CHAPTER 1
In the relative stillness of mid-morning, with most people gone to work, or school or to the mall, Freddie Lusk scratched greying hair on his chest, hitched up his briefs and went to the laundry window to peer out between the curtains, having heard voices.
He knew what it would be, yet another couple looking at the unsold house next-door.
Yes, it was a real estate agent in a yellow jacket showing a guy a patch of peeling paint on the weatherboard dwelling while she exaggerated the property's market growth potential on resale after a bit of renovation work.
She really meant heaps of overdue maintenance work.
The agent might have known Freddie would be peering because when she and the client were standing back-on looking at the drab exterior, she spread her legs slightly and casually scratched her butt over her anus.
Well thereabouts.
Freddie's brow puckered as he attempted to remember what a bared female anus looked like because it had been so long but he'd been attracted by a few in his time, er female ones. He'd never looked closely at a male one and never would. Christ how disgusting!
Usually he had no time for nosey real estate agents. After Alice's funeral they'd come asking could they list his house for sale and were told to bugger off. But this one had fired his interest and now she'd turned and stared straight at the laundry window as if she'd guessed he would be, um, 'observing'. He froze, aware she wouldn't be able to see him. Well this agent was okay, probably aware he was more in need of a good fuck than the house they were looking at needed paint.
The agent and client re-entered the house from the backdoor and Freddie fed Charlie the cat and scrambled a couple of eggs for his breakfast because in living solo he ate when he felt hungry rather than according to meal-time tradition.
Two days later a crew arrived and erected scaffolding around the house next-door and on Friday a guy arrived with a noisy water-blaster to clean the exterior in preparation for repainting. Charlie disappeared and Freddie escaped to the mall for the day and took in two movies.
When the painters were done and the scaffolding removed, the movers arrived and filled the house with the personal effects of the new owners. Later Freddie saw the thickset guy he'd seen that day with the real estate agent searching the front lawn as if looking for dog shit. Freddie guessed what that was about and went over to the boundary fence.
"Hi I'm Freddie," said Freddie, thumbing over his shoulder in the direction of his house.
"Hi I'm Richard Holmes, the new owner."
"It's under the letterbox."
"What is?" said the guy sounding dumb enough to be Australian.
"The location of the tap to turn on the water."
The effect was interesting. The guy straightened and smiled and said, "Gee thanks Freddie. Come in for a beer."
Richard looked under the letterbox at the front gate of the footpath leading up to the front porch and said, "Huh?"
"Slide the lid off the steel box."
"Oh yeah," Richard said and found the valve tap.
"Lucille arrives tonight and I didn't want her to be in our new home without water."
Ah so the guy was living with someone, perhaps she was his wife or mother.
"Lucille?"
"My wife, we've been married three years," said the neighbor, pushing the cover over the water-meter and dusting ants off his hands.
The beer was cold so must have arrived already chilled. Good thinking, the guy obviously had some brains.
"What do you do Rich?"
"It's Richard. I'm manager of the accounts department of a trading company."
"Oh very... very interesting," Freddie said, stifling a yawn.
"And you?"
"I'm retired... retired early when my wife Alice died 2½ years ago."
"You look too young to be retired."
"I did say I retired early," Freddie said icily.
"Oh yeah. I failed to pick up on that one."
Well at least Rick, er Richard, appeared to think honestly.
"What profession were you in Fred?"
"It's Freddie."
"Oh sorry."
"None. I owned and operated a home improvement store that I'd inherited from my dad."
They chatted on and when a second beer wasn't offered, Freddie said he had to go and feed his cat.
"I don't like cats and like dogs because they poop on the lawn."
It didn't surprise Freddie that dour Richard didn't like cats. He mightn't like himself much either. If people really did marry opposites, there was a chance Lucille would be openly vivacious with long blonde hair and perhaps, as a bonus, would have a great rack.
Next morning Freddie was out picking peas when a musical voice at the fence called, "Hi Mr Lusk."
He turned and said, "Good morning Mrs Holmes. Please call me Freddie."
"Only if you call me Lucille."
Huh? God she was almost beautiful with great teeth, a tremendous wide smile and a mane of chestnut hair. She looked no more than forty.
"Thanks Lucille. Gosh you're a great looker."
"Oooh, I have a flirty neighbor. How lovely. When Richard told me he'd had a beer with the old retired guy at Number 37 I never thought you would be a handsome 40-year old."
Freddie laughed and said, "You can lean on our shared fence and talk to me any old time. Um here, you have these peas. There are plenty that are ready with more to come."
"Oh I only know how to cook frozen peas."
"Nice try Lucille but I don't buy it. You look all brains to me. I detect a slight accent. Where do you hail from?"
"Well it wasn't a slight accent when I arrived here with my parents fourteen years ago. I was born in Amarillo."
"Oh is that near Wellington?"
"I don't think you are that stupid Freddie," she giggled.
He grinned and said, "Is This the Way to Amarillo' used to play here on the Hit Parade on radio."
"God it reached all the way to here? I know how far it is to Texas because I've just been home with my mother to visit my frail grandmother. She's been a smoker since she was seventeen and now is paying for the vice."
"How old is she?"
"Sixty-one or twenty-two years older than me."
Handing Lucille the bowl of peas, Freddie said, "Then look at it this way Lucille. Think of all those years she enjoyed her vice."
She patted the side of his face and said he was a very nice man.
Rick er Richard came over that evening to return the bowl. It was full of marmalade muffins, Freddie's second favorite choice after raspberry and white chocolate muffins.
"Lucille said I was to return the bowl and say, 'From Lucille with love'."
"Thanks. She's lovely Richard. I'll poke my nose into your business and say treasure her."
Richard frowned. "You two appear to have made an instant impression on each other."
"Well she comes from Amarillo. I know the song."
Richard looked blank.
Jesus.
"Oh there's something I have to ask. I had mentioned to Lucille you'd retired from a home improvement center. We decided to ask could advise us about improving our new home internally. You know, a bit of paint and a bit of wallpaper."
"Yes sure."
"When?"
"Now?"
