JIM & KERRY
There was an ambulance parked out the front one afternoon and it took Kerry to the hospital.
There was an ambulance parked out the front one afternoon and it took Kerry to the hospital. Months passed, which is how it goes. On a December morning I was raking leaves and Jim leaned an arm on the fence and told me Kerry had melanoma. "At the moment she'll either get better or she won't," he summed it up. It took a while to see Jim again. That's how it goes with neighbours. Some time later he was taking in the washing and I asked about Kerry. "Oh... I'm sorry. She died a couple of weeks ago," Jim told me, arms crossed over the fence posts. Jim was an old guy, tough as nails, streaky blue tattoos up his forearms, ear stud with a thick brown patina. He squinted off at the treeline. "It's sad, you know," he said, "We used to listen to Reminiscing. The Little River Band. You know that one? Used to say how we'd go out dancing when we were old. I mean, well - Kerry wasn't really one for dancing," he added, as though he was confiding something. Of course she wasn't. Kerry was like a little bird that had been folded in half. Before the melanoma took her away she'd disappeared into her plain black t-shirts. How could she dance? Still she'd lived inside the version of the The Little River Band's wah wah guitars and neat percussion that lived inside Jim's mind. The sweeping strings that just had to have been played by gorgeous dewy men in pink satin, twinkling lights, champagne foam in the air. Love is a lifetime plan inside that song. It says it in the lyrics. If you love someone they'll dance in the dark with you when they're old. They'll do it if you just love them enough.
