Kew

 

Turning out of the Monastery at 4 in the afternoon, I walk downhill towards the tram stop on the other side of the river. I let go of library plans and turn to thinking serendipitously. The air is fresh, there is a large blue sky, and the entire city skyline is visible beneath overhanging trees. Since the pedestrian bridge reopened in December, this is my preferred walk after work. The streets are quiet on this side of the Studley Park maze; someone is tending their native garden, a solitary van turns the corner to deliver its parcel. Houses above the river tell the history of Kew. Post-Federation deco residences stare out across Richmond. Mid-century apartments, called units in those days, are blocked in here and there. Architects’ dreams have replaced many of the foregoing, their abstract geometries of glass, steel, and timber a thrill to the eye behind bending eucalypts immeasurably high, peppercorns and jacarandas. ‘Yes’ posters are still affixed to certain picket fences. A Xavier boy rambles across the street and through a side gate. I wonder what it would be like to live in some of these homes. The footpath, uprooted and re-concreted in parts, leads me and my thoughts about random relevancies to the edge of the Park. I must watch for bicyclists, who will appear at intensive speed zipping downhill to the footbridge. Workmen have repainted the white line for left and right, but it is still every individual for themselves as our human world suddenly divides into the courteous and the get-out-of-my-way-I’m-coming-through. Signage leans to the courteous side. The greens and browns of grass and tree rise up on every side of my sight as I enter the walkway down to the bridge. I marvel at the view of countless units, which today are called apartments, clustering all along the bank on the Burnley side, obscuring the Skipping Girl neon. And against all expectation, along a long side of the hard meander of the Yarra, the Studley Park Vineyard comes bristling into view, waiting for the next flood, the closest vineyard to the city of Melbourne. The results may be purchased at Leo’s near Kew Junction at an interesting price; not, I reflect, a Doherty $20 special. The sun shines on the brown river as the sound underfoot changes from footpath to bridge planks and a bicycle does a marimba. A rowing eight slides below, the cox bleating repeats. I walk up to the jumbling sounds of tram and truck and traffic that is Victoria Street, knowing the next part of the day is now beginning. There are dinner ingredients to buy, a New Yorker article half-read, news to tap up on my phone, as I step onto the next tram with the rest of the human race: Myki rebels, intensities on laptops, a cat lady and her trolley, Vietnamese shoppers from Victoria Gardens, tradies in orange and yellow, a gaggle of Genazzano girls, druggies who don’t keep their thoughts to themselves, tourists in unknown languages …