Milkshakes
Sunday in Rathdowne Street North
with its wide-verandahed shops
another warm mid-February afternoon;
tether the dog between a plane tree
still in full leaf and a café table,
park that over-heavy handbag of hers
on the third of the metal chairs,
smile at the young waitress
(surely a peachy English rose)
who brings menus and water,
settle in for a slow late lunch.
‘Were you on duty here last Saturday?’
‘First day of the fires, yes, forty-
five degrees at three p.m.,
that was when we closed. And I’m
from England where the sun never shines.
‘I know England,’ I boast, broadening
my acquired Aussie accent.
The cafe kitchen is so slow there’s time
for a quick sortie to Alice’s Bookshop
for a bargain from the kerbside box.
'North Face of Soho', Clive James’s fourth
memoir: the Aussie making good in England
with wisecracks and the lowdown on Grub Street.
The English rose has brought my milkshake,
chosen for nostalgia value. This I’d have,
me in short pants and sandals,
Saturday afternoons, having picked up
from the suburban station platform
(Waterloo, no less!) and lugged
the bundled Wellington 'Evening Post'
to the nearby shop we called the milkbar –
a caramel milkshake my reward.
I never dreamed then there was another
Waterloo Station, somewhat bigger.
The Post carried mainly the sports results.
The last droplets drawn up a straw
reverberate vulgarly in the metal cylinder.
James observes the older he gets
the quicker the onslaught on him
of early memories. What comes back now
is the Hutt Valley’s tame version
of bushfires: the golden gorse-clad hills
(transplants of nostalgic pioneers)
burned most Februaries, doing
little harm. Here the odorous haze
of burned eucalyptus reaches in
from Kinglake to inner-city Carlton.
Wednesday 18 February 2009
Max Richards
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