Portraits and Cameos by Stoneham Stephen J.;

Author:Stoneham, Stephen J.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2019-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

February 2018

Mothers and Daughters

Max lived in a rented one bedroom apartment in Randwick with a 180 degree view over Coogee beach and out to sea past a rocky interruption known as Wedding Cake Island. One wall of this bachelor pad was entirely mirror tiles. He had accommodated a succession of girls there; one live-in, who had told him she was leaving him soon after he had woken up in hospital. He had had an operation to fix his deviated septum. She said to him that there was no good time to tell a guy you were leaving him. After she left, his nose swelled up so that he looked like Barney Rubble from The Flintstones. Some sort of atypical reaction had occurred and even the nurses laughed.

A month later when he ceased to look like a cartoon character and was back living in his apartment on his own, he decided to go to the beach because he had just set off one of those insect ‘bombs’ to try to do something about the cockroach infestation living inside the walls of the building, courtesy of the garbage chute that ran from the top floor to the basement. Still, there was nothing more satisfying than going out into the foyer on his floor, and then through the stiffly sprung door to the incinerator closet, open the chute and listen to the unwanted baggage plunge to its death in the abyss of the basement below. There was a decrepit caretaker/facilities manager who sifted through the refuse after gravity had finished with it. He hoped this old bloke had enjoyed the porno magazines he had dropped down the chute yesterday because they reminded him of his old girlfriend. They used to look at them together – not the caretaker and he. He meant his girlfriend.

As he entered the lift, he was surprised to come face to face with a young woman who he knew lived in the apartment above him. He had seen her lazing by the apartment complex’s pool in a one-piece swimsuit in the design of stars and stripes – a US flag. That sort of peripheral radar that all guys have, registered her rather striking figure, even if through the heavy foliage that screened the pool from prying eyes. Perhaps ‘statuesque’ was the word that might have been used to describe her. And now he was looking straight into her face. She too was obviously going to the beach. They both were.

“Hello. You’re new to the apartments here.”

“Oh yes. I think you live below me, don’t you? I hear you playing your guitar.” She was very South African from her accent. He was susceptible to voice and her accent grated.

“Oh…just tell me to stop if it annoys you.”

“No. I love guitar. My mother plays.”

The lift door opened and he accompanied her out to where his car was parked in the temporary visitor parking area and she kept walking up the slight incline of the drive towards the gate of the apartment complex leading to the street.

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