I have one neighbour, Eunice,
Miss Boettcher, known to Menzies Creek as The Goat Woman. She has a herd of
between 30 and 40 goats, all kinds, all colours, kids and all. She lives in a
single-roomed hut, shepherds her goats around the Creek, drives them through my
place late in the afternoon. She never looks at me, never utters a word.
Nothing much else distinguishes
our year at Moroney Crescent. Nothing much distinguishes the cabin: the rooms
are pokey and dark, the carpet tiles stained and lifting, the south-facing
verandah along the front of the place too narrow to do anything but walk along.
The kids grow up a little bit
more. In summer we swim at Aura Vale Lake, behind the wall of Cardinia
Reservoir. They play with their three cousins. I type my application to be
Berengarra’s principal on my first computer, print it in dot matrix. The
biggest huntsman spider in creation gets himself splattered across the logs.
Beyond Eunice’s hut is the construction
site of the grandest house in Menzies Creek. Moroney Crescent ends where its
driveway begins. The kids and I wander down there to look at the house
sprouting from a pit in the ground, the built-in pool, the curved retaining
walls, a grand folly on the dark side of the hill.
When my application to be
principal succeeds I want out of Moroney Crescent, figure its time to buy my
second house. My first house is long gone, sold to reduce Carol’s mortgage, any
benefit lost when we split. Now I must do it all again. My father is keen to
invest, knows of a nice little place for private sale in Church Road. I don’t
like it.
Six months pass and he still
thinks it’s a good buy. His contribution of $30k convinces me to sign. The
owners’ daughter and I do the conveyancing. In October 1990 I move house using
only my own labour and a six by four trailer.
For an atheist Church Road
augurs badly.
Rock on.
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