We paid forty cents to travel on the F6 “motorway” — I refuse to call it a ‘freeway’ — between Waterfall and the top of Bulli Pass. When we arrived at our friends’ house they took so long to answer the door, Tiki began to think that we had come on the wrong day. They claim that they cannot get much to grow in their garden because the soil is too poor. In addition their project home is sending out signs of distress as gaps appear between walls and flooring. Meanwhile, grout crumbles as tiles lift.
Following a game of backyard cricket and lunch, Ralph drove me, in his clapped-out manual Holden, up the Macquarie Pass to the town of Bowral in the Southern Highlands. I was somewhat surprised that his car was only seven years old, but, then again, it was obvious it hadn’t been cared for.
We each paid two dollars and fifty cents for a round of golf. Ralph began well and led me by four strokes after eight holes and by two after nine: forty-five to forty-seven. My nine holes included two pars and a birdie: at the 144-metre seventh, where I had sunk an uphill putt of twenty feet.
It was on the tenth that I sensed that I could win for the first time. Despite this sudden burst of optimism, it was really a case of the much taller and larger Ralph experiencing difficulties, as opposed to me excelling in any way. I parred only one hole on the inward nine: the par 4, fourteenth and three-putted five of its greens as I carded fifty. Ralph’s sixty meant that he had again failed to break one hundred on this particular course, at what he said was his twentieth attempt.
My ninety-seven was pleasing as I seldom play the game and it was my first at Bowral. I tended to blame the extreme cold — a golfer has to blame something! — which had quite suddenly descended upon the course, for me having carded an eight and a seven on the two closing holes. Ralph and I departed at half past five and passed the famed Bong Bong Racecourse, complete with its hill in the midst of the circuit’s circumference.
Following dinner, Ralph played some records by The Carpenters, Johnny Tillotson, Pat Boone and The Everly Brothers to name but a few. Ralph and Joyce attempted to teach Tiki and I to play five hundred before eventually abandoning the idea. We talked until half past ten.
The pair is on the breadline because in addition to having their own children to support, they have been providing food, clothing and accommodation for Joyce’s two younger sisters since the death of their mother.