The single drop of wee made a pitiful splash. Fred sighed as he stood over the cracked toilet bowl that, like him, had seen better days. The public restrooms at Wattle River Reserve weren’t as dirty as he’d feared, though the walls hosted a colourful array of ageing graffiti.
Another couple of measly drips. Was there a job in the armed forces for people who could urinate in Morse code? If so, he’d be an ideal candidate, though it was unlikely they’d accept 82-year-olds.
He glanced around the cubicle for something to distract his prostate – a watched pot never boils, after all. He didn’t want to ‘call Caz for a good time’, as some peeling purple writing on the windowsill suggested, and he was getting nowhere, so he zipped up and unlocked the stall door. The damp concrete toilet block was pretty roomy. Could he possibly sleep here tonight? Surely if he asked around, he could find somewhere a tad cosier that didn’t smell like urinal cakes and lost dreams.
His knobbly fingers protested as he rinsed them under the freezing tap water. The dryer was cactus, so he made the most of his wet hands to smooth out his unruly moustache. A foggy mirror above the sink reflected blue eyes flanked by deep crow’s-feet. Not a bad price to pay for eight decades of laughter – well, seven decades at least. Fred coughed. Grief’s blunt force could still wind him on bad days. He shook it off and headed back outside to the river, where he’d come to clear his mind before his bladder got other ideas. The welcome scent of eucalyptus filled his nostrils from the rows of sage green gum trees lining the bank.
It was the sound of the river that usually brought him peace: the monotonous babble could drown out whatever was rattling around the corners of his mind. But not today. Today’s mental cacophony was too loud even for the river.
‘I’m sorry but I gave you notice over two weeks ago, Fred. You’ve got to be packed and out of here by tonight, mate.’
His landlord’s words from earlier this morning echoed in his ears. They hadn’t been unkind (Fred hadn’t been able to scrape together rent for months) but they’d meant business, and he had nowhere to go. He’d rustled up some packing cartons, but they remained empty. How could you seal precious mementos in a box, not knowing when or if they would ever be reopened? It wasn’t as though he had anywhere to store them. He was terrified that the memories would suffocate in their carboard prison, and that he would forget her. It was all too much, and his procrastinating feet had led him here.
He kicked a fallen gumnut into the water, his eyes following its descent down the grassy bank. There, by the river’s edge, sat a man about his own age slumped in a wheelchair, an open bag of sliced bread at his side, now the prize of fighting seagulls. Hair the colour of aluminium foil waved carelessly in the breeze, with a matching, neatly trimmed moustache sitting below a substantial nose. The man’s narrow face tilted to the side, one large ear directed at the sky like a wrinkly satellite dish. His watery blue eyes, magnified behind the thick round glasses, were slightly open and appeared to be squinting at something. Fred stepped closer.
‘Hello? You all right there, mate?’ The lack of response alongside the stare – which was as vacant as Fred’s flat would be tonight – said that he wasn’t.
Fred always took great joy in meeting new people, but usually they were alive…
mouthwashing