The Property Manager: You'll never rent again... (11 page)

I need a coffee. I actually could do with a valium. There might be some in the cabinet. Probably years out of date but I’m so tense and ready to snap that I need to have at least two.

I’ve been staring at the wall for a while, trying to wrap my head around this horrible turn of events. I know you haven’t taken a vow of celibacy but I didn’t pick you for a husband-stealer. That’s very low. I should hate you. Forget about you.  Say bye, bye Gracie, it was nice almost knowing you…….but I can’t. I’ve got tears. I don’t cry but this has cut me. Deeply. I’ve never ever met anyone like you. You’re the whole package. Everything I’ve been looking for and I’ve done a lot of soul searching …..questioning my intentions, putting my faith in you through the obstacle course. And do you know what? I still love you.

You have stumbled morally. We are all human and weak at times. That is our nature. But you must pick yourself up, dust yourself off and say…sorry…to yourself …to that man’s wife….to your family and to me. Not aloud. But just feel it. Mean it.

You have probably woken up wracked with guilt. Process that. It’s healthy. I am prepared to forgive this transgression and we can move on. I will be a little more cautious and paranoid for a while. I’ll have to keep a much closer eye on you and step in to manipulate situations so that you can avoid dangerous stumbles.

I should have protected you. I had a gut feeling about that fellow the first time I saw you talking to him in my office. They are quite a bit behind in the rent. I’ll check it on Monday but I’m sure it’s more than the fortnight I need to issue a termination notice. With tribunal hearing etc that will still take six weeks to get them out.

I was going to erase this footage from the computer. I just sat down and forced myself to watch it once more. I could taste bile as I watched you make the first move, leaning forward to kiss him as he spoke to you. It was so brazen and risky. He might have pushed you away and then you would have felt like a foolish slut. But he didn’t. He latched on like a hungry dog. The two of you were like desperate animals, running your lips and tongues all over each others faces.

It took you all of three minutes to get him into your bedroom.  I don’t think I breathed once through the entire act. You were rabid, Grace. Astride him like the whore of Babylon, literally riding the seven headed beast.

4:25p.m

I didn’t sleep at all. I played that damn thing over and over. It aroused me which I found disgusting. In fact I was so aroused I would have needed to eat a dead wombat to ease the burning. I decided to go to the Park Café for lunch. I couldn’t be bothered preparing anything.  I assumed you’d be leaving the school after your drama class and would have to pass me. I’m surprised I had an appetite at all.

As soon as I pulled the car into the main street, I realized I should have walked. There were cars everywhere- covering driveways and even up on the grassy area outside the train station.

I was fairly spaced- out but I knew it was a Saturday morning so it couldn’t be a market day. As I got closer I noticed that there was a general current of well-dressed people flowing toward the Anglican Church. Suddenly it dawned on me that this was the double funeral for the murdered Moorebank waifs.

Although I wasn’t dressed appropriately I got sucked into the slipstream and ended up at the back of the old, stone church. I stood against the wall, a silent observer, feeling invisible. Out of the blue, Erin Summer walked over to me and said stiffly,

“I’ll have the rent paid up in a week.”

I let my eyes roam over the tiny black cocktail dress and in a lazy voice replied,

“Whatever,” and then added, “You, as usual, look like the town slut. Maybe you and Sandy Moorebank could start a business together.”

She looked as if I’d punched her in the face and told me I was done for now! I’d gone too far.

I just smiled sweetly and said – “Blow me.”

She reeled away and melted into the crowd. I felt good for having crossed the line. I’d never used such an obscene expression. I’d only ever heard it yelled at ME by local punks when I reprimanded them for skateboarding down the footpath outside the Real Estate.

I guess it’s the R-rated version of “Eat my shorts.”

Finally I saw you. Right down behind the empty front row. I didn’t pick you for a dress circle guest to a Moorebank funeral. You were sitting with Dr. Death and his fiancé, the rather glamorous Jacinta. You don’t belong in church today Gracie. Not until you beg forgiveness and show that you are truly penitent. Your drama group was obviously cancelled due to the special occasion.

You are in white. Another glaring mistake. It is a funeral and you have acted like a whore so black really would have been the order of the day.

Suddenly a peal of organ music silenced the murmuring of the crowd.

The two small coffins, suspended on silver trolleys, stood at the end of the red carpeted aisle just below the raised altar. I don’t think I’ve ever been into an Anglican Church. It’s not much different from a Catholic one really. Stained glass, polished pews and the stench of religion. It all smells the same.

The Moorebank family arrived. That unfortunately-named ‘Skylar girl’ was a Moorebank in all but name. The local newspaper reported that her father had died of an overdose three years ago. I scanned the haggard faces, wondering if Sandy’s sister had been discharged from the psyche ward to attend her daughter’s funeral. She was a blonde, skeletal thing and as far as I could tell she was absent. Sandy had mascara running down her face and lipstick smudged up to her streaming nose. She was hunched over and walked with faltering steps, assisted by her mother who didn’t look much better and was obviously three sheets to the wind. The blind leading the blind. Some of the rest of the Moorebank coven straggled in behind, one fellow carrying Sandy’s youngest,  an ugly toddler that looked like it suffered from foetal alcohol syndrome, with widely spaced eyes and cauliflower ears. I cast my mind back to the dog- mauled disposable nappies.

I’d had enough of the whole production and discreetly eased my way out of the church. The gawkers stretched all the way back to the ancient iron gates of the church. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites, I thought, sneering at them. Nobody ever had the time of day for the Moorebanks up until a week ago. They were all but spat on by decent folks. Sandy was constantly thrown out of the hotel for soliciting. Her sister, I think her name was Julianne, had tried unsuccessfully to break into every store in town. The police were called to brawls at the various Moorebank homes so often they had become a standard part of Michelle’s shift. Someone told me she regularly drove by their homes before her night shift ended to see if anyone needed an ambulance for injuries or overdoses. In other words they were the ultimate white trash family and they were loathed and despised…..BUT the drama of MURDER had the town in some ecstatic thrall, and everyone but everyone HAD to be involved on some level. The television cameras might have been a lure as well, don’t you think!? The Park Café was closed because of the funeral. It had become a flipping ‘Moorebank holiday’ in town. 

I found my car, parked up behind the school and drove purposefully to your house, Grace. I knew you were out of the way for a good hour and I wanted to know what you wrote in your diary about LAST NIGHT. I need to know whether you are truly feeling guilty or SMUG about your wanton behaviour.

I’ve added your house key to my key-ring. Doesn’t that mean we’re going steady?????? 

Your bedroom was a mess. It smelt like a dirty brothel. The bed was unmade and in a state of disarray. I peeled back the chaotic bedcovers and inspected the sheets.

The footage I have of the abomination is not good quality. Frank did warn me that in bad lighting it was preferable to use black and white film. I should have listened. Your lust had been so frantic and desperate but it was still blatantly obvious that you and your MATE did not practice safe sex. How do you know that this man doesn’t go to hookers or pick up loose women all the time? How exceptionally irresponsible of you, Grace. I’m so disappointed in you I feel like grabbing you and shaking some goddamn sense into you. You are going to have to be tested for a range of communicative diseases before we consummate our love.

I got down close, like a forensic pathologist, and found the stain - a memento of your lust. Did you really orgasm as hard as you appeared to or did you fake it???? Women are famous for lying to their men about that. In my experience about ninety percent of women are liars and have probably never had an orgasm in their life and so don’t even know how to do a good job of pretending. 

My wife needed female tongue to rev her up. She told me that for the five years we were married, she had never felt an iota of pleasure from me.

I’ve paid gorgeous women to writhe about beneath me and when they roll their eyes and groan and squeal, it ruins it and I end up slipping, unsatisfied, out of bad actresses.

You however, sounded sincere. That does not make me feel good. I touched the pillow where your head had thrashed about. I smelled it, inhaling the sweaty smell of your hair. Further down the bed, I smelled YOU and HIM. That should have been my smell. I knelt above an imaginary ‘you’ and gave you one anyway!  I didn’t feel at all guilty and it’s a shame you missed out……. because it was GOOD!

I lay there afterwards and read your diary. Nearly every word of it. I no longer believe you deserve privacy in that regard. It is imperative that I get US back on track and if that means reading your innermost thoughts, then so be it.

  You haven’t written an entry for today but you’ve had your eye on him for a while it would seem. I’m very disappointed. It was not just a crime of passion in the moment, it was premeditated. You haven’t though, (for which I am grateful) mentioned the word love in relation to this man.  You sound lonely and in desperate need of affection. Those things are enough to drive even the sanest of us toward crazy bedfellows.

You don’t mention me once in the entire diary. You obviously started a new diary when you moved to Babylon. Jesus, Grace, you wouldn’t even have a home in town if it wasn’t for me. I should rate a mention. We are organizing the Trivia night together. We’ve had a drink and eaten at the same table.

One interesting bit of information that I gleaned however, was the numerical password to the alarm and security system for the surgery. That is the sort of info that a person really ought to put to memory and then discard and destroy. If I was an unscrupulous person or a drug addict, that five digit number for the outside door and your personal security number to disarm the alarm would be very, very useful to me.

Why don’t you write about me, Gracie? Have I made so little an impression?  Perhaps you mention me when you talk to Jenny.

Pondering on that, I remembered that I had the telephone recording device in the car. Frank had talked me through the installation procedures and it sounded as easy as pie.

I stole outside as furtively as I could but of course there was no sign of anyone anywhere. The whole town was ghoulishly mourning at the church. I went to the car and got the bug out of the box in my boot, returned to your room and pulled your bed away from the wall so I could attach it to your phone jack. I pushed the bed back into position. You won’t notice it there. The dust under your bed tells me that you are not particular enough to vacuum beneath the ensemble. The transmitter and my recording receiver will work wirelessly up to a distance of one kilometre. That means I can park in any one of the surrounding streets, which is much less risky than sitting in my car not far down your road.

Your dirty underwear lay on the floor beside the bed. I put your panties in my pocket (isn’t that the thing to do?). I don’t want the lacy black things in your house any more. He was the last one to touch them so they must be destroyed. As an after- thought I went into your bathroom and wrote the word SLUT on your mirror in your own red lipstick. A nice and eerie touch I thought. Very reminiscent of the Manson murders. You will, no doubt, assume it was his wife. Who else would know? Who else would care? That might be enough for you to STOP this madness. Be warned, Grace – you are teetering on the brink of a very long fall off a very tall cliff-face.  Pull yourself back and put this all behind you.

I have forgiven you. Don’t think I have done that lightly and don’t for one second think I will do it again. Fool me once….

I could make life very difficult for you my dear.

Good-bye. I am tired and emotionally drained. Bed beckons.

Did you have fun at the funeral? Are you home? Have you read my message? Do you realize now, how bad you’ve been? Reflect and repent.

It will all be all right. Nothing great comes without hardship. I will step over this obstacle and not look back.

4/07/05 Sunday

I allowed myself to sleep in. It is Sunday after all.

After breakfast my mother called, whining that I didn’t love her because I hadn’t been to visit her all week-end. That is your fault, Grace. I probably would have driven down to see her yesterday but your outrageous behaviour, sucked the energy and life out of me. I need today to recover. I told Mum a little about you. She was very pleased to hear that I am seeing someone. She has worried about me for some time. I told her you are a beautiful widow with three lovely boys. I told her you are intelligent and funny and without going into too much detail, I explained that you are a bit confused and messed up at the moment. Mother agreed that it was my place to stay close by and help you to see your way more clearly. Hearing about you certainly cheered her up. She hinted that she would like to see a wedding before she dies.