purpose

Sunday last I have tea with my good woman. We acknowledge that whatever it is we have between us is too good to let die. On Wednesday we eat Thai together in Collingwood after wandering along Gertrude Street. She is relieved, in a good mood after presenting a paper on transcultural psychology at St Vincent’s Hospital.

After pushing our plates away we talk about what we did during those weeks when we dared not see each other for fear of making a bad situation worse. We both desperately wanted to create completely new lives, me in the inner city, my good woman by any means at all. I tell her about the Richmond auction where I made one futile bid on a tiny apartment.

We relax into each other’s company. This is the woman I always thought of as my soul mate. After two months apart we talk about being very much together, giving our shared lives the purpose they didn’t have before, perhaps buying and owning a house that is ours. I marvel that the Earth can tilt on its axis in so short a time.   

Next day at work I type Carnegie and my price limit into a real estate search engine. Up comes a small house midway between Carnegie and Murrumbeena stations, railway line running behind the back fence. This morning we inspect it along with a few others.

The interweb photos don’t do it justice: it’s not as big and bright as fisheye photography and overexposure suggests. But it’s solid brick and has a certain art deco charm that can be optimised. My good woman and I swap real estate platitudes about location, location, location and buying the worst house in the best neighbourhood.

This place is not quite the worst house in the best location; its semidetached mirror image is. So it’s the second worst house in the perfect location. After the inspection my good woman and I wander local streets, walk to two stations, get a snack at the local shopping strip.

Back at her place we have a cuppa in the sun, do sums together, coming from diametrically opposed mathematical theories, and arrive at the same place. Even at ten per cent more than the agent’s suggested selling price, we think we can afford it. It’s definitely do-able.

We are excited. Each of us will visit the bank on Monday. Saturday next we go to auction. We have a limit and won’t go beyond it. It might be enough.

Rock on.