A Month of Sundays Read online

So this was my chance to break those patterns, to go places I had never been before and explore them, like Marco Polo and Vasco da Gama and Captain Cook had before me. Well, not quite like them, because they went places that no one had ever been before, whereas we were just going to go to places that we hadn’t been before and, okay,maybe exploring different areas of the city in which we’d lived for many years wasn’t quite as exciting as travelling halfway around the world and discovering new continents and civilisations and bringing back gunpowder and beef and black bean sauce and whatever else Marco Polo brought back, but the point was that we would be exploring— seeing new things, breaking patterns and, most importantly, getting away from those loud bastards with their drills and their radios.

  And the other important point was that in accepting this idea I had stopped panicking about the builders and the impact they were going to have on my life and now had at least an illusion of control. That was very important.

  That night we made a list of places to go. We agreed that we should ease into it. Or at least I insisted. Whereas we planned to normally only go to places neither of us had been to before or knew much about, our first destination was familiar. Bronte Park.

  The next morning the demolition continued so we had no trouble motivating ourselves to get going. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for property developers, but there must be an anxious period when the first thing you do after buying a very expensive asset is destroy it. After just one day the nice family home Ivan had bought looked like something out of a war zone. In real estate talk, ‘A Little Bit of Beirut in the East.’

  Bronte Park is at Bronte Beach. Unlike most beachside parks, which are merely strips of grass that separate road and sand, it’s a huge green expanse that eventually thins into a tree-lined gorge and runs deep back into the suburb. At the south end of the park—and the beach—are what used to be the Bronte shops and are now the Bronte cafés. Ten years ago there was the normal variety of suburban shops, newsagent, greengrocer, mini-mart, etc. One by one they all became cafés. There are eight in a row, with a fish and chippery at the end thrown in for variety. It’s an indication that Bronte—like all Sydney’s eastern suburbs beaches—is now primarily for visitors.

  I couldn’t help feeling for the locals. The only way to buy milk at the Bronte shops now is to order a cold flat white without the coffee, and if you need some bread you have to either order a goat’s cheese, asparagus and prosciutto focaccia without the goat’s cheese, asparagus and prosciutto, or nick half a slice of sourdough from someone who hasn’t quite finished their scrambled eggs with the lot.

  What makes Bronte so beautiful is the way the park and beach connect. At Bondi there is a beautiful park and a beautiful beach, which are for some reason separated by an ugly carpark. To get from the grass and the playground to the sand you have to look to your left, look to your right, then look to your left again. Not having to do that ups the relaxation factor considerably. There is plenty of parking at Bronte but it’s tucked out of the way.

  While the visitor population is high on weekends, locals do exist and this morning one particular variety was in abundance— the sixty-something newly retired ocker male. There were a couple of dozen of them spread around, none wearing anything other than Speedos, and all with those impossible beer guts that are attached to otherwise fit-looking bodies and seeming as if they have no right to be there. They appear affixed in the same way as a grass catcher is to a lawnmower, and it would be no surprise to see someone whip his off and empty the contents (presumably 15 litres of VB) into the bin.

  They lie in groups in the sun and all talk a bit louder than necessary, as people who reckon they own the joint do. Even though we had just emerged from winter, they were already ridiculously brown, with skin the colour and texture of desert boots.

  One was talking to a similarly aged German woman whose English wasn’t all that good.

  ‘WE CALL THEM THONGS,’ he shouted, pointing to his footwear. ‘NOT FLIP-FLOPS. NONOEY. YES. THONGS. GOOD FOR THE SHOWER. YES?’

  The woman looked nervous. I wondered if I should go over and explain that his shouting wasn’t meant to be aggressive, just slightly patronising. But she probably wouldn’t understand me either, and I’d end up shouting too. Then she’d be doubly nervous.

  ‘THANK YOU FOR SUCH KIND OFFER,’ she replied, just as loudly, ‘BUT I HAVE SHOWER AT HOME. I WILL HAVE SHOWER ALONE. NOT WITH YOU. THANK YOU.’

  ‘NO. I DIDN’T MEAN . . . AHHH!’ and with that frustrated sound he threw his arms up, turned on his heel and strode off with a peculiar legs-tied-together-with-an-invisible-rope-so-can-only-take-very-small-steps gait.

  We picked a spot in the grass under a tree on a bank, just high enough that we could see the sea. Bibi explored the vicinity. A guy played guitar under another tree. At first it seemed idyllic, but then I noticed he kept looking around and I worried he might be the world’s worst-located busker. There’s not much passing traffic in a big fat park on a Tuesday morning.

  Up the north end of the park near the swings and playgrounds were the mums and bubs. They hunt in packs, the mums, up to fifteen clustered tight in picnic circles, with three-wheeled racing prams strategically placed covered-wagon-style around the outside in case of attack. Around lunchtime a couple of dads arrived from the office, one going so far as to remove his tie for 23 minutes of quality time before the free enterprise system claimed him back.

  Bibi and I escorted Lucy to the seawater pool, which looked inviting but felt freezing. After dipping her toe in, then pulling it out very quickly, Lucy would have changed her mind—but luckily, when in the car she had recklessly declared she was going to go for a swim, I had had the foresight to cement her bold declaration into a 50-cent bet. She was trapped.

  In the time it took her to descend three steps to be waist deep, a local had stripped off, got in and swum five laps at the sort of pace that would have had him being overtaken by a floating twig. When Lucy was rib deep he was onto lap eight.

  ‘Look, Beeb, there’s Mummy shivering.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘It’s easier if you just jump straight in, you know.’

  ‘It might also be easier if you jammed one of my sandals into your mouth.’

  ‘Hey, it’s only 50 cents.’

  But she hadn’t heard. As if I had become Laurie Lawrence, my words had motivated action beyond normal human capabilities. She had dived in. I looked at the old local, now halfway down lap nine. He had a big start, but Luce was fired up. She’d catch him in minutes. She’d zoom up and down and . . .

  ‘Okay. Pay up.’

  Lucy was beside me, shaking and covered in towel. She had virtually teleported onto the edge of the pool, so fast had she got out.

  When she stopped shaking, we wandered back up the park past the little train that ran round a 100-metre track in the park. It was packed away this day in a little train-shaped house. We sat down and I lay back and thought how brilliantly clever I had been to escape the builders. All right, how brilliantly clever we had been. Okay, Lucy had been. But I’d agreed.

  I thought about the importance of peace and quiet for mental health, how necessary it was to . . . WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?

  An engine.

  A really loud engine.

  So loud you had to shout your thoughts to hear them inside your head.

  What, had they followed us here? Was the demolishing of number eighteen merely a cover to hide their real aim of driving us mad? I looked up. No planes. Then around. No tractors, no cars, no lawnmowers. There! A leafblower. A guy from the council with a leafblower. A really loud leafblower. And he knew it was loud too. That’s why he had earmuffs on.

  The train of thoughts flowing through my mind was instantly replaced by the repeating loop of This leafblower is really loud, I hope it stops soon, I wonder if, after he does this path, he’s going to do that other path. This leafblower is really loud, I hope it stops soon, I wonder if, after he does this path, he’s going
to do that other path. This leafblower is . . .

  The quiet was gone. The peace was gone. I wondered why no one had been able to invent something that did what a leafblower did but was quiet. Then I realised they had. It’s called a broom and it’s not only quieter but cheaper, easier to carry and environmentally friendlier. And brooms don’t break down. But they do take just a little bit of effort to operate and that, obviously, disqualifies them as suitable council equipment.

  ‘Owwwhhhh,’ I said.

  Lucy was strangely unperplexed.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s just cleaning the paths.’

  ‘But it’s so loud.’ I got out my phone. ‘I’m going to ring the council and complain.’

  ‘Don’t ring the council.’

  ‘The council are supposed to be making our lives better, not worse. If he had a broom, he could do exactly the same thing, except it’d be quiet and he’d be getting some exercise which would be good for him. I’m ringing them.’

  I started dialling.

  ‘They’ll think you’re a nut.’

  I stopped dialling. She was right. I didn’t want to be that crazy guy who hates leafblowers. Leafblowers are probably part of world’s best practice. Perhaps there’s an occupational health and safety regulation prohibiting brooms as being needlessly wearing to backs and shoulders.

  I sighed.

  ‘Do you reckon this is some sort of conspiracy?’ I said.

  three

  two jewels in legoland

  That night when I got home, number eighteen was nearly completely gone. It had deteriorated from a little bit of Beirut in the east to a ruin you could use as a setting for the battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan 2: Return to France. It must be the fun part, demolishing. I’d paid 50 cents once at a school fete for 60 seconds in which I could do whatever I wanted to an old car with a sledgehammer. Even though all the good bits such as the windscreen, dashboard and engine had already been thoroughly smashed in and all I managed was to bash fairly unspectacularly at a door, denting it slightly, it was still fun. And next door they were getting paid for it. I should have volunteered.

  I wondered if demolishers ever got the wrong address.

  ‘Oh, that’s a five. Yes, I see now. Sorry, it sort of looked like a seven, see. Um, we’ll get that front wall of your house back up as soon as we can. Although we’ve got a bit on at the moment.’

  On day two at 9 a.m. we arrived at Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is a mass of walkways, harbour strolls, parks, restaurants, bars, playgrounds, movie theatres and spaces built around a harbour. It was created as a leisure, culture and business area in the 1980s by the New South Wales state government on the site of the old Sydney wharves. Everything is bright, colourful, shiny and new. All the bits fit together properly and everything works. You can walk in the sun near the water, there’s a playground for the kids, a park to have lunch in and lots of quick places to have a bite or a drink. It’s got everything except character.

  Darling Harbour looks as if it has been assembled from an Ikea kit. It’s what would happen if Starbucks went into harbourside recreation areas. It has all the individuality and local character of a McDonald’s and you can’t help but suspect that there are hundreds of identical Darling Harbours spread around the world.

  The fact that it just sprang up from a demolition site means that it is primarily a place of commerce, not life. No one lives there. No one has been going there for years. There are no regulars, except a few who drift down from the city during corporate lunchtime. In its many cafés, restaurants and shops you can be assured of efficient service, but don’t expect to get chatting to any of the staff. They’re there to do a job. So is Darling Harbour.

  So we weren’t going to visit Darling Harbour. We were going to walk through it to reach the two jewels that lie within.

  The first is the Chinese Gardens. I had walked past the gardens a hundred times and never thought of going in. On Wednesday 3 September, we went in.

  ‘Why pay four bucks to walk through a garden, Chinese or otherwise?’ I commented.

  ‘We’ll see when we get in,’ replied Lucy.

  ‘Gardens are everywhere. There’s one outside our back door. And if that’s not big enough, what about the Botanic Gardens? They’re free. And they’ve got a harbour view.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re entering into the spirit of this properly.’

  So we went. We paid our money and stepped inside and within minutes I realised four bucks was a bargain.

  Officially it is the Chinese Garden of Friendship, brought to us by Sydney’s Chinese sister city, Guangzhou. Paths wind around a lake, through trees to elegant Chinese pavilions, places perfect for sitting and not thinking about anything at all. Waterfalls cascade over rocks into lagoons. Somehow each pond, each bridge, each willow tree, each lotus plant is in exactly the right spot. None dominate, all combine to create tranquillity. It is like being in a float tank with a view.

  We sat and watched the lake for a while, then explored the many paths that led around corners and past rocks to hidden pavilions or nooks. The gardens slope upwards at the back and paths wind their way through clumps of trees to emerge at the top next to a waterfall overlooking the lake.

  At the top of the garden I was reminded by an incongruous glimpse of skyscraper between trees that we were in the middle of a city, but its hustle and bustle seemed a million miles away.

  The gardens are so well set out that even with lots of visitors, there’s plenty of room to find your own little sitting space. There’s a display of bonsai trees, which made even Bibi feel tall. Or would have if the peace of the place hadn’t persuaded her to sleep within a few minutes. Lucy and I had been having an argument as we arrived but we forgot what it was about. I still can’t remember. All I know is that I was right.

  Some of the visitors were obviously tourists, but others looked as though they had come in just to sit and read a book for a bit. Or just sit. I know someone who worked in the money market, doing a highly paid job I don’t understand, who said he had to factor in a one-hour massage each day as part of his work routine to cope with stress. The Chinese Gardens would have been cheaper and just as effective.

  The whole picture created a sense of safety and harmony. Doctors and bosses who detect signs of insecurity or paranoia in patients or staff should write out a prescription for the Chinese Gardens. If you’re sick of being alert and alarmed, go.

  You can even dress up in traditional Chinese dress for a photo. I know that sounds tacky, but the nine-year-olds love it and somehow it doesn’t look tacky, just sweet. I don’t know if Sydney has returned the favour to Guangzhou and designed an ‘Aussie Gardens’ there, but if we have I’d love to see the Chinese nine-year-olds dressed in stubbies, tank tops and cork hats.

  The paths eventually converge on the Chinese teahouse. It’s a welcome contrast to other Darling Harbour eating spots. It doesn’t gleam but it’s clean, it fits into its environment and those who work there don’t look like unemployed models or have attitude to match. And the pork buns are good.

  We emerged as you might from the surf, refreshed and ready for whatever was next, which happened to be the other jewel within Darling Harbour, Sydney Aquarium. Entertainment fun-complex thingys such as aquariums, fun parks, and places that have ‘world’ as the last part of their name (‘Dream . . .’, ‘Sea . . .’, ‘Movie . . .’) are always a gamble. They cost a CD to get into and you can’t tell before you pay whether they are going to contain a day’s worth of pleasure or just a lot of long queues for things that aren’t really worth the wait. Unlike in shops, you don’t get to see the goods before you buy. And we’re hoodwinked by memory into thinking they’re fantastic. I remember from childhood the thrilling big dipper, the amazing wildcat ride and the rush of fun and fear as the fabulous river jet tipped over the edge and flew me down a near-vertical waterfall. But I’ve forgotten how long I had to wait to get a go on them, and whether I left Luna Park, the Easter Show or Sea World thinking that
I’d had a fantastic time or that there had been seven seconds of thrilling fun interrupting a day that was otherwise hot, crowded and boring.

  Like the Chinese Gardens, the aquarium doesn’t impress from the outside. There’s no smiling giant octopus beckoning you in. It’s a plain white rectangular warehouse that looks as if it might be full of shipping containers.

  But inside, you forget about Darling Harbour and builders and bills and what was on the telly last night, because of the openmouthed fascination the fish provoke. It’s better than art. Like the gardens, the aquarium removes, or at least hides, life’s cares. The gardens do it by provoking relaxation. The aquarium uses awe.

  For example, the seal tank. It’s huge. You can look from above and see the seals splashing and flopping, or sunning themselves on a rock and shoving their tummies at the sun. Those sunning themselves look like the locals at Bronte, lazing and stretching about as if they own the place. They even have the beer guts.

  Down below we strolled along a glass-covered walkway 2 metres below water level that led right through the middle of the tank, and saw seals swimming next to and above us. Their awkwardness on land was replaced underwater by a zooming, swooping grace. They did somersaults and leapt into the air, and looked to be having the best time in the world.

  I wondered, though, if they were just making the best of it. The only difference between aquariums (and zoos) and jails is that animals are supposed to be so dumb they either don’t mind or don’t notice living in a cage. The aquarium is such a feel-good place and creates so much enjoyment for us humans that I desperately hoped we hadn’t underestimated how smart the animals were and how pissed off it might be making them.

  There’s no noticeable sign of misery, though, unless leaping out of the water and doing underwater somersaults are a seal’s cry for help. They don’t look bored or stir crazy. Watching them swimming and sunning themselves made me wonder which species really had it all worked out. Obviously we’re smarter and more advanced—seals haven’t even invented the telephone. So why do we spend so much time wishing we were doing what they do? Where did we go wrong? One day, one of us got sick of carrying heavy stuff around and invented the wheel and the next thing you know we’ve got traffic jams and road rage.