Centuries Past

Set the scene.
         A number of weeks past since last meeting, the second of three in total.
         On that occasion she had been included in a group outing to neighbouring Footscray. Hardly an event by most measures.
         Granted the strong, spicy coffee at the East African cafe was a nice treat.
         Did we also share a muffin between the four of us?
         That was the extent it.
         The first meeting she had been received into the house for what was a brief visit, a cup of tea.
         The entire sum of the acquaintance up until yesterday’s chance encounter.
         Surprise on both sides.
         The hand extended was clasped in both of hers and the shaking led on her side. On both sides tumbling, inadequate words, impossible to recall because of what came next.
         Her hair carried some minor colour highlights, delicate and attractive, in a kind of mop-top that was common among Japanese women, both young and middle aged.
         This thick, full bouffant shook as she bowed her head following the hand-shaking.
         Almost certainly her chin reached her collar-bone.
         For a couple of seconds the head remained locked down—the time it took the hair to come to rest. Or did she in fact quiver all through the bowing?
         A warm, flushed glow, shining eyes, smiling on raising. Simple courtesy, grateful acknowledgement and nothing else.
         How can you not love the Japanese? (Forget the authority culture, patriarchal oppression carried in the genes and the rest.)

Measured Allure

Such an impossibly perfect length judged to perfection by the lovely passing on the arm of her boy—the fork of the trunk, the central lodestone, a whisper away with every flutter, every thrust along the pavement. Eternal waves lapping the rocks, gently battering the brain. Monitoring along the way in the windows just to make sure, to keep a lid on it. Pleated denim calibrated not simply for the dead weight of fabric, but the see-saw rise, quiver and fall in motion too along the paving stones. How did she do it, so young and guileless? From his vantage the lad was missing the action entirely.

Stones

The sale not come off this afternoon at Canturi corner jewellers. At the table with the oval mirror providing additional angles and facets, the two dames had the customer over a barrel. Fingers back-stretched and curling on the black felt created a dance of jewel-light. Ineffective in this instance. 
         Coming out the door lady gives herself a low smile at the trap avoided. 
         Added lamps not apparent in that glowing corner; recessed spots somewhere. 
         High backed chairs. Measured insets in the wall. 
         One and a half metre chandelier that is too broad for the room, especially given the low ceiling. 
         The door requires a bell for admittance, the size of lock audible in the tight, vacuum close. 
         Days past numerous suspicious glances have been cast in the direction of the unshaved observer casing the joint. Not in evidence today: positively angelic Come hither glances at the panama and knitted tee. (The usual Bonds does ring alarm bells in these quarters.) 
         A dozen bulbs emitting candle-light absorbed by the dark panelling and black furniture. 
         Carpet was a field of virgin snow. 
         Later the shiny-headed former rowdy boy who gains admittance with his wife knows to bow in thanks.
         Dumb-show street theatre better than the paying kind, Café e Cucina affording front row seat. (Greek emigrant from the sixties struck it lucky there.)

Entrained

The three am goods train seemed to pass hard against the house this morning, the gap between a kind of funnel that sucked the roar directly through the walls. Everything was child’s scale: the leaping side of the passing beast, the funnel of the street, the vulnerable house. Adding to the helplessness were the detonations. (Surely Arthur can’t be right about the warnings to the workmen up the line. It seems it is only the train in the middle of the night that carries that accompaniment.)

Following fuller wakefulness, another industrial-like blast a little distance off. Escaping steam it might have been. 

With the repetition it was clear it was the possum in a kind of undertone, snorting a casual warning, or mating was it? This was far from the fierce, hellish battle-cry that we have become used to through the summer. And no clambering recently, either along the side of the house or over the roof.

Last night for an earlier train the diesel hung heavy in the air a long while after it had passed. Sometimes on a Sunday the steam engine still comes by. 

Heavily loaded wagons rocking over the sleepers make the glass in the windows vibrate on that side of the house. The train to Adelaide is sometimes shunted through Newport and passes. 

Interesting to note, guests in the house settle to the ruckus after even a single night. We have more or less domesticated our train.

Years ago Neda from around in the next street threw herself under the wheels, as Babi too had thought to do once or twice back in the early days.