The city sounds came crashing through Simon’s sleep, and he woke through a dream of car loads of fraud squad agents, braking noisily to a halt outside his door. He sat up sharply and then rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he remembered where he was. The bedside clock brought the realization that it was the latest he’d slept in for some time. A vacuum cleaner whined as it sucked at the floor somewhere in the hallway outside his door as he made tea.
After a refreshing hot shower and dressed in casual clothes he opened the door leading to the hallway. The whining vacuum cleaner was by now at the far end of the corridor.
He left his door open and walked towards its sound. The girl pushing the vacuum cleaner ignored his presence, and it was not until he spoke that she looked up from what she was doing.
She glanced at the typewriter he carried and a questioning expression came to her face.
“Hello. Do you know how to type?” He asked,
“I can type,” she said, in a ‘who wants to know’ tone.
Simon smiled and asked her if she had a typewriter.
“I do have an old one, but it has seen better days.” She replied as she turned the vacuum cleaner off.
“I bought this one yesterday and today I have no more use for it, so I wondered if you’d like to have it.”
She looked at him warily and stepped around behind the vacuum machine, defensively.
“At what cost?”
Simon could see where the conversation was leading.
“It will cost you a dollar.” He added, “I can also write you a receipt, to show you its above board.”
“Is it hot?” She asked.
“No, it’s not hot. I bought it yesterday and now today I have no more use for it.”
She thought for a moment as if trying to view it from another angle.
“Where’s the receipt?”
Simon pulled his notebook from his pocket, asked her name and wrote the receipt. He passed it to her and she handed him the dollar.
He held his hand up in the manner of a Star Trek salute.
“Spock’s honour,” he mimicked.
She smiled at last, and a sparkle came to her eye.
“It needs a new ribbon, but other than that it works alright. Hope it serves you well,” he told her.
“Thanks. It’ll have a good home.”
As Simon walked back to his room, he wondered where the world had gone to when a person has to ask the cost of accepting something for nothing.
Leaving the hotel he walked to the nearest Post Office to send the two self-addressed letters to the outback, posting two sets in case one got lost in transit, before he found a waste paper bin in an alley to deposit the bag of stationery.
He made his way back to the street and asked a shop owner for directions to the nearest travel agents.
Two hours later he was sat back in a comfortable chair and listened while a stewardess showed him how to operate an oxygen mask.
Fifteen minutes after that, while looking out the window on Sydney, he heard the pilot over the intercom. The plane would touch down in Melbourne, before flying on to Changi airport in Singapore, then travel nonstop to London.