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| Penny (Australian) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Old Harry lived in a house near the end of
the car park of the doctor’s surgery two doors up from our house. I don’t remember anymore what his surname
was. But he was old. We moved to the suburb when I was 7, and Old Harry was
already a shuffling old man, perpetually in his chequered house coat and
slippers, suffused with the smell of old age. You know that smell. Dead skin
cells and unwashed hair. It defines old age. As a child, my nose seemed
particularly attuned to it. Like a bloodhound, I could smell when Old Harry was
near. My nostrils would prickle and I would curl my nose and top lip with the
pungency of it. Recently, I noticed my own hair has begun to emit the same
odour. But I digress.
Harry was a friendly and lonely man. His
only son had attained some prominence as a minor politician and was busy making
a life for himself with his own family. I know so little about Harry. Children
are rarely privy to the mysteries of old age, and it had never occurred to me
to ask him what had happened to his wife. The egocentric world of childhood
doesn't encourage that kind of curiosity about people. Those questions are for
the socially aware and curious middle-aged. They are the questions I would ask
him now.
Back then, I was content to know that Old
Harry was the friendly old man who would periodically shuffle across the
blistering heat of the bitumen car park to our back door. That was enough for
me. That and the fact that he called the neighbour who lived behind us “Girl
Gallagher”, despite the fact that she must have been well into her 50s or 60s
by that stage. Mrs Gallagher was also on her own and had spent most of her life
in that suburb. She may well have spent most of it in that house. I don’t
remember any more. Old Harry remembered her as the child she must once have
been and insisted on referring to her as a girl. I recall hearing him talk for
the first time of “Girl Gallagher” and the sense of shock as I realised who he
was talking about. For a 7 year old, a woman in her 50s or 60s is as far
removed from girlhood as the Earth from the Sun.
Harry would wrap his dirty chenille
housecoat around him, slip his house slippers on his feet and amble painfully
over to our back door step. He would wait at the bottom of the steps that led
to our back door till he could see someone moving around inside. Our back door
would invariably be open. This was in the days before home invasions and
burglaries. It was a more innocent time when doors were rarely closed, let
alone locked, cars were never locked and you knew everyone in the street. It
was a time when children played in the dirt lane way till they were tired and
hungry, then landed at any one of the houses in the neighbourhood for a glass
of milk and some afternoon tea. It was a time when the two old ladies who
shared a house at the end of the lane way, whose children were married to each
other, would take in playing children to feed them cake, teach them a little
piano and send them home with armfuls of silver beet.
Old Harry would wait patiently at the bottom step, regardless
of the weather, until he saw or sensed movement from the dark, cool recesses of
our home. Then shyly, quietly he would call out till one of us came to the door to chat
with him. He would keep us talking until politeness kicked in and we invited
him in for tea. He would drink his tea with relish, but it was never the tea he
came for. Harry was seeking company. I imagine now, though I couldn't then,
that he had reached the age when partners die, children move on with their own
lives, friends of the same age have moved away or shuffled off this mortal coil
and the neighbourhood he knew had changed so radically that it was no longer
recognisable.
Looking back on that time, I see how
remarkable Harry was. A man who had lived his life in the same suburb, who had
seen the deprivations and loss of war, who had known only a white, middle-class
society would seek out our company. How strange we must have seemed to him. The
smells of unfamiliar spices emanating from our house, the flavours of foreign
sweetmeats and savoury treats served with tea, the sounds of ghazals and hindi
movie music pouring from the record player, the sight of my mother swathed in
her sari or my father pottering around in a lungi. All so removed from anything
he could previously have experienced. Yet Harry would settle himself into a seat
at our kitchen table, nurse his tea and seem content with simply being
surrounded by the noise and bustle of our family. I am grateful to have known
him. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to reflect on Old Harry and his
quirkiness.
