Along the road between my house and the tram stop is an office with parking underneath. The man who works there, looking after the carpark coming and goings is a relentless greeter.

I tried crossing the road before reaching the carpark. I tried scurrying by with head down. Each time he would spy me, wave and call out a cheery, and mercifully brief, greeting. The only thing to do was respond. I responded. Resigned to the encounter, and gradually starting to look forward to the acknowledgement, I came to stroll boldy, with head up and a smile ready for the carpark guard.

“Hello”
“Hello”

The exchange was usually that brief. Sometimes it was:
“Hello love”
“Hello”

The casual use of ‘love’ warmed me, and occasionally we would comment on the cold or warm. That was the extent of our intimacy.

On some days, my lonely low days, he was the only person I spoke to and I was warmed by an exchange about the weather. I looked forward to his steady predictable hello-calling presence.

Our relationship was steady and uncomplicated.

There is time when you see somebody for the last time. Most often you don’t know when that time is. One time is the last time. We lose people, they move away. People lose us, we move away.

The carpark guard, I don’t know which day was his last day. I hope he’s well.

15 March 2004 was a last day too. The last day I saw Mottsu was especially cruel. His distress that day was intense. Even so I didn’t consider that he might not struggle through. We both appointments to attend, me for a leg waxing and he to step into the abyss he had assured me he walking away from.

The last time I saw him was backing the car out of the driveway. I stood waving, holding Wally and waving his paw. Wally and I, not knowing what else to do in the face of Mottsu’s gathering deterioration, waved.

He didn’t acknowledge the waving tableau, resolute and condemned. He looked past us, not at us and even so there was no sudden or menacing recognition that I would not see Mottsu again.

He never returned, didn’t come home.