Hidden Guests (short story)
This story is set in 2015.
The address of 307 Dawson Street belongs to a beautiful small house made of red bricks, which sits on a quarter-acre block with a backyard that forged many good family memories. The house was built in the sixties by an Italian couple, the Antonionis, who bought the land for less than eight-hundred pounds (Australia converted to the dollar in early 1966). The couple lived here their whole life. They passed away one by one, the wife passing first in 2006 from complex organ failure, and then the husband, seven years later, passing in his sleep.
A couple years later, an old woman named Cathy bought the property from the Antonioni’s children. Cathy came from over east, wanting to start afresh after her own husband passed recently from Parkinson’s. She had often heard of Perth in the form of punchlines, relating to it being the least eventful city in Australia. This just made it sound more appealing, as, during her Peter’s decline, Cathy grew an appetite for far less noise and fuss in her life.
Cathy is about fifteen years younger than the former occupants of 307 Dawson. Her generation, compared to the Antonioni’s, saw a larger influx of men and women into universities. Along with this entrance into the world where one can afford to think and debate all day, and inspect this and that, this later generation built up more progressive and accepting thoughts towards mental wellbeing. Courtesy of her early adulthood, Cathy has, throughout her life, been able to show solid self-awareness of times when she would have a slip in mental faculties.
She is actually currently in one. This “episode” has unfortunately lasted for the past six years, ever since Peter’s health started to slide. As he became more debilitated, she became painfully inducted into living without the person who has, since she was twenty, been a massive source of balance in her life. Although she has greatly adapted to this phase of life, the emotional burden is still quietly gigantic.
Especially since Cathy is now on the opposite side of the country, away from her peers and family, she knew she’d need steady and powerful psychological help. Cathy took the bus to the council office one morning, in a little adventure where she could get her bearings on this new city’s public transport. At the office, she applied for a wellness assistance program run by her local council, which is a council that oversees more suburbs and residents than any other in the Perth metropolitan area.
They turned out to have quite comprehensive systems for seniors who are living alone, and who have an ailment of some kind, be it physical or psychological. She was told about all these services by a friendly receptionist named Francesca, who looks and behaves a lot like her daughter-in-law, making her seem innately more compelling from the get-go.
After a few weeks of waiting, Cathy was allocated a social worker who specialises in the mental health of older residents. The worker herself is a woman about twenty years younger than Cathy, so that puts her in her early fifties. The woman’s name is Bridget, and she is of an Italian background, and has lived her entire life in the vicinity where Cathy now is. She and Cathy get on terrifically. They meet once a week, mainly on Tuesdays. Bridgette has a clientele of elderly residents who are in nearby postcodes, with them being spaced out through her four-day workweek. Bridget’s daily commute is much longer than other council employees, since it happens all through the day, hopping from one lonely home to the next.
Right now, at this very moment, Bridgette is busy in Cathy’s kitchen, laying out the antipasto that Cathy bought, onto a circular platter holder that’s coloured with a floral aesthetic, which is made of eight sections that wrap around a space in the centre for dip. There’s salami, ham, crackers, almonds, olives, and three other Mediterranean-style snacks. Cathy is over in the laundry, fiddling with the washing machine because it had stopped during a cycle for her bedsheets. The machine has recently been pausing at random times mid-cycle, saying on its tiny two-inch screen in an ugly calculator-style lettering “Out of balance”. Cathy decides to just turn off the machine, and deal with her sheets when she’s done with Bridget. Cathy and Bridgette meet at the dinner table two minutes later, and they start their session properly.
Cathy gives a rundown of things in her life recently, in a way that’s sort of minimal, and lacking in urges to spout out every detail. As she gives her update, Cathy interrupts herself to tell Bridgette to please start eating the platter. Over the years, she has adopted a strong drive for hospitality from her late husband’s Italian heritage, which has been combined with her own old-school Anglo-Saxon sense of being soft and polite in her demeanour. Bridgette had internally planned on touching the platter after Cathy makes the first step, but Cathy’s gentler variant of standard Italian hospitality makes an undeniable impact on Bridget. She ends up taking a slice of salami, and putting it on a little plate in front of her. Had Cathy’s hospitality been the undiluted Italian kind, Bridgette may have funnily enough been more resistant to the offering, but Cathy had mixed it with a fatal level of gentleness.
Today is an autumn day. The sky is mixed with clouds and sunshine. The weather has started to veer towards that of winter, so enthusiasts of the warmth are starting to grieve whenever they see a sign of the approaching coldness. Whether it’s a chillier morning, more clouds about, or the Sun setting earlier. Cathy is fond of both extremes of the climate. She is however yet to see what life is like during Perth in wintertime, and how the winters here are less wintery than any winter she has seen. Back in Melbourne, she was used to avoiding dips in the ocean for eight or nine months of the year.
Weather however can’t quite affect Cathy’s biggest sources of joy, as they are conducted indoors. She has played the piano and classical guitar for several decades, and her retirement, and the resulting deeper solitude from that and also Peter’s passing, has seen her elevate her music endeavours to peak priority. For an artist, Cathy is prone to having a more rigid temperament when it comes to meeting her creative goals. In turn, her creative setbacks often come far less from external troubles, and more from simply failing to meet her own standards. This can include, making “too little” progress with a chord progression after a day’s work, or being blank mentally on her next lyric.
She knows well that she’s gotta ease off on herself, and she has been seeking advice from Bridgette for this problem. If Cathy could just click her fingers and become much more flexible, and go more easily with the flow, she would. It’s just that her current habits are too tempting, compelling and deeply ingrained, to do away with in one day. There is a deep satisfaction that comes to Cathy when she pushes in her work. She is very conditioned into feeling morally “proper” after it all.
Bridgette has been suggesting some tools for Cathy, to gradually curb this inclination of hers, and, upon sitting down together, Cathy fills Bridgette in on how the past two weeks have involved these tools. Bridget’s suggestions have been the right dose of difficulty, in that they are not daunting but surprisingly mild in their requests, so that Cathy can repeat them very regularly. Cathy is enthusiastic to enact bigger changes to her rigidity, and pursue things in big efforts, but Bridgette purposefully did not deliver fully to this lofty enthusiasm. She’s been sometimes making her pieces of advice lean on the pleasurable side, which is very foreign to Cathy’s instincts. For example, Bridgette has suggested that Cathy sometimes carve out a half-hour break, or even work up to that duration, when she is working on music. Bridgette says that this time could be used watching a show, or sitting in a café.
Cathy once asked Bridgette about her qualifications, just for conversation’s sake. Bridgette says that she has a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy, and some further diplomas in social work. Cathy asked this out of a positive curiosity in fleshing out her knowledge of Bridget, because she likes to do this to people who assist her greatly, fascinate her, and she sees as bastions of helpfulness and love. Cathy has asked similar questions to her GP and other health professionals, like when they graduated, or why they chose this given field. When people become concentrations of goodness and admiration to Cathy, she likes seeking ordinary, human details from them. Instead of removing the sheen from these people, these facts make Cathy admire them further. Little hints of their lives, however simple or mundane, intensifies the mystery of their goodness to Cathy, and makes them more endearing.
For the couple hours that these women are together, Cathy sticks up a laminated piece of paper on her flyscreen door at the front, which is held there by BluTack. This sheet says in bold capitals, “DO NOT DISTURB”, and below that, “COME BACK AT 12”. Usually there are very few people who come to Cathy’s door, besides the posties, but Cathy has gained this habit from when she lived in Melbourne, and wanted to carve out either unbothered time at home, or a chance to go out somewhere. In later years, the destination was most likely to visit the hospice where Peter stayed.
The sessions with Bridgette usually finish at twenty to twelve, but Cathy wants time to decompress before anybody comes by. In attempting to write her door-sign, Cathy did this thing people commonly do when writing large letters on paper. They take up too much space with the first few words, so they need to compress the rest of the sentence, or else they run out of space. The sign Cathy hangs was the second or third attempt for her sign, so that effect by now is minimal.
At some point while Cathy and Bridgette are talking about self-betterment, and chipping away at the antipasto, two guys happen to be walking down the street, and they go past Cathy’s place. The paper sign gets the attention of one guy, and he walks towards it to make it out. This man is in his thirties, and has hair that’s somewhat thinned out, but is combed and gelled immaculately in the style of a high fade. He is wearing a baby blue tracksuit, and he’s got a prominent jaw attached to his square head. The man’s buddy is wearing a dark grey tracksuit, and is basically bald. He has a vertical oval-shaped face. This second guy remains on the footpath, while his friend goes to the door.
The first guy gestures to his friend to come over. This second guy does so, but he needs to walk a few metres closer to the sign, since his vision is much weaker. He also has the weaker hearing of the two, due to his chronic pastime of going to raves during the weekends of being a sparky’s apprentice. After he reads the sign, he gives a curious look back to the first guy. The first guy says scornfully, “They put a target on themselves.” The second guy smiles a little, realising what his friend has.
The guy with the square head is named Cade, and the second guy is Pete. These two men were heading to the nearby shopping square, to talk with their ex-sparky mate about some “enterprises” he can offer them. This friend left his electrician career because the rewards of these enterprises just have no equal. Maybe the most alluring reward to these guys is them getting a prolonged endorphin hit from these jobs. These feelings start during the planning phase, and they rise to their peak when these guys are actually doing the job.
Although it drops somewhat after this stage, the endorphins still stay at a pleasantly-high level for a time, from the satisfaction of getting away with what they did, and also them vividly feeling an enjoyable inner identity from it, of being desperados. For some reason in Perth, electricians are sort of underpaid at the moment, so it gives an alluring reason for Cade and Pete to meet this friend today, and thus, leading them to see the sign on Cathy’s door. They both feel like lions seeing a deer limping in the savannah.
I don’t know whether lions and deer live together in the savannah. Cade and Pete decide to look at Cathy’s house a little closer. This discussion is done in whispers. They give a look around their periphery in a nonchalant way. It’s late morning on a weekday, so it’s likely that most people are out at work. They walk in a single file to the house’s right-hand side, across the front yard that has a couple lemon-trees and fig-trees. At the moment, the figs are still tasty, but they have a month of ripeness left. Houses are new territory for Cade and Pete’s illicit endeavours. Not much of their past experience can translate into what’s needed for stealthy and seamless burglary. However, the door-sign they saw has spoken charmingly to the adrenaline junkies living inside them. These guys are highly curious about expanding their palette of what’s possible here.
They choose to stay out of the side-passage on the house’s right side, as it’s kept shut with a padlock. They instead just use their height to peer over the corrugated sheet door acting as the gate. The side-passage is seen to be made of crooked bricks lined with moss. There’s a hot water heater attached to the house’s side, plus a stack of bricks on the wall, which are identical to the ones that make out the ground. When the passage reaches down to the back of the house, it turns a sharp left to wrap around the house’s rear. Cade and Pete have a field of vision that’s limited to width of the side passage. Where the passage turns left, they see dense, dark bush. The sight of such bush in a backyard is on the rarer side, these days, and both guys notice this, but it’s unrelated to their surveying objectives, so it goes unsaid. Cade and Pete then calmly walk back across the front yard, through the trees again, letting the figs stay ignored.
These two curious guys, with their walking, try decently to be nonchalant. This sort of has a horseshoe effect, where they look somewhat out of place. However, the confidence that these guys have recently gained, from their other enterprises, has made them feel too bulletproof to care deeply about such things. When someone gets used to looting or other crimes, the success can make the person feel like a chameleon, even in a tracksuit in the light of day. Even with a chance of witnesses. When a crime is pulled off successfully, and many times over, you may end up feeling like you’re living in a different timezone or city from everyone else. You may feel like you’re armed with superpowers.
Also, this right now, what Cade and Pete are doing, is just a survey, a “reccy”. The boys are only gathering data, and they’ll be sure to gather enough, before any pouncing on the deer goes down. They are highly keen to do this job, yet they will be very thoughtful about the exact time of its unfolding.
Back on the footpath, Cade and Pete quietly decide to walk up the driveway, which is on the house’s left side. At the top of it, there’s a closed garage that’s separated from the house. Cade and Pete are unable to see that the garage is far from empty. It contains Cathy’s newly-bought Rav4, and also Bridget’s mode of transport, a baby-blue Vespa scooter. As the guys can’t see inside the garage, their impression of these premises being empty is still intact. They are barred from any furthersurveying of this property, because, standing between the garage and the house, there is a cream metal gate, which is of the same style used around pools. It has a door, which is kept closed by a simple latch on the top.
The two guys look over this gate. Although they can’t totally see it, because it goes around the house’s rear, they notice that attached to the house is a patio, with an outdoor glass table, and those spacious seats with large, checkered backs. The patio’s rear is draped in green fabric, which is partially see-through. Behind the patio is a pretty clean backyard, which the guys can see much more of. It is slightly hilly, with a couple trees, and the grass is beautifully trimmed. There is a light grey shed by the rear wall, which Cathy has recently cleared for spiders with insecticide and holy water (she has a phobia), and the edges of the yard have shrubs and plants that are cared for and trimmed, but they appear a little wild in contrast with the more manicured grass. There’s a breeze that lightly rustles these plants. Cade and Pete expect to feel the chill, but it stops short of them.
They’ve now seen enough of the property. One last time, the two curious surveyors walk across the front-yard, and they scan the windows, to get a bit more feel of the place. The house strongly suggests to them that an elderly person, or couple, lives here. Cade and Pete prefer this theory about the residents, because it makes their desired task seem less intimidating. Not in terms of a physical altercation, as these guys are repelled by the prospect of harming older people. Cade and Pete adore their nan and pop, which they happen to share, since they’re cousins. It’s just that they now have this impression, that this house will be more conquerable for them.
Cade and Pete now go about their way. During their walk, and for the remainder of this week, the two discuss their strategy for breaking into 307 Dawson Street.
The guys live in the same suburb as Cathy, over in a townhouse they are renting for cheap from an associate and old friend, Clement. At the moment, they have loose enough schedules, or rather, empty enough schedules, to make frequent passes by Cathy’s door in the days that follow. They are namely checking for any other times that she displays her sign. For the coming week, Cathy stays mostly at home, as she’s busy polishing some cabinets she recently bought from the tip, on top of her typical tendency to orbit around her music room. She does pop out a little bit, but it’s for brief cabinet-restoring errands, and when she leaves for these, she is too occupied or unbothered to make a new sign every time. It is however, a certainty, that Cathy will hang up a sign each time Bridgette comes by, because it’s a time when she wants to solely engage with Bridgette and have insulated time together, for her healing in this new city.
By the following Tuesday, Cade and Pete have started losing hope on pinning down the times that 307 Dawson Street is vacant. That morning, Pete drives by the house while planning to go to the beach for a tan (and later meet his girlfriend, who lives near Fremantle with some sculptors). As he passes the house very slowly, he sees that there’s a white sheet on the front door. It stands out in the distance, despite his weak eyesight, among the fig trees and their shadows. He is hopeless at actually reading it from this distance, but only seeing is what matters. He however wants to see the time that’s actually written on the sign, to see whether the details have stayed the same. “COME BACK AT 12”. Pete guesses that this window of time, seeing as it’s identical to the one last Tuesday, is an indicator of some regular outing that the residents take on this day.
Pete quickly goes back to his house, and lets Cade know that the sign is there, exactly a week after the last time, and even down to the same time. He tells Pete about his guess regarding the regular Tuesday outings. Their hope in their plan is now reignited, and they feel a similar level of attraction to this task as what they felt last week. However, neither guy is in the mood to stage a break-in within the next hour or so. Pete is feeling too “deprived” to skip today with his girlfriend, and Cade needs to see Clement, to do him a favour. He sometimes does this as a thanks to Clement, for leasing them the townhouse, which is rather above what these guys can afford. Currently, Cade and Pete can afford little more than a bunk bed at a charity home. Also, if jail time is on the line, Cade and Pete would rather give themselves some “notice” for this job, so they can zone in on it slowly, over the coming days, and feel levelled out and prepared.
The two cousins choose next Tuesday morning for the break-in. During the coming week, they assemble tools, but no weapons, because they assume there will be nobody they will encounter. Also, although they are inclined to regularly commit crimes, they are far from conditioned in dealing out casual violence, or worse, in service of their goals. In this instance, they are especially against it, since again, they believe that the residents are seniors.
The next Tuesday arrives. It is a cloudier and cooler day. The morning cold is much harsher when you first awake, so you go and grab the dressing gown you haven’t touched since October, which is hanging in the closet with trackpants and sweaters. Or, if instead of a closet, you have a clothes-rack, then there may be some light dust over the garments. Unless you dust them regularly, but that’s purely down to the person. Horses for courses, as they say. My bad, we’ve entered quite the tangent. So, the next Tuesday has now arrived. Cade and Pete park their car on Dawson Street, about fifty or sixty metres from Cathy’s. They are parked in front of an accountant’s office, which takes up the bottom floor of a townhouse.
They have brought along Clement’s car, which is a luxury, dark blue SUV with a sunroof. Clement let them borrow it with the knowledge that they were doing a “job”, but Cade and Pete kept the details vague, because they thought Clement might hesitate at lending his car to them for their debut in home burglaries, and worry about his number-plate being exposed. Clement assumes that they will be performing a job that’s much more in their expertise, much more “bread and butter”, and will thus go more smoothly, with next to no risk. Anyway, this SUV, in Cade’s eyes, looks too high-end for people to ever associate it with the desperation of burglars.
Also, to add another layer of subversion, Cade and Pete are wearing casual attire that leans on the trendy and artistic side, to give out a sense of harmlessness to any observers, while they are out in the open. Cade is wearing a maroon sweater, a white polo shirt (its collar made visible for the “gentle civilian” optics) and dress trousers. This sharp look fits well with Cade’s square, clean-cut head. Pete today is wearing an oversized light grey sweater, jeans, and brown sandals. He looks like a guitarist who blends folk and psychedelic, and does it very well.
Today, Cade and Pete have chosen to part with their standard attire. When they wear their tracksuits, trainers, and slick fades, they know what they’re projecting, and they enjoy it, but they know that looking overtly “hard and fresh” is best avoided for this break-in. Pete asked his girlfriend, Ella, for a style change-up, to make them look much tamer. She borrowed stuff from her brother, without his knowing, and she also dropped by a thrift shop, with Cade and Pete’s shoe-sizes and waist lengths written on her phone. Without yet buying much, a certain style is already sitting firmly in Ella’s mind. Evading a four-year jail sentence could be a simple matter of them looking too harmless, to appear capable of burglary.
On this Tuesday morning, these two debuting burglars are wearing backpacks that are small and stylish, like what a uni student would carry. They avoided bags that are big and bulky, and thus may look overtly intended for storing many things, should anyone see them. Because of this choice in optics, Cade and Pete have to compromise in the size of what they take, once inside Cathy’s place. It’s not that they were aiming to nick a plasma TV. Rather, they have to avoid any valuables on the bulkier side, like stereos or vases. Having this level of selectiveness, in what they will steal from these elderly residents, whom they still presume is the demographic that lives here, makes Cade and Pete feel more honourable and less guilty, while they enact this plan of burgling an age-bracket that they are so fond of. They agreed that, upon entering, they will aim straight for the bedroom, and look for jewellery and money.
On top of their storage space being limited, Cade and Pete also need to make space for their tools. They include a hammer, a crowbar, rubber gloves (they brought a whole box worth), and a little plastic container, the size of the ones in which you buy dip at the supermarket. This container is filled with a special chemical paste which, when brushed onto a glass surface, burns and chemically reacts with the glass, making it soft and more easily breakable, like how water acts when spilled onto cardboard. This paste was given to Cade and Pete by a mate who works as a glazier, named Errol. A few years back, he used to be quite active in these jobs that Cade and Pete do. He actually went to high school with Pete, although back then, they sometimes got into fistfights, be it one-on-one, or in groups. Errol has been clean from crime for around four years, but he’s still very tight with his compadres from those days. Errol’s retirement is much more about him becoming more risk-averse, rather than having some kind of moral shift. His risky spirits faltered after he had a daughter, which is frankly understandable.
It’s around ten-forty. As Cade and Pete are sitting in their SUV, they clarify the order of their plan. Both were pretty nervy earlier on, but they’ve now smoked some weed, and had cups of English Breakfast. Their moods have become much more neutral and content, and at times, they sway into cheeriness. They seem like the friendliest burglars one could meet. But, burglary is all about meeting nobody. Otherwise, it’s a robbery, and a very common crime that pairs with robbery is assault. Or worse. Cade and Pete get out the car, and walk over to 307.
The breeze wakes them a little, and the cloudy sky around them makes them remember the gravity of what they’re doing. This gives the guys a little more edge and vigilance. This is perhaps only helpful for them, otherwise their woozy and mellow state could slow them down and even make them clumsy, while moving around Cathy’s house. They pass a skinny old man wearing a blue flannel shirt, who’s walking a dog. As the old man passes, Cade nods to him and says good morning. This man can often be seen around Main Street, going on walks during the day. Cade and Pete have greeted him before. His dog is an old English mastiff. He’s a large boy, of similar age in dog years to his owner. He walks at a pace that’s absent of hurry, a mirror to his owner.
The two young men reach Cathy’s driveway, and walk up it in a casual manner, like they were standard visitors, to the eyes of anyone around. They walk the path to her front door, and they see the paper sign. According to the sign, they have one hour and fifteen minutes. Cade and Pete had planned this to be, at most, fifteen to twenty minutes. They pause, and then look at each other. Pete does the Sign of the Cross. Cade says, “Good idea, man. He’ll be looking after us.” and then he slowly counts to three.
Go time. Cade and Pete slowly cross the front-yard, and head towards the side-door on the house’s right. They look mundane while doing this. But, if a witness learned of their intentions, and then looked at them again, their tension and awkwardness would become evident. Over at the side-door, they see that it’s still kept closed with a padlock. They have planned to simply climb over this door. Pete puts down his backpack and climbs first, with Cade getting on one knee, to offer it as a platform for Pete to stand on. Pete makes it over, and then receives his backpack from Cade. Then, Cade climbs. They already agreed that he could do this part last, because he’s physically capable of doing it solo. Cade indeed pulls it off. The side-door only got banged about a little bit. Cade hunches over, taking a moment to get his breath. He was winded after heaping his torso over the hard door.
The two cousins then head down the side passage. Pete walks along this passage while nearer to the fence than the house. He ends up stepping in a tiny puddle that has formed between the brick path and the fence. It had rained earlier in the morning, and since then, it has been too cool for the puddle to dry up. When he goes to push off this foot, he slightly slips. After he gets his balance back, Pete checks beneath the dirtied sandal, and then calls out to Cade. He forgets to use his whispering voice, and Cade widens his eyeballs at him to keep it down, like he’s envisioned a whole jail sentence in that instant. He goes back to Pete, who is standing on one foot, taking off the sandal.
He rubs the bottom of the sandal on the house’s brick wall, and slaps it a few times. The cracking sound of this action earns Pete another deer-in-headlights look from Cade, who checks the bottom of the sandal himself, and tells Pete it’s fine. “As long as it’s not dripping mud, who cares?”. Based on how they differ with housekeeping back at their place, Cade’s smaller concern about this matter is something that could’ve been predicted. Pete wants to clean the shoe some more, but Cade wins him over by reminding that they need to follow their arranged time limit.
Pete puts on his shoe, and they go over to a window that’s down the passage. The window is a little high up, since the whole house is raised with limestone, which was a rather standard addition back when this house was built. Luckily for Cade and Pete (but obviously, not for the resident), they are both quite tall. Also, the height, and overall obstacle of clearing this window, are far friendlier when compared to that damn fence, so in that way, this window feels quite like a cakewalk. Pete peers into window. It looks like this room just contains furniture, but more for the purpose of storage rather than display, since there are shelves and drawers in random places around the room. There is a white tarp sheet underneath some of these items, along with there being a step ladder, and some buckets of paint, or varnish. Some of the furniture looks much cleaner and prettier than the rest. Those particular ones are around the room’s centre, and the less glamorous items are towards the walls.
As Pete is peering, he is not phased about the state of this furniture like we are. He is only checking that there’s nothing to obstruct them, when they climb into the house after dealing with the window. Pete tells Cade there’s enough room to enter. Cade pulls out the container with the paste, which on closer inspection, looks certainly like Errol had just washed out and reused a container that dip comes in. Cade then puts on some gloves. He is a bit repelled by the powder that these disposable gloves are all doused with. It makes his hands feel odd, and it also smells. Even though Cade and Pete know there’s lots of potential for danger in this mission, from both ordinary people and the lawbook, they had never stopped and thought about the more minute things that can bother them, and bend their spirits in little but crucial ways, like the odd feeling that comes with wearing these tight rubber gloves. It’s like these guys are wearing chain mail and helmets to deal with the bigger problems, but there are still little openings for mosquitoes to land and bite, and for sunlight to glare in their eyes.
Cade coats the window with the pasty concoction. This substance reminds them of petroleum jelly, but it gives off little to no smell, at least in this cool morning air. It spreads very well. Cade remembers clearly that Errol said to coat the window twice. To coat the window twice, this takes Cade about two minutes. Then they wait for five more minutes, for the chemical reaction of the glass and paste. These minutes are spent in some silence, to begin with. Then, Cade and Pete have a whispery conversation, about some key steps, once inside. About how they will first go to the bedroom, and how they’ll search each room together, to check each room more deeply.
Pete reminds Cade of a phrase that they each have embedded within them, from doing jobs with more seasoned colleagues, who served as mentors. “Some speed, stress-free”. Cade is wearing an electronic watch that’s got a built-in timer, which Pete tells him to remember to set once they climb over this windowsill. Originally, they were thinking of spending fifteen minutes in the house. But in this moment, waiting for the window to weaken, they change the limit to twenty, since they feel more comfortable here than they expected.
The five minutes go by, and the window stays looking the same. The paste looks to have hardened. Cade gets a hammer from his bag, and lightly bangs on the window. He gradually bangs harder and harder, as he gains a sense of what this window can tolerate. The sound of the banging is much gentler than what the guys expect. It’s like a hammer hitting hard plastic. The texture and hardness of the window seem to have changed drastically. Cade gives the hammer some more power from his torso. Finally, it starts to crack. The hammer’s head then rips through the window, and makes a little hole, about as big as the hammer’s face. Cade keeps throwing blows to this area, upping his effort much more. The window caves in gradually. Cracks spread from the epicentre. The glass is warping in such a plastic fashion, that it greatly baffles the guys. Pete gives Cade a confused look that’s also quite amused, which Cade returns. The hammer is thrown harder and harder. Cade gets a little irritated and sweary. His motions look like he’s slashing through bush with a machete.
Cade decides to take a breather. Pete offers to continue the task, and he gets given the hammer. Besides the fact that Cade can now restore his physical reserves, this breather lets him preserve what remains of his patience and resilience, for use once they’re inside. Those attributes are a lot harder to rebuild with some deep breathing, and crouching on the ground. It’s very fortunate, that this fence behind Cade and Pete is quite high. Although it doesn’t fully conceal what they’re doing to the window, the fence’s cover removes a fair bit of potential for folks to take any notice. Pete does some good work with the hammer, throwing it slowly, yet brutally, into the concaved wreck of this window. He uses the hammer’s claw too, and with this, he starts making some more holes in the ruined window. He expands on these holes. The warped glass now starts to tear off the window.
“Good stuff, man. We’re gonna bloody talk to Errol later.” Says Cade.
With his latex gloves, Cade gently runs one hand along the glass that still remains, which is around the edges of the window frame. He then asks Pete to, very carefully, give those shards a feel. Pete tells Cade that it’s quite soft, and almost not sharp at all. There is a brief moment after Pete says this, where they both look at each other, and then they telepathically decide that any glass, whether it’s totally normal glass, or it’s a kind that has been chemically softened, is not worth risking their torsos and arteries, by hauling themselves over it to get inside. Pete, who is still holding the hammer, goes ahead with reducing this risk, even on this glass that’s basically plastic now.
He starts viciously hammering the edges of where the window was. These bits are smashed off more easily, as it is reinforced less firmly than the glass that forms the bulk of the window. Pete ends up making some loud bangs on the windowsill, but neither are too fussed with discretion for now, since they are so eager to begin the actual burglary.
The two guys haul themselves into the house. This is definitely the easiest step so far. The difficulty of getting the window open has made the “illegal with a capital I” entering seem far less eventful. Cade and Pete stand in the room for a moment. They are taking a breather and gaining their bearings, before the real work begins. They are having an almost solemn moment, to acknowledge what they are starting. They are now one major crime deep into their job. They have broken and entered. The difficulty of the window has made their presence in the house feel deeply earned, perhaps like a birthright. If Cathy was to walk into the room, maybe they would assert themselves upon her, like they were the true residents.
For some reason, neither of them feels like talking. As Cade and Pete grew up very close, and they are close in age, they have developed some kind of twin telepathy between them. This ability has made them quite an effective pair in their previous jobs. It also serves them neatly in general, to have someone who can grasp you so deeply.
There is another reason as to why Cade and Pete stay hushed up, in this room of cabinets. They are both considering whether, against all odds, in spite of the sign on the door, someone might be home. For survival’s sake, they hold the thought that “DO NOT DISTURB. COME BACK AT 12” doesn’t exactly mean the house is empty. In both minds, this thought swells up like a blowfish. Cade and Pete open the room’s door, and come into a dim hallway. The floors are made of a beautiful, dark, polished Jarrah. This feature is, like the limestone blocks, common to houses from this era, and would today be viewed as somewhat high-end.
Cade and Pete are in the hallway for just one and a half seconds. Then a loud, piercing alarm comes on, flooding the house. It seems to come from everywhere. The loudness is too intense to sense out the origin. Or maybe, there are many alarm devices going ballistic at the same time. Cade and Pete are stunned. They feel like they are swimming in sound.
After the alarm comes on, Cade hears the deep sound of a chair shifting on wood. Then he hears some shoes making footsteps. And an older, female voice, sounding concerned. He promptly grabs Pete’s shoulder and gets his attention. Cade tilts his head to where he heard the other noises. There’s cold, numb urgency in his eyes. They race back into the first room, and slam it shut. The slam is totally covered by the alarms’ ringing. Back in this room, the alarm noises are a muffled out a bit, but still very loud. Cade and Pete have some room here to return to Earth and calm themselves, after that sound submersion. They take a moment for deep breaths and swear words. A huge wave of relief hits them. Cade and Pete then shortly go right near the door, waiting for any useful sounds.
This giveaway that Cade and Pete had company, it hanged on a thread. If Cathy was a touch less engrossed in her conversation with Bridgette, she would’ve maybe been less bothered by the alarms going off, making her less in a rush to switch them off. Cathy may have shifted her seat more quietly, and then walked with less haste on the wooden floorboards, in her hardsoled winter boots. Cade would’ve never got the news that he and Pete had company, and so they would’ve stayed out in the hallway. Or maybe they’d end up walking into plain sight of the two ladies.
Cathy has gone over to the front door, where her alarm’s control panel is installed. The keypad and screen on this control panel looks much fancier than the one back in her Melbourne house. She has only gone through this device’s features once, with the realtor. Cathy was worried by whether she had to do something very space-age and rocket-science to shut the alarm off. She decides to just punch in the alarm code, her husband’s birthday. The alarms stop. Luckily, as complex as this panel looks, it still bows down to the bread and butter that is, the code followed by the hash key. The silence is jarring for the first few seconds. Cathy’s ears then decompress, and adjust to the peace. She goes back over to Bridgette, going down the hallway that Cade and Pete were in. She walks onto the exact spot where they stood. It stirs no odd feelings within her.
Cathy makes it back to the kitchen table, and apologises to Bridgette, who is sitting in a healthy posture, next with her little notebook and files, and plate of antipasto. She had mentioned to Cathy that she’s trying to cut back on fatty meats and whatnot, because she recently learned of her excess cholesterol (despite her being slim, and keeping a rather clean diet). Bridgette decides to make these snacks her allowed indulgence for the week.
Meanwhile, in the room with the cabinets, Cade and Pete are chatting about the coursealtering news of someone being home. They are also emotionally coping with how this job has gone pear-shaped. They realise that the front door sign probably just meant that someone was home, and they wanted no visitors. The risk of this whole job just went up tenfold, twenty-fold. It’s now infinitely worse than what they intended to deal with. Shit. Cade and Pete say that a few times, and stuff like “Oh my God”. They lean on the furniture, and then simply sit on the floor, while grieving for their whole plan. At the same time, they are both taking in the undercurrent of varnish fumes, out of an occasional habit they’ve done since high school. At one point, Pete picks up a tin of the stuff, and he smells around the lid’s edges. Cade asks for the tin too.
Pete makes the comment that, if there’s any benefit they have gained from this situation, it’s that the house is no longer activated. The alarm can only be tripped once, and now it has happened. This truth makes no mark on how either of them feel in this situation. Cade tells Pete that the voice he heard belonged to an older woman. Pete then adds that this doesn’t clarify whether the woman is the only one home. The two guys soon discuss the idea of bailing on the job for now, and picking a time to do it again. Or even picking another house.
Both of them are very keen to commit to this house. They are too proud to wrap up this current attempt. Cade and Pete are completionists, and they are pretty insistent on a general sense of honour when doing these jobs, especially compared to their peers. They like telling others how they carried through with their jobs, even if the outcome wasn’t ideal, and that they showed grit and courage during any setbacks. There’s always the option of pretending this whole burglary mission never happened. For those who are in the know, like Pete’s girlfriend, the two could just be minimal with the details. In this room that smells of dust, and is lightly doused with the scent of varnish, the two guys discuss this dilemma in whispers, for around six to seven minutes.
Over in the dining area, Cathy and Bridgette have reached the thirty-minute mark into their session. Cathy has given her update on the past week, which was on the briefer side, in comparison to her typical updates. Although Bridgette might have a little window now to give Cathy her two cents, she knows that a very therapeutic thing has occurred by simply letting Cathy speak. Speaking has let Cathy organise her thoughts, and feel the relief of seeing another person absorb these inner creations. Both women are more than mildly opposed to talking lengthily with loved ones over the phone, or by texting. They agree that those means of exchange offer only a fraction of the nourishment that real contact brings. Cathy and Bridgette are both more on the introverted side, but when that desire for socialising shows itself in either of them, it needs to be filled fully, or else they’ll feel depressed. This desire emerges much less frequently in them, than in other people. But when it appears, it seems much less negotiable in its hunger.
A certain topic that’s being unravelled right now by Bridgette, as she holds a piece of prosciutto, is how Cathy can reduce the friction and excess pain she feels, when an anxious mood arises in her, or any mood that is undesired.Bridgette suggests that when Cathy notices such a state, she performs a little mental activity of accepting it, even if that acceptance is a bit reluctant, or very. Bridgette explains that when a person refuses to let their current mental landscape be accepted, life can feel like driving a car with the handbrake on. Even if you try to calm yourself, by breathing or closing your eyes, or by feeling some cold water, those tools may work less effectively because, funnily enough, you have yet to take a moment to explicitly accept that you feel how you feel.
Bridgette tells Cathy that it’s generally easy for a person to recognise their own mood. It’s like telling whether a cup of tea is warm. She then adds that, sensing and treating a bad mood are acts that only offer some relief. A person can get more relief by, first and foremost, accepting their state. The slow calm breathing that Cathy has learned to do, while in low mood, is done to loosen the grip of an emotional state. But has she yet accepted that the state is present? If this acceptance stage is skipped over, then much more dissatisfaction can emerge in her mind, than what the mood alone has caused. Bridgette tells Cathy that the accepting only needs a split second, and can be done inside her mind, no words needed. When this is done, the tools that Cathy knows, which Bridgette has been showing her in their sessions, will be somewhat better at easing her.
For someone with intruders in her home, Cathy is quite pleasantly taken by this idea. She replies to Bridgette in a series of phrases like “Wow…” and “Oh God…”, mixed with some chuckles of appreciation, for how insightful Bridgette has been. Bridgette smiles along with her, pleased by moments like this. Often with her clients, advice can be heard out by them, but there is an absence of gratitude or praise after hearing it, despite the high leverage of the ideas that Bridgette suggests. The clients may be in their own world, during that moment, and not fully grasp the advice. Or, they understand the advice perfectly, but they just happen to not derive any notable delight from what Bridgette says. Besides having a wholesome Catholic pleasure in simply helping Cathy, Bridgette here would still shyly admit, that she feels vindicated to have been the bearer of such a thrilling insight for Cathy.
Cathy has been consistent in putting Bridgette’s tips and tricks to work. She has kept a patient mind, as she knows that these habits need some time to become more effective. She is familiar with this patience already. When Cathy is having a mental blank while working on a vocal melody, and she chooses to have faith that, by showing up again and again, over the week, she will crack this enigma. At the end of a day, Cathy may turn off the lamp in her studio, with nothing new written on her notes. She knows though that the output on that paper is hardly an insight into what’s happened that day. The engine was up and running in that session, it’s just that sometimes the car might be stuck in a bog. Roadside assistance will come, eventually.
After feeling this wave of joyful thanks from Cathy, Bridgette asks her if she could please use the bathroom. She has used it before, so she doesn’t need Cathy to guide her there. Cathy answers with a friendly jab, saying that Bridgette is being silly by asking at all. Bridgette intends to keep asking until the end of time, as these little cues keep her in a professional mode while she does her visits, which unfold very similarly to spending time at a friend’s home. During the session, Bridgette has records to update and notes to keep, and although those tasks can be very undemanding in the mental load, she finds that she can become too relaxed to even do that, if she lets herself become a casual, generic visitor in this house.
Bridgette only takes a moment to relieve herself, in what is a pristine bathroom. This bathroom has a large window of frosted glass, which lets in the natural light of the cloudy morning sky, and makes the room look gloomy. This bathroom is connected to Cathy’s bedroom, which looks out the house’s front. This room has a bath and shower, which both look like pearls, in how clean and bright they are kept. If anything, it starts to look a tad too pristine, once you remember that Cathy is the only resident.
Before Cathy moved in, Mr and Mrs Antonioni used this bathroom. Maybe two users made the room less tidy. Maybe it was kept just as clean, under the rigid eye of Mrs Antonioni. This bathroom was renovated less than a decade ago, due to insistence by the couple’s children. They insisted that their parents stop being so frugal, and invest in some beauty and comfort during their golden years. That is also what led to the wooden floors looking so immaculate, as they were polished during the renovation.
Redoing the kitchen was too much of an ask. That was Mrs Antonioni’s chapel. Her children respected this and let it be, never raising the idea. Fussiness and anger, at Mrs Antonioni’s age, can express itself more dangerously than in other people. It can arise as elevated heart rate, and constant panic. Her children would be forever regretful, if she was rushed to hospital because she was grieving her thirty-year-old oven. Cathy finds her old-school kitchen to be very endearing. It reminds her of gatherings with her husband’s extended family, like on that Italian holiday that comes right after Christmas. La Befana.
Bridgette smiles at herself in the mirror. She has a private relationship with herself that is quite romantic and optimistic. When she was younger, decades ago, it was much cooler in her social circle to have a more “punk” disposition to life. Detached and ironic. Bridgette has found out, over the years, that cheer and whimsy are oxygen and water for her. Her growing distance from those norms has made her start to dictate, how much jolly, sincerity, and corniness she wants in her life. This turns out to be much more than when she was twenty-two. Bridgette finds that, when she’s at work, although it may sometimes be stressful or grim, her role as a social worker bolsters the level of optimism in her life, as she’s meant to provide such an influence to her clients. Maybe not of a romantic or overly mushy kind, but certainly on the optimistic side.
After the smile in the mirror, and also just having a moment to breathe and stretch, Bridgette goes out. She slowly comes down the hallway, having a look at the pictures and paintings that are hung. Bridgette wants a little more rest before returning to Cathy, just to recharge so she can be more present and effective. She goes up to a painting that’s very close to the room where Cade and Pete are hiding. The door leading to these men is hardly noticed by Bridgette, who’s admiring the lighthouse that sits inside the painting, shining its beams on a cloudy day, from a rocky coast. There’s a signature at the bottom, and a year. The hallway is however too dim for Bridgette to clearly see them.
She turns away, to walk off. She instantly slips on the floor, and stumbles back against the wall, bracing herself. Her lower back zaps a little, from the jolt. She lets out a quiet swear. Already knowing that her back needs tender care these days, the slip pisses Bridgette off, especially because of how it happened without warning. Bridgette checks the floor. The dim hallway again stops her from seeing clearly, but she can faintly make out that there’s some dirt on the floor, some dark stain. Cathy is at the end of the hallway. She flicks a switch, and a warm light awakens the area.
“Are you alright, love? I heard a loud sound.”
“It’s alright, Cathy. I’m all good.”
“How did it happen? You slip or something?” says Cathy, as she approaches.
“I think that I stepped on something slippery or wet. I was just looking at this painting.”
Cathy is now with Bridgette. She looks up at the lighthouse. “I got this years ago, when my husband won it at an auction.” She checks the floor near Bridgette. She sees a little stain of mud, which seems to trail off, in the direction of the room where Cade and Pete went.
“I must have brought this dirt in when I went outside.” says Cathy. She notices that Bridgette is standing rather stiff. “Bridgette, I have a heat cushion that I hardly use. We’ll put it in the microwave for a minute or two, and you can lean on it. Back injuries are the worst injuries, so we need to really be gentle with it.”
Cathy and Bridgette walk back up the hallway. The light is switched off, and the warm light vanishes. Deep dimness returns. Cathy goes over to her lounge area, to search the shelves for her heat cushion. She finds it next to some elastic bands she uses for stretching. A few minutes later, after the microwave is done, Cathy and Bridgette are chatting again. They are talking about a pamphlet that Bridgette has brought, which is aimed at musicians in the area. The pamphlet offers them the chance to connect, share their music, and even play together. Bridgette says that she came across this pamphlet through her son, Louis, who is a drummer.
Cathy is keen on going to an event. She has been socially malnourished for long enough, since moving to Perth. She is free of any hesitation that other musicians may have, when they are often on their own, and want that state to end, but they’re too self-conscious to walk through the door of an event made for socialising, since it looks too blatant that they are seeking friends, especially if they go on their own. Cathy, like Bridgette, is alien to the idea of bearing one’s heart too loudly. This likeness, in their sincerity and soft-heartedness, is a part of what pushed Cathy to see Bridgette weekly. For their first few sessions, Cathy used to offer Bridgette coffee and some biscuits. She now puts in effort to get more satisfactory snacks, by asking for details on what Bridgette likes to eat. Bridgette always iterates that nothing at all needs providing.
The heat cushion is on Bridgette’s lower back, lifting her mood. It is almost a bit too sedating, in how pleasant it is. Cathy tells her that, if the cushion is put on direct skin for too long, then it can cause a rash. She suffered this first-hand, when she would sleep with the cushion. Bridgette is worried by this, but Cathy tells her that this happened over a few consecutive nights, rather than in one sitting.
Cathy knows that, during these sessions, she is prone to rambling. She curbs this a bit by having a checklist, which she writes the night before each meeting with Bridgette. The list itself can be a ramble, since Cathy can easily convince herself to add more things. If Cathy resisted, in adding an item to her checklist, then something would feel very off in her mind. A rigid code of behaviour needs to be followed, Cathy feels. All stuff needs to be aired out to Bridgette. If their time runs out, then Cathy can feel quite alone and despondent, with her undisclosed items. Cathy is yet to bring up this urgency in her note-making, because she is yet to recognise, that she would rather not have this “code”. As of now, Cathy just follows this code, without stopping to observe and question it.
Bridgette has been quietly noticing this compulsivity in Cathy’s checklist. She also suspects that Cathy’s hospitality could be due to some excessive drive, which has grown during their sessions, maybe from Cathy wanting to reflect her deepened fondness for her helper. Bridgette however wants to focus on serving what Cathy explicitly asks for, during their sessions. Bridgette sees this checklist issue as a lower priority than the tasks of helping Cathy process her grief, and start her life in Perth. But, if Bridgette notices that this issue becomes more impeding, she will mention it sooner to Cathy.
It seems to Bridgette that Cathy is a very self-aware person, who can be humble about her cognitive “blind spots”. In the past, when Bridgette has worked with clients who were less open-minded, there would sometimes be anger and upset, were she to bring up certain observations of hers. Although it didn’t happen too often, the reptilian part of Bridgette’s brain has made her remember these times very loudly, like they happened far more often. Bridgette has all the evidence in the world that telling Cathy will likely work out fine. It’s the wounds from people like Mr Gannon, which make her put it off.
About ten minutes after they have sat down again, Cathy apologises to Bridgette. “I want to get rid of that dirt on the floor. I have no idea how it got there. I don’t know at what point I brought that inside. I’ll just get some wet wipes and wipe it up.”
Bridgette excuses her gently. With this obligation that Cathy is taking on, Bridgette is nudged back to her theory. She feels more calm about mentioning it. Cathy opens the cupboard under her sink, and finds no wet wipes. She stops and ponders, with hands on her hips. She then grabs her keys off the counter, and tells Bridgette she is going to the garage, to check if she left her new packet of wipes in there. Cathy remembers buying some yesterday. She’s going to check whether the wipes fell out her shopping bag, and are in the boot.
Cathy goes out through the back sliding door, and over to the garage’s side-door. She finds the key for the side-door among the bunch that live on her keyring. She goes to insert it. At this moment, in front of this small white door, Cathy gets a little flicker in her mind. The calm cool air. The silence. Stepping out from her session. These things give Cathy some mental stillness, which becomes an opening to observe herself. An instinct arises within her, that she should be back seated with Bridgette. Letting the dirt stay on the floor is maybe not innately bad. Maybe Cathy can leave it there forever. She takes back the keys, and goes back through the patio. She feels that this pressure in her, to do anything about the dirt, has shrunk.
It was maybe the enjoyment of her time with Bridgette, that made Cathy feel how interruptive this urge was. She wanted to keep chatting with Bridgette, and learn more from her. When the thought to clean up the dirt had arrived in her mind, Cathy felt it less deeply than her desire to stay with Bridgette, but she felt she morally had to abide by this new thought. When Cathy went to unlock the garage, she recognised, while standing in the autumn stillness, that there’s a difference between certain thoughts that arrive in her. There are thoughts about the things she genuinely wants to do with her time, and also, there are thoughts about the things she feels she must do with that time.
After going back inside, Cathy explains what has just happened to her. Bridgette sees that Cathy has naturally arrived at the revelation that she’d been hesitating to mention. Seeing Cathy calmly describe this weakness inside of her, Bridgette nods attentively, while smiling to reflect the joy on Cathy’s face. Those wet wipes, if they turned out to be under the sink, would have hindered Cathy from seeing this truth, of not needing to solve problems as soon as they enter her head. After she hears Cathy out, Bridgette gently pivots to what she has noticed with Cathy’s checklists. Cathy is warmly listening, keen on making Bridgette feel that this table is a soapbox for voicing whatever. In spite of Bridgette’s worries, Cathy already accepts that these sessions are about dismantling issues not just from her perspective, but Bridgette’s. Cathy has faith in Bridgette that she is doing this in an objective psychological manner.
Cathy is interested in this idea from Bridgette. She sees clearly how her inflated sense of duty can carry over to the checklists. She however feels that this idea is landing with less satisfaction and intuitive sense, than her epiphany. Maybe in time, this idea will grow on Cathy more, and she’ll begin feeling a deeper sense of agreement. Bridgette feels very satisfied with Cathy taking her observations so cordially, rather than say, swearing at her, then running off to her bedroom for a cry.
Around this time in the ladies’ session, Cade and Pete are back outside the house, walking towards the SUV. The clouds have broken up in some parts of the sky, and those parts now have a vibrant, blue layer beneath. If you happen to be someone who gets miffed and saddened by cloudy skies, then these dissolved parts of the sky might give you a reprieve from those feelings, to remind you that a totally grey sky does not mean everlasting. From the light above, there’s a warmer glow to some of the sights around Cade and Pete. The street feels a touch blessed, just for them, like they had decided on something pious and proper. Maybe they did opt for that.
Maybe, from them knowing that someone was home, it made this job hit too heavy in their conscience. They may have felt perverted and ridiculous, doing a burglary this way, with the victims present. Having company maybe made them feel more like “thieves”, rather than men embarking on an enterprise. Or maybe the drop in adrenaline and momentum, from being stuck in that room longer than they intended, just killed their mojo, and they bailed.
Cade and Pete’s talk, upon retreating into that room, is between them two only. In the “warzone”, which is what they call the time that a job is underway, some decisions are made between the men present that is then kept just between them. Even if the details of the decision aren’t gigantic in their stakes, there’s a general mystery that Cade, Pete and their peers like to keep, when they discuss their jobs with others. If nothing, then this code gives them a stronger sense of intrigue and coolness.
The two cousins are walking calmly with their backpacks. They look rather dazed. Their discussion came to a smooth agreement, on whether to continue this job today. Cade and Pete have more than telepathy. They have similar tastes and inclinations, which means they can think independently, and yet end up picking the same option. They seem free of any regrets on their faces, with what they decided. The remainder of the day is here, which they never thought to plan for, because all their attention was on treating their burglary like the last thing they’d ever do.
Cade has the keys. The keys have a gold metallic tag attached to it, engraved with “Clement” in capitals. Clement said that it’s to distinguish his keys from his wife’s. His wife bought a name tag for her keys too, and he said this was pointless, because one tag is enough to figure out who’s is who. Clement has repeated this like three times to them, when they’ve borrowed his car in the past, or just sat for coffee with him. Cade unlocks the car, and puts his backpack in the rear seat. He tells Pete to do the same with his own backpack, on the other side. Cade figured that opening the boot looks “too much like a big gesture”. Putting stuff in the passenger seats looks more pedestrian and forgettable, to anybody watching.
Cade is about to hop into the driver’s seat, but Pete first gets his attention. He gestures Cade to come over to him, and they meet in front of the SUV. He discreetly says, “Let’s add onto our alibi. Hang around the car. Burglars hop straight in, because they have urgent places they gotta be. Let’s hang out here, and, chat a bit.”
Cade tells him to wait one moment, and he gets his sunglasses out the car. His eyes can get sensitive, when it gets sunny. “I think we’ll be alright from here. But we can hang for a bit.” Pete thinks about what Cade said. He believes in getting details right, and leaving a job well done. But, with the adrenaline dump from earlier, Pete wants to justify going home right away, now he’s heard Cade’s thoughts. His willpower is quite eroded, and he just wants to go home and sleep until dinner, since he was up too late last night, watching the football on SBS. Cade was watching it too, but he went to bed much earlier, so his higher faculties of patience and steadiness are still intact. “Yeah, I think we’ll be fine from here, man.” Pete says, clearly suggesting to Cade that he has clocked out of “job mode”.
The Sun goes behind some clouds for a time. There’s now no direct heat raining down from the sky, which for some reason, feels much harsher on cloudy days. Pete has his sunglasses on. He opens his passenger door and sits inside. So does Cade.
“This car is damn immaculate, man.” Pete mutters. He is rotating a little plastic cog on the side of his seat, which tilts it backwards.
“I actually look pretty, what’s the word…incognito, right now. Dozing off. What’s illegal-looking about this, coppa? Show me the proof, sir.”
“Yeah, true, actually. Did Clement say his son gave him this SUV?”
“Mmmmm….son? You mean the watch. His son gave him the watch. I got no idea about this car, but he can afford to get it himself.”
“We’ll be doing that, one day, Pete. He started around our age, and he kept working hard, like we’re doing now. He can maybe help us get there faster. Because he’s got all the, you know, the wisdom.”
There is some silence. Cade closes his eyes, and puts his face in his palms, wiping it. He also reclines his chair, but just a little.
Cade is usually the more outgoing and assertive of the two. Yet, he knows that Pete’s temperament makes him more fluent when it comes to a certain style of thinking. These two guys can spend days together, and also be compatible as colleagues, because of something besides them having lots in common. The distinctions between Cade and Pete, where there is zero commonality, or even some tension and hostility, makes a deeper reason for being with the other. Otherwise, Cade and Pete might as well split up and talk to themselves, or go seek people they have bugger all in common with, and maybe hate. Because then, there’d be some novelty.
Pete says nothing back to Cade, after hearing his encouraging words. He is silently enjoying his hard-earned rest. In spite of whether Cade and Pete carried on with the burglary, they both feel that they need a snooze and a cold one. A thought crosses Cade’s mind that, although the local pub has that nicer keg beer, he’ll be fine to drink the bottles in their fridge. Later, each of them may go out separately, to see their girlfriends. Maybe neither couple will go anywhere, but will instead just stay in, at the girlfriend’s apartment.
Such separations between the guys, even though they regularly happen, can produce a weird, lingering feeling in their minds. It’s like Cade and Pete have severed each other from their lives, for a time. It’s the minimum entry price for dining with their ladies, and then hopefully banging them.
Cade says, “When that alarm went off, for a split second, I thought we were set for chaos. But then, the next second, it suddenly felt alright. Like my brain could step up to the chaos.”
Pete stays silent. His eyes are closed beneath his sunnies. He’s definitely not asleep yet, but his silence conveys to Cade that he wants to doze off. The silence shows the loudness of Pete’s exhaustion. He will give some attention to Cade’s words. As long as Cade keeps to a one-man show, and doesn’t insist on getting replies, Pete will stay peaceful. When knackered, he can be quite menstrual when people try get him to speak. Cade has been in this type of moment with Pete many times, so he knows that Pete cherishes rest when it’s time to do so.
Pete surprises Cade when, after he takes a sigh, he speaks.
“Yeah, I get it. You did good while under the pump. That’s solid. When we saw that the old lady was home, or I mean, you heard her, my heart was racing but I felt somehow… steady. My eyes felt like lasers, my hands felt fast as nunchucks. I felt like bloody George Clooney, heist badarse.”
Cade intensely agrees. “Yeah man. Bloody unstoppable. We did awesome. It turned out a bit differently than what we wanted, along the way. I know. That door-sign is a lesson. God took care of us, so we can be more careful and wiser next time.”
Pete sits up a bit, no longer trying to nod off. He says, although quietly because he is still pretty wiped, “I get why some guys narrow in on this as their, you know, what they focus on. You can make careers over this stuff. We can get better with alarms, and stuff. Practice, get tips from people. Errol knows a lot. Maybe let’s not go for oldies next time. I don’t wanna steal from pensioners. Younger folks can always earn back what we take. Oldies deserve to sit back, because they’ve worked all their life… for ages, I was like, ‘Never would I ever do burglaries, let alone bloody robberies.’ That’s just too much pressure, I thought. But it’s only when you try something, do you really know if you’re… you know, built for it.”
Cade then jokes, “Yeah exactly. Maybe, we can next time start robbing.”
“Piss right off, man. You can do that solo. I’m not doing face-to-face stuff, holding a crowbar above someone’s Mum. I know we don’t wanna think negative, but say if we had to use force on someone, and then we ended up in court for robbery. Using force, or even threatening it, can make us look bloody awful to the judge and jury. We then gotta say bye-bye to our old ladies. I don’t want mine to be talking to me through a glass screen for three years. Even one year. I’d break the thing off. I don’t believe in the long-distance stuff like that. It’s rubbish.”
Cade and Pete stay like this for about ten minutes. Cade is happy just yapping on and having Pete listen. Pete’s attention drops quickly.
Back at the house, Cathy and Bridgette’s session is wrapped up. This is a first for them, finishing this early. Cathy, after hearing Bridgette’s idea about the checklists, has decided to exclude some of the things she planned on saying. She did mention a few more of the items, but she scrapped those that she felt less attached to. This decision was made purely on Cathy’s terms. She felt enthusiastic about breaking these chains that she now recognises. Her courage was perhaps fuelled by the extra-strong tea she was sipping during the session. If Cathy had chosen to discuss the rest of her checklist, Bridgette would understand, and hold space for this choice. She knows that Cathy’s rigidity is so second-nature to her, that it could feel maybe too unintuitive to try break the habit then and there.
Cathy opens up garage’s side-door. She offers to wheel out Bridgette’s Vespa scooter for her. Bridgette has named this scooter Penelope. She warmly insists to take it out herself, since it’s heavy and awkward with the kick-stand and so on. Mainly, she is obsessed about her babyblue scooter getting no scratches, seeing that she only bought it three weeks ago. Bridgette doesn’t trust Cathy’s balance enough, to pull the scooter out seamlessly.
Bridgette pops on her helmet, and they have a little chat, before Cathy warmly wishes her a good week. After she’s wheeled it down the driveway away from Cathy, Bridgette turns on the engine. She doesn’t want to startle Cathy with the revving. Bridgette rides off, and Cathy waves at her. Bridgette refrains from beeping or waving back, as she becomes very vigilant when Penelope is moving. She prefers to stay shy of the speed limit, despite riding scooters and little motorcycles for years. Bridgette was more relaxed about this when she was in her punk phase. Now that she has a family, and slower reflexes, she happily takes her time while riding Penelope.
Bridgette passes by that blue SUV. The car is on the same side of the street at Cathy’s house, but it faces away from it. When Bridgette passes them, Cade and Pete have no idea where she has come from. Pete doesn’t see her, because his eyes are closed. Cade’s attention is all on the dashboard, which he’s fiddling with, to try get the radio going.
They both hear the scooter pass by. Cade looks up for a second, and he watches this person, who he thinks is just a random on a moped. He doesn’t see scooters very often.
THE END
