Is it Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday? I know it’s not Wednesday – we didn’t have porridge today. I heard an ambulance yesterday.
I nurse my strong black tea and shortbread biscuit, ruminating, hunkered down on the verandah at the Old Folk’s home. A privacy screen separates me from his now empty room. It also protects me from the chill wind. The sun struggles, a patch of weak blue between a wash of blotchy grey clouds.
We have been close mates for decades – first, in the mid-70s sharing an old, semi-ruined stone hut in the bush, north of town; then a flash, three-bedroom house in the ’burbs. He is the best man at my wedding, and also the midwife when the dog delivers six pups on my waterbed. We often sing together at the folk club, using his old guitar to accompany our doleful duets.
I’m transferred 500 kilometres northward, with occasional catch-ups serving as the umbilical. My work demands are full-on, incessant travel, partnered interests, we lose that close intimacy until about a year later, another transfer, further north and we’re both back in the same office: work trips, weekend parties, dinners, camping expeditions.
A year on and I transfer to the ‘big smoke’. He follows not long after, and we both buy 5-acre blocks two kilometres apart, both building ‘unusual’ houses: ours of bluestone his, exposed corrugated iron. He is now partnered and our foursome enjoy close camaraderie. Our kids arrive, he moves south, and we are reduced to sporadic snippets. We hear that he and his gal have ‘split the blanket’.
Our kids grow, I change careers and start unending travel around the globe. I take it for eight years before resigning and eventually another significant shift into southern climbs, albeit we’re still eight hundred kilometres apart.
But we do manage to catch up. Maybe twice yearly we roll swags, gather billy cans, tucker, booze and head out into the bush: seated fireside, reminiscing and quiet enjoyment in each other’s company. We’ve both gained fifteen years, but we’re still travelling well.
Another fifteen years pass. I move again. We now share the same State, now just 200 kilometres apart. I make the trip up to his place every couple of months and we take off further north, across the wide, flat plains. He occasionally comes down to our place.
Body’s ache, bladders and memories falter, frustrations intrude. He takes up an offer of a daughter’s Granny-Flat, only an hour away. I undertake regular grandchildren’s minding. Contact decreases.
Months pass, and countless suggested camping trips are rejected. I am told weeding, building new vegetable beds, fencing, family and medical commitments, feeding and watering livestock – all take precedence! Things drift. Have I offended him or is it something else?
Mind and body start to fail. Fifty years and we’re back into direct physical contact, but mental frailties erode function, awareness and conviviality. We share a table at mealtimes, but … sad tears flow as the empty, dark eternity approaches.