I left home at 9am to ride my bike to (Name of street) Albert Park to sign the documentation with the solicitor for mum’s probate. I had to be there by 10am.
I text Rachel and asked her how long she thought it would take.
“Three days,” she replied.
She can be so helpful sometimes but, I guess, it was a stupid question to begin with. Why would she know how long it would take me to ride my bike? I laughed at myself getting cranky with her answer.
I rode through Jolimont, and the trees and the parks and the gorgeous architecture, down passed the tennis centre. I headed over the Swan Street Bridge and then across the corner of parkland on the edge of the botanic gardens, which is all kind of bike friendly.
I joined the bike track on St Kilda Road, which was busy with bikes.
When I looked at the map, before I left, I decided I could go down Albert Street, or Park Street. I was doing okay until I cut down Dorcas Street and forgot about Kingsway. Sudden, I was stopped at the beast that is Kingsway – the snarling, spitting, convulsing jam of traffic and drivers. There was another bike rider struggling across the multitude of lanes and the sunken tram tacks. I headed to the lights, I’m not so stupid as to try and tackle all of that.
Then it was plain sailing down the wide, and mostly deserted, footpaths of Park Street, after that. It is quite lovely riding places in the morning, along wide footpaths, under Victorian shop verandas.
I got to Albert Park at 9.30am, it took only half an hour. It is not that far really, it is just one inner suburb to another.
The receptionist and the law clerk seemed to be impressed with me riding. As I said, it isn’t really that far. They got me water to drink and weren’t at all concerned about my bike being in reception.
(Solicitor) said, “You must be fitter than me to have ridden that far.” He turned and I followed him to his office, in his dingy pale green rooms in Albert Park. He looked stooped over and with his grey hair he seemed like an old man. I’m sure he went to uni with (my sister), which makes him a year older than me.
He got me to swear on a bible. He asked me if I had any objections before I did. “As I am an atheist, it means nothing to me, just one of many books of fiction you could use,” I said. “So no, I have no objections.”
He agreed.
It didn’t take long. Checking that all the t’s were crossed and all the i’s were dotted.
It was a gorgeous day out in (Name of street), as I text Jill to see what she was doing.
“Come over now,” she responded. She was leaving for Sydney at 12.30pm but she was doing nothing until then.
I told her I’d be there in 10 minutes when I was at number 1 Queens Road. That was somewhat ambitious, as it turned out. How far is it down Queens Road, I thought, as I peddled along the footpath? I am not stupid enough to ride on Queens Road. There were interesting back streets to cut through, when Queens Road headed down into the under pass, before it turned into Dandenong Road, where there was no provision for bikes. I had to go over the top, across country. You see much more when you ride places, or catch public transport, or walk. But today I was riding.
Jill was standing at the end of (name of street), waiting, watching, as I’d taken longer than 10 minutes. “Yes, sorry about that, my 10 minutes was a little ambitious.”
We drank tea and chatted. She was heading to Sydney at 12.30pm to be with her sister Elly as Mark, Elly’s husband, has his second round of chemo. His lymphoma has spread, to varying places in his body including behind his eye. (He's most likely not going to make it) Jill is going to comfort her sister through the treatment.
We ate pesto pasta for lunch, Jill cooked. Jill looked surprised when I said that I don’t really enjoy driving any more. Me? The car fanatic.
“It is the traffic that I don’t enjoy,” I said. “It is getting worse and worse and worse.”
“I know,” said Jill. “I don’t really know how we keep getting awarded the most liveable city, the traffic is just terrible.”
“I blame all the apartments that are springing up everywhere,” I said. “Short sighted governments. I can hear it now, them saying in 10 years time, we really got that wrong.”
“Sadly, I think you are right.”
Jill had bought a new printer, of course she did, which I helped her get out of the car and set up, just before (name of friend) came and picked her up at 12.30pm, right on the dot.
I headed over to the cemetery, just over Dandenong Road, to see my great grandmother, to see she was still in her grave. It all looked kind of different and I wondered how I found her last time, even if it was 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago. Nothing looked familiar. I rode around and then headed back to the front gate. One thing, it was clear that they are not ripping people out of the ground, judging by the dilapidated state of all of the clearly old graves. There was a guy by the front gate who directed me towards a number to call to find out where loved ones were located. I called the number to find out where she is.
“What is her family name?”
“(family name).”
“Her first name?”
“(first name).”
“I’m sorry but there is nobody by that name,” said the nice lady on the other end of the phone. “Are you sure that is her name?”
Momentarily, I doubted myself. Is that her name? Have I got her name wrong? No. That is her name. (name). “Yes, I am sure that is her name.” I thought for a minute…
“Did she die in 1919?”
“Yes, I think she did.”
“She is in the Brighton Cemetery.”
“Yes, I am standing in the Brighton Cemetery.”
“No,” said the nice lady on the other end of the phone. “You are in the St Kilda Cemetery.”
She is in Brighton Cemetery, on the corner of Hawthorn Road and North Road. The cemetery on Dandenong Road is the St Kilda Cemetery. Oops. Now that I think of it, I think I have done that before, got the two confused.
I headed home down Williams Road. I came off my bike for the first time, well, technically it is the second time, although that was so long ago and on my old bike, and I hardly remember it. I was looking at the houses on the other side of Williams road, and there was a tree on the footpath with a deep recessed garden bed. My front tyre went down into the garden bed, I went sideways and speared off head first into the sharp corner of a red brick building right on the street. My head hit the very corner of the bricks, luckily, I wasn’t going very fast, and just as lucky I was wearing a helmet. (except that I always wear a helmet) I wasn’t hurt, I was taken by surprise though. If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet, I don’t know what would have happened to my head. Crash! Just like that. And even though I wasn’t going really fast, it happened quickly, or at least, happened with an unstoppable momentum.
I came down Williams Road passed Royal South Yarra and I thought of Peter Morrison. Up the back behind Royal South Yarra that is where he took me to molest me that night. I’d never been able to work out where that was in more recent years, there never seemed to be vacant land behind Royal South Yarra. I guess, there has been much development since then. So long ago, I remember it as if it were yesterday.
I rode around a bit further to turn onto Alexandra Avenue and head for home. I went to turn too soon (I looked it up later) into Williams Road North… no, that is not right. This is where we came to that car show, in the park in between the two streets, with Rachel when we had only just got Buddy. Alexandra Avenue is the next turn.
Oh? Um? Hang on a bit? That park? There is a hill behind it where it goes up to higher ground. What is up there? That looks like… it has been developed recently, beautified. I rode up the path to the higher park. There were three schoolboys, two were shirtless and wrestling each other, I had no idea why. I rode away from them. Is this what I thought was the vacant land behind Royal South Yarra? It could be? If it was, it would have an entrance way from Williams Road North. It did. This is it. I started taking photos, just as a keepsake. As I clicked my camera, I could see the schoolboys were changing into their sports outfits (out in the open, I have no idea why?)… then it dawned on me what I was doing, or, at least, what it looked like I was doing. I laughed. I quickly thought that nobody else would be laughing. I slid my phone back into my pocket. This is where Peter Morrison bought me to molest me as a 13 year old, and here I was taking photos, inadvertently as it was, of schoolboys changing. A man taking photos… I shook my head. I cut my train of thought, turned my bike around and peddled out of there. Was it irony, I thought? No, not irony, but kind of weird in a cosmic sort of way. I turned right into Alexandra Parade and headed for home.
I had ridden up and around that park before, I couldn’t remember if I’d recognised it as “the place” the previous time I’d been there. I couldn’t remember. But I don’t think so, as it was as if I was seeing it for the first time. It was all falling into place as if it was for the first time. All I really remember from years before was that it was dark and that there was a kind of steep driveway and that we looked out over city lights, or something like that. I don’t remember any other details.
I rode around the Yarra to home. It was a glorious day. The sun shone. The sky was blue.
I got home at 2.30pm. I’d been gone 5 hours. Errands done, lunch eaten, and a trip down memory lane.
I sat out the back with Milo and wrote on my computer for the rest of the afternoon.
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