Part 1
‘Studley’, our holiday home, stood at the end of a long sandy coloured gravel driveway that stretched from black wrought iron gates to a dark dingy asbestos garage at the rear. Amidst ti- tree scrub and a carpet of neatly trimmed buffalo grass this fibro-cement beach shack, painted the palest of green with faded crimson corrugated iron roof and trims modestly stood with windows placed high enough to exclude the peering eyes of eager children. Studley bore witness to generations of memories, not least 42 years of the Dyer family. Studley was cluttered and comfortable. Walking from the sturdy front door directly into the rectangular lounge, first and foremost was the billiard table that dominated the room. Its wooden cover doubled as a ping-pong table, the net and bats residing in the sideboard along wit s]the scrabble set and chalk for the billiard cues. Typically buried beneath orange floral patchwork plastic cloth, flanked by an assortment of chairs and a settee, and at one end a red brick fireplace. The house was really a hodge podge of rooms with beds stuffed into every nook and cranny.
Studley became synonymous with Easter. Often coinciding with the first cold burst after summer ti tree logs were excitedly thrown on the open fireplace — its capacity for melting marsh mellows far out striping any capacity to heat the poorly insulated home. As winter progressed and the temperature outside hovered above that of the inside, we would cluster around an assortment of electric radiators. Yet over Easter, when more than fourteen children and adults crammed in under one roof, laughter games and chatter exuded a different warmth, a familial one, and that was enough. Children with plates laden with our easter food would retire to the red vinyl couch below the nautical map of Port Phillip Bay, the battered tapestry rocker or nanna’s old horse hair lounge chairs now modernized with lurid synthetic purple covers. The over flow would repair to the red laminate kitchen table, its solid wooden legs painted glossy white to match the assortment of mismatched straight backed wooden kitchen chairs. The L-shaped booth like bench would be full of family, and once you had shuffled into place you were hemmed in for the remainder of the meal. The 1930’s kitchen cupboards housed fossils from previous owners’ lives — the crockery, cutlery and glassware indistinct and uninteresting. Yet melding with the Dyer’s additions, they become part of our tale. The kitchen sink hunkered in a corner near the non-functioning cast iron wood oven. To the left of the oven was a step down to an anteroom where an antiquated fridge stood. It was old even in the 1970’s, the type with one solid door, a few wire shelves and the tiny metal box that constituted a freezer… just big enough to hold ice cream for milk shakes and a tray of iceblocks for coke. A ‘modern’ electric stove ( á la 1960) stood next to the fridge, beneath glass louver windows with dull curtains, closeted next to a marble bench, the other end of which nestled the original gas oven with a gas bottle appendage.
To the right of the kitchen anteroom was another step down to a lean to of sorts and the back door. This area became the over flow area where a foldout bed would be unfurled as a last resort. Further around to the right were the old iron bunks, lumpy and not very lengthy, where kids were laid top to toe. The top bunk peered through old windows into the lounge. The very last ‘back bedroom’ with its unique built-in bed, low roof and window frames swollen by the salt air that required a good shove to shift them along had a wooden cot and more fold out beds.
There were only two decent beds in the house, singles that were typically allocated to nanna and poppa, in a dark cosy room off the lounge. It had a door that led to the kitchen, unnecessary and permanently locked by the Dyers. It was another cluttered room, with a wall of built in wardrobes, a sideboard and chair. Off the front veranda, separate to the rest of the house was the largest bedroom — another built in double bed, new bunks, built in wardrobes and room for yet another fold out. This room, also south facing was dark, shrouded by ti tree and the bush boundary with the neighbour. The lounge transformed into yet another bedroom over night, the red vinyl couch opening to an uncomfortable large single and the ubiquitous fold outs strategically arranged between the hotchpotch of furniture, I think the maximum Studley housed was 17. A different era — more like an African village — there was little privacy and no pattern as to where you slept or who’d be snoring. Each person slept where they were put with no argument. There were niggles here and there, even some arguments, but the close proximity of the extended family in a 7 room house engendered flexibility, adaptability, affection and a sense of community.
Stepping up to the left of the anteroom kitchen was the bathroom. One for the whole household. Abstract white black and grey patterned lino from our Clayton home eventually covering torn red tiles. The toilet was consigned to the far end of the bathroom, past the hand basin. A solid door with glass window locked with a skeleton key, offering the one place for privacy in the busy house. An old septic system serviced our ablutions. Frequently blocking, unclogging reams of toilet paper amidst other septic detritus required creative innovation by dad or poppa. The logistics of getting to the loo with a full house wanting to shower was a challenge, frantic knocking on the door accompanied by an urgent ‘hurry up’. Once comfortably settled on the throne, you were never really alone — a clan of daddy long legs resided in every nook and cranny. There was another shower, in an old cold dark outhouse where all manner of life took residence. Spiders, mice and lizards were frequent co habitants of Studley, armies of ants would invade any accessible foodstuff, swarms of flies were a staple, bull ants — easily identified on the driveway or concrete slabs at the foot of the veranda yet whose sniping and stinging pincers were cunningly camouflaged under cover of the sturdy buffalo grass. A blue tongued lizard was a temporary resident of the old garage and while this slow moving creature is purported to quite like humans, its scaly similarity to snakes probably had us keep our distance. Possums would tear across the roof and frolic the night away.
And there were the pets. Aunty Sandra and Uncle Rex’s boxer came for a few seasons. Adventurous kittens meekly meowed from far reaching bows of the gum or oleander trees, unable to navigate a safe descent, or screamed petrified pleas as the neighbour’s dog stood ready for attack. Left helpless against his determined assault, I once watched in horror as the hunting dog scooped a kitten in his determined jaw. Blackie soon died and Fluff grew up without his brother. Fluff ruled the roost though, disappearing at the hints of a homeward journey — packing the car or defrosting the fridge. We would have to unpack the car, turn the power on and begin dinner, a sophisticate ruse to hoodwink Fluff into returning before we could set off home. Who hoodwinked who, I wonder?
With a houseful breakfast, a staggered, help yourself smorgasbord, taken to the front porch with the cousins. Nanna’s old sun-lounges, complete with vinyl puff cushions and the new swing chair bedecked the front veranda and its sloping wooden dark brown planks. For generation upon generation, from babyhood to retirement, innumerable photos were captured on that front veranda. On Good Friday the veranda sparkled like a Christmas tree — Easter egg wrapping discarded as cousins compared and bartered eggs as if bejewelled treasures, the uniquely Dyer tradition to get the eggs early!
Under the filigree of ti tree another exclusive Dyer Easter tradition unfurled — the Easter Saturday BBQ. An old brick structure with plate of steel and grill, scrubbed and cleaned till the past year’s the marks of nature were removed. Old laminate tables along with an odd collection of chairs were dragged from the garage into the warm sun as hamburgers began to sizzle. Food for the extended long weekend was brought down from Melbourne on Holy Thursday. In those days Easter was a sacred time for rest, shops closed for 4 days requiring planning and coordination. With the Four Star mini market closed for the duration, only the dairy on the corner opened on Easter Saturday for fresh milk, and Schmitters bakery for our Easter Monday pies. Dressed in T-shirts and skirts or a new jumper and jeans, the timing of Easter as variable as Melbourne weather, everyone wandered from the veranda to devour a feast of three day old bread, hamburgers and salads. After a Good Friday diet of smoked cod and white sauce, it was a welcome meal.
Long beach walks, running up and down the dunes of Rye back beach (before degradation of the coastal landscape was an issue), kite flying at the footy oval, paddling in roaring surf or a dip in the bay weather permitting, the tone of Easter was brisk with autumnal energy. As the days closed early we would gather inside around the black and white TV. The Royal Children’s Hospital telethon, Sunday’s Wide World of Sport and Kevin Dennis New Faces, and an Easter full moon competed our viewing. With such a dearth of entertainment, games ruled. Daytime pursuits of billiards, table tennis, hooky, quoits, checkers, were supplanted by night time diversions. And it was cards that gathered the crowd — 21 and Euchre, gin rummy and Go Fish for some of us younger ones. One and two cent coppers, five and ten cent coins, or maybe a twenty cent piece were highly sort with the lure of mini golf and slot car machine at the end of Ozone Street. Ant there were the Rye and Rosebud trampolines. Car racing games seemed to draw Matthew, the only grandson. We’d happily challenge him to ice hocky or soccer games until the first even computerised game came, Packman. He no longer needed a playmate.
Supper of hot cross buns, toast and tea, left over cakes and biscuits did the rounds before tired children and adults retired. A pullstring above the bed or old sticky Bakelite switches on the wall turned lights off as slumber engulfed the household. The Dyer family have never been early risers. Uncle Tommy, Dad and Poppa the earliest. Uncle Rex the last. When younger cousins joined the clan I would atypically wake with sunrise and stealthily make my way around the outside of the house to the unlocked back door, past the old bunk beds, listen for sounds of life within, then gently knock on Aunty Sandra and Uncle Rex’s door — hoping they were awake and I’d be admitted for a few hours of play with Matthew or Samantha.
Partying Dyer style. The vices were few. Smoking was the perpetual habit of the elders — Poppa rolling his own, Uncle Rex with his Rothmans, Aunty Lorna and Uncle Tommy’s Peter Stuyvesants and eventually the younger generation with Benson and Hedges. Ashtrays were over flowing as the air thickened with smoke. It was the 1970’s and cigarettes were still a natural appendage. Tea was preferred over alcohol. Eventually coffee rivalled the ubiquitous pots of tea, usually instant and cafeteria blend! And for the younger generation it was malted milkshakes and coca cola.
Studley was synonymous with long hot summers. As the rain fell on yet another Boxing Day, presents strewn on sun-lounges on the veranda, a rug pulled over cool legs I would devour a new book, peering out awaiting the inevitable visitors. From the veranda an assortment of activities were orchestrated. Studley’s expansive lawn became a stage. With agapanthas forming the front boundary, to a young girl the ti tree became an enchanted forest. Creations in the sand pit, totem tennis tournaments, cricket matches with a cast of thousands cheering and jeering the umpire’s decision, assembling junk scrounged from the garage into a billy cart. We dragged the billy cart to the steepest driveway up the street. Six of us would straddle narrow pieces of wood nailed perpendicular to an equally narrow plank, the rudimentary vehicle guided by a rope attached to old pram wheels at the front. Tumble after tumble dissuaded no one as we all scurried for another turn and a steeper hill.
But Studley and summer were most remarkable for long hot summer afternoons at the front beach. Emerging through melaleuca scrub, the orange, red brown and green of ti tree, tear shaped leaves would part to reveal the crystal clear shallows of the bay. Azure waters deepened about two kilometres further out, drawing a dark smudge at the horizon. Arthur’s Seat, Mount Martha and Mount Eliza adorned the eastern shore, shadows descending in size like the ridges of a dragon’s back. Melbourne sat to the northeast, but without its current lofty heights the city scape was largely an invisible illusion. To the west was the pier and White Cliffs lookout. Ahh, Rye front beach. Preschool summers had been spent splashing in the deep water of Safety Beach complete with the distant drone of a shark plane circumnavigating the bay on the look out, any sudden circling signalling a predator nearby. In contrast Rye was shallow. Well not just shallow but ankle deep for at least a few meters. As the tide marched out, sand banks glistened like a string of rough gems. Eventually the water reached midriff and about a mile out rose to depths inviting sea craft and fishermen. The precursor to today’s ear splitting waterskies was the speedboat — it’s mild hum interspersed with the shrieks of water skiers plunging into the cold deep bay. Fishermen returned to shore with their catch. After fastening their boat at a buoy — a converted plastic drink bottle or orange nautical marker, they would wade to shore to clean and gut their catch. Seagulls congregated eagerly as the scent wafted along with the gentle afternoon sea breeze, interrupting our play and drawing us to watch the methodical process as flathead and snapper were filleted, later grilled or fried for the camper’s dinners.
The line of colourful beach towels splayed on a stretch of sand marked territory. A few beach umbrellas weighed down with sand bags, beach chairs for parents, aunts, uncles and the rare visit by a grand parent further staked our claim. There was always way too much stuff for parents to lug so the station wagon was loaded with beach gear, yellow plastic surf boards, red and blue buckets and spades, blow up rings for toddlers, a wooden paddle board and an old canoe that sunk the moment it touched water. If we were taking Helisa — the mirror sailboat dad acquired — Dad and any willing recruits would push and pull the boat down Ozone Street, across Bimble Street and the Nepean Hwy on a homemade trolley. Dad and Helen joined the Rye Yacht Squadron but Jaws and my nervous constitution relegated me to short jaunts close to shore where I could see the sand below, the clear water made for safe encounters other than the patches of seaweed, haunted underwater forests I would walk or swim around rather than risk touching. On occasion braving a swim over the weeds I would panic as I felt the seaweed brush against my skin. Having to plant my foot in the dark mass below was akin to diving into an abyss. To be honest there were deadly things lurking below — the blue ringed octopus to name just one. Actually, I can’t think of anything else, the stingrays and sharks would never have made the shallows, but a blue ringed octopus was enough to warrant my healthy fear.
Sun cream lathered on young skin, white zinc cream painted in stipes across noses and cheeks. Towels wrapped around thighs, the top end rolled over, carefully removed to be placed atop our heads instantly transformed us into Sheiks. One-piece bathing suits evolved into bikinis as fashion and our bodies developed. Terry towelling ponchos or beach coats warmed us in the late afternoon sun as we donned thongs for the short trek through ti tree scrub and burr infested sand back home.
Afternoons were interrupted by the ice-cream call… it seemed like an everyday treat but perhaps that’s my childhood distortion. Certainly some days dad would take orders and wander across the beach road to the Four Star grocery store returning with a paper bag full of paddle pops, barney bananas, two-in-ones, hearts, a choc wedge, splice, corneto or drumstick. The old dairy next to the Edward’s house on the corner of Ozone and the Beach Road was the place to get one or two scoops in a cone. It seemed we spent the whole day at the beach but mum assures me that even though holes in ozone layers were still the stuff of science fiction, we were never out in the midday sun. We wandered down in the morning for an hour or so. After lunch and some quiet time we would head down when the sting had left the sun.
Day light saving wasn’t invented until 1971, well actually it started in World War 1 but wasn’t a regular event until the early 70’s in Victoria so we wandered back home at six for baths, rushing in to squabble over who would bathe first and with whom. Sharing a bath and second sittings in tepid water were still the norm in a society not yet endowed in wastefulness. As we washed Mum was kept busy washing beach towels, coordinating meals and sweeping the wooden and lino floors of sand carelessly traipsed through the house. A kitty system fed us. Each family put in $2 and when the kitty was depleted each forked out another $2 for the next round of purchases. Summer nights were punctuated with after dinner walks: to the pier, the carnival or merely around the neighbourhood peering at gardens. With the men folk back in Melbourne at work a typically female household of aunts and cousins wandered local streets gossiping and collecting cuttings, mum’s green thumb transplanting the bounty into our uneventful garden. As children grew to early teens some freedom ensued. Setting off for a bike ride along Locksley to the back streets seemed an adventure. Along Bimble, Alma and Truemans Roads or the Old Melbourne Road to Canterbury Jetty road and back along Beach road past the carnival skirting its forbidden delights, we would cycle till the last light.
Other traditions included New Years Eve parties, which morphed from gatherings at home, the Rye yacht club to eventually the Meades in Blairgowrie. The Meades were our neighbours in Clayton. Mum, dad, Aunty Ursula and Uncle Jack were neighbours for 25 years. Their eldest son Geoff bought a piece of land from a work colleague of my parents in Blairgowrie. Phillip, the second son, fashioned a shack of solid walls and a canvas roof. Eventually Geoff and his wife Cathy built a beach house, the venue for innumerable New Years Eves — where good food, a modicum of alcohol in these two tea totalling families and of course, endless pots of tea were the go.
Studley welcomed not just the Dyers but mum’s family too. The Dalys, Donelleys and Lothians. In the May and September school holidays mum’s twin, Aunty Pauline, her three sons and Ninna would accompany mum, Helen and I for the cool autumnal or spring exploits of the Mornington Peninsula. I can vividly remember beach walks with jumper on, trousers rolled up and bare feet feeling the sting of broken shells and crisp water as I collected thousands of minuscule shells. With the blistering heat of the summer long gone the back beach dunes beckoned for adventure. Strolling the shopping strips of Rosebud or Rye and extravagances such as a movie were saved for the wet days. Ninna wouldn’t always make it to the beach so we would bring back a bucket of salt water to soak her ailing feet. Evenings in front of the radiator I would tend Ninna, aunty Pauline or mum’s hair, dipping the plastic comb in a glass of water, saturating and pulling stands into rollers. Oh how patient they were.
Studley was the instigator of many traditions beyond Easter. There was the Australia Day long-weekend where the house would fill to bursting with 20 house guests. The weather hot, Studley would heave under the load — with windows unable to coax a breeze, the fibro cemented the heat within. People draped over sun-lounges, beach chairs flung on the lawn alongside an assortment of beach towels as the women worked away in the hot anteroom. Lazy salads accompanied sausages and chops in the evenings, hot pies and sausage rolls from the bakery an occasional interruption to lunchtime salad sandwiches and rolls. And always — cakes — home made lamingtons, cream sponge, cup cakes and slices inviting yet another kettle to be put on the boil. It was the days before tea bags where ladling spoonfuls of tea-leaves into the pot and sitting to chat accompanied waiting for the tea to brew. On Sunday the crowd would swell to 30 or more and the ensuing cricket game rivalled the test match emanating from the transistor until, hot and sweaty, a small group would eventually walk the short distance to the front beach.
As the years progressed Studley’s lawn, lounges and swing chair drew youth from the yacht club or school friends down for a week. Ham sandwiches and milkshakes fed teenagers trying on rebellious identities from the short haircut and skin tight clothing of Sharpies to the flowing locks and cloth of the Surfies. Eventually drivers’ licences meant mum and dad need no longer stagger their holidays serially over the summer. Studley was left to the perils of a house of teenagers and very young adults! Well schooled in the idiosyncratic system of turning on the electric power board (down the dark forest-like blindside of the house), booster hot water cistern above the kitchen sink, fridge and enormous gas bottle that sat aside the cooker in the back kitchen, a process reversed upon leaving (including removing the fuses — a sort after commodity for theft). Defrosting and meticulous cleaning the fridge which would be left ajar till the next visit and sweeping the floor spotless of any food remnants (one scrap a beacon to the dormant ants) part of the routine.
An old rosewood cabinet housed mum and dad’s first record player. INXS, Beach Boys, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Australian Crawl and Skyhooks blasted through the high windows until the invention of tape decks and an extension cord suddenly brought sounds out to the lawn. A line of parallel beach towels, expertly arranged to capture the angle of the sun for an even tan, were strewn on the front lawn. Young teenagers lathered in Baby oil and Coppertone sunscreen, precursors to the evocative aroma of coconut oil and Hawaiian Tropic, lay with hands over eyes or holding a book aloft in the midday sun, until a consensus decided it was beach time.
With no telephone and well before mobile phones, the corner phone box became a lifeline to city life and family. The early evening queue caught the warm rays of the sun as twenty-cent coins were deposited, one-by-one. Rye was definitely distant enough to warrant STD charges!
At some point Studley was adorned in fashionable white paint with mission brown trim. But eventually we outgrew Studley. She could not offer the comforts we were growing accustomed to and mum and dad’s retirement loomed. They would need a warm, sturdy home no longer requiring constant repairs and cleaning. The wreckers tore Studley apart but like a phoenix from the ashes a new home emerged. The plum trees and oleander, sand pit and gravel drive were gone but the memories remained. The old BBQ still stands amidst the ti tree and agapanthas. The old gates were removed along with the front wire fence, and renamed Ozone Street, or merely ‘Rye’ she became an open beauty. A bull nose veranda drooped like a sleepy eyelid over buttermilk trimmed bay windows. Tumble clay bricks, rust and burnt red, spilled from the walls of the house and curved into a driveway, a smiling invitation to come inside.
Part 2
As families evolve, so to do their traditions. The Dyer family’s morphed to accommodated those of the Johansen’s — my sister’s married name. Alternate Christmas’s in Mildura and every Easter at Loch 9 on the Murray River laid Ozone Street relatively bare. As elder cousins married and produced families of their own, with younger cousins gallivanting though late adolescence or roaming the world, the Easter tradition of a full house was replaced with Sunday lunch at a local RSL. Dribs and drabs came to the table and Ozone Street, no longer up for hoards of overnight visitors, instead became a solid repository for new reminiscences. Tumble bricks, corrugated iron roof and sweeping paved drive outside while within, twee ornaments, plastic flowers and handicrafts stood alongside generations of family photos to fill every surface. Australian landscapes or priceless china plates adorned wall, wisteria crept along the north fence where the plum previously stood. Windows reaching east, west and north showered Ash walls and cathedral ceiling with light as the evening summer sun angled in under the bull nose veranda drenching the dining table in burning heat. Lunches and bbq dinners under the collapsible marquee on the lawn became a cooler option where a spread included mum’s Tupperware beetroot server, a glass bowl of tinned pineapple and salad of lettuce, tomato, spring onion, grated cheese, a sprinkling of sugar granules and drizzled with dressing. Mum’s sumptuous potato bacon and cheese bake and snags atop buttered slices of bread were followed by a hot cup of tea. Ahhh, iconic summer food.
Ozone Street was generous with space. A large laundry afforded the ironing board a permanently upright stance where mum routinely stood to work in the mid afternoon after the south-westerly and biting sun had dried the daily wash. The pale blue bathroom, always cool, was open and uncluttered. The spa bath in the en-suite worked for a few years but then the task of going outside to turn it on and then rushing out in a bitter winter wind to turn it off became counter productive to a relaxing soak. Her cupboards became stuffed with collections of a past we were reluctant to discard — university notes and texts twenty years out of date, handicraft materials just in case I wanted to stitch raffia baskets in lace again one day, biscuit tins overflowing with shells to frame another mirror perhaps, piles of photo albums from my travels as well as tins of the duplicate copies of each and every photo, a 1980’s gimmick eventually outdated by digital photography. Grey army or orange wool blankets, candlewick bedspreads, psychedelic 70’s sleeping bags, paisley patterned sheets along with every other design that went on sale at Myer, tens of matching pillow slips and old lumpy pillows filled the cavernous linen press. Hidden from prospective robbers amidst the towels was an historical representation of electric audio visual systems: wireless, radio, tape deck, cd players and spare video or dvd recorders. A collection of beach towels dating from the mid sixties attested to another Dyer tradition, a new beach towel every Christmas. And mum always bought quality. Those towels are still going strong, some now relics on my cousin Matt’s cruiser, others in my car boot for a foray down the coast.
The kitchen was no different. A mini museum to tastes and fads over four decades. The old Myer milk shake maker collected grime and dust on the pantry floor. Christmas cakes in wooden boxes long past their use by date, vases with preserved ginger and exotic biscuit tins attested to dad’s last position at Myer — importing food for the festive season. Glasses imprinted with Coca-cola, small white plastic cups — the precursors to disposable drink containers, boxes of napkins and plastic cutlery: reminders of the thirty seven years dad worked for the Myer Emporium and Southern Stores.
Soon the next generation, my nieces Madeline Victorian and Alison Elizabeth, placed their mark on Ozone Street. Doonas replaced heavy blankets on the old wooden framed bunks. Handfuls of hair ties and bracelets spilled out of bedside containers. Active play preferred over the imaginative stuff, the girls would entice ‘Dar’, dad’s new designation, their father or myself outside to revive the totem tennis, cricket bat, hookey or tennis rackets. All the equipment was stored in a glamorous garage, really an extension of the house. Carpeted, curtained, plastered and electrified, the garage was an enormous playroom. The old enamel fridge stored summer alcohol — a new tradition introduced by my generation. Our pianola lined the west wall. Fold-up-beds, the collapsible mustard coloured bbq and a few bikes were stacked in front of the glory box where the pianola rolls were stored. Dad’s first gift to mum at sixteen years of age, the glory box had travelled from Clayton, then Mt Waverley to Ozone Street. Sitting below the east facing windows were the old rocker and red vinyl couch while in centre stage stood the billiard-come-table tennis table!
The girls would cycle the curved driveway, bikes eventually replaced by roller blades and scooters — no mean feat on the uneven paving. The lawn continued to be a car park with cars clawing for shade below overhanging ti tree. A cracked window may have enticed cool air but risked inviting huntsman spiders. Eight ghoulish eyes peering from the windscreen. Were those eight grey legs on the inside or outside? Huntsmen and ants were our weathermen. Insect intuition sent them indoors in anticipation of a heavy downpour and without fail, torrential rain always arrived within a day.
With a hole in the literal Ozone layer and the Dyer tendency to sleep in, pre lunch swims were replaced with lounging in front of a video or dvd. New Disney classics, old Shirley Temple movies, the Wizard of OZ, Mary Poppins, eventually superseded by Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, played as we lazed over a staggered breakfast and with each awakening more toast was buttered and the kettle reset to boil. The lounge became littered with doonas, pillows and satin slips or boxers — the girls’ comforters. Once the last slumber was roused, usually my sister if they were down, or me if I was the sole sibling in residence, the washing machine went on and rumbled through its cycle. A stroll up the road to Woolworths (the Four Star supermarket long since replaced by modernity, mass consumption and convenience) my brother-in-law Philip or dad would purchase the paper (Herald Sun for dad and The Age for Philip) and lunchtime supplies. Once the Christmas day left-overs — roast pork, turkey and ham, were depleted, ‘stras’, ham and salami with fresh white bread became the stuff of lunchtime. Now well into their retirement, Mum and dad had the set routine typical of pensioners. Rising routinely at 9am, lunch at midday and tea at 5.30. We would stretch their flexibility with our comings and goings, though I was usually back from the beach by 6pm for tea.
Other than a temporary unintentional lightening of the trim (buttercup to a margarine yellow), Ozone Street showed little evidence of her advancing years. Lavished with the love and care mum and dad showed all things, animate or otherwise, she weathered the years well. Dust and daddy long legs, welcome sentries against other insects, were permanent residents of Ozone Street. As the years passed salt air etched away at the carpet edges, childhood frolicking pulled the towel rail from its hinges, bathroom floor tiles lazily lifted off the concrete slab and preschooler hands imprinted walls.
After living abroad, first with the English Channel as my local beach and then in landlocked Zimbabwe, I returned with a different lens. Port Phillip Bay, discarded in my teens as boring, was reclaimed as the pristine, placid water she had always been. After innumerable walks I was soon reacquainted with every bend, sand bank and buoy of the front beach, each crevice, crag and dune of the local back beach. Sunday nights, driving back to Melbourne for the working week ahead were salty, tinged with sadness I left my soul place. Change is life’s constant. It has been something I embraced in my travels and far flung homes. The solid base I ventured from was not only my parents but the solace of Ozone Street.
As parents aged and assets were rearranged, the reality hit me. Priceless, irreplaceable, an album of memories and the host of many life milestones, Ozone Street was to go. Rational thoughts did little to keep the tears at bay. Drop by drop they traced a path down my cheek, a 42 year relationship was coming to an end. Over many months we prepared her. I loved every wrinkle and sunspot, her idiosyncratic voice. As memories were packed into boxes, discarded to the Op shop, given away; as room by room was cleaned, traces of our family removed piece by piece, her canvass was left bare for the palette of new inhabitants, to create a different portrait.
The final days loomed, sadness built like a wave in an approaching storm, threatening to drown me. The grief was like an annoying fly, persistent and insistent. There would be an end, all things are impermanent. The removal truck slowly filled, furniture that had adorned four homes over 60 years of the family’s life relocated one more time. And finally Ozone Street was left bare. Mum voiced what Dad and I could not say, “It’s sad!” the tears I had struggled to hide welled, demanding a way out.
Our final moments together were intimate. The final wipe of a bench, scrub of the grout, mop of the floor, I felt driven to leave her pristine, presenting her best face for the new beau. Alone, I symbolically bid her farewell and thanked her for all she had given me.
Needing to mark the moment, I drove to my special strip of the back beach, my final visit as a local. I was not disappointed — a spectacular sunset buoyed me through the loss. My body weary from weeks of cleaning and packing I soaked my sorrow away at the hot springs, heat permeated my bones as hours ticked by. Reluctant to rouse, the pools empty of other inhabitants, I found a rare solitude. Two pockets of mist rose from the still surface as if a duet of dancers. Enveloped by the wind they embraced, swirling around the mirror like surface of the pool. Like a novice dance troupe moving out of sync, fleeing and chaotic, the branches of a ti tree strutted as a wind gust lifted streams of mist in a lively jig to the left. A chorus of leaves added to the natural score, a low pitched bird call and its higher pitched mate, the throb of frogs in the pond and chirping crickets, the harmony of nature’s peaceful serenade.
Driving back to Melbourne my car was buffeted by a howling wind, stirring my emotions. I listened to Gold FM, not my usual choice but as the tunes from my childhood and teens filled the car it seemed symbolic of summers spent on the Peninsula.
Part 3
Six months passed and with mild apprehension I drove the familiar route, along streets I had known for 42 years. Little had changed. Until I rounded the corner from Bimble Street that is. Blocked from view, Ozone Street was now encased in the banal. A smattering of ti tree and agapanthas made a feeble attempt to camouflage a ghastly unpainted weatherboard fence. Turning into the neighbour’s drive I could see a small clothes line draped to the side of the house and wondered what had become of the sturdy rotary line? Parking the car I snuck a look through the letterbox. Her style stripped, the cream trim was now a vibrant purple, ill matched to the hues of the brickwork. The magic forest at the front was depleted and the garage, now home to the dogs that roam the yard was open and unadorned. Trespassing on a neighbour’s lawn I wandered to the back and scaled the fence. Yes the rotary clothes line was gone, more dogs roamed the back. The sturdy though dated curtains had been removed, the windows now dressed in raffia blinds. With Studley gone, Ozone Street had taken time to find her own style. By 24 she had exuded a warmth felt by all who walked into her embrace. Now she looked cheap, her class gone, like an ageing beauty who had gone to a second rate plastic surgeon.
To buffer my emotions I drove to ‘my’ beach for a solitary walk. A family strolled down from their lavish dune ensconced home and a hardy surfer took to the waves. Disembarking from the car the pungent salt air assaulted my senses. The crash and thunder of the waves was instantly invigorating. Volumous and angry, they were so different to their majestic counterparts that uniformly rolled in on summer days. The wind whipped strands of my hair, cutting across my cheek and like an act of self-harm the pain rudely dragged me to the present, away from the loss. The sun emerged from behind a bank of cumulonimbus clouds, spotlighting the rough insistent texture of the ocean. A northwesterly pressed against waves that fiercely attacked the shoreline. Clawing at the dunes, the ocean asserted its ownership, claiming grains of sand as its own. Seagulls hovered, stationary until, succumbing to the wind’s ferocity they turned and were shoved southwards. The seascape ever changing, its fluidity an anchor that grounds me. Ozone Street may no longer be ours, I still have the beach my constant.
