The Property Manager: You'll never rent again... (3 page)

I’m going for a run tonight before I eat, as I have to be up early for a staff meeting.

See you tomorrow. I hope the surgery isn’t full of sick people. The coughing and spluttering and feverish children really do turn me off going to the doctor unless I absolutely must. And tomorrow is an absolute must for me. Because I need to see you up close again. I hope we get a bit more time to chat and get to know one another. I need you to notice me more. I need to lift my profile. You need to see how perfect we are for each other.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I love ya tomorrow, you’re only a day away!!!!

27/05/05 Thursday

I drove by and saw the lights beaming from your place last night and fought the urge to drop by and couldn’t wait to see you today. I slept very little. At least there was no wind so I didn’t have to listen to the wind-chime.

It took forever to get to midday. The morning dragged like a lame leg.

Later

You’re a doll. Really. You have the sweetest smile and the most inviting eyes. They flash as if they are sparking whenever you laugh. Which appears to be a lot of the time. You have a great sense of humour. I noticed that you had a bit of a joke with nearly every person who came to your desk. You came out and helped Mrs Rundle into a seat and got her a glass of water. I’ve never seen such genuine compassion in a medical centre. Most of the time those places leave you with the distinct impression that patients are the enemy and the girl on the front desk is there to protect the doctors from them. It’s always impossible to get an appointment when you want one. Doctors never do home visits anymore and most are very happy to have you ring in for prescriptions that you can pick up from the desk at your convenience at which time the receptionist gets you to pay for the phone consultation. The vibe in your surgery was different. It was truly like a scene from a sit-com. Uplifting. And all because of you.

We managed a lovely conversation about how well you are settling in. You looked stunning in pale blue today. You should wear that colour nearly all of the time. I couldn’t help but mention that I had noticed your car window down as I came in. You just shrugged and said you were a very trusting person. Caution, Grace. Never be too trusting because you open yourself up to all kinds of hurts. It is wonderful to trust but save it for those truly deserving of it and frankly, in my experience that is a gift that very few people earn.

After I had filled in the personal detail chart,( because having been there only once before years ago my file had been archived), you looked it over, smiled and said-

“Your name is Jack Michael. My husband’s name was Michael Jack. He passed away three years ago.”

I was stunned into momentary silence. What an intimate thing to share with me.

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” I lied although I sympathized with you for the pain you must have endured and the hardships you were faced with thereafter. But the reverse Christian names could not just have been coincidence. It was a sign.

Dr Death and I touched briefly on you during my consultation and he told me that your husband’s death had been a high profile murder case. He did not elaborate.

You need to understand that everything that happens in this mad life does so for a reason. Everything is connected. We all have one soul-mate, I believe. Just one. Most never find the other because we are scattered like confetti all over the world and blown about by the winds of fate.

I am incredibly grateful to have had you flit down to alight upon my heart. Harsh as it might sound, Michael was not the one for you. He was just the dress rehearsal for me. His death was no accident. No random act of violence. It was part of the grand plan. He left space for me and you then moved to this little village, choosing my office to find you a home. It all fits perfectly. Our destiny has already been written.      

I pretended to have gut pains and the doctor gave me a plastic jar to collect a stool sample. I have no intention of doing such a thing. I’ll make a miraculous recovery overnight.

I went back to work and saw you cross the road with the doctor and head into the Park Café, presumably for lunch. My pulse rate quickened and I felt constriction in my chest. On a rational level I know your relationship with him is professional. He is far too old for you. Actually, he’s about to be married so he’s probably safe. But the thought of you sharing a meal with him, or with any other man, makes me feel physically sick. It’s natural for a man to admire an attractive woman and I can’t help but think that the doctor might undress you with his eyes while he munches on a focaccia. I don’t want anyone but me to ever undress you – not even in their own mind.

As soon as I returned home this afternoon I got onto the internet and googled Michael Templar. A wealth of sites leapt up at me. I read every one of them. It was a terrible tragedy. I’ll encapsulate.  A thirty-five year old policeman from the Eastern suburbs of the city pulled over a car that was clearly unroadworthy with no number plate attached to the rear. As he approached the vehicle the driver pointed a revolver at him and shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

In that instant your life took a dramatic change of course, didn’t it, Grace, you poor darling. I wish I had known you back then to help wipe your tears. No. It’s better that I meet you now when your pain has resided to a dull ache. You needed those years of solitude to strengthen you ready to love again. And to love properly.

Two of the newspaper articles I read had photos of you. One of you with the boys, who look much younger, leaving the funeral. The other is an interview with you.  You look strained but gorgeous. You sound so in control and calm and strong. I’m proud of the way you handled the media with grace and integrity. You were truly aptly named. Your parents were visionaries. I printed copies of the photos and will put them in frames. I would paste them into this journal but being my precious gift to you I don’t believe sad photos from the past have any place in these pages. You understand?

Thanks for being so warm and friendly today. You’ve got my details on file so you know how old I am. Not too great a gap, is it? Six years. That’s a nice comfortable age difference. You know where I live and that I’m single.

I’ll see you when you pop the rent in at some stage tomorrow. I just hope I’m in the office and not out showing a prospective tenant through a property. I have no tribunal hearings or routine inspections for at least the next week. So I’m sitting pretty much across the road from you all day, every day. So close and yet so far.

28/05/05 Friday

You didn’t show with the rent, Grace. I know you were at work because your car was parked over the road. The windows were up and the car appeared to be locked. Good girl. Better to be safe. I didn’t see you come out for lunch. The doctor and his fiancé went to the café again. You must have been snowed under with work. I waited late in the office, hoping to see you leave so I could bump into you.

You walked out at 6:05 p.m.  I set the alarm and hurried out.

I called out a hello and you waved back. It’s only a narrow sort of main street so we could hear each other quite well.

“I’m rushing to pick Harry up,” you said as you fumbled with your key in the door giving the impression that you’d never actually locked your car. Ever.

“Oh, where does he go after school?”

“Jenny Wray. One of the mums from school takes him home. She feeds him dinner and gets him to do his homework with her daughter.”

“Well that works out well for you. I know Jenny. She bought a house from us last year.”

I nodded at you and got in my car. I didn’t mention the rent because it was too trivial and I might have appeared to be an ogre of a property manager. God knows there are a lot who pounce like a pit bull if the rent is a few days late. I give people a week before approaching the subject. Sometimes I feel like little more than a debt collector.

At home I poured myself a glass of red and put a plate of leftovers in the microwave. And having just eaten, I am sitting here writing while simultaneously doing some research on the net. What’s your take on the internet? Hasn’t it just exploded into society like a bomb? I think it heralds the end of our civilization. When man becomes God, there’s nothing left to strive for so we just self-combust. I take advantage of the internet without letting it take advantage of me! I swear, if I was religious I’d think Bill Gates was the anti-christ. I’m not, therefore I know it’s the Pope. That was a lame sort of abstract joke.

My research tells me that you made a television appearance on A Current Affair after your husband died. It’s been three years but I’m sure the television station would have a copy somewhere in the archives. I’m going to call them in the morning and ask about it. I’d love to have you on video so I could watch your mouth moving and your eyes blinking, anytime I wanted to.

I’m not in the office much at all next week. I’ve got tribunal hearings on Monday and Wednesday and Tuesday and Thursday are the quarterly inspections of all our rental properties. I’m restraining myself from inspecting your place as you’ve only been there a week and that seems a bit stupid.

I have a rostered day off on Friday and I’m going to my mother’s place in the city. Her health is failing and I want to do a few odd jobs about the house for. Do some shopping. I don’t think she’s really up to the train trips down to see me anymore but she is most concerned about the garden. We’ll see. I’ll keep my journal with me to catch any thoughts of you that spin through my brain as they inevitably will.

I’m sure, in this small village I am bound to bump into you at some stage. I’m swamped with paperwork and feeling tense because I haven’t exercised enough lately. I’m also feeling some pent up frustration because I want you so badly. I want to bury myself in your arms, inhaling the smell of your hair while my hands wander about your body, exploring every nook and cranny…I’m ready for bed. I need to turn out the lights and try to empty my head of thoughts of you. I need to focus on other areas of my life. I need to tidy up the rough edges.

Loving you, wanting you,

Goodnight.

31/05/05 Monday

Feeling depressed. Don’t want to depress you so it’s better for me to stay quiet.

If I pay $150 I can get a copy of your television interview. It might take up to three weeks.

That’s not why I’m depressed. I won’t burden you with it.

2/06/05 Wednesday

Sorry Grace. I’m just having a bad few days. It’s nothing to do with you. I’m at the court house all day dealing with lowlife rent avoiders and vandals. And they all say I’m the bad guy. I gave them warning after warning and if my compassionate approach doesn’t work to start with and then my threatening approach yields nothing, I am left with no option but to take it to the next level. I am the protector of people’s investment properties. I take my job seriously. I don’t care this morning if all these tenants get put out on the street and freeze to death. It serves them right. When you budget it’s important to put the rent first because a roof over your head is number one. Food is next. Most of these scumbags spend every welfare or blue collar payment at the local hotel or pour it into poker machines. Fools.

On top of that I’m not talking to Ron and that’s a problem considering he’s my boss. Karen refuses to get involved. She’s an apathetic, perfumed, fence-sitter. I think she’s secretly screwing Ron. This is all because a tenant has made outrageous and untrue complaints about me and that bastard is not standing up for me. I don’t want to go into it. I need to keep this job. I’m going to have to sort something out. May have to swallow my pride and apologize to the bitch tenant for something I didn’t even do!

I do hope you’re having a better week than me!

5/06/05 Saturday

Dearest Grace,

I am so sorry for the last few days. Sometimes woes rain down on you all at once. I really didn’t want to go to the city to see my mother but she laid a big guilt trip on me so I reluctantly and resentfully drove through stinking traffic to her semi in the inner city. I was quite cold and then I got thinking that this is not all about me. It’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing yourself at the centre of the universe. I spent the time at the court house seething with hate for these snivelling debt monsters and I now I think to myself – “Why tie yourself up in knots? They are the ones in the wrong. And it’s not my money.”

I know that Ron Fisher is a dickhead. A childish description I’ll admit but very appropriate. He may flash money around, drive a Jaguar and live in the best part of town but he’s in debt up to his hair-plugs. While I have spent a careful lifetime of control and caution and I own my own home, drive a nice but conservative late model Volvo and I don’t owe anyone anything! So I brightened up and managed to have a nice day with Mum today. It hurts me to see the old dear getting weaker. She’s shrivelling up before my eyes. Her little ears look like dried fruit and her mouth has caved in around gums. She can’t wear false-teeth because her gums are too soft. Even her memory is fading and she referred to my father today as if he were still alive. She corrected herself and laughed it off when I pointed it out to her.