The Boy Next Door
Lillie
My first memory of the verboten was the kitchen floor. Every Saturday afternoon, the kitchen floor took on the status of holy floor. Floor that has been washed with the sacred waters of floor cleaner and left untrodden to dry.
‘Don’t walk over the floor!’ Mum would yell after she had cleansed the linoleum floor. I looked with longing at the floor red with the gold and silver flecks in it. Inevitably I committed the sin of trespass on the holy floor of the kitchen and tracked a trail of my tell-tale footprints.
‘I told you not to walk on the floor!’ Mum would growl and smack me on the bottom.
But I had a good reason to walk on the sacred wet linoleum. It’s because Mum would excommunicate me into the backyard of boredom, so that she could get the cleaning done. And it’s because after she had shrouded the floor with water and soap, I would have to pee. The only way to the toilet of relief, was through the kitchen over the sacred floor.
As I grew up, the kitchen was barricaded during floor-cleaning sessions. Out of desperation, curiosity and loneliness in the backyard on Saturday afternoons, I became acquainted with the family next door. More particularly, the verboten made a gradual shift from kitchen floor to the boy and girl next door. I mean, really, Mum with her sacred floor business, brought the grief upon herself. If she had washed the floor during the week and not made such an issue of it on Saturday afternoons, I may never ventured next door. Their loo was available because their Mum washed the floor during the week, if she washed the floor at all under all the rubble of clothing from a large and uncontrollable rabble of children.
Jimmy proved attractive to me because of my parent’s opposition. Fifi, his sister, Jimmy and I were childhood friends. According to my parents, especially Mum, they were not good enough. I was told not to play with them. So, play with Fifi and Jimmy I did, and their multitude of brothers and sisters. We would romp through the jungle of their backyard of unmown lawn. The weeds were as high as us children. The family were working class and faking their Christian faith, my father would say. He still accepted a position at Mr. Edwards’s factory, but…And later, once Dad was gone, she was only too happy to accept Percy Edwards’s help.
My mother had her eye on the well-to do family, the Hoopers, around the corner whose two sons were progressing towards careers into law and medicine.
Mum would say, “The kids next door will never amount to anything.”
When Jimmy took me for a dinky ride on his bike and we returned home after dark, I was grounded. I hated being grounded. By the end of the week, I vowed not to play with Jimmy again. He was a bad influence. However, Saturday and the sacred floor rolled around again, and so did Jimmy on his Dragstar bike.
‘Come on! No one’s goin’ to know! Just one ride!’ he said.
The sun shone, the sky blue and my parents were out. We were off, pedalling down the gravel driveway where we nearly collided with my returning parents in their FJ Holden.
I had a choice, I could suffer another week’s grounding or have the indignity of a smack of the ruler across my hand. I took the ruler option and learnt to be more devious in the future. There are many ways to cross a wet kitchen floor without being caught. There were means and ways of continuing my friendship with Jimmy and Fifi without catching the ire of my parents. But then after their father deserted them, the enormous family moved.
I wonder what ever happened to that man.
Perhaps life would have been different if he’d hung around. Not that they missed old Mr. Edwards. Life seemed to improve for Jimmy and his family after he’d gone.
And despite, or should I say, in spite of my mother’s protestations, I ended up marrying Jimmy Edwards. I guess in my mother’s estimation, Jimmy being a musician didn’t amount to much, but me, I’m successful. Principal of a prestigious school, how good is that.
Shame mum’s not around to see that. Although, she would definitely be turning in her grave if she knew I’m still married Jim.
Now, those Hooper boys from around the corner…one of them was Dan, I remember. I wonder what happened to him. Did he become the lawyer my mother always said he was going to grow up to be?
El
El paused; painting brush poised in above the canvas. ‘Oh, Dan? Dan Hooper?’
Lillie raised an eyebrow. ‘You know him?’
El cleared her throat. Better not say too much or she’ll start to suspect. Change the subject. ‘Actually, I knew his brother, Al.’
‘Oh, yes, Al, the younger one. Bit weedy and pimply as I remember. So, did he become a doctor?’
El nodded. ‘He did…a psychiatrist, I think. But it was a long time ago and I think he had some crisis in his life and had a career change.’
Lillie snorted. ‘A mid-life crisis?’
‘You could say that.’
‘So, what career did he change to?’
‘Um…’ El bit her lip and dabbed the nose of Lillie’s painted image. ‘Teaching, I think.’
‘Haven’t heard of any Al Hooper in my domain.’
El smudged Lillie’s painted mouth. Oops! ‘I think he didn’t stay that long in teaching before he went into working for the secret service, ASIO, or something like that…’ El mumbled.
‘I’ll have to look him up,’ Lillie said breezily.
‘Good luck,’ El muttered.
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing, but, um, I don’t think he’s got a digital profile, being in the secret service or whatever it is.’
‘Oh, you really don’t know; do you dear?’
El shrugged and wiped her mistake with her thumb. ‘So, tell me more about this Old Mr. Edwards. What was he like?’
At that moment, Jimmy reappeared in the studio. He held a tray with three flutes of sparkling wine.
‘Sparkling, anyone?’ he said.
© Tessa Trudinger 2025
*Feature Photo: Backyard © L.M. Kling 2021
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