Limpid Days

Even here in Redfern, you can smell the salt air some nights; drifting in from the sea, the string of golden beaches that thread down the coast; the cliffs, the shallows, the rock pools, the fishermen; and little villages along the coast. Except Sydney has spread everywhere now, and what was isolated only 30 years ago are now opening into suburbs, the prices of land and houses spiralling, and old generation made rich, late in life. The absolute beauty of the coastline; strung out not just in dreams but in haunted moments, in long walks, in lonely toilet blocks and surfers shacks, eoncompassed by the ever creeping walls of brick houses; the metallic glint of cars, the squal of kids.

They went up the mountain and barely came down. Looking at the high altitude treks on Project Himalaya. Thirty days. $US2000. In the long days, in the long ways, in the mystery caverns, when a chronological order to cascades of experience, all these things would help. All is not cosy in Stephen's household. Long awkward silences. I need a bolt hole, between work and home; just to take a minute to himself. Is that such a bad thing? So he went and walked out and thought: you could cut the air with a knife.

Location, location; there in the heart of poofterville; as they called it themselves. I always imagined I would live here, he said, swishing a hand; and I watched on. The world was so straight now. He saw them pasty faced in the morning waiting to score, Thursday payday, pension day; white faced and puffy, furtive, moving fast, skinny, frantic. And he walked past in an ironed shirt and new pants, a tie and a new jumper. You looking at something mate? One of them snarled. You're not Sox, are you? I asked. No, he said. Sorry, you look like someone I used to know, I said. Those long lost furtive days in the back of Newtown. Those nights when their fragile despair descended into intoxicating patterns. Not all was lost; but much had drifted away.