I moved into an old people’s community. It was getting difficult to walk and I had to call the neighbour in to change the light globes. I couldn’t catch public transport and the only way to get around was driving. There were no shops nearby and I couldn’t walk to them anyway. The doctors were threatening to take my licence. I was way too isolated.

So, I moved into a retirement village. It was a pretty village with private homes, all of which had verandas and carports and roads to drive around on though the speed limit was 10kmh and it was one-way. It had a boom-gate to protect the residents and a clubhouse with a swimming pool and a barbecue area. Everyone thought it was wonderful.

I just wanted people around me, people who could see if anything happened. I was worried about falling though I did exercises to stop me falling and yoga almost every day. I did marching for two minutes every day. I had to admit I was getting old. The place in the retirement village was expensive but cute. It had verandas all round and I could imagine myself sitting and chatting to someone in the back area and reading out the front. It had lots of furniture but none of it was left when I moved in. Except the partition in the garage that made parking impossible. The manager of the retirement village made an effort to get rid of that.

I bought two lean-back chairs for the front veranda and thought I’d put my feet up but I ended up reading in a straight chair at a garden table which, no doubt, would have pleased my physiotherapist had he known. I put my garbage out the back. I didn’t know anyone to sit and chat with yet. The neighbour next door kept his desk there and I’m told he’s the village handyman but he’s never at his desk and I don’t need a handyman anyway. Except to compensate for my lack of height which no one understands because everyone is taller. Anyway I couldn’t get in the space at the back, you have to be able to walk better than I could.

The person who lived opposite came over to see me the day I moved in. She was very friendly but she objected to where I was parking. Even once the partition was removed, it was still hard to get into my parking spot because the previous tenant had thoughtfully built a wall turning it into a garage which housed her mobility scooter. She thought she’d get more money, but when I tried to park my car in it, it was so tight I couldn’t get out of the car, and I definitely couldn’t get my walker out, so I parked in front of the garage and thought about getting a builder in and making the garage into a car port. I asked the neighbour if she agreed to where I was parking and reluctantly, she did. The next day I found I couldn’t get in the car at all, someone had backed into the front door and the neighbour was back on my veranda demanding that I park in my garage. I parked my car close to one edge so I could get out the other side. I managed that a few times, it damaged my car but I was managing; backing the car in was hard because there wasn’t much space on the street I thought so picturesque.

Then the whole back of the car fell off. I took it shopping anyway and checked out the panel beater who was closed (it being just before Christmas). Coming back a friend came out of my neighbour’s house and tried to direct me and my car with the back fallen off into the garage. I couldn’t park the car so it would still be possible get out. Eventually the friend gave up and suggested her friend, Daisy, was a good driver and maybe she could park it for me.

That’s when I made my mistake. I should have realised she came out of Daisy’s place because she was a good friend and they’d been having a chinwag.

“I don’t think I’ll let her near my car,” I said, “I think she caused the dent on my driver’s side.” I was probably right but should I have said it?

The friend suggested I park somewhere nearby instead so I did that and then I remembered I’d taken my walker out before I tried to park the car and I had to walk back from my parked car across a road and past two houses before I got to my own, which I had to pass too, and enter the garage before I got to my walker. It had only been a few years and I’d forgotten I couldn’t walk properly. The friend who helped me park had disappeared.

I managed to get across the street and past the two houses without falling when I saw Daisy and asked for her help. Next thing I know, she was saying I’d said horrible things to her friend Dianne and she’d heard them. She refused to listen to anything I said and then she went into her house and slammed the door, leaving me on the street, wobbling and friendless. I didn’t remember saying horrible things to her friend Dianne.

I asked Dianne and she said we were good, but the next day she was riding by my place on her mobility scooter, telling me I was dangerous and she’d called the police. I ignored her because I had a valid licence. The police, when they rang, seemed under the impression I’d had an accident. When they found out I hadn’t, they didn’t worry any more. They certainly didn’t mention my licence.

But I couldn’t park my car, not in my garage and not anywhere else in the village either because Dianne threatened to have my car towed. I didn’t know if she could do that or not. I had to park on the street outside the village and move my car all the time so no one would take it, or bits of it, thinking it had been abandoned. I kept imagining that next time I saw it, it would be up on bricks because the wheels had been stolen. I cursed the day I’d met those women. I didn’t wish them well. This was the village that everyone told me was so wonderful.

I imagined it was Daisy, my neighbour, who was behind it all. For years, she had no one parking a car opposite, and people would stop by, park in front of her car and go up to visit. Her car was opposite the place where I came out of my garage. The road, as I’ve mentioned, was narrow. She had to stop me somehow and it would be good if I lost my licence. Good for her anyway. She waved at me once when my friends were there but I ignored her. I wasn’t feeling friendly. My friend said I should have waved back, “you catch more flies with honey,” she said, but I wasn’t feeling up to catching flies and anyway my friend hadn’t heard the full story which was just playing out then.

I did lose my licence. I went for a driving test and they told me I was too slow. I was slow because I was scared of driving fast so I gave up my licence and began to rely on others to drive me around. It was hard and the manager of the village felt sorry for me but it was the right thing to do, even though it took me a long time to sell my car.

I amused myself by watching my neighbours except Daisy, who I ignored. The old couple next door to her came out when she had driven away. They hung washing out (they had a rack in their carport), did some gardening and tidied the chairs they never sat on. They looked to see if she was gone before they ventured out though he sometimes hobbled by her place with his walking stick. She caught him once. Put an arm round his waist. He was polite. I thought she was a bully who was deliberately using my weakness, my lack of ability to walk, to try and control me, but I don’t know if that was true. I just wanted to hate her.

Aged Care have people who take you shopping and lots of people were nice to me, just not Daisy. By then I’d fixed my car and arranged to have it parked in my garage. The manager parked it. I figured if she wrecked my car parking it, they would have to pay to fix my garage but she parked it and then managed to get out. She was very thin.

I had the builder in and got a quote to turn my garage back into a carport then I gave up my licence and cancelled the builder but I was still angry at those two women. What did I do to deserve neighbours like that? I wanted something terrible to happen to Daisy. Nothing did. But I hoped people would stop visiting her.

They didn’t her but the neighbours usually avoided her. Nobody who lived nearby came to visit her. I hoped she was isolated. I certainly felt isolated but that was probably because I made no effort to mingle. I didn’t miss the fact that she avoided me when I sat out on my veranda of an evening. I didn’t miss her at all. I didn’t want to chat to her and I wondered if I’d find her boring.

I wondered if she were observing me. She spent a lot of time outside her house working in her garden, especially when I was on my veranda, and sometimes she would trap people, as they went by, and talk to them. Most people were too polite to keep walking, or so I thought, and I was ready to see the worst in her. I wanted people to hate her but it didn’t seem to happen.

As time passed, I was more friendly to Dianne who I met at the clubhouse, but I kept my distance from Daisy. I didn’t want her to come over to chat when I was out on the veranda. I still don’t want her. I can’t forget how it felt when I was new in the village and Dianne and Daisy attacked me. Dianne’s sour face made me think she was remorseful but I didn’t think the same of Daisy. Dianne still came to visit Daisy every day and they sat on Daisy’s veranda. I wondered what sort of friendship was between them. Did Dianne have to give something up? What did Daisy do to her?

I was shouting at the phone one day: “help, help, help,” to get them to transfer me to a person who would help with some problem, when Dianne and Daisy, thinking I really needed help, came thundering onto my veranda. Dianne did the talking and Daisy looked miserable. Good, I thought. I wondered if she really wanted to help me or if Dianne had spoiled her game by offering to help me for free. She could just wait till no one was around and ignore my cries for help. Who needs her anyway?