I grew up in a fairly boring country town, so I couldn’t wait to move to the city for university. My best friend Angela and I had it all planned: we were going to get a flat together and have the time of our lives. We found a great apartment in an inner-city location. I was able to afford some pretty nice furniture with my savings. We certainly didn’t have to slum it at op shops like some of our friends! I didn’t even mind that Angela had nothing to bring to the house; the fact that we were there together on this new adventure was all that mattered.
It soon became clear, however, that there was going to be one very big issue. Angela and I had been brought up to believe that the country was a safe, inviting, secure place, where it was okay to leave your doors unlocked, even open, on those really hot summer nights. But I had also been taught that the city was a place where you could never be too careful. From the moment I arrived, I was forever checking the locks on windows before we went out and triple locking the front and back doors before I went to bed. Angela used to laugh and call me paranoid and she was totally the opposite. There was hardly a day when she didn’t leave a window wide open or a door unlocked — once she even left her keys in the door! I began to wonder when I would come home to find all my stuff cleaned out by robbers.
“Why can’t you just do a quick check to make sure you’ve locked everything up?” I pleaded one day in exasperation. “I’m sick of walking up the front path, wondering if it’s safe to come inside.”
“You’re so afraid of everything,” Angela laughed. “I know we’re not in the country any more, but you make it sound as though we live in the crime capital of the world.”
“You can’t leave all the windows open when you’re not here!” I argued. “Insurance companies won’t pay if we invite people to break in.”
But nothing changed, in fact, things got worse. I returned from school one day and before I even put my key in the door, it swung open.
“Hello!” I called out fearfully. Nobody answered. I poked my head inside the door to see if there was any sign of a disturbance; it looked safe, but I still couldn’t bring myself to go inside. I stood out in the front garden wondering whether to call the police.
“Hey! What are you doing out here?” Angela came bounding up the front path, loaded with shopping bags. “Did you leave your keys behind, because the door’s open.”
“I know!” I exploded. “How could you do that? I thought we’d been burgled! Are you stupid?”
“I only went down to the shops,” Angela retorted defensively. “I was gone 20 minutes, max.”
“That’s not the point,” I raged. “My God, you don’t even seem to care. That’s my stuff in there!”
“Well, you’re the one who wanted to buy new stuff,” was Angela’s selfish retort. At that moment, I knew something drastic needed to be done.
A few weeks later, I left the house early, waiting in a café around the corner until I saw Angela walk past on her way to class. I then doubled back. Within a few minutes, a friend of mine arrived with his car. We quickly loaded my television and DVD player, CD collection and a few other bits and pieces into his car, leaving the front window Angela had carelessly left wide open the way it was.
That afternoon when I got home first, I almost got a fright when I saw the bare corners in the living room — until I remembered that I had done it. Angela arrived right behind me. She stood there with her mouth hanging open in total shock, as I told her we’d been robbed. I pretended that I had called the police and that they had ascertained the would-be-thieves had come through the open window. Angela was absolutely devastated and I felt triumphant that my plan had worked.
I intended to pretend that the “stolen” items had been recovered. But I never got that far.
Angela, it turned out, was absolutely traumatized by the “break in”. She fled for the safety of the country for the weekend and didn’t come back. Within a couple of weeks, she had dropped her uni course and started working back at her parent’s business.
I barely saw Angela after that and we grew apart as our lives changed. But I do know that she stayed in the country and never went on to fulfil any of her initial dreams — all because I pretended to rob our flat.
Picture posed by model.
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