I do wonder at what point I developed a nasty streak. Grinch-like traits that scare young children away from the gates of my home.
I wonder this because I don’t feel like I’m a horrible person.
You see, I just don’t like opening the door anymore to unknown children holding lantern buckets, demanding lollies and chocolate.
Everything came to a head during Halloween. Children were laughing and having a great time, but this cranky old cantankerous mongrel didn’t want a bar of all that. He just wanted to curl up in the corner of his recliner with the television on three levels higher than usual.
Never one to shed blame, I put it down to a sign of the times – a combination of factors that have made us all a little less friendly.
I’ve said it before in this column that I’m not close to our neighbours. Physically close, yes – we’re only divided by a flimsy picket fence. But emotionally close, no. We know their names. I’ll smile and wave when we cross paths. But we’re not roasting marshmallows over the backyard firepit of a night. Not together, anyway.
Yet, we all have friends. I know that Wanda and I do. And from the murmurings, the clinking of glasses, and the smell of medium rare beef from beyond the fence on an occasional Friday night, it would seem they do too.
They’re just different groups of friends. Nobody complains. Nobody interferes. We like it the way it is.
It hasn’t always been that way.
Remember when people would pop in for a lamington and a cup of tea? Uninvited.
Our children remember these visits as an unquestioned ritual. Times of excitement.
When friends would come armed with share plates. Lamingtons they’d baked and coated that morning. And we as hosts would welcome them.
Sometimes, they honked their horns, shouting from the windows they’d wound down with a circular motion before shouting from the footpath: “Anybody home?”
Nobody minded. There would be “guest” beer in the fridge. Or before-five-o’clock Twinings sidled alongside a freshly cut plate of cheese squares, kabana, Jatz and pickled onions, each neatly pierced with a toothpick.
Those were times when friendships were spontaneous. We had our favourites, but I don’t recall ever turning someone away.
Everyone did it. The smell of freshly-baked scones and cakes wafted their way into the streets. We looked forward to it.
“That was a lovely visit,” we’d say. “I wonder who’ll come around tomorrow?”
It wasn’t as if we didn’t have telephones. They too dialed in a circular motion. But we didn’t think to use them. Nobody called in advance to see if it was okay, to check if we had something else, or someone else, on our agenda. They just came.
Thinking further, we’d leave the front door unlocked, at times open. “Come on in, we’re out the back,” we’d say when hearing the frontyard holler.
Things have changed.
We hear a knock at the front door and we hide, pretend we’re not home. No more excess beer in the fridge, or nibbles in the pantry.
Our friends, if they want to visit, will call. Like booking an appointment with the dentist.
Nobody would dare call out from the front gate. We probably wouldn’t hear them through the triple-bolted front door.
Now, if someone knocks at the door, it’s either the police or a politician. Neither are likely to be people I know. Nor are they people I’d be keen to speak to at a moment’s notice.
Or, of course, it could be children in costume with a hopeful glint in their eye that the old man might have taken the time to look at his calendar and realised that an American celebration of sorts had made its way to our shores with some enthusiasm.
That I hadn’t thought to buy gifts embarrasses me. So instead, I reach for the remote, turn off the television and the lights, and I reach for a book I can read under a reading lamp in a back room of the house.
Wanda, is that you I can hear rustling around in the kitchen?
“Yes, Wayne. I’m looking for scissors,” she says. “To cut open these bags of lollies I bought for the neighbourhood children. Don’t they look wonderful in their costumes?”
