The world is leaking
It’s a Monday morning and I’ve just finished eating a breakfast of fresh fruit and yoghurt; bacon and eggs, tomato and pan-fried mushrooms; a freshly baked croissant with strawberry jam; and at least three cups of brewed coffee. The big band sound of muted trumpets and the voice of Frank Sinatra wafts overhead.
I never have coffee for breakfast. Nor, I don’t think, have I ever eaten mushrooms this early in the day. But then I don’t usually start my day off in the dining room of the local motel. It’s a far cry from my usual routine of muesli and yoghurt eaten on the run between trips to the station and bus stop with teenagers. And today I feel displaced.
The dining room is opulent. White table cloths, a waiter in black, cushioned wicker chairs, remarkably real-looking fake palm trees. Business people arrive for breakfast meetings; a young couple lean in towards each other, deep in conversation; there is applause from a conference room to the side. It feels surreal, me here on my own, eating this breakfast, three minutes from home.
As I drain the last of my coffee, I close the Herald Sun on the table in from of me. I imagine my plastic-wrapped Age sitting somewhere on my front lawn, depending on the whim of the paper boy this morning. I can’t take in the article I’ve been trying to read for the last ten minutes. My mind wants to flit about. It flits back to early yesterday: the morning after the great flood.
Three tradesmen have been called in by my insurance company to do an assessment and ‘make safe’. They are all here at the same time. All in my bedroom. It is an odd feeling. My refuge, my private place to be myself, my place to lie down and rest at the end of the day, my place to dream, to imagine, to retreat to when I want solitude has been taken over by three men I have barely met. Yet I feel supported. They know I am in shock; and they have given up part of their Sunday to respond to a call for help.
The place where we all huddle no longer resembles a place to feel safe and warm. Anything of comfort has gone. The windows are wide open to the bitter winter air, the wardrobe is empty, the walls are marked with brown streaks and most of the furniture has been moved to the only dry room on the bottom storey. My bedroom is a shell. All that remains is my sodden bed, a chest of drawers covered in plastic and little tufts of red wool left over from where the carpet has been ripped from the concrete floor. The ceiling is still dripping into a series of bowls and buckets.
I stand in the place where my desk was. It is below the only part of the ceiling that is not dripping. For what seems like minutes, but in reality is only seconds, I watch the three tradesmen. Take in the moment. The way my phone call to the insurance company has set this in motion. The electrician disconnecting the power points and taping up wires; the builder’s assistant at the top of the ladder, assessing whether the ceilings are likely to collapse under the weight of water; the carpet man setting up a huge industrial air mover. I become aware of their efficiency and expertise and their combined presence. Then I imagine what it will be like in an hour’s time, when they are gone – off to their families or to another location. Their jobs will be done and I will be left to absorb the weight of what has happened. To rue the fact that I cannot sleep here tonight. That I cannot undo the damage.
My bedroom is directly under the upstairs toilet. On the Saturday, I had gone out to convene my regular poetry gig. I had left at lunchtime. Just after dark, I returned to a house awash. The cistern had sprung a leak and had kept trying to refill … all afternoon.
With no power, discovering the extent of the damage by torchlight was horrifying: the lake flowing out from the upstairs kitchen; the shine of water in the puny beam; my feet squelching along the downstairs hallway; opening my wardrobe to see my shoes afloat and my clothes drenched.
I fold up the Sun and tuck it under my arm. My year twelve teenager can compare the reportage between publications for his Unit Four English Language folio. I pack up my meagre belongings from the motel room and drive back to the house. The teenagers, who have stayed overnight with their father, have left for school. The smell of damp greets me as I open the front door. For a moment I feel overwhelmed by the enormity of what lies ahead, and I battle the lump in my throat. The greeting I receive from the cat and the dog, who have been shut in the laundry overnight, helps me over the hump.
I bundle the unread weekend papers together to toss into the recycle bin. Before I do, something makes me turn to the back of A2 to see Leunig.
Then I laugh and laugh and laugh.
I never have coffee for breakfast. Nor, I don’t think, have I ever eaten mushrooms this early in the day. But then I don’t usually start my day off in the dining room of the local motel. It’s a far cry from my usual routine of muesli and yoghurt eaten on the run between trips to the station and bus stop with teenagers. And today I feel displaced.
The dining room is opulent. White table cloths, a waiter in black, cushioned wicker chairs, remarkably real-looking fake palm trees. Business people arrive for breakfast meetings; a young couple lean in towards each other, deep in conversation; there is applause from a conference room to the side. It feels surreal, me here on my own, eating this breakfast, three minutes from home.
As I drain the last of my coffee, I close the Herald Sun on the table in from of me. I imagine my plastic-wrapped Age sitting somewhere on my front lawn, depending on the whim of the paper boy this morning. I can’t take in the article I’ve been trying to read for the last ten minutes. My mind wants to flit about. It flits back to early yesterday: the morning after the great flood.
Three tradesmen have been called in by my insurance company to do an assessment and ‘make safe’. They are all here at the same time. All in my bedroom. It is an odd feeling. My refuge, my private place to be myself, my place to lie down and rest at the end of the day, my place to dream, to imagine, to retreat to when I want solitude has been taken over by three men I have barely met. Yet I feel supported. They know I am in shock; and they have given up part of their Sunday to respond to a call for help.
The place where we all huddle no longer resembles a place to feel safe and warm. Anything of comfort has gone. The windows are wide open to the bitter winter air, the wardrobe is empty, the walls are marked with brown streaks and most of the furniture has been moved to the only dry room on the bottom storey. My bedroom is a shell. All that remains is my sodden bed, a chest of drawers covered in plastic and little tufts of red wool left over from where the carpet has been ripped from the concrete floor. The ceiling is still dripping into a series of bowls and buckets.
I stand in the place where my desk was. It is below the only part of the ceiling that is not dripping. For what seems like minutes, but in reality is only seconds, I watch the three tradesmen. Take in the moment. The way my phone call to the insurance company has set this in motion. The electrician disconnecting the power points and taping up wires; the builder’s assistant at the top of the ladder, assessing whether the ceilings are likely to collapse under the weight of water; the carpet man setting up a huge industrial air mover. I become aware of their efficiency and expertise and their combined presence. Then I imagine what it will be like in an hour’s time, when they are gone – off to their families or to another location. Their jobs will be done and I will be left to absorb the weight of what has happened. To rue the fact that I cannot sleep here tonight. That I cannot undo the damage.
My bedroom is directly under the upstairs toilet. On the Saturday, I had gone out to convene my regular poetry gig. I had left at lunchtime. Just after dark, I returned to a house awash. The cistern had sprung a leak and had kept trying to refill … all afternoon.
With no power, discovering the extent of the damage by torchlight was horrifying: the lake flowing out from the upstairs kitchen; the shine of water in the puny beam; my feet squelching along the downstairs hallway; opening my wardrobe to see my shoes afloat and my clothes drenched.
I fold up the Sun and tuck it under my arm. My year twelve teenager can compare the reportage between publications for his Unit Four English Language folio. I pack up my meagre belongings from the motel room and drive back to the house. The teenagers, who have stayed overnight with their father, have left for school. The smell of damp greets me as I open the front door. For a moment I feel overwhelmed by the enormity of what lies ahead, and I battle the lump in my throat. The greeting I receive from the cat and the dog, who have been shut in the laundry overnight, helps me over the hump.
I bundle the unread weekend papers together to toss into the recycle bin. Before I do, something makes me turn to the back of A2 to see Leunig.
Then I laugh and laugh and laugh.
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