77. The Man Who Couldn’t Keep His Arm Straight

While I was drawing this, I looked up to see a woman dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, dark blue track pants and white rubber sandals staring down at me.
‘Hello,’ I said to the woman, taking off my headphones and smiling up at her.
‘Wait,’ she said, holding up both of her arms, like she was a televangelist praising Jesus. ‘Is that an Australian accent I hear in that hello?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but I lived in England for a long time so it’s not so extreme.’
‘I lived in Bundaberg, mate!’ the woman shouted, and laughed.
I laughed too, asking her how she came to live in Bundaberg.
‘I married an Aussie,’ she told me. ‘We were married for 8 years. I gave him a hit of acid on a beach in Indonesia . . . and then I married him. My own fault, really.’
We both laughed.
‘But he couldn’t keep his arm straight,’ the woman said.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I see.’
The woman laughed and clapped and shouted, ‘SEE! You know what I mean! I knew an Aussie would know what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ I said, nodding my head. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘I gave him an ultimatum,’ she said, frowning slightly. ‘Me and the kids, or the booze.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said.
‘He gave it up for a while,’ she told me, ‘but he went back to it.’
‘Shit,’ I said.
‘I didn’t want to lose everything,’ she told me. ‘I have a nice house in the Canyon.’
I didn’t say anything, I just nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I had my dogs there but I can’t get any more animals because I have vertigo and asthma.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘That’s not good.’
‘No,’ she said shaking her head. ‘It is not good.’