Page 40 - Gilbert & Me_Neat

One bedroom has been turned into ‘The Rugby Room’ wherein a store all manner of rugby stuff
– youth boots, various items of team kit, rugby balls, medals, flags, bags, banners and other stuff.
It’s really my rugby stock room from where I give out items to new and aspiring rugby players.
The ceiling fan that was in this room, I removed and put into – what I consider to be the largest
bedroom – now my bedroom, which has more windows in it than I had in total in the previous
place I lived.

The place has wide, old-style, wood floorboards throughout – except the bathroom, which is
totally tiled – and every window had opening glass (frosted) slats and mosquito screens. I don’t
really like the frosted glass, but at least they open to let in real daylight. I didn’t have any glass in
the previous place, just plain white steel slats.

I like my apartment. I could do with a decent dining table though, a nice rug for that part of the
apartment would be good too, so would an actual proper bed in the guest room. Right now, I
have none of those things. The guest bedroom has a pallet bed – one made up of piling pallets on
top of each other (three stacks, three high) on top is a mattress. I had to do that very quickly
when a rugby friend became homeless and needed somewhere to stay. I had the room, so was
happy to help, but it meant I had to get a bed and really couldn’t afford a real one. The mattress
was cheap, and the pallets free. I had planned to replace this ensemble quickly, but, he moved
out a few months later and I just haven’t gotten round to dealing with it.

Between then and now, I’ve had a few – what I call refugees – staying one or two nights. These
aren’t really refugees, obviously. These are mostly two local rugbier friends – Selvin Moh (who
lives about eight miles away on the Western Highway) and Lemuel Chan (who lives in the city
proper) – they turn up sometimes out of the blue, sometimes with a brief text notice that they’re
on the way, and just stay the night. They take up places on the grey corner couch in the living
room and I find them there the following morning, asleep. They sleep at right angles to each
other , all I can see are toes and arms dangled from beneath blankets. I didn’t have Gilbert then,
so the company was welcome.

Anyway, that’s where I live.

In the afternoon I added ten pages to my revived novel, which now includes some of the
additional characters based on Selvin and Lemuel. Happy with that progress, I retire for the
night. Lights out at 9.30, as usual.

Number of cases: 10
Number of deaths: 2