Continued from part 1…
SO, sometime towards July, after six
inglorious months at 81 Rowan Street, Wangaratta, a second opportunity
confronted John Harris. An advertisement
appeared in the local paper reading approximately thus: ‘A single man requires
a boarder, male or female, non-smoker, professional, in lovely old house in tree-lined street.’
Ha! That word ‘professional’ again. John Harris smirked as he perused the
invitation, then steeled himself for the possible change. Leaving Lindsay,
Peter and the fabulous thin grey spectre, Alan, would be no easy task, but one
wintry day he made the journey around the corner to meet a new, older and wiser
Alan, and the deal was struck virtually on the spot.
The house, in Templeton Street, was
a lovely old house- with the emphasis on ‘old’, and Templeton Street certainly
was tree-lined. The local Ovens River ran alongside it, and in the past, and
probably into the future, it would be subject to floods. Alan was firmly
ensconced into the nicer, front room, and John would have the back. There was
also a nice sized kitchen, an ugly third bedroom, and a serviceable bathroom
and lounge. Alan himself was a builder and part-time musician, quite a handyman
who would soon make John look silly- he was always slightly uncomfortable
around ‘handy men’- but this was a gentle, older soul, who was probably looking
for mateship and colour and solidarity in his choice of John as boarder. It was
true that John was becoming firm friends with some of the women in the town;
nevertheless a father figure in the form of Alan was never going to go astray.
And John immediately sensed that this was a much nicer Alan.
A few weeks into the adventure, John
decided he’d like to paint the walls of his bedroom a baby blue. Alan was
impressed. John was one to hang around for a while. So John bought the brush
and paint somewhere and began splashing on thick layers of the lovely pastel
paint. Alan wandered in to see how the preparation was going- the sanding, the
preparing of floor covering, the different sheens of paint required, the
sandpaper, the taping of the walls… the list goes on, especially for builder
aficionados like Alan. Well, one can only imagine the mirth spread across
Alan’s face as he became doubled over in pleasure at seeing John with
paintbrush in hand, the baby blue paint looking streaky and unhealthy on the
walls, and little globules all over the wooden floorboards. John’s parents
visited Templeton Street a few days later, and what a wonderful story Alan was
able to tell Mr and Mrs Harris after their long drive up from Reservoir.
Time went on and Alan and John
became reasonably strong friends. John found himself a nice girlfriend and Alan
had a short American woman called Bobby with him most of the time, and the four
of them would sometimes go out as an unlikely foursome, to cheap restaurants,
and one time to Beechworth to hear Alan play in his jazz band.
John’s coterie of friends had
widened further towards the end of the year. Suddenly there was a party at
Templeton Street. Alan was away for the weekend at Bobby’s pad in Yarrawonga.
When he came back home at about midday on the Sunday he couldn’t believe his
eyes. John was still in bed. The coterie of friends had left about six hours
earlier. There was mess everywhere. Broken half empty packets of chips, cola
and wine stains on cheap rugs, a couple of overflowing ash trays, a sink full
of sauce-stained plates, a small piece of cold fried fish near the kitchen
door, drinking glasses in almost every room in the house, clothes strewn on the
floor. Alan waltzed into John’s bedroom, despair filtered all over his sad
face. ‘I don’t feel as though this is my place anymore’, he blurted out. John
was still a bit sleepy, and not his usual tactful self. ‘Well Alan, it’s not as
if there’s a leaking car engine rotting on the lounge room floor.’
Things never did seem quite the same
after all of this. Alan left one day, presumably with Bobby, with not exactly
rancour in the air, but a certain formalness and coldness nevertheless. John
had a bit of time to reflect. In two households he had independently inhabited
in his short adult life, things had either turned sour or failed to ignite.
There was another experience around the corner, which would become the third
and final incarnation that would put these two experiences to shame, in terms
of both dysfunction and unhappiness.
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