The Odd Amorous Adventures of the Gay Gingerbread Man. Alex Roth

to our hero’s disappointment. Sometimes they even spotted specks of gold in the creeks leading to the Peel River. Altogether a pleasurable way to spent Sundays. There were numerous such scenic weekends. Even the holidays they spent together. On one of these they go to Sydney to see the sights, our Gingerbread Man never having been further than Perth before all these adventures in New South Wales. Hugh’s wife and Linda are never invited to tag along. His wife understands what is happening when they finished fossicking in Nundle and finishing seeing the sights in Sydney. She starts divorce proceedings. But this our hero regards as an unimportant incident. The Gingerbread Man protesting that it is hardly his fault that her husband preferred coming home to him rather than to her. At this point in his life he is not looking so much for companionship as for puffing up his ego, and some freebies. Those years with Linda were initially just as he likes things to be. Linda was there for adoration, Hugh for intimacy and additional adoration and Linda’s parents for all the goodies. Nothing was missing, even the pots and pans were all present and correct.

      Look what he got so far (and still only in his late-twenties)-a mortgage free, furnished house! A car too, unfortunately second hand but still a free car. All this, of course, did come with Linda and then the baby. The baby would prove to be a useful cover for him (what a cute little boy, what a doting father!!!) but the lady next door was not the only one to be upset at the relationship of the Gingerbread Man with her husband. Linda proves to be of a fragile disposition and suffers from post-natal depression. She cries all the time, then has a breakdown and they divorce. She now lives in an apartment in Perth, is supported by her parents and (according to the Gingerbread Man) never changes out of her pyjama top. What she wears at the bottom he never mentions. Her parents let him stay in the house in Tamworth-after all he is living there with their grandson.

      Being a single father suits him. He can say what he likes about the deficiencies of Linda and no one can contradict him. On the contrary, his heroic efforts in bring up his son alone, despite his financial difficulties evoke feelings of admiration in the fast beating hearts of the female staff at the primary school where he now teaches. Unfortunately, his work there was over after a few years- he never says why. He gets another job. What exactly his work is at this new job, he never says. There is something underhand about it, but as he explained, the factory burnt down, all the records were destroyed and no one can prove anything against him. It was all about some missing typewriters (before your time obviously). These were machines you wrote letters on. You plonked down hard on the keys and if you made a mistake there was no spell check and bother, you had to start all over again from the beginning. Now that job is gone and he is hard up.

      So, the best he can do is find a high-powered woman with a great salary. He finds Carol, a well - paid accountant in her late thirties. Regrettably, not only is she married but she also has three children, a seventeen-year-old daughter and two sons. Great charm works of course, she buys him a watch, leaves her husband but the children come with her. All are in their teens -did the Gingerbread Man imagine that they could all live happily together in his little un-mortgaged house? Parents of first wife now irate that he is living in Linda’s house with his second wife! Carol is not gay and he finds the whole marriage rather trying. He might be able to do it any old time, as he reminisced while on the university roof, but that does not mean he wants to do it any old time. In addition, he sees her naked brushing her teeth, and this is a bit too much for him. Rather inexplicably, Carol’s three children do not fall for his great charm. A typically cynical bunch of teenagers. On top of which Nicholas does not take to Carol. Chaos ensues and Carol and children go back to first husband. It is, of course all the fault of four-year- old Nicholas, or so his father says. Then Linda’s parents take back house, take back furniture and take back car. Naturally, Carol still loves only him (what did you expect?) and reappears many years later, after her husband dies, inherits his estate, is much richer but she still has those children and does not realise that he is now chaste. So, it’s no, no, no. She leaves, disappointed and does not enter our story again.