Читать книгу The Friday Night Debrief - Kylie Jane Asmus - Страница 8

Chapter 4

Finding An Address

Kylie took every opportunity to look for a place to rent so that she would be able to move in before her transition accommodation came to an end. She was familiar with Hermit Park since her Grandad lived there and after visiting him one Saturday morning she drove past Raine and Horne on Charters Towers Road and walked in to enquire about any apartments for lease.

The receptionist gave Kylie a folder with photos and descriptions of two-bedroom apartments. Although Kylie didn’t want to live with anyone, she wanted an extra room for visitors to stay, her mum and dad mostly but hopefully some friends as well. When she narrowed down her list to three addresses, she was offered the three sets of keys to view them right away.

Kylie got back in her car and drove to the first address in North Ward. It was an old Queenslander in Eyre Street that had one flat underneath and two upstairs. She had the keys for the downstairs flat. As Kylie walked through the overgrown lawn to the front door, she was acutely aware of how many big fat ugly cane toads would be able to hide in the long grass at night, jump on her feet and scare the shit out of her when she searched for her keys in the dark. She walked to the entrance and fought with the key to get it to turn in the lock and then had to shove the door to open it up due to the warp in the bottom of it.

“Mmmm. This place feels dodgy,” she said getting a bad vibe about the place. The lounge room floor was covered in worn, vomit-coloured carpet with a stale smell. She noticed a few lead light windows were open so she tried to shut them but they wouldn’t budge. None of the windows had fly screens and she thought it felt very pov-vo and extremely unsafe. “Awesome, the windows don’t even shut to keep out uninvited two legged pests, let alone stop mosquitoes carrying dengue fever, Aye” she muttered.

Kylie walked straight back out the front door. She was not interested in living in a place owned by someone who didn’t care about the security of their own tenants. “Next,” she said pulling the door hard to lock it then walked back to her car.

The next apartment was at the back of Rowes Bay near Herald Street. The red-brick ground-level apartment block housed eight apartments. All you needed was one lousy or loud neighbour and you would be miserable. Kylie took a deep sigh and walked in but she just hated it. The bathroom featured baby poo-coloured tiles in the shower and on the walls, teamed up with a brown-coloured vanity. “I can’t look at that for forever or even just for a little while. Buggar that,” she said with a grimace and walked into the kitchen.

The cupboards in the kitchen looked older than the cupboards in her grandfather’s house, and his place was relocated from Charters Towers in 1950. As she walked out the front door she saw a slimy short, hairy-backed man with no shirt on walking down the driveway staring at her. His comb-over was flapping in the wind. “Hello,” he said through yellow, nicotine-stained teeth.

“Goodbye,” she replied hopping into her car, locking the doors and getting the hell away from there.

The next flat was in Summerfield Street, Hermit Park. One of four flats made out of masonry blocks, it was small, pokey and very confined. She walked into the front door and found herself describing the place in her fathers voice, “Jeepers A-baby, you could stir the pot on the stove while you had a crap and watched telly it’s so pokey in here.” Kylie walked through to the bathroom and inspected the tiled bathtub and the snot-stained shower curtain that was hanging above it. “Can’t see myself having a relaxing candle-lit night in that tub, just snot gonna happen,” she said and walked out, back to her car.

Kylie drove back to Raine and Horne and returned the keys to the receptionist.

“How did you go? See anything you liked?” she asked.

“No unfortunately. And they were the only three I thought I would like from the book you had,” Kylie replied pleasantly.

A man came over to the reception desk and asked Kylie, “What are you chasing love?”

“I’m looking to rent a two-bedroom apartment, preferably a modern place that has windows that close and doors that lock!” she said nicely.

“I think I might be able to help you. One of my clients is just doing his rental apartment up and it’s available in a couple of weeks after he gets it painted. Would that timeframe suit you?” he asked. “You can go and have a look at it now, see if you like it?”

“Sure. Sounds good. Oh, it’s not in Kirwan is it? I work at the Port and wanted to live close to town if possible.” Kylie had set a fifteen-minute limit for her work to home commute. It wasn’t entirely because she was a suburb snob, it was because she grew up in Mount Isa and everything was within a fifteen minute radius. She liked to be able to get up or leave her home at the last possible minute and still make her destination within a quarter of an hour. Unfortunately, Kirwan was twenty minutes drive away from the Port so that would not work for her at all.

“Oh yeah love, it’s just near The Strand. I’m pretty sure you’re going to love it. I reckon this place would really suit you,” he said giving her a smile and the keys. “Here’s the address, it’s above a set of shops, closest to the water in Gregory Street.”

“Okay thanks,” said Kylie. Taking the keys and the hand-written address, she walked back to her car. With less than an hour to return the keys to the rental agency before they shut for the day, Kylie drove to 71 Gregory Street. She parked her car on the street and saw some shops. One was vacant, one was a noodle shop, another was a Thai restaurant and the last one was an Indian takeaway shop. Looking up she could see what appeared to be an apartment on the top of the shops but couldn’t see a number anywhere. She walked around near the gate and finally saw a 75 confirming that it was indeed 75 Gregory Street. After walking up the two flights of stairs, there was a locked screen door and a wooden door which both opened very easily. The door led into a newly carpeted large lounge room with space for a dining table and to her right was the kitchen. Kylie’s jaw dropped. It was modern, it was spacious and it had been refurbished within the last ten years. She turned around and looked out the window that overlooked the front stairs and she could see the ocean. “Oh my goodness. I’m in heaven,” she said out loud then she walked over to the two large windows that overlooked the Seaview Drive Through Bottle Shop with more ocean views to her left. “Oh my gawd, double sea views – The Seaview across the road, and an actual sea view. I’m on the doorstep of The Strand.”

Kylie walked over to the first door closest to the kitchen and opened it up. It was a bedroom with a built-in wardrobe. She was happy about that as she hated the thought of having to buy a wardrobe and lug it up two flights of stairs. Around to her right was a toilet in a room that was recessed back away from the door. “Jeepers, it’s like another bedroom in here there’s so much room.” She laughed and then walked out of the toilet and to her right again to find a clean, white tiled bathroom with a glass shower door and a clean white porcelain washbasin. Opposite the bathroom were two large linen cupboards and to the right of that was the laundry, complete with a large hot water system tank. She opened the back door and found a set of back stairs and a little storage room that used to house the outside toilet when it was literally an outhouse set up.

“I am so taking this place,” she thought and walked back inside. “I thought ole mate said this joint had two bedrooms,” Kylie said to herself after she locked the back door. She walked past the laundry and the linen cupboards and found another door that opened off the lounge room that she hadn’t been in yet. It opened into an enormous room. “Holy master bedroom Jedi Master McManus,” she said. “Rent this apartment you will. Sell your soul should he ask you to.”

There were two large wardrobes in the room with shelving down one side of the opened door. Two large windows overlooked the street and the entrance to the Seaview bottle shop. “I could fit a desk in here, a chair, a duchess, a bed and two bedside tables no worries,” she said out loud, as she spun around in a circle. “If I had any of that stuff that is.”

Kylie ran into the kitchen. It was the last place she inspected because she figured it was most likely to be the least used room in the apartment. There was nothing to fault in the apartment. Oh, yes there was. No air conditioning. It was not a deal breaker. Kylie took one last look then locked it up and drove back to the real estate agent and asked to speak to the man that gave her the keys.

He came over from his desk and he asked her with a smile, “Well? What did you think love? Did you like it?”

“How much is it?” she asked.

“$180 a week love.”

“I love it. I’ll take it. Can I put a deposit on it so that no one else takes it from me?”

“No one else knows about it love. It didn’t even hit the books. Fill this out and I’ll process the paperwork for you straight away but you can’t move in for about two weeks. Okay?”

“No problems. I just don’t want to lose it. It’s perfect.”

“I knew it would suit a nice lass like you,” he said handing her some forms.

Kylie filled out the paperwork and paid the bond money straight away after running across the road to withdraw the money from the ATM near the piano shop.

“I’ll ring you in a couple of weeks love,” he said.

“Thank you. What was your name?” she asked.

“Nev love. And yours is... Kylie,” he said reading her paperwork.

“Yes I’m Kylie. Thank you Nev, I really appreciate it,” she said and walked out the door grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Back at work on Monday morning Kylie couldn’t wait to share her news with Shonky. He was so excited for her he bought her lunch and they drove past the apartment four times beeping the horn and waving at it.

Kylie moved in a couple of weeks later. On her first night in her new apartment she sat thinking about how much her life had changed in such a short time. She was now working at the Port, surrounded by water, learning to operate the Ship loader over the ship’s hatch, in a cabin suspended over the water and living less than fifty metres from The Strand, the ocean. It was just like the reading from the psychic had said. Content with what she had already, she thought, “Anything after this will be an absolute bonus.”