The night our twins were conceived, we had been walking the streets of Brisbane with Benny. We ought to have been too tired to create another one child, let alone two.
Jenny knew the private business of the city well enough to steer us through lanes and alleyways, down staircases and over footbridges. She used to live in Brisbane where she had been part of a network of small communities which were, at different times, both wonderful and weird. I, on the other hand, would hardly have known if we were in Brisbane or the Bronx, apart from the small matter of climate which, in tropical Brisbane, is not conducive to sleep. But business had not only beckoned but had put us up at a swish hotel, one of those places where the sheets feel like they’ve been stored in a lettuce crisper. If you order a salad, on the other hand, the lettuce feels like it has been starched. You pay money in these places on the understanding that, whatever has brought you to a strange city, you will be sleeping in an airlock which is neither home nor anywhere else. A pillow menu offered ten options, including ‘aromatherapy’, ‘caress’, ‘featherlight’, ‘firm feel’, ‘low profile’, ‘high profile’, ‘contoured’, and the ‘anti-snore silent Knight’ which promised peace to your partner. It would work if it was left outside your door and the snorer slept in the corridor.
Jenny remembered a different city and, under cover of dark, we set off on foot to find it, the taxi vouchers which work had supplied tucked into my wallet in case we walked so far that we needed help to get back. I fancied the idea of, once in a lifetime, stepping into a taxi and muttering the name of a five-star hotel in an offhand manner. It was a pity Jenny was already my wife. With taxi vouchers and fresh sheets, I could have made an impression.
We ate Thai food, shared a bottle of something licit then pushed our little boy asleep in his stroller through a thicket of tall buildings, over a bridge and into Southbank, an installation of bars and cafes dedicated to the proposition that every night is Saturday night. Finally, we climbed a hill and found ourselves in a different type of area, where the signs in the shops and the posters on the lampposts suggested that here was a world where every night was Sunday afternoon. All sorts of wholesome workshops were on offer, most presenting alternatives to either working or shopping.
Before long, Jenny was pointing out landmarks. A house she used to visit. Another house she avoided. A bus stop where she waited. Another bus stop she avoided. Stories leaped out of the ground all around us. We were having a ball, laughing about people I’d never met. Little Benny slept peacefully in his stroller as our pace quickened. There was so much ground to cover, so many small things to see. It was different from telling stories at home. Here on their own ground, the stories were doing their own bidding. They didn’t need permission. Even Jenny was surprised by some of them that turned up from that little bit of Florida in the brain to which sunny memories retire.
‘There was this odd guy who made soup every Saturday night and brought it over for us,’ said Jenny. ‘He was a man on a mission. He never ate any of his own food but he always hung around to make sure everybody else did, sweating in the heat.’
Finally, we negotiated a narrow flight of stairs and arrived at the house where Jenny had lived. For a while, we stood under what had been her window and talked about the comings and goings of that particular community. Some of the memories made Jenny a little sad. She thought she had closed that chapter but perhaps this was not quite true. There was reason for us to linger there a long time and, when we moved on, it was already 11.30. The sky was low. The city threw light onto the underside of the clouds, making them feel like a low ceiling.
At that moment, a tall man carrying two or three enormous striped bags appeared at the top of the street. From the bottom of the hill, he looked as if he could reach up and brush the clouds aside so we could see the moon. Instead, he stooped over a garbage bin, sorting the contents, putting a couple of things into one of his bags. They looked heavy.
‘Good heavens,’ said Jenny. ‘That’s Anthony. He used to be a regular at the community. I can’t believe he’s still around.’
Jenny told me a bit about Anthony’s precarious existence and I too was amazed he was still around.
‘None of us ever knew where he slept,’ said Jenny.
‘Why don’t we say hello?’ I suggested.
‘I’m not so sure. It’s been a long time. I doubt if he’d remember me. I wouldn’t want to surprise him. Not at this time of night.’
So we began to saunter past. But as we got close to the bin where Anthony was still sorting feast from famine, he looked up. Without a second’s hesitation, he smiled and dropped his bags.
‘Hello, Jenny,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen you around much lately.’
Jenny and Anthony chatted over the garbage bin as easily as if they had bumped into each other in a supermarket. They ran through a list of old friends and acquaintances and Anthony gave a full report of what they were up to. Most of them had moved on somewhere else. It seemed that for Anthony, the streets on which he slept were a stable kind of place. He was an anchor point for others.
‘It was just so good to see him,’ said Jenny as we climbed into a taxi. ‘Just so good to be recognised. It’s funny how a guy like that can make you feel at home. I felt like a part of me still belonged.’
We went back to our five-star hotel, let Benny keep sleeping and, as easy as making love, our twins fell upon us that night from the sky. Afterwards, we wondered where Anthony was sleeping. We hoped there was at least one star hovering over his resting place.