THE DOORS

No, not those doors. These doors ~

Decades ago I was in Melbourne for a Meeting, and on the morning of the first session I rang M, who was staying with J & P, to see if she was going in. M was in the shower, and J kindly chatted to pass some time. 

"What are you up to?" she asked.

"Oh, not much. But we have seen a block of land in the bush, and we're seriously thinking about buying it, and building a house."

"How fabulous. P and I have some land on the peninsula, and we were thinking of building, but have decided against. In fact we've bought the front doors!"

"You've what?"

"Bought the doors. You don't want any doors, do you?"

"Well, you know me. Who knows. Where are they?"

"Oh, here's M. They're in a shop in Albert Park. I'll give M the details"

We found the shop. We bought the doors. We shipped them to Sydney. We built a house around them.

So it happened that on Sunday, on our last night after the Trade Show, we ducked dining with the crowd, and opted for an early night before the drive home, and found ourselves in an Italian Restaurant not too far away from the hotel. In Albert Park. It was lovely, and deliciously traditional with terrific staff and smiles all round.

Full and happy, we walked a little after, along the wide streets, thinking we'd see a taxi. A tram rattled past. The sky was darkening. K was feeling the night air, and took to ordering an Uber. "No wait. I want to cross over, and see what's down there", feeling a vague familiarity. Not more than a few doors along from the intersection, there it was.

Totally unchanged in twenty years, there was the shop where we'd bought J's doors, her wonderful doors, our happy threshold, unchanged to this day from the day they left the shop. 

Not that long after they had become ours, even before they had a house built around them, to our horror came the news that J was no longer with us.

What little we know.