She is a beautiful, understated woman. She lives in a rented house where, four years ago, she nursed her husband while he died. Since then, she has been raising three children there by herself.
One day, the owner turned up at the door and told her he was selling the house. Later the same day a real estate agent arrived and asked to come in so he could value the house. Her two daughters came to the door and the agent asked them how they felt about being evicted. The girls had no idea at that stage that the house was even on the market.
The next day, while my friend was out, photographers entered the house. They moved family photos, books and ornaments off kitchen benches, coffee table and other surfaces, in order to take uncluttered pictures. They left all these items in piles on the floor. Someone rang later to tell my friend the photos they had taken were fabulous and she should be very pleased with them.
My friend was told the house was to be auctioned forthwith. The auction date was set for three weeks hence. She made inquiries about her rights as a tenant. She discovered she could, in certain circumstances, be required to vacate the premises with as little as 14 days' notice.
She was to have strangers trooping through the house, staring. She will probably have no choice but to find another house and move. No-one will help with the expense, or the work involved.
This is the state of affairs for all Australians who rent. No matter who they are, how much they pay, how well they treat the houses they live in, how long their leases are, they are second-class citizens.
My friend lives in a house that is owned by someone as an investment property. She does not know why he is selling it, nor does she need to. What would be good to know, however, is why we have allowed the business of housing ourselves to become such a lottery — such a lopsided mess.
It seems less the result of careful social policy and more the fallout zone between scrambling into the mortgage market and throwing ourselves on the mercy of others who are buying up houses as investment vehicles. Such houses are often not homes, but the psychological equivalent of share portfolios or gold bullion.
This is an uncomfortable story to tell. I wonder whether it would be as difficult to discuss in other countries as it is in Australia. I've tried a few times, during various coffees or dinners, to bring it up. What happens is an awkward silence, or the opposite, a barricade of stories about tenants from hell. Or, sometimes, the posing of what is obviously a rhetorical question: 'Well how else could we do it?'
I meet my friend for lunch. She who has faced death with courage and nurturing has lost her centre of gravity. For the first time in the years I've known her she looks tired. She keeps losing the thread of our conversation. Everything unravels to expose what lies beneath:
Her head is full of houses. She has been looking at other rental properties. They have not been inviting or homey. One of them had been renovated to within an inch of its life, but obviously for the rental market — it had no heating. Real estate agents had been patronising or downright unhelpful. Some made it clear that if she couldn't make it to a ten-minute Open for Inspection, that was her lookout, not theirs. They didn't have the time to be running around making appointments.
'That would be all very well,' she says, 'but when I was considering buying a house last year, they would spend half the day driving me around, showing me properties. And they called me repeatedly to see if they could 'help'.'
She fiddles with her soup spoon. She's not eating much. 'Never mind,' she says. She smiles, in a way that makes me think of cloudy sunrises. 'I'm sure I'll get through it. It's not the end of the world.'
I know this tone — it is the polyfiller she uses to plaster over any cracks that might threaten to appear in her children's lives.
I ask whether she wants another coffee, but she doesn't hear me. She's gazing out of the café window at the rooftops over the road. I can see she is occupied by the bricks and mortar that everyone else in her large circle of friends and acquaintances has been advising her to buy.
I join her in a silent contemplation of this imperative.
Debi Hamilton is a Geelong psychologist, poet and writer.