knee or tripping.’ Already he’d fallen over twice in his apartment. In the first week he eased himself carefully out of bed, made to turn the light on but fell through the open doorway into the en suite bathroom.

Fortunately, he landed on the beige carpet on his right side, not his arthritic left hip.

On the second occasion he’d left his exercise bike behind the settee blocking a pathway to the kitchen. He hadn’t bothered to switch on the light, having memorised where the markers were for the clear pathway, but had forgotten to return the bike to its resting place in the corner of the home gym. Clattering into the right pedal, he over-balanced and toppled down onto the fallen bike. He was surprised at the force, the pain, felt wretched at the sight of a nasty cut oozing blood down his lower shin.

My god, how easily I cut these days! Quickly he picked himself up before the carpet stained.

‘You won’t know till you try,’ she replied in a cheerfully optimistic manner in spite of her shrunken, increasingly frail frame due to some cancer scare that drove her and husband home prematurely from their two-month caravan tour of the Top End. But three weeks later when the green-painted table with white edging had been installed in the multi-purpose room, Maxwell picked up one of the bats. As soon as he tensed the handle in his grip and dummied a couple of shots, he was itching to play again. His first opponent, Hilary, a widow just turned eighty, was the tallest female resident at Chiltern Towers. Regrettably, she had cataracts in both eyes, so her vision was considerably impaired - double vision, in effect. Even so, she was very quick to pick up the flight of the ball and whipped a devilish forehand.

After a flying start, Maxwell reined in, following a wild smash that sailed past Hilary’s nose. ‘Steady on, we’re not playing for sheep stations,’ she reminded him tartly. Although he lost a couple of close sets, 21-14, 21-15, he was delighted that he could move freely, intuitively, even lunging to the left, without fear of twisting a knee or getting his legs in a tangle and tumbling over onto the hard wooden floor. At first he was embarrassed, surprised and highly disappointed at misjudging the bounce of an ordinary slowish ball hit straight back to him, but then Hilary shared the same difficulty as well as being more wooden and flat-footed on her pins.

Gradually, over the next two months, they found their reflexes getting sharper, Maxwell being pleased just to make contact with ball on bat even if he didn’t win the point. Sometimes he would lie awake at night recalling how he had mastered the forehand smash cross-court at youth group, probably the most dashing action he performed in front of girls as a fifteen year old. The randy, less inhibited boys that

Maxwell envied were just as likely lurking in the parking lot behind the church, spluttering on a cigarette or daring to ask for a kiss from the more flighty girls. There was no way now, though, he could recapture the rhythm of that whirlwind flourish.

When he tried to mimic the shot, he’d forgotten the sharp upstroke that created the top spin which dipped the ball fast and low over the net, shooting away to the side.

This was the venue where Maxwell forged a friendship with Bernie, the number one seed with the bone-crushing handshake, who couldn’t abide the fuddy-duddy, limpwristed shake offered by Maxwell at the end of an hour’s session of seven or eight sets. Like Audie Bachus, Bernie was indignant that a vice-like handshake really meant something, a real man’s handshake. To Maxwell, it meant intimidation, machismo, a sense of physical superiority, a frank bluntness. Rosie, Bernie’s wife, was mortified when hubby was introduced to Lady Sara Balliol in her wheelchair.

Eager to step forward, he reached out for her papery, thin lever of an arm and warmly crunched her fractious fingers. The good lady screamed in pain. ‘I really am terribly sorry,’ he blustered beseechingly. ‘No, no, that wasn’t the right thing to do. Please accept my humble apologies. I don’t know my own strength.’

‘I’ve told you before, Bernie,’ Rosie muttered later between gritted teeth, ‘you’ve got to remember how frail these old ladies are.’ She herself was mindful of the melanoma recently excised that prevented her doing water aerobics until the skin had healed.

‘You’re not to do that.’

Don’t you dare slap my wrist. I’m a big boy now, eighty years old. I can do what I damn well like!

At table tennis, Bernie, with his wily attitude and hunger to win, held the wood over Maxwell, who had never before been the butt of sledging: ‘I say,’ Bernie would call out, ‘You’ve got the ball on a string’; ‘You’ve been practising, young fellow,’ as if he’d uncovered a secret ploy. ‘That was one you taught me,’ as his ball clipped the top of the net and dropped on Maxwell’s side, a fluky winner. ‘Ooh, I say!’ as Maxwell risked a forearm smash that sailed long. ‘Do I detect a note of aggression?’ at a shot he would not have attempted, had Bernie not goaded him.

Maxwell preferred to remain mute through rallies, unless to berate himself for succumbing to his opponent’s needling or missing a sitter. And if this infuriating ruse didn’t work and Maxwell was leading, Bernie, who also continued to play tennis at Kooyong and possessed commendable racquet skills, would send the ball viciously spinning ceiling-wards, so that Maxwell more often than not misjudged its flight and netted, smashed long, almost beaming his opponent, or swished and missed. ‘Ah, another fresh air shot, Maxwell!’ exclaimed the champion, whose strong wrists derived from years of drumming for a jazz group in the evenings, following his daytime job as a primary school teacher.

‘I hated administering the strap, but sometimes you had no choice. There were some nasty pieces of work. But the first time I did it, I stuffed up badly. It was in my first year out. I was nineteen in a country school. I got the kid to bend over but the little bugger moved just as I swung down so I struck myself pretty hard. The kids all

hooted, of course, and I did my best to pretend I wasn’t hurt. After that I used to grip the child’s wrist.’

‘Did you enter it in the record book?’

‘Yes always. Had to.’ There was a rueful glint in his eye. ‘With a few amendments made to the report.’

When Bernie, our new man on the committee, advocated that a baby grand be placed in the foyer, he had no inkling that committee members would vote him down. ‘Do I have your support, Maxwell?’ he insisted, much to Maxwell’s discomfort. That was one of the major frustrations of the village: having to shell out for other residents’ whims. ‘I’ve suggested we call for residents who can play the piano to put their names down, then the committee can check out who the competent ones are. We can have a pianist or two playing during happy hour and if we muster enough people to form a choir, the pianist can provide the music. What do you say?’

Maxwell didn’t want to say anything. Bernie could be very forthright in his views and demands. ‘I’m not sold on the idea.’

‘Why not? Every other retirement village has a baby grand. It would look most impressive immediately you walked into the foyer.’

‘I can’t afford it, Bernie.’

‘Spend it while you’ve got it, I say. You can’t take it with you.’

‘To be blunt, I think it would look pretentious, more likely to act as a physical obstacle to residents, removalists, visitors, great-grandchildren with sticky fingers.

Then there’s the noise. I like to read in peace. Will the chatter groups have to talk over the top of Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto number one?’

‘Get serious! It would look very classy.’ Bernie was growing impassioned again. ‘If my motion is rejected, I shall resign from the committee.’ At which Maxwell raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh yes, I mean it.’

Maxwell did not wish to give his support. Surely, the introduction of a baby grand would deter many potential buyers from moving in because it would appear too exclusive, too toffee-nosed, too bloody expensive. Bazza mate, are you crazy? But if you can swing it that Gina reclines smoochily on top during happy hour, he speculated, then of course I’ll support it.

Table tennis enjoyed the whip hand over carpet bowls. The residents committee in its wisdom made the case that other retirement villages offered carpet bowls and that, given the number of keen and talented lawn bowlers amongst the residents, an indoor bowls carpet was laid down. Unfortunately, it was scarcely used. What bowlers could comfortably manage at fifty, namely crouching on one knee while keeping balance to deliver the carefully weighted bowl, they could not manage at seventy plus.

Yet Moira, who was clinically blind, did enjoy an occasional dab of ping-pong with her husband. By listening for the bounce and watching for a white blur bobbing towards her, she could sustain a rally with Godfrey’s dead bat. Thank god, I’ve got a meek and submissive husband. His knee joints must be giving him hell every time he bends down to retrieve the ball.

Always ranging about in blue shorts and three-quarter length white socks with yellow clocks, Bernie was remarkably spry for a man of eighty. ‘Hi, Maxwell, have you lost another kilo?’ Age reared only when he bent down to pick up the ball, usually when it had rolled behind one of the legs of the bench-seats. Occasionally he was obliged to cancel, as his back was playing up. ‘For over forty years I played drums for a jazz band,’ he explained. ‘We’d have a gig most nights. But when we packed up at the end of the evening, it always took a dickens of a time to carry three sets of drums out to the car. The clarinettist hotfooted home in a trice. I owe my musical talent not to the orchestra at Grammar but the cadet corps band, the fifes, drums and bugles.’

Gina, ah perennially young Gina, the fashion plate, moved into Chiltern Towers at the tender age of fifty-five, much to the delight of management, who were anxious that while they were promoting suitability for the over-55s, Maxwell as the second youngest was sixty-nine! She instructed her lawyer to hassle for a $20,000 reduction on the purchasing fee and trim the percentage of the capital works fee. Then was informed by the manager, Maeve, that if she could settle by June, the purchase price would reduce by a further ten thousand. Gina was definitely a wised-up wheelerdealer.

Her lounge was tastefully designed: loud red leather sofa with leather cushions and armrests. Plasma screen playing jazz. Rock purifier ions. Beautiful sculpture in Brancusi style of tall peacock with slender, graceful, sloping lines in grey Travertine marble. Resting on a stand of darker grey fossilised wood hinting at Egypt.

Blown-up coloured photographs of her two crinkly-haired toy poodles: Magic, the father, white and whimpery, together with Angel, ginger, frisky and.madly affectionate. Long, floppy ears, short woolly hair. Collars studded with variegated beads.

Mobile drinks trolley contoured in the outline of a car on wheels. On round side table of glass a stylishly illustrated guide to Gianni Versace garments.

Vast wardrobe of dresses and jackets, formal evening gowns, different textiles.

Various shoes for every occasion – straps, buckles, heels high and low, ugg boots, knee-high black leather boots, slip-ons for beach and bedroom . . .

In the study, soft-focus close-ups of a younger Gina modelling skin products, her tone a buffed tan. Within a gilded frame, black-haired, dreamy, closed-eye posture, varnished red fingernails, slender fingers stretched beneath immaculate marble-white chin.

Along modest shelving, books on physical training, anatomy, Pilates, yoga, teaching tai chi, poodles and super-dogs. Edward de Bono: How to be a beautiful mind and

Change your thinking, change your life.

Above a broad desk surface of black-tempered glass, a photo of a wide-eyed, earlytwenties Gina in red driving leathers, sporting brilliant red lipstick, gleaming alongside leathered-up and victorious Michael Schumacher, then world champion motor racing driver.

Contrary to house rules about using the pool for financial gain, she conducted personal training sessions with girls twenty-something at eight-thirty on Monday evenings, a time when most residents were nodding off. Their sessions concluded at about ten o’clock with high-spirited, shrieky conversation in the spa due to the surging rumble of steaming hot water.

Less than two years later, thereby losing out on the deferred management fee, Gina decides she must leave for Maroochydore on the Queensland coast, with its sunny disposition, laid-back lifestyle, the sheer youthfulness of beachside culture. ‘She’s too young for the Towers,’ declares Maeve, who was full of enthusiasm for the weekend she minded the two poodles, introducing them to street life in Brighton.

‘They sucked up every morsel of attention at Giuseppe’s trattoria.’

‘Many of the wives will be relieved to see me go,’ Gina boasted at her departure.

Hardly, thought Maxwell. She wouldn’t care a candle for these old duffers, for one evening when he had gone down to the pool for a very late swim she was chatting away in the spa to a svelte and bronzed young man half her age. ‘Hi, Maxie!’ she’d called, with a half-hearted wave and a frog in her throat. However, she did offend several ladies by asking none too quietly if anyone would care to take in some sewing to earn a few bucks.

For a woman who had played lawn tennis against Evonne Goolagong in the 1970’s, Jodie Formby was understandably crotchety with a severe pain in her lower back in spite of the brace. When she hobbled along with a pronounced stoop to the rubbish chute by the side of the lift, she did not hear Maxwell ghosting up behind her.

‘How’s your back, Jodie? I see you need your wheelie walker today.’

‘Eh? Oh not good. It seizes up.’ She pushed her walker to one side of the tightsprung door and placed her right foot next to the door to hold it open while she clumsily opened the chute and pushed down her plastic bag of rubbish. Maxwell had stretched out a hand to turn on the light while his right hand was helping to keep the door open behind her.

With a peevishly thin smile, Jodie scolded, ‘Don’t fuss! I never turn the light on. I don’t need you to hold the door open. I can use my foot. I’m independent.’

Maxwell was taken aback, but admitted to himself later that he would have reacted in the same way, irritated by the assumption of helplessness.

In summer, Jodie would leave her apartment door ajar for the aircon in the corridor to enter and circulate around her expansive three bedroom estate with two balconies, one facing the city skyline, the other facing St Kilda beach; in winter, she’d do the same to entice the warm air. ‘This place is becoming so expensive, I don’t know how I can stay here much longer.’

Seldom these days did she tinkle the ivories on her late father’s white grand piano.

‘My back, it’s so painful, I just can’t sit upright!’

Down on the second floor in the Costello swimming pool, Maxwell was about to take a shower in the men’s changing room. Something caught his eye, what seemed like a small crinkly leaf wedged in the webbing of the black rubber mat. He gingerly flicked his big toe at what felt soft and fudgy! He bent down . . . shit! There were three more suspicious dobs of the stuff. He snatched a paper towel and squeezed up the repulsive dollops and deposited them down the bowl of the toilet. ‘Someone else with irritable bowel syndrome?’ he scoffed. ‘Or coeliac disease.’ Through scrunched-up eyes, he scrutinised where he was treading on the matting. Why couldn’t the scumbag clean up after himself? But after he’d tried to wipe up the mess with a paper towel, he realized that the gaps in the thick webbing were so small he couldn’t scrape out all the muck. Will this be my lot in a few years time?

Incontinence? O God, the utter humiliation!

But for the moment Maxwell was revelling in the pool, for water aerobics was the highlight of his physical life. Moreover, he couldn’t help smiling at the inanities, occasionally acting the clown himself.

In the circle, holding hands for support. ‘Spread your feet as wide apart as possible,’ croaked Ben in his husky voice, gasping for breath. Who could have guessed that he’d kept goal for the Kiwi hockey team at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956?

‘All right. Now, put your right foot on your left calf . . . Hold it!’

‘Shelley, are you worried that Maxwell and Nicholas are so tall that you cannot spread your feet further apart?’ Beneath her plastic bathing cap, her usually florid and spotty face turned a brighter red.

‘No, she’s worried that I’ll put my left foot on her right calf,’ rejoindered Nicholas, a newie, whose moobs were the most pendulous Maxwell had witnessed on a man.

‘Make sure you support one another with a firm grip.’

‘Is that a sting ray down there?’ asked Nicholas with a downward stare.

Two of the unsteadier residents almost keeled over, but were propped up by their neighbours’ desperate grasp.

‘Maxwell, that’s a nice little dance you’re doing,’ commented the instructor with a cocked head and wry smile.

‘Unchoreographed, I assure you.’

Almost every session Ben would weave in at least one new exercise. When he set the CD player to Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Flowers while the group were lying back cycling, buoyed by one or two noodles under their armpits, Maxwell found himself twirling round and round in a mood of dreamy abandon, the happy lightness of being.

Amrit Cardozo shuffling towards him, rocking side to side: ‘I can’t tell anyone else, but I’ve got to get it off my chest.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘I was walking along the passage. A certain person who shall remain nameless . . . ‘ ‘Audie Bachus?’

‘You’ve guessed it. He was standing just inside the business centre talking loudly to a very respectable lady by the mailboxes - you know how he waylays people - but I had to pass between them. As I did so, he said, ‘You’re flying your flag at half-mast!’

‘Oh, I’ve never seen you wearing a tie,’ Maxwell interrupted.

‘No, he was hinting that my flies were undone. How insulting is that? In front of a lady too. I didn’t know what to say. The truth of the matter is, I can’t get a new zipper for these trousers. But I’m certainly not indecent. I use a safety pin to keep my fly closed. Look!’

‘Yes. I see,’ said Maxwell, giving the most cursory of glances. ‘Anyhow, Audie’ll be leaving the village soon.’

‘Good riddance! It can’t be soon enough for me.’ He almost spat it out.

Lester had come off the treadmill after thirty minutes of hard striding and blowing out puffed cheeks: ‘I have a doctor friend,’ he confided to Maxwell, gasping. ‘He advises me to get rid of my GP. “ Find one between forty and fifty, experienced but still keen to learn. When medicos get a sniff of retirement they’re only interested in stashing away as much of their five hundred thousand dollar salaries into tax-free superannuation and pissing off for a three-day weekend at their holiday home.

They’re not interested in keeping up with the latest breakthroughs in medicine.”’

‘Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath?’

‘Gone to buggery! See, that’s where the Howard Government got it wrong. By encouraging the wealthy to pump their discretionary income into retirement and not taxing them, he opened up a huge gap between the wealthy and the middle-class battlers. And don’t forget, there are plenty of left-wingers who also took advantage of this tax haven.’

In the last days of a way-above-average June, the twenty-plus degree temperatures fell with more blustery weather typical of winter. The palms shed their filleted stems of serrated leaves, while the foliage of the ornamental maples lining the garden beds between the outside walls and the pavement turned a feeble apricot-to-yellow.

‘How’s Violet, Wilf?’

‘She’s in care, thank God! Has been since April. The other day, I found myself shouting at her. “That’s it, you’re finished,” I thought. It wasn’t her fault. We couldn’t even have a half-decent conversation. It used to wear me out trying to explain things to her. She was right out of it. Away with the pixies. I bought her a lovely new nightie, but she soiled it almost at once. Now I don’t have to worry about hygiene or attending to her toilet needs. That’s someone else’s problem. No, it’s not much fun living with dementia.’

Two days later the notice for Violet’s funeral was posted on the residents’ noticeboard. Ten days later Wilf tripped on the wooden kitchen floor as he was preparing a family lunch for nine and was knocked unconscious. Luckily, his neighbour heard a bang and found him with a deep gash in his forehead, a broken finger and a pool of blood on the floor.

RESIDENTS COMMITTEE MINUTES 18 May Meeting

CORRECTION! In the minutes under the Treasurers Report, I incorrectly noted that ‘Our successful electricity ‘in-house’ scheme will generate an approx. rebate of $700 per apartment this year . . . . . . .”

I obviously misheard what Dick Bellchambers actually said which was “several hundred dollars” – not $700.00.

I apologise for any misunderstanding thus caused.

Ross Welk (Hon. Secretary) Just after ten o’clock, Warwick Holman stood up to open the residents meeting. ‘As your president, I would like to confirm that our vote on the purchase of a baby grand piano was as follows: 31 in favour, 131 against. Motion not carried.’

‘The vote was rigged,’ whispered Bernie, nudging Maxwell. ‘The committee heavies didn’t want it.’

‘Next, Damian, for the Social Committee.’

‘Thankyou, Warwick: ‘Expenditure for the Mainstay this month was for the bottles of red and white wine for Chiltern Towers’ thirteenth anniversary. The cost of eleven bottles of red wine and eleven bottles of white wine was 232 dollars. Oh, by the way, since we started locking the fridge overnight no grog has been nicked.’

‘I now call upon Kelvin Fields to give us an update on the garden,’ said the president.

A bald man in his mid-eighties with bandy legs and the florid face of a farmer shuffled up to the mike and spoke in short phrases punctuated by heavy wheezing.

‘I’m suffering from a number of disabilities at the moment, including rye grass staggers. It can be lethal in spring, especially for horses. Mostly, they shoot horses with rye grass staggers, so I’m not confident about my prognosis.

‘You know, sometimes I stand up here under false pretences,’ his shiny, round face creased in smothered giggles and snorts, as he wiped away a tear . . . ‘especially as every month my stories seem a little more risqué.

‘This is a story about William Barnes, whose minister was giving a service on How many of you have forgiven your enemies? William was an irregular churchgoer, but told the minister that he would come to church every Sunday once he had forgiven his enemies. Not long after, the minister noticed that William had taken to sitting in the back pew every Sunday.

‘So, William, have you forgiven your enemies?’

‘I certainly have not, but I have outlived every one of the buggers!’

With tears in his eyes, the old white-haired humourist who could have played Father Christmas ho-ho-ing round the lounge, Kelvin shuffled back to his seat, gratified at the audience’s prolonged guffaws and titters.

President: ‘Thank you, Kelvin. I’m sure we all enjoy your stories as much as your reports on the garden. Are there any more comments from the floor? Audie?’

‘On Wednesday’s DVD screening of the Mariah Carey concert, can you believe how many residents were there to watch?

Not a solitary hand or shout was raised. ‘Let me tell you something,’ Audie continued with threatening solemnity. ‘Just two people, Bernie and myself. For Mariah Carey!

Ranked second in the 100 Greatest Women in Music, with over sixty million albums to her credit! Here was a first-class show and featured all the numbers that she performed in person in Melbourne. If you had actually attended her live show, you would have had to pay over one hundred dollars for your seat. And we’re bringing it to you for nothing! Now why don’t you stop sitting around on your backside and come down and if you don’t like it you don’t have to stay. At least, try it and taste it.’

‘As your president, I’d like to thank Audie for organising this new daily programme of music DVDs and also urge you to get off your backside and take advantage of it.’

In preparation for his departure for Spain, Audie had made arrangements with several specialists: appointment with an eye surgeon to remove cataracts; appointment with an urologist to have an operation on the posterior urethral valve that was preventing drainage of urine; appointment with a sports specialist to check on his hamstring

problem that left him with a pain in his buttocks and down the back of his legs. Was it a tendon tearing away from the sit bone? Shock wave treatment didn’t make one iota of difference. Even an extra soft cushion for his armchair or driving seat didn’t stop him feeling intermittent pain. From the $300 bonus from his insurance company he had just bought a pair of access reading glasses that enabled him to adjust his vision from computer screen to newspaper by looking straight or down through the lens. Next he would see about obtaining a new pacemaker. Although his current one was only five years old, he might as well replace it while he had insurance cover; he wasn’t sure how he’d go in Spain paying for a new one.

Frequently finding Chiltern Towers both insular and insulated, Maxwell was now taking regular advantage of the subsidised excursions for seniors organised by the generous Chiltern Council. Charming properties secreted in the Yarra Valley were his favourites, but he also wanted to discover Geelong.

‘Are those what they call McMansions?’ a bubbly Indian gentleman asked, as large dark grey concrete houses hove into view beyond the countless rows of workers’ weatherboard cottages.

‘Nah, I wouldn’t have thought so,’ said Ivor, driver and leader that day, whose drooping black moustache was slightly singed above his upper lip by chronic smoking. ‘They’re oversized coffins.’

At the barn-sized Woolshed Café in Geelong East, Maxwell sat opposite Scottie, a man with rheumy blue eyes and wandering stare who seldom spoke to any of the group and when he did would come out with puzzling statements.

Ivor circled round the long dining table, reminding everyone they had to buy their own drinks, but bottles of water were complimentary. ‘Did you get yourself a three hundred dollar sweater in the gift shop, Scottie?’

‘Noo, I bought a coupla spoons.’

‘Spoons? You short of cutlery in your place?’

‘Noo, I collect them. Keep them in drawers. I’ve got over two thousand.’

Maxwell wasn’t sure if he heard right. Scottie’s cheeks puffed out but his voice blew very softly. ‘Why’s that then?’

‘I never took you for a guy who spoons around.’

‘Noo? I’ve got all sorts. I’ve got one with a ruby set in the handle.’

Maxwell nodded, took another slice of fish and tartare sauce, conscious of Scottie’s vague blue eyes staring at him, as if the guy was haunted. Then Scottie, who had barely taken a couple of mouthfuls, took out from his bag a plastic container and without a skerrick of self-consciousness scraped the rest of his meal into it.’

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ said Maxwell, trying not to show his incredulity.

‘Och noo, I‘ll save it for my tea this evening.’

Since his retirement, Maxwell had felt less sure of himself, more panicky, partly because there was no salary coming in and he was dependent on a part-pension. Even the word ‘pension’ gave him a serve of sad resignation, rendered him more fossilized, useless as a slice of bacon at a Jewish wedding, dependent, expendable. But then he might bestir himself, stick to his self-regulated program of exercise, even in winter; in fact, striding out before dawn, when the temperature often seemed milder than at midmorning, unless there was a bitterly cold north wind that would make his nose run.

When in the afternoon the ladies would gather for catch-up in the lounge armchairs, overlooking the gardens, asking ‘How’s your wrist, Margaret? When did the plaster come off?’ or ‘When’s your next op, Chloe?’ Maxwell would spring to his feet and make a beeline for the gym, even if he hadn’t finished his cup of tea. The notion of sitting round nattering about one’s illnesses and imminent operations provided an extra incentive to ‘keep moving’.

One of his self-professed weaknesses as a humanities student and long-standing teacher was his poor memory for quotations. Homework at secondary school had frequently comprised learning fifty words and phrases in French, Spanish and Latin for the weekly vocab test. Invariably, he scored well; in fact, enjoyed this aspect of rote learning, although his French accent was bastardised and would be held beneath contempt in Les Halles. But quotations expected for GCE English Literature exams were beyond his grasp. Later, as a teacher, he lacked the flair of Mad Dog Belcher, whose ability to conjure up an apposite quotation to match student indiscretions of the moment won him much affection.

Now at this twilight stage in his life he had ample time to systematically learn some of the great speeches in Shakespeare’s canon. He picked up from where he left off at uni over half a century ago with Shakespeare’s Richard 111: Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York.

Each morning he would recite the lines he was endeavouring to commit to memory, while riding twenty laps on his bike round the basement car park at six o’clock in the morning. Way before other residents would descend to dump their recyclables in the bins or drive off for an early medical appointment, he would be muttering in garbled villainy, Now is the winter of our discontent . . . Or if not concentrating: ‘How is the whingeing of our incontinents?

Therefore, beginning at around seven o’clock his hour-long walk from the village to Caulfield Park, he would recite many poems, fragments and dramatic speeches in his repertoire, made easier at that hour by the dearth of pedestrians and the widespread use of invisible phones, so that passers-by appeared to be chattering to themselves, as if they were the last survivors on the planet preserving to memory the great classics of literature publicly tossed into a bonfire by a dictatorship in Fahrenheit 451, till it dawned on him that these serious walkers were intently twittering about which coffeeshop they were heading for or what they’d gulped for breakfast. At least he wasn’t the only nutter let loose on those darkling streets.

Then one morning he stumbled across an article in The Australian. A professor of English argued that it wasn’t just a matter of learning quotations – or playing Scrabble and doing crosswords – that would ward off the very real threat of Alzheimer’s, but one should deliver lines with the appropriate emotion; in other words, really feel into the character’s soul. Although Maxwell had taught several plays by Shakespeare, he now could fully discern how many different ways one could interpret the shifting emotional slant of even a well-known speech. His Richard III voice was no longer a travesty of Sir Laurence Olivier’s, but a rendition of what he himself felt in the heart of Crookback Dick.

So while he was alarmed at how quickly he was losing his short-term memory, he was relieved that he could clearly recall events of his early life, the names of his primary school class in 1954, hear the particular timbre of voices of thousands of divers characters who had crossed his path, even find himself re-interpreting emotive events that he had experienced as, say, a teenager. But one sleepless night he was struck by the sudden realisation that it may have been his mother who was responsible for the coolness in his parents’ marriage, the eventual divorce. How old was he then?

Perhaps seven or eight. Standing anxiously at the edge of a wide-open oval pond. In some park running by a main road. Bromley? Or was it Hayes? Proudly showing off his hobby-built yacht with its eighteen-inch wooden hull and brown canvas sail.

Then the mortification of embarrassment! His precious boat was becalmed out there in the middle of the pond, while titchier craft were bobbing by. Round the perimeter was fairly shallow, the bottom of the shell was concrete. Tempted to wade in, but wasn’t wearing wellies. Turning round to tell his mum, seated on a bench, cradling his baby sister, not looking at him but earnestly at the stranger suddenly beside her, more of a hazy presence than an actual figure. The youngster froze, daren’t run back to her, dare not even turn again, could barely move till he was called or suspected that the shadowy figure had disappeared.

Somehow the boat found its way to the rim of the pond and the ghost was soon forgotten.

Forty-odd years later his mother told him matter-of-factly she’d received an offer to leave her marriage, but this would-be suitor had insisted she could only bring the baby daughter, definitely not the boy. When she confided, Maxwell listened tolerantly, may even have smiled knowingly as a man of the world. Didn’t even ask any questions, for god sake. But for years he had seen his father as a flirt with girls twenty years younger, though not necessarily a seducer or even a senescent Romeo, but was appalled by such clownish behaviour that must have betrayed his mother.

Christ! Perhaps he had maligned and despised his father, misjudged him utterly.

How could he? He’d always adored his mother, true, but he was an arts graduate!

More alarming, his short-term memory manifested itself in dreadful negligence. Not just forgetting residents’ names – as a former teacher he had prided himself on learning children’s names quickly. The biggest shock, the most painful, knocked him for six when he was about to serve from his slow cooker a chilli-based vegetable casserole. Normally, he would leave the slow cooker on the hot-plate bench, but on this occasion he inexplicably made to lift it onto the bench behind. Forgetting to

unplug the cooker, he tensed at the jerk of the cord. The pot held but the lid, sliding around on the inside rim due to the build-up of heat over four and a half hours and being full to the brim, boiling curry juice splattered the back of his left hand.

Excruciating pain burned into the crease between thumb and forefinger.

Never before had he felt such agony, as if scalded to the very bone, the knuckle or the thumb joint, sensed briefly that he might faint on the rack of pain. Desperately flicking off scraps of piping hot vegetable, he plunged the burning hand under streaming cold water – but not for long enough, the chemist would tell him five days later; hold it there at least, twenty minutes! But the stinging sensation would not go away. Wrapping his sore hand in a wet flannel, he kept his mitt clenched to ease the throbbing soreness for two hours. As luck would have it, rifling one-handed through his RACV medical kit, he uncovered half a tube of Solugel, ideal for soothing burns.

Thank Christ for that! What blessed relief! But those deep blue veins loomed livid now, the startling red flesh beneath thumb already swollen, the scalding liquid had pierced the flesh in two slight whorls where the blood had seeped to the surface.

For the next two weeks he was applying absorbent bandages till the multiple blisters had burst and open wounds had vented patches of red and yellow seepage and slivers of burnt skin. Nine days later Hilary, who had approached him for a game of table tennis, was tactful not to enquire for twenty minutes about the bandage on his left hand. After he had explained, she asked, ‘Did you press your pendant?’

Speechless for a few moments, as if he hadn’t understood, he put a finger to his mouth like a puzzled child. ‘Good grief, I never even thought of it!’ How in heavens name could he be so careless, so stupid, so vulnerable? Vulnus: from the Latin, ‘wound’.

Wounded both mentally and physically. He really must remember to cling onto every mental thought till that thought was executed. Right-o, for godsakes concentrate!

SERENDIP FINANCIAL PLANNING INVITE A FRIEND! Maxwell groaned when he saw the above invitation posted on the notice board in the west lift of Chiltern Towers. For several years he had experienced a severe phobia about finance and its planners. Surely there had to be some you could trust. But it wasn’t just the matter of a spruiker glibly presenting a monetary spiel as if it were the most important topic of one’s existence and the listener was an imbecile if s/he didn’t understand the lingo or the sheer beauty of the scheme. Or even worse, wasn’t impressed by the promise of great largesse. The pursuit of money shouted such mindnumbing drivel; its salesmen must be pitching for ten per cent at least. Nor did their grammar inspire either: Aged Care fees and costs impact Forms to fill in and latest means test care assessment form with 146 questions!

Traps and tips of aged care Impact of social benefits on Aged pension General aged care information explained

CHILTERN TOWERS’ RESIDENTS MEETING At four past ten a grey-faced, jowly Warwick Holman, president, cast a nervy glance over the rows of sixty-odd residents and rose to his feet. ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am sorry to be the bearer of very sad news. In the early hours of this morning, Amrit Cardozo passed away. A resident of seven years, Amrit was quite a character and will be sorely missed. On behalf of the residents, the committee will pass on our condolences to his family.’

A shocked silence appalled the congregation.

‘Now I notice his daughter-in-law has just arrived.’ Some heads craned round, but the squat pillars of the lounge obscured the view behind which the relative was resting a small vase of pink camellias on a side table.

‘Would you like to say a few words? No, please, come up the front and use the microphone.’

‘I’m very sorry to upset your meeting,’ said the woman in a jaunty, almost breathless matter-of-factness. ‘Yesterday morning, Amrit felt unwell. He admitted himself to Sabrini and by the afternoon his condition had stabilised. But in the evening there was a sudden turn for the worse. His passing was peaceful, though. I would like to thank you all so much for the care and love he has enjoyed here. He could be a tricky customer at times, as we all know.’

A distinct murmuring bubbled amongst the residents and not a few thin smiles of recognition before a respectful round of applause.

‘Now proceeding with the business of the meeting,’ resumed Warwick sombrely, ‘Would the new residents like to stand up so we can officially welcome you?’

After the minutes for the previous meeting had been seconded, the president called upon the treasurer, Dick Bellchambers, to deliver his report on the budget.

With a smug smile, Bellchambers was reassuring: ‘This last financial year we made a surplus of fifty thousand dollars. We estimate that fees for next year will be lower.

How often would you hear that in a retirement village?’

Raising his hand, Audie interceded. ‘I have a question. Last year when we were all advised to change electricity supplier you told us that our bills would be lower. My bill for the last quarter is the highest I’ve ever had.’

The treasurer was not quite so smug and rather dithery at first. ‘Well, it is winter, you know . . . and electricity costs have gone up across the board. No, I’ve studied everyone’s bill and I can assure you that no one is paying more than they used to.’

‘Thank you, Dick. Now the garden report. Bill Fields.’

A stout, wobbly nonagenarian waddled up, tapping his stick. ‘It being July we’ve already pruned the roses. Next we have to trim the two topiaries by the west and east entrances. Historically, topiaries are either globular or conical. I don’t know what shape the latest topiarist will choose.’

‘What about a teapot?’ one wag cried out from the back row, probably Nicholas Ferry, who checked monthly accounts for the mainstay bar.

Already on his feet while the wacky suggestions continued, Warwick pressed for control. ‘We the committee have decided to erect a flagpole for the Australian flag in the front garden.’ In spite of a sprinkling of half-stifled snorts, he drove on. ‘The Australian flag has frequently been stolen, burned and desecrated. Thousands of men and women have died under the flag, so it’s the least we can do to honour their courage.’

‘Excuse me, Mr President,’ said Audie, ‘have you considered flag etiquette?’

‘How do you mean?’ was the disdainful reply.

‘Will there be a light on the flagpole and if so, will its glare keep first-floor residents awake?’

‘Yes, there will be a light shining from the pole and no, it won’t disturb anyone’s sleep. Walter?’

‘Will it be flown on the day of a resident’s funeral?’

‘That depends on how distinguished he or she is. Bryn?’

‘I’m very much opposed to raising a flag. Over many years at sea I’ve witnessed thousands of flag-raising ceremonies and I’m sick of ‘em. And what about the rattle from the halyards?’

‘There won’t be any. The halyards will be inside the pole.’

‘That’s neat, that is,’ said Bill Fields.

Now that Leslie was no longer a regular fixture in that armchair nearest the fire but angled away, Maxwell chose to sit there because the pillar secreted him from view, or if it didn’t he was facing out to the gardens and resis walking across the lounge behind him from the lift in the west wing preferred not to be noticed and feel obliged to ask after his health.

Nor had he much to do with Tanya since his senile crush, but suddenly she pounced on him. ‘Have you heard the dreadful news?’

‘Err, what news?’ The month-long war between Israel and Gaza? She’s Jewish, remember. Another Israeli soldier taken captive in those secret tunnels or a whole Arab family of fifteen bombed out?

‘Amrit and Claus, of course.’ She glared, almost hissing. ‘Don’t you think it’s dreadful?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said, to keep the peace. ‘But Amrit was eighty-nine and died in his sleep, while Claus was a ripe old ninety-eight who escaped Nazi Germany to become a successful engineer in Australia. They weren’t targeted by pro-Russian miliants aiming a missile at Malaysia Airlines, flight MH17, nor died in the outbreak of the ebola virus with decreased function of liver and kidneys! Nor were they holding out for cryonic freezing!

‘Two deaths in five days, well, I think it’s terrible.’ And stomped off in high dudgeon.

‘This is a retirement village, for goodness sake!’ muttered Maxwell. ‘Surely, all of us old devils would be grateful to fall off our perch without knowing anything about it.’

Just calm down, you old grouse, he told himself.

Ambling over in bad sorts to the side table, Maxwell contemplated the pink flowers of the camellia, saw a vision of Amrit scuffing along the corridor in his slow, swaying walk, hugged and muffled by the same old tired brown outdoor jacket.

The announcement of Amrit Cardozo’s demise had been sudden, but not unexpected. For two weeks he had been quietly lamenting his state of health and requested the fire to be lit in the lounge. Sometimes the Parkinson’s was so bad his hands would shake so violently that the sound of his cup on saucer would chink the length of the lounge, to Maxwell’s cringing embarrassment and Audie’s sneering contempt. And more often his open-mouthed, upturned head as he dozed in front of the fire, regarded as a bad look by residents and a bad advertisement for Chiltern Towers by the staff, should any prospective residents be making a tour.

He couldn’t help but ponder Amrit’s last words to him, quietly spoken: ‘Thank you for talking to me.’

May 26-August 11, 2014