Some books I've read in the past are seared into my memory, not because of the books themselves but because of the settings and the circumstances in which I've read them. "The Haj" by Leon Uris, better known for "Exodus", is such a book.
There I was, after yet another sleepless night, sitting in the early morning sun on the upstairs porch of my newly-acquired house at 43 Wackett Street at Cape Pallarenda just north of Townsville, holding "The Haj", slowly reading out each sentence to kill time, while over the top of my glasses I jealously watched my neighbours driving off to work.
If and when I find it again, I shall add it to the blog.
It was a nice neighbourhood and they were nice neighbours who waved as they drove past, probably wondering what I was doing all by myself in that big four-bedroom-two-bathroom house, seemingly with not a care in the world. They possibly even envied me for not having to go to work.
Little did they know that, having gone like the clappers for years, I felt like a fish out of water. Work had always been my hobby, my social life, my whole reason for being, and, having returned from my last big job overseas, suddenly being without it, it did strange things to my mind.
Despite all the fancy work overseas, I had always been ready to work at home for just a fraction of my previous salary in some small mum-and-dad business, or, at best, in a small suburban accounting practice, but to find nothing on offer at all had unnerved me. It was not even a question of money - of which I had enough - but to have a purpose in life, because to me to have a purpose in life meant to go out to work.
The days simply crawled by. A nice couple living across the street at 42 Wackett Street invited me a couple of times for dinner during which they showed me photos of their daughter and expressed their regrets that she lived in far-away Tasmania. They encouraged me to enjoy my 'sabbatical', as they called it, and to 'hang in', presumably until their daughter returned. They were very nice people but checking up with all-knowing realestate.com.au, they, too, sold up in 1989 - click here.
now your fingers can do the walking - click here
The neighbours to my left at Number 41 had also tried to befriend me, even if only to get my permission to crane their new swimming pool into position from my backyard. We had a few beers together but I didn't stay long enough to try out their new pool. They, in turn, sold up again in 1988 - click here. I hate to think I had been an unsettling influence!
I left after only a few months but kept 43 Wackett Street as a renter for several years but, as always, trouble with maintenance and defaulting tenants got the better of me, and I sold it in 1992 for little more than I had paid for it, but I still have the "The Haj". No need to read it again as I still remember it, line by line, as I do those few months in Pallarenda.
