The Property Manager: You'll never rent again...

by NS Thompson

  My lower back hurts from playing with G.G all night.

  Mother is indeed quite sick. I popped in to see her and she’s wasting away, can hardly talk and didn’t even have the energy to harass me about anything. She smells rancid. I went through the house and took anything that tickled my fancy. I’ve got all the photo albums. Some books. My grandmother’s chess set. It’s very old and beautiful.

  I don’t think I’ll go back to the house ever again. Dehydration doesn’t take long when your skin looks like Ptolemnic papyrus. She’s completely immobile and her mind has already left the building. The old carcass won’t be far behind. She’s a stinking shell, like a dead cicada. The mother I know is not there any more.

  I’m setting up a hotmail e-mail account today. I’ll use some pseudonym and send you a message. I’m thinking something along the lines of “DIE WHORE”. Perhaps that’s a bit rich. It might actually cause you to close down your account. I’d just find out the password for your next one and it would go on and on and on. But NO. That is just too silly. I need to be clever about the way I do this. Your brother last e-mailed to say he was off to Mexico, backpacking for a month and being off the beaten track wouldn’t communicate until he was back in Spain, other than the odd postcard.

  Brainwave! I’ll set the hotmail up in his name and tell you that I can check the account from internet-cafes. That’s a very back-packer thing to do.

  I’ll have fun being your little brother for a while. We can talk. I’ll lure you into confiding your deepest and darkest secrets to me. As I send you slowly insane, I’ll be your on-line confidant, offering brilliant advice. You’re close to your brother and as I have all his recent mail to you (I printed off all your messages for the last six months), I’ll be able to make my written voice sound like his.

  I did write an anonymous note to Michelle at the police-station mentioning your expired registration. That might cripple your movements a little, unless you pay your registration and fines and I’m guessing that it hasn’t been done because you’re flat broke! You have been whining to Jenny of late about your financial woes. You always seem to have enough to stock the fridge with champagne, though.

  It’s not like the big city here. We’re a one-cop town and you can’t drive anywhere without the possibility of passing Constable Michelle. If you can’t afford to spend the money to register the Camry, you’ll have to walk to work and back which will mean leaving earlier and getting home later.

  I wonder how quickly Michelle will take to pull you over. It’s only an offence to be unregistered if you are actually on the road.

  You are nothing like the responsible, mature woman I had you pinned for. You are behaving like an unruly, anarchic teenager. What sort of role model are you for those children? They really should be taken away from you. That would really eat you up, wouldn’t it?

  I’ll film you tonight. I’ll watch you put food in your mouth. Yell at your children. Paddle about on the internet. Chat to Jenny. You cackle like crones on the phone.

  Until then….

  Friday 16th July

  Good Grace looks better in pink than you do. I’ve given her a wash this morning and brushed her hair. She’s so like you and yet….so not. She’s more real than you ever could be. You are a consummate actress, always on the stage. Bad Grace pretends very hard to be Good Grace but you don’t come close. GG will never cheat on me. I know that for a fact and I don’t have to sneak around keeping tabs on her because she is reliably wherever I left her, which is generally on my bed or on the sofa.

  You’ve gone all out in your quest to be the most immoral slag in the township with the midnight bike ride becoming a regular event in your dirty life.

  SCHEDULE FOR DISGUSTING LIAISONS

  10:00p.m. Filthy grace tries to wash herself clean in the shower, touching herself in a most unbecoming manner….

  10:15p.m. Bad Grace is dressed in black lingerie and her hair is done and makeup lightly applied to her harlot-face. A lamb ready for the slaughter.

  11:00p.m. Bad Grace lies nonchalantly under her bedcovers reading “The Birth of Christianity”( You are such a hypocritical sinner. What about religion interests you so much? You are probably a devotee of Satan and just want to get to know your OPPOSITION!)

  12:00 midnight – Lights out and Bad Gracie has fallen asleep. How amusing would it be for me to come through those doors, stroll across the room and make bitter love to you, while you screamed HIS name? I guess when I started to hurt you, reality might set in…you might realize that the beast hammering into you and biting pieces out of your shoulder while simultaneously scratching strips out of your thighs is NOT after-all your opera singing lover but your very cross PROPERTY MANAGER!

  2:15 a.m A shadow peddles around past your clothes line. The bike is rested against the dark bricks and a dark figure in a dark track-suit, takes off his shoes and opens the sliding door.

  2:16 – 3:00a.m Fornication takes place in one form or another.

  3:01 a.m – Male showers off all traces of Bad Gracie and then peddles home to his sleeping wife. Perhaps he gave her an extra dose of something to help her sleep very deeply.

  You leave your bathroom light on for your sessions, so my footage is fairly clear. I really would love to share some of this with the world. The Internet is the perfect place for this but…no..no…no…I will wait until I’ve completed my film. I have a strong feeling that it will not have a happy ending. Then….and only then….I will launch it into cyberspace. I had intended this film to be a private film for you and I to enjoy. Now I’ve got GG to help by being my muse and she and I watch you acting like a bitch on heat and then we make love like two people expressing the deepest form of communication and affection.

  I am off to work now to deal with insolent tenants and demanding landlords who don’t understand how frustrating and unrewarding my fucking job is! I wonder if my mother is dead yet. The Blue nurses are checking on her only once a week…on a Friday….I think so I’m bound to hear from them at some stage today. She’ll either be a mass of decaying flesh or getting very close. I think it’s for the best. She had nothing to offer and nothing to gain from life anymore. She was a staunchly religious woman so she’s better off with God. They have more in common than we did. It’s nature and just the sad cycle that we are all a part of.

  11:15 p.m.

  Work was awful. I hate everybody there!

  GG sleeps now and I am about to send a message from your dear brother to you….I have a hotmail account in the name of davege8 which is the name of his home-mail account, without the 8…..my password is goodgrace but you don’t need to know that. It will never benefit you at all because by the time I sit you down and MAKE you read this journal, you will not be long for the world.

  I will do a draft of my davege8 message here

  Hola sister,

  Mexico rocks. Swimming with turtles….fun and good beer in Cancun. How is all with you and my nephews? How’s Ben going with his guitar playing. Send me some photos of you and the boys. You’ve got a digital camera haven’t you? Mine is broken or I’d send you pics of me with hot latino chickybabes. I’ve got a cheap disposable one and will send you copies when developed. How’s Ma and the other sisters? Do you get up to Queensland much to see them all? Your new job sounds cool…Got a boyfriend yet? Write soon with gossip. I’ll check this mail at café’s in mexico city where I’ll be for next week.

  Ciao Bro xx

  Sounds genuine enough. I’ve lifted phrases and tried to keep the communication as close to the tone of your brother’s e-mails from Spain.

  I look forward to hearing back from you.

  Unfortunately the batteries in your bedroom smoke alarm are dead. The others are probably not far off either, so I must make some excuse to get into your place or wait until an appropriate time to let myself in. I don’t like doing that during the day…too risky. You’re often out for dinner and what-not but you leave the kids at home.

  An opportunity will arise and if not I w
ill create one!

  Saturday 17th July

  Ding dong the witch is dead. My mother is no more. The old grey goose, she ain’t what she used to be. I am sad. Not devastated. I’ll miss her. I’ll miss her meddling and nagging but also her green thumb in my garden and her sweet laugh. It was her time. I am being pestered by her doctor to come to Sydney today to formally identify her and organize removal of her body to a funeral home. The doctor rang last night, offering his condolences. He spoke in such a monotone that I began to drift off to the lullaby that was his voice. White Lady Funerals, Dirt and Shovel Funerals, Crispy Crematorium…honestly it was all just babble. He talked embalming and death certificates and funeral directors…giving me options and choices but my head was swirling and I just couldn’t be bothered listening. I got his number and said I’d call him back today after giving it all some thought.

  I haven’t given any of it any thought. What happens when a John Doe has to be buried? Doesn’t the government look after it? The price of a funeral can be astronomical and let’s face it, for my mother, I’d be the only one there. I don’t need a five thousand dollar show put on for the priest and me! I’ll ring the doctor back and say I am not interested and he can leave her in the fridge or go and put her in the dumpster out the back of the hospital. Maybe I could donate her body to one of the universities. Yes! That is what I’ll do. That solves the problem of a funeral and the rest of it all. I’ll get on to the medical departments today and they can send me the forms and go and collect the old bag of bones.

  GG thinks I should show more respect but frankly when you’re dead, you’re dead. There’s no use crying over spilt milk. It’s going to catch up with us all one day and there’s little point being mawkish about it.

  I did love my mother. Or maybe I was just afraid not to.

  Did you teach all those sweet little kiddies how to act and strut around pretending to be something that they are not? Word on the street has it, that you are planning a big production in a month or two. I’ll be there to watch. That’s for sure.

  Sunday 18th July

  Well. Well. It’s been lover-boy’s birthday and hasn’t he had a happy day, Bad Gracie?

  Let’s have a replay of your telephone conversation this morning –

  BG – Hello?

  AC – Hey there sexy.. (I swear the register of his voice just dropped into ‘Fabio-tone’)

  BG – Where are you calling from?

  AC – The shower. Can you hear the water? (The noise of spilling water increases)

  BG – Is she home?

  AC – Unfortunately.

  BG – Are you coming over today?

  AC – It’s my birthday so of course I am…later this afternoon.

  BG – Oh, bugger. I forgot…you should have reminded me…I haven’t got you anything….

  AC- Don’t be silly – you’ve got exactly what I want…I’m thinking about that right now…hmmmm.

  BG _ Naughty boy….I think you’d better turn off the hot water.

  AC – Never….this feels too good.

  BG _ Well, save some for me…

  AC – (whispering) Gotta go…about four. We’ve got people coming for lunch – family. Amanda is doing the famous roast.

  BG _ Fine, I’ll just hang around and wait for you! Enjoy Amanda’s culinary expertise, won’t you?

  (I detected a snappy hint of jealousy there, Bad Grace. Are you all put out and sulky because you weren’t invited? You’re not his wife, honey. You’re his whore. And what a cheap whore you are – he doesn’t pay a brass razoo for you – you’re like the free local rag.)

  What is a brass Razoo, you might ask? It’s the most worthless Indian coin ever issued. A dumpster full of them wouldn’t come close to a dollar. That is what he - the Cox bastard - thinks you are worth. You are the crumbs off his birthday dinner table, you silly cow. Why do you degrade yourself – debase yourself – so badly?

  He is someone who treats a partner, his wife, like dirt.

  She looks like his mother, acts like his mother and that’s because he has turned her into his mother. Because he can’t do nothing without his mummy. Some men do that. They marry a woman in order to move away from their overbearing mother. Over the years the men become more and more lazy and apathetic. They let the woman do all the cooking, cleaning, child-minding. They refuse to look after themselves. Pick up after themselves. They run their women ragged, until they’re frazzled, frumpy and forty and all of a sudden they’ve become the mothers they moved away from. No-one wants to sleep with their mother so they go looking elsewhere for someone vibrant and vivacious and vacuous – like you. Then they leave their wives and start a Pygmalion job of turning you into their next mother-figure. He’s a spineless libertine and you’re a fool to be fooling about with him.

  Well, the tale continues in the same sordid vein –

  4:25p.m comes and I’m waiting. I watched your friends from Rose Hill come and pick the boys up – all of them – for a few days break on their farm. I sense that you are upping the ante and looking for some QUALITY fucking time with your sex-buddy.

  How extraordinarily intuitive of me! Because here comes the fuck-stud down the driveway. He’s in such a hurry. Pathetic. Like a dog with his tongue hanging out. You’re the chair leg, Bad Grace…the chair leg that Andy Cox rubs his cock against.

  I’m in the forest just past the boundary of your property. I’ve got the old binoculars out and my lap-top in my lap. I’ve got stereo vision…binoculars and screen. I can look from one to the other. I’ve got boyfriend in the lens and you on the computer.

  There’s been no chance to get into your bedroom to change the camera’s batteries over the last few days but I’ve got a visual of you in the kitchen, cooking something on the stovetop…could be spaghetti sauce. Is that bottled crushed garlic? God, how awfully pedestrian. Nothing bottled tastes as good as it does fresh. The aroma being released from a clove of garlic as you chop and dice is incomparable.

  You are bottled, Bad Gracie while my darling Good Gracie is fresh and wholesome. Untouched by anyone but me.

  She is completely accommodating and remains unwaveringly supportive of me – her love is unconditional and she is mine – lock, stock and barrel. I’ve even got the receipt to prove it!

  God, that was a cheap shot and I apologize for making such a tawdry joke at G.G’s expense.

  Your secret dick has entered the sliding doors leading to your dining room. Don’t you look pleased to see him? I’ve put the binoculars down. Nothing more to see outside.

  “Happy birthday” is about all you get out of your mouth before he slips his tongue in. The two of you indulge in some tonsil hockey for a few minutes, before you dip out of sight below the kitchen bench and it becomes obvious what he’s getting for his thirty-fifth birthday. He’s probably had his wife’s pussy wrapped around that already today. Doesn’t the thought of that make you gag? Oh that’s right – you bought the party line that he doesn’t get any at home! Foolish, gullible Gracie.

  His head is lolling back as if his throat has been slit( I wish) - and his eyes are shut. I touch myself and imagine Good Gracie’s cherubic round pink lips wrapped around my own cock as I ride her head like a hopper-roo bouncing ball.

  Hmmmmmmmm. Oh Yeah!

  Just swimming in the moment.

  Now I feel woozy and light-headed. Shivers up and down the spine and a tingle deep in my groin like the beginning of a stitch. Birthday boy has his pants back up and you look like the cat that got the cream.

  You’re like a married couple, chatting away while you finish cooking your sub-standard spaghetti sauce. Stirring and adding salt. He’s pouring you both a glass of red wine from a cardboard box - suitably cheap and tacky to go with the food and the present company. He’s stuffed full of his boring wife’s lunch and apologizes off a sample-taste of your dinner.

  The scoundrel told his family he was off on a long bicycle ride. He joked with you that he had fooled them into thinking he was taking up a fitne
ss campaign to drop a few kilos. The joke of course is that YOU are in fact his exercise bike. At the rate you two are going at, you’ll both be skin and bones in no time.

  When you tell him that you have no kids for the next two days, Mr Happy Cockbrain gets very animated. He starts moving around the kitchen with his glass, conjuring fanciful ideas. He’s trying to come up with excuses to get away for a whole night and day.

  He tells you he’s a member of a four wheel drive club. What a plebian past-time. I can’t think of anything more rancid than sitting around with a posse of flannel-shirt clad, bearded, beer-gutted boof-heads, slurping beers while boasting about the size of my engine. These mountain-men are responsible for carving scars all over the forests. Have you seen Deliverance? I’m quite sure my sphincter would be trembling with fear if I happened upon a 4Xdrive club meet in the middle of the national park.

  Listen to the two of you hatching some devious plan. He’s talking about faking a four wheel drive trip…says he knows someone who’ll give him an alibi. Tom someone? He even uses your phone as I write, to confirm that this bloke will cover for him. He tells the mate to ring him at home in an hour to invite him on a bogus trip. Crafty! Very crafty. You two can spend all night salivating over each other. Play mummies and daddies....without the kiddies. I just picked up the binoculars again and focused them on those whacky alpacies. The alpaca is a strange creature lost somewhere between a camel and a horse and a goat.