…Before you moved in there was druggies running a meth’ lab in that place. There were hookers turning tricks in there, fights, non stop fucking problems. I had to call the cops one night ’cause this guy climbed my fence and fell asleep in my back yard…”

I lived in Redfern for a while, in the early 1990’s.
Redfern is an inner suburb of Sydney. It’s pretty gentrified now, but in the ’90’s, parts of it were still pretty shady. A lot of poverty, crime and homelessness.
My girlfriend and I rented a three bedroom house for about $200 a week. I liked that house. It was grungy, and drafty, and the carpet had a few weird looking stains, but there was plenty of space for me to set up a studio, and a dark room, so I was stoked.

The old lady across the street was always sitting on her porch on sunny days. I smiled at her and waved when I walked past, on my way to work, or the supermarket. She offered me a cup of tea one afternoon.
“Do you know who your neighbour is?” she asked me in a hushed tone.
“No. Well, you’re the first neighbour I’ve met” I admitted.
“She’s famous.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She’s a pop star. Her name’s Collette.”
“Ring My Bell Collette?” I gasped.
She lifted one wrinkled brow. “That’s the one.”

This piece of neighbourhood gossip kept me awake at night.
I knew who Collette was. She was a grinning blonde on an album cover, with a hot body clad in lycra.
In the eighties she had a hit with a drum machine enhanced cover of ‘Ring My Bell’.
When I was fifteen, I had many steamy fantasies about Collette, singing her hit song to me, while gyrating erotically in her hot-pants and running her fingers through my mullet.

Over the next few days, I spent quite a lot of time, hanging around on the front veranda, hoping to meet Collette. I even considered just ringing her door bell and then, when she opened the door, saying ‘hi! I guess I took your song literally, haha’, but… maybe not such a great idea. So I just loitered around hoping for an ‘accidental’ meeting. A week or so later, my patience was rewarded.
I was sitting on the porch, reading a ‘Red Dwarf’ novel, when Collette emerged, to check her mail box. She was wearing a bathrobe and had a cigarette hanging from her lip.
“Hi” she said.
“Hi.”
“You’re the new neighbour, huh?”
“Yes, that’s me” I grinned.
“Nice to meet you. Before you moved in there was druggies running a meth’ lab in that place. There were hookers turning tricks in there, fights, non stop fucking problems. I had to call the cops one night ’cause this guy climbed my fence and fell asleep in my back yard. He had no pants on, just a leather harness, and he was covered in shit.”
“Oh. God…”
“You don’t look like a meth cook.”
“Oh, thank you. No…”
“Well, I’ll see you ’round. I’d get the carpet in there steam cleaned, if I were you.”

 
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