AN ALMOST-70-YEARS REZZADENT

Words by Shailla Van Raad Photos by Julian Abrahams

I hear a crackly voice over the other end of the line.

“Hello?” it says tentatively.

This is the voice of my now former neighbour, Kelvin. It’s so strange hearing him so far away because I’m used to seeing his face on the opposite end of the street, peeking above the marigolds, stone statues, and French lavender, whilst he sits grinning on his mobility scooter. His dog Sam, a black doodle-cross yaps at his ankles, while his red-brick veneer house ‘Kelvetta’ sits proudly behind him. A kingdom fit for a

I pursue the conversation, shrugging off the awkwardness. This is because he and I aren’t there in that moment on Whitelaw Street anymore, as we have been hundreds of times before, where we pass each other by, and wish each other well.

I miss Kelvin. He used to be our neighbour but has recently ‘moved on’. Now in his 70’s, Kelvin is now a resident of a Mernda retirement village.

Rewind back to 1955, Kelvin and his family moved to Kelvetta with his English-born mother, father, and sister. Although the house hasn’t changed much, Kelvin says that the suburb was a very different place back then.

“There were no roads in Reservoir when we moved; there was a lot of mud,” he recalls with a chuckle, “there were cows wandering around the place.”

Kelvin does remember fondly that the iconic “Edwardes Lake was still there though, and there used to be a pool near the lake where people used to swim.”

This version of Reservoir is a foreign land Kelvin describes. And in a voice tinged with nostalgia, he harks back to a Reservoir where “people used to walk everywhere as there wasn’t a lot of public transport back in those days.”

Kelvin sometimes alluded to this foreign land as we visited his beautifully manicured front garden, let our baby toddle into his backyard to watch the chickens in their natural suburban habitat, or had him over for a beer and a roast Sunday dinner.

Now in my snippets of spare moments, I sometimes watch Kelvetta. The more time that passes from when Kelvin officially left his house, the more I see Kelvetta shrivel and crack in the spring heat. The once carefully crafted garden is starting to bloom with four leaf clovers, and a war between the weedy summer and winter grass has begun.

After 10 years of living in such proximity, Kelvin was a steadfast fixture on Whitelaw Street— an epitome of a ‘great Aussie neighbour’.

I talk to others about Kelvin, and they remember him fondly, but are happy he has downsized and gone to a place where he is thriving.

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