I
HAVE the misfortune to live in one of the most unfriendly streets in Melbourne.
Sure, we know our neighbours on both sides, and they are both polite and have
been in the house on the odd occasion and they are approachable and make you
feel safe and offer you reassurance that they will help prevent burglary or
arson of your property. However,
oh,
there is the woman across the road who sometimes knocks on our door to bring
food from the church, and she is comforting as well, and she doesn’t have to do
this, and she seems to like us,
there
is also the small matter of the people down the road a bit, on the corner
opposite who run a small business, and work incredibly long hours and are never
home. We visited once when we had the fanciful notion that we might get to know
the people in our street when we purchased our house. We had a lovely time,
they were in good spirits, I think it was around Christmas, at any rate a rare
day off for them but I don’t think they have had a day off since, we never see
them,
well
anyway I walk up and down the street a lot to catch the bus that runs down the
busy street at the end of our street. I walk up the street most mornings at
about 7:30 and I walk down the street most nights around 5:00. I rarely see
anyone. All the houses are like the houses in the Ray Bradbury story I’ve just
read- The Pedestrian- where everyone is shut up inside watching television, and
grass f=grows on the footpaths and there’s never a soul around because walking’s
not the done thing to do,
and
I know that people do still walk. I’ve seen this happen in other streets, even
close by here. As I said I walk up and down a lot and never see anyone. Even worse,
some of the paths are obscured because of low hanging branches from overgrown
trees in people’s untidy backyards. There is rubbish on people’s lawns and
cracks in the pavements and many of the houses have a kind of dishevelled look
that doesn’t inspire confidence. And when there is no house with a jungle in
the front yard and depressing overhanging branches, it’s an ugly block of flats
that have sprung up everywhere like mushrooms and you can’t help but think of
twenty or thirty closed doors instead of just one, and how people in the flats
are probably suspicious of each other and have never been in each other’s
lounge…
we
have quite a wide street here, bookended at both ends by a busy road. We have,
potentially, as the Irish might say, quite a grand spot. It could be a lovely
street. As I said it is quite wide, and it is set back a bit from either end of
the busy streets, and there are a few houses that are quite lovely to look at,
the one next door in particular that should be heritage listed. But it is those
damn front doors that are perpetually closed, those shutters that block out any
light, those people on the other side who stick to themselves and don’t want to
know you, or slip in and out like they worry they’re under some sort of surveillance.
There are even kids across the road, and I’m not exaggerating if I say it seems
like we’re invisible. There’s no curiosity, no warmth, no interest. You feel
like ringing door bells to shake them out of their slumber. This is not what I bargained
for. I dreamt. Of….
street
parties. We all go to Dan Murphy around the corner. We congregate in the middle
of the street and the police block off the road. Everyone wears some sort of
funny hat and each of us has a book under our arm, or have a funny story to
tell. There is a little microphone set up where you can share your story. People
even sing, like they do in Ireland. Someone has a machine that’s got a backing
track. You all belong. You all share something important. You are all members
of the same street. You feel free, and comfortable, and you launch into ‘Bridge
Over Troubled Water’, and the lovely woman across the road sings ‘You’re My
World’, and the older one you know already from Lebanon knows some Lebanese music
and that’s great, and the students you didn’t even know about are interested in
the ARIA’s and you learn something new, and there’s even a Doors fan somewhere e=down
the road, and you chat, just the two of you, for two hours about each other’s
collection, and you are in a world of your own before you slip back into
consciousness and get to know more kindred spirits, other people who have been
transported mysteriously to your street just like you have. Towards the end of
the night. No-one wants to leave. People pair off-
not
in that sort of way. The ones who like poetry talk more in the encroaching
shadows. There are two or three plumbers who promise to share each other’s
tools, the two mechanics query each other over the size of their garage. Two
men and two women from separate houses have all been jilted by somebody and
never knew that they weren’t actually quite alone. Then there’s the kids. They might
be friends for eternity. Any spare time they have in the future will be spent
doing unfashionable things, like playing cricket or Cluedo, or ‘hit the gutter’
or four square at each other’s houses, and suddenly the iPad or the Nintendo
will gather dust and won’t be used again. One day,
everyone
will decide one street party every now and then isn’t enough, and these people
won’t even feel they need to know anyone from the outside world. The houses are
never sold, so none of them are turned into flats. Maybe, just maybe, the
people in the existing flats might be invited. It might take years, but people
will start trading and bartering and grow shared crops. Doors will remain open
at all times. There will be no overgrown weeds and overhanging branches. Front fences
will be torn down just because it is easier. And milestones and big news items
will be shared and celebrated and there might be a big cricket match like the
one in the novel ‘The Go Between’ and romances will occur, harmony maintained,
and animals and birds will share the common humanity. Right now though,
I
will wake up tomorrow, leave the house, the street will be silent and creepy, with
not even a Boo Radley anywhere about, people will go about their business in
the safety of their homes, those wandering about, few and far between, will
have their heads bowed, and I will try one last time, because I can be
incredibly patient, to catch the eye and smile at the guy who I see standing at
the same bus stop every morning, catching the same bus.