Meet the Graham`s
Keith, our brother, along with our father and mother, has passed away. Gone but not forgotten.
So that leaves eleven of us, seven females, four males ( I know, life can be cruel ).
We range in age from mid thirties to sixties. Our names, oldest first, are Trudy, Wendy, Vicki, Stephen, Mandy, Paul, Lindy, Cathy, Debbie, Jamie and Scott.
Five live in Queensland, five in New South Wales and one in Victoria
( there`s always one fool in the family ).
The best way to tell you a little about us, our professions and interests, without stretching the truth too far, is to quote from Chapter One of ' The Graham Theory of Relative-ity ', a short story written by Robert Jackson Graham ( aka The Graham Family, yes all eleven of us wrote it ) and now published.
'Davo drove down the hill, thinking about his next mail delivery stop, at the Graham Retirement Village. Strange lot they were. All the locals thought that name had been chosen because the complex was situated on Graham Road, in the Graham Valley, but it seemed that everyone who lived there was a Graham, or was married to one.
Blue, Davo’s brother-in-law, was a builder. He’d helped put the place up. On 50 acres it was, with a long drive. One large building housed the kitchen, a large lounge, dining room, a theatre, a library, games room, bathrooms, and laundry. There was also a small office, a surgery or first-aid room, and a computer room. Individual units were arranged in a circle around the main building, and joined to it with covered walkways. It would look like a wheel with spokes from the air, Davo reckoned. Blue had told him that each unit was fitted out with computers, and all the computers were connected to each other.
The residents had been living there almost a year now, owned the property for two, but it took one whole year to complete the construction. They kept to themselves mostly but Davo was beginning to sort them out. Of course, it helped that he delivered their mail. It was surprising what one could learn about people from the mail they received.
There were four Graham men. Well, it seemed that there were five but he’d never laid eyes on the one they called Keith, and he’d never delivered any mail to him. Davo had cast him as the invisible man. Oddly, three of the men were named Robert, but amswered to their middle name.
Stephen, “you can trust me” Graham was the Treasurer of the Village. If you gave him a bit more hair, changed the colour of his eyes, and the shape of his body, he’d be a dead ringer for Mel Gibson. Leave him as he was and Mr Bean sprang to mind. Stephen spent most of his time at his computer - he was the family webmaster - but he had been seen helping to pour concrete for the garage and the fire shed.
Then there was Paul. He had a huge, full beard and walked with a slight limp. When he wasn’t helping out around the place, he was usually to be found sitting with a cup of coffee at hand and a tiny pair of glasses perched low on his nose, reading the paper or doing a crossword puzzle. He reminded Davo of a guy in a movie he’d seen once, about a man who lived with the bears in America.
Davo hadn’t seen much of the one called Jamie. He’d been to his room once to get a signature for a parcel and spotted him hunched over a computer screen. Jamie’s wife, Blzena, had been rushing around, with a different coloured duster over each shoulder. The air was thick with something that smelled like flowers and it had been hard to hear over the sound of the vacuum cleaner.
The last and obviously youngest male Graham was Scott Gregory. Davo wondered why he hadn’t been called Robert too. Scott wandered around, cigarette in one hand and hammer in the other, or else sat hunched over his computer. Word was that Scott was afraid of spiders. Davo didn’t think any the less of him for that, he was afraid of spiders himself. Scott was the designated driver. The Grahams had a large bus and went into town once a month, usually when the computer sales were on. The men went to them, and the women to book sales, or clothing or hardware stores.
The women outnumbered the men. Trudy seemed to be the oldest. She was a bit loud and bossy for Davo’s taste, tending to talk over everyone and didn’t allow anyone else to get a word in edgewise. Reminded him of Rosanne Barr, although much slimmer, of course. She was forever telling the others what they should be doing. As far as Davo could see, they all ignored her. Trudy never seemed to be without a book in her hand, either one she was reading, or a note-book. He’d come across her once, scribbling away in the notebook and muttering to herself. Gave him quite a scare.
Wendy was a tiny woman. Looked a bit like Phyllis Diller, but without the harsh voice. Definitely had the nails. She had a computer too but didn’t seem to like it much. “I don’t understand these technical things,” Davo’d heard her say. She didn’t sleep too well and often saw things that weren’t there. Her husband, Don, had told Davo about the time she woke him up, insisting that a large easter bunny was outside their unit. Don spent most of his days driving an old tractor around. He’d carved a large dam out, covered all of five acres, and was currently busy working on setting up a fish farm. Don had been a cane farmer and had been heard to say that he missed it, and that he might plant some cane in the paddock down near the creek.
Vicki had a chook pen at the back of her unit. She kept an axe nearby and was often heard threatening to chop the chooks heads off if they even looked like eating her eggs. She and some of her sisters spent a lot of time discussing what was happening in Home and Away. Vicki’s husband, Trevor, a man after Davo’s heart, had a still set up in a shed near the chook pen. Davo and he had come to an arrangement that they should both do very nicely out of. Vicki didn’t spend much time at the computer, but only because Trevor was always hogging it, playing computer games.
Mandy had long, fair hair and spent a lot of time playing cards. Davo thought she would have been a real looker when she was young. She had the most unusual eyes, cat’s eyes. Now that he thought about it, she put him in mind of a cat; she seemed very quiet but he imagined that the claws would come out if she was roused. She didn’t seem to spend much time at her computer, although she did know her way around the keyboard. She seemed to be surrounded by a permanent cloud of smoke. Davo thought that maybe she’d been homeless at one time because she couldn’t seem to let her possessions out of her sight. Kept a lot of stuff in boxes.
Lindy was the Retirement Village Auditor. She was also the official family photographer and archivist. Reminded Davo of Jeannie Little, although he wasn’t sure why. She didn’t look like her, or sound like her. Didn’t look like she needed to lose weight but was forever munching on iced vo-vos and talking about going to weight watchers. Lindy’s husband, Vic, was often heard asking if anyone had anything they wanted done. When Davo had delivered the mail the day before, Vic, old, battered Akubra pushed to the back of his head, had been putting up a flagpole at the front gate. Vic was also the resident firefighter and looked after the small fire-truck, parked at the shed. He had an office there too, with a corkboard filled with stories about fires and firefighters. Now and again he tried to run safety seminars, which the residents were expected to attend. So far, they’d all found reasons why they shouldn’t.
Cathy, the Financial Advisor, was away more than she was home. Apart from endless book parcels, her mail mostly consisted of invitations to conventions for TV shows like Stargate. She was the brain of the family. When anyone was stuck for a word, or the answer to a puzzle, Cathy could come up with the goods. Looked a lot like her sister, Trudy, but nothing like Roseanne Barr! When Cathy was home, she could be found reading, or watching science fiction shows. Most of the walls in her room were covered with framed, autographed photographs of the stars of her favourite shows. Now and again Cathy came up with brilliant ideas of ways to improve the buildings, and when that happened she roped in Debbie and the men to do the actual work.
The youngest woman, apart from Jamie’s wife, Blzena, was Debbie. She was officially the Secretary but obviously the tea lady. Cries of “white and one,” or “black and two” were heard whenever she walked by. She looked quiet and a bit shy and reminded Davo of the youngest Brady girl, only heaps older of course. When Debbie wasn’t making tea or coffee for everyone, she could be found mowing the grounds. She drove the bright yellow ride-on as if she was on the rally track. Debbie liked a bit of a flutter on the pokies and had a machine set up in her unit. She seemed to enjoy that much more than the computer.
Lastly, there was someone called Gillian. She and Cathy and Debbie were a bit thick, always in huddle discussing things, or cooking up giant woks of stir-fry. She spent most of her time on her houseboat, which floated in the middle of the lake. Davo hadn’t quite figured out where Gillian fit in, but give him time and he’d work it out.'
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Although the 'Graham Family' members and their spouses, as named, do exist, this book is a work of fiction. Any other persons named do not represent any person, living or dead.
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