The sad and lonely decline of an old school journo who died too young

PL on the last days of a broken mate.

A screenshot from the Daily Telegraph’s online obituary. I was so glad to see the old Marcus again.

Forgive me, again, this indulgence. Typing is therapy.

Take two after fixing a mistake in the headline, groan

Sunday, 3.40pm. The shaded courtyard of a Sydney boarding house.

India was flying over in Perth. In Newtown Daniel was bottling beer on a small table outside his room. Woody was sitting on a stool at an identical table outside his. Marcus, emerged from his room, heavy bodied and moving slowly, shuffling his walking frame to the recycle bin. It was part of that slow routine people like him develop, and one people like his neighbours come to know. Vodka bottles, wine bottles, at a ratio of about 1:2. Every couple of days.

Daniel, consumed by his task, doesn’t think he even looked up. Woody is just sitting there, as he is when I visit later the next week. A canopy of trees keeps the space out there cool. It looks like his happy place.

Marcus lingered at the bins and Daniel looked up wondering what was holding him up. He noticed the colour gone from his face, in later years he had a waxy complexion, I’m guessing it was the Estonian blood. His mum was a child refugee after the war, wandering across eastern Europe looking for refuge. He said he was half Irish, but I reckon it was her genes that were strongest.

Woody, a factory worker who struggles to convey himself in English, also noticed Marcus’s pause. Both think he’d got the walking frame tangled, but he freed it, and began to negotiate a painfully slow turn. Marcus was old before his time.

Without warning he tumbled to the ground, his frame going one way, his glasses another, hitting the pavement in front of the two men who sprung into action.

Daniel assumed he’d fainted and together they lifted his heavy frame into a chair. He needed sugar, the home brewer thought to himself, before realising this was more serious. Judy, another resident, was having a shower in the bathroom, he yelled for her and rang 000. If anyone could help she could.

Judy arrived and felt for a pulse, but he didn’t have one.

Marcus Casey, former New York correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and it’s man-about-town reporter for many years, was dead at the age of 58.