Kylie & Jack 1: Humble Beginnings

14. School of Hard Knocks

Saturday could not have come quick enough for Kylie, who sat in her car out the front of her flat on Friday afternoon, having just completed the second of her two day PD in Wangarra. She was exhausted, mentally and had forgotten that tomorrow she had told her mother she would go out to Murruma and spend the day with her.

She slowly got out of the car, a hot dry breeze ruffling the crisp leaves of the trees along the street. She hated these February days. Everything was kindling, just waiting to happen, the grass was spiky underfoot, like walking over hay and prickles; the trees were flat, barely offering any shade at all, because the sun was so hot it burned through everything.

Across the road, was her elderly widowed neighbour, Mavis with her son, Peter.

"How're ya goin'?" she called out, seeing Kylie getting out of her car. Kylie looked up to see Mavis waving to her.

"G'day, Mavis!" She waved back, not quite in the mood for an extended and repeated chat with Mavis, but knew it was going to happen anyway, so she locked her car with a press of her keypad over her shoulder and sauntered across the road.

"G'day, Kylie, how're ya goin'?" Peter asked, looking as exhausted as ever, his grey hair looking especially silver.

"Aw yeah, you know, still livin'," she replied, stifling a yawn. Peter chuckled in agreement.

"Gets like that a bit, doesn't it?" he said. Mavis stood on her veranda, teetering slightly, waving a slightly wobbly hand at Kylie, to ask her how she is, again.

"How're ya goin'?" Mavis finally asked. Despite it being only a quarter past six and that the sun wouldn't go down 'til half past eight, she was wearing her full length nightgown and slippers.

"Not bad, Mavis." Kylie nodded to her nightgown.

"You look like you're ready for bed!" She joked. Mavis closed her eyes and opened her mouth in a silent giggle.

"Oh, I like to get into bed early, you know. I don't like to be up late." She said, in that frail voice that seemed to dog the elderly.

"You like to stay up late," Mavis added with a faint twinkle in her watery eyes to Kylie. "I see your lights on before I go to bed and I think 'oh good, she's still up', you know, I like knowing who's here, you know?"

"Yes, Mavis, I know what you're like," Kylie said gently smiling, while Peter chuckled beside her.

"You're a sticky beak, Mum," Peter said, scratching his kelpie's head, who was tethered to the back of the ute.

"Well, I like to know who's here, you know!" She said almost affronted. She pointed to the flat to the left of Kylie's and screwed up her wrinkly face.

"I don't like that fella ..." Kylie bowed her head to hide her smirk.

Silly old buggar, she thought.

"And this little girl over there," she pointed to the flat to the right of Kylie's. "I don't know, what are they like?" she whispered to Kylie who shrugged.

"I have nothing to do with her." Kylie had had this conversation a dozen times with Mavis, that she knew what she'd say next.

"She's a funny one. Isn't she?" Kylie shrugged again. When her mother worked in aged care, she used to come home saying she had had the same conversation for the fifth time in as many weeks with her clients and that the trick was to not correct them, just let them go, so that's what Kylie did whenever she spoke to Mavis. Aside from being forgetful at times, she still had most of her faculties about her, a fair achievement given she was in her nineties.