Kylie says Ernie died.

Her face is tight, closed. She was Ernie’s only friend.

Ernie was a sad person. He saw doctors and they prescribed tablets for his sadness. He said he felt a bit better on the tablets, and then said he was worse. He stopped the tablets.

Ernie lived alone. I visited him once in his rented house. His dogs greeted me. I found Ernie in his dark bedroom, in bed, blinds drawn, in mid-afternoon. He said he wasn’t crook. Nothing to get up for, he said. Only the dogs.

Kylie said he was paying $350 a week in rent for the mean little house on a back road in the country. She reckoned Ernie was past caring.

One time Ernie spoke a little of his childhood. Dad abused him violently. Mum didn’t care. After a couple of short sentences, his old face hanged from his neck, wordless, wrought with injury remembered. 

Doctors encouraged him to join Men’s Shed. He wasn’t interested. The visiting nurse was worried. He didn’t answer calls, he’d be grouchy. Then he became confused. No, he wouldn’t go into the local hospital. His dogs would pine.

The day came when he couldn’t speak. His mouth couldn’t make words. He found himself on the ground in his yard, with no memory of going outside. The dogs licked him into awareness.

He was taken to the big hospital two hours distant, where doctors found him recovered from a mini-stroke. They told him to go home. Unable to drive, alone, at night in winter, he lay down on the floor of the hospital’s unheated waiting room. Kylie called to check on him, then drove to the big town and brought him home.

From time to time I’d sight Ernie talking with Kylie. She’d sit quietly, leaning forward, allowing Ernie’s words to find their way out of him. The words would stop and start, like a streamlet wending around rocks, hard obstacles of pain interrupting the flow. In their cave of trustI’d see Ernie smiling.

Three days ago Kylie said, Ernie’s in hospital. He’s got pneumonia. The old man’s friend. Kylie visited him that day and again two days later.

Today Kylie said, Ernie died.