Tales of Sydney Road

This is not the tale I wanted to tell about Sydney Road, a road so full of places and stories. 

I wanted to write about how I first met Vince there, and we rode the trams up and down, visiting the Mediterranean, a walk into Italy with the glasses, tins, bottles, breads, cheeses and cakes thrilling the eye. Next door is Franco Cozzo, the legendary furniture shop (of Bruns-a-wick and Foot-a-scray). Opposite is the recently established emporium of Mariana Hardwick, the palace of dreams. We had lunch at A1 Bakery, a walk into Lebanon. He pressed my fingers when we said goodbye and I liked him for that.

I wanted to write about the Sydney Road Street Party, when the street is closed and there are stalls and tables promoting all manner of groups. Vince calls it the boulevard of lost causes. Perhaps that is true in the case of the IWW (Wobblies) who are still present there, however I hope it is not true of climate action, zero carbon, green and other passionate groups.

I wanted to write about the frisson of the underworld, with locations where gangland reprisals have taken place in broad daylight. And the stern black walls of Pentridge, once a prison, now a housing development, but still full of ghosts and secrets.

But instead we all write and think about a young woman, brutally taken from Sydney Road. Tens of thousands of people have walked down Sydney Road today to remember her. Outside the shop where she was last seen, flowers cover the footpath.

Every now and then, evil breaks forth. In the desert, in the jungle, from behind white lace curtains. Just when we think we are safe and comfortable in a suburb that seems tamed, in buildings that seem like home, in steets and laneways where we think we know each other. No matter how often we look over our shoulder, it is lurking.

Next time another newcomer comes down this trapdoor into Melbourne, this tale of sorrow will brush past their subconscious, like a fleeting reflection in a window. Alongside the other shadows of hope, struggle, and irretrievable loss.