I’m standing in the doorway telling Lauren about the eviscerated chicken in the front yard but she’s not listening. She wants to talk about her dad. Lauren’s old man won a 16-footer off a property developer/commission witness, and has a notion to sail solo around the world.
“I'm worried,” she says. “How is he meant to survive all those nights on the wine dark sea?”
I admitted I didn’t know. “Teenagers have been known to do it,” I say. “As young as 14. But she was Dutch.”
This only made Lauren angry. She didn’t like teenagers; she found their haircuts strange and their hugging inscrutable. “What do they know! Besides, he invited me to travel with him. Have you ever been to Patagonia? It’s beautiful this time of year, apparently.”
I said I had not had the pleasure. “How will that affect his plans to sail solo?”
“It won’t,” she says. “There’s plenty of room to hide, and I can come out at night.” I agree it sounds like he's thought of everything.
“Chicken wire. That’s what you need, ” Maurice says. “It’s not Stalag 17, but it will do the job.”
I’d mentioned Laurens’s chicken-killing dog, a blue heeler/border collie cross. Maurice was writing a book about half-track vehicles of the German Army, circa 1939-1945, and spent most of his time in the print room collecting manuscript drafts. “The Wehrmacht was the finest fighting force ever assembled. They weren’t all Nazis, you know.”
Maurice elaborated on how it wasn’t the fence so much as the example you made of the first guy tried to escape that counted. I collect my spreadsheet and thank Maurice for the advice. He was going through a messy divorce, and I didn’t want to bother him too much with my troubles.
“Can you catch tetanus from anodized steel?” I’m showing my sticking-plastered hands to Lauren. Puncture wounds from poorly cut chicken wire bleed profusely, but the holes themselves are so miniscule they evoke no sympathy.
Lauren is looking at the new fence doubtfully. I feel she is being too judgmental. “Isn’t that on the neighbours property?” she says, finally.
I look at the fence. The dog is marking each post. “Some of it is,” I admit. “But I can’t move it now. It would confuse the dog.”
Keeping a drunk middle-aged man upright is no joke. Not when he’s had six seven eight longnecks, you’re casting serious looks at the dog and twitching your head at the door, while his drunk lady partner’s got the other arm saying “s’okay, he’s just epileptic.”
He’s already fallen face first on the floorboards, thrown off balance by his grand gesture at Lauren’s dog sprawled on their couch, saying she was welcome there anytime. Luckily, his face looks well-used to breaking falls.
Now my back is twingeing from hoisting him to his feet. The dog lays there watching us. On TV they’re talking about a tea that makes you lose weight, which may or may not be related to the tea-drinkers also eating less at the time. I make a choice. I let him go, lunge at the dog, and shout thanks as I chase her out the door. There’s another thud. I forgot to ask if they keep chickens.
Maurice wants to help. “Improvise. Adapt. Adjust to the changing situation.” He rips the heads off half a dozen Equal packets and dumps them in his coffee. “And reinforce that fence with anything you can find.”
I have a new respect for Maurice. He does not let circumstances get the better of him. For instance, Tony, our boss, often asks Maurice (Maurice sits across from me, behind a purple partition) if he has signed those compliance forms yet. Maurice usually ignores him. I pretend I can’t see Tony standing there, because it’s awkward. But lately Maurice has replied that the forms are an infringement of his rights and an insult to his 20 years of service. “It’s just a form that HR need,” says Tony. Maurice goes back to ignoring him. Eventually Tony shrugs and leaves.
That takes courage, in my mind. Although I fear he is not endearing himself to HR. He says he doesn’t care. “Next round of redundancies and it’s auf wiedersehn.”
The fence has turned into a mini Berlin Wall. I spent the whole weekend blocking up the holes with unused household items and unwanted birthday gifts. From where I stand I can see a waffle maker, a pizza stone, a foot spa and some slippers that are too small. Next came the books – The Fountainhead, Lauren’s mother’s forgotten copy of Gone With The Wind, three editions of Jane Eyre - slipped into the gaps to create a barrier with no weak points. I’m fairly sure this now represents a suitable deterrent to the dog.
I’m cleaning up inside when I ask Lauren where her dog is. She has been studying up on sailing. “I think you left the front door open,” she says. “Did you know “the doldrums” is a nautical term for the low-pressure area around the equator where the air goes dead calm and you can’t sail. At all?”
I can’t believe I left the front door open. I start to walk out, then stop and turn. “But what about the boats with engines?”
Lauren isn’t sure, but thinks they don’t travel there.
Maurice is on the phone to his ex-wife. They are having a dispute about their 13 year old son. The son, apparently, wants to change his name. Not the first one, just the last two. Maurice gives in on the surname, but draws the line at the middle name. His son’s middle name is Maurice. “And what does he want to change it to? Peter? Who the hell is Peter?”
I’m waiting to hear who Peter is when Tony appears at Maurice’s desk. Maurice holds up a hand. Everyone is waiting. “Oh. Okay then,” says Maurice, and puts the phone down.
Tony asks about that form. Maurice says of course, he’ll bring it to him in a minute. Tony goes back to his office, confident all those hours of management training are finally paying off.
Maurice gets up and heads towards the office. The screams start a couple of minutes later. By the time I get there, Tony is cringing under his desk, bleeding from a serious head wound. Maurice stands with a green recycle bag hanging limply from his hands. It’s almost empty now, but I can see the contents sprayed around the room from his vicious beating of Tony: a tin of coffee, three bottles of milk (two skim, one full fat), a couple of frozen meals, cereal boxes and a handful of plates and cutlery.
Maurice doesn’t resist when he is restrained by the IT guys. An ambulance is called for Tony. The police for Maurice. I hear later that Peter is the name of his ex’s new partner.
It’s no use. The neighbours, who are only ever a blur behind their windows, must be coming out at night to steal my stuff. Holes keep reappearing in the fence. The dog roams free. I do not collect her from the drunkards’ house.
Lauren says I have not been making an effort. “I hope this time apart makes you realise some things,” she says.
“What things?” I say.
She says it’s sad that I even have to ask,
She leaves, carrying a duffel bag, which was all her father would allow onboard.