Gift

Five and a half hours' work on the studio roof this afternoon devising a way of ousting this possum who has made a comfy home for himself in the ceiling. With the thirty degree slope, the intervening ridge and the corrugated iron not an easy task. 
         Young Goran the handyman today constructed a hinged portal which should now allow the ratfink to exit, but not re-enter. Hopefully by the morning the little chappie will find another abode for himself.
         Over a number of months now four thirty - five AM returns from his foraging through the almond, apple and plum trees in the front yard, landing with a bang on the roof-top, before crawling in back home through a tight little gap that was left below the upper level guttering. Late afternoons one heard him lazily stirring after his day-long sleep; usually by 8 30PM he was scratching around the ceiling and out and away around 9. 

         Sorry matey, vamos! You have worn out your welcome.
         Shortly before we took a late lunch Ante Roncevic happened by. Last Sunday Ante had also visited, announcing himself suddenly with a handful of weeds and searching out the green waste bin by the side fence. Stopping unnoticed at the front garden he had busied himself pulling up grass and weeds alongside the footpath.
        A fortnight before the man had been found at a bus stop in Footscray where we had a warm and friendly chat, Ante telling of his mother continuing out in some kind of residential care facility in Altona Meadows. She was in room such-and-such, her son reported. Sundays Ante went out to see her and on Christmas and Easter she came came home for a day or two (or for a few hours it may have been). 
      Ante had the name of the place, the street address and phone number by heart. During lunch he gave what seemed to be the block and unit number too. If there was pen and paper it should be recorded, Ante suggested.
      Last Sunday at his previous visit Ante had roared the same as today and must have made the people in the front house wonder. This afternoon soon after his arrival the little boys on the patio of the front house could be heard crying.
     Bab had minded young Ante as a child. Of course she had pitied him and given him much kindness and affection. The man, now well over two metres, had not forgotten.
    Last week Ante had promised he would return the following Sunday with some oranges from the tree he had in his front yard. If oranges were welcome he would bring some. Eight oranges, he had said specified for some reason.
     This afternoon Ante handed over a brown paper bag that he had stapled on top and on both sides of the paper written the same message in clear large biro: 

     Za Pok Teta Jelena Pavo
     8 Orange Za Danas 21.5.17

     For Departed Auntie Jelena Pavo
     8 Orange For Today 21.5.17

     Pok could only be abbreviated pokojna, departed.
    Ante's father, who eventually shot through on wife and child, was also named Pavo; the form Pavle / Paul took in Croatian. Big rangy Pavo had never been able to accept his son't condition and always hounded the boy to learn his lessons and to speak properly.
    Picked prematurely and still green around the stem, the small magic eight had just managed to fit in the bag. Perhaps against the glass of the kitchen window they could ripen over the next few weeks.