Number eighteen was now built; at least the outside was. We could still hear workers bashing away inside, hammering and drilling and swearing and turning their radio up, but it was at least muffled now. They still had a bit to do out the front exchanging grass for concrete, and one morning a couple of them, Bobo and Nick, were digging the footings for the front wall that would separate Ivan from the world. Bibi and I sat on the front steps and she did some naming.
‘Dadda,’ she said, pointing a finger at me. Excellent. One of her first words. It made me feel I belonged.
‘Twee,’ she said, pointing at a tree. She was clearly a genius.
Then she pointed over at the builders. ‘Bobo,’ she said.
They had definitely been here long enough.
And so to Bundeena. Bundeena had been our Holy Grail. It had been on our list of places to visit from day one, but we had never quite got there. It’s in the south of Sydney, or even south of Sydney, depending on who you believe, and it had always seemed just too far away to get to and back from in a morning. There were two ways of getting there: one by car, driving south to Wollongong then turning left into the national park towards the ocean; the other, which was more direct and sounded far more pleasant, by ferry from Cronulla. For once the route the crow flies and the scenic route were the same.
We didn’t know anyone who lived in Bundeena, but we knew people who knew people who did, and had heard stories of them swapping cramped city living for life in a national park, surrounded by bush on one side, and golden beaches and water on the other. Yes, it was hard to get to, but that was its charm. It sounded like a rustic, arty community where everyone took care of each other’s children and lay around in the park writing poetry and wearing sarongs.
It was significant to us for another reason, too. The building was coming to an end, our lives were filling up with various types of work, and Bibi was growing past the stage where she was happy to sit in a backpack and be wandered about with. She had discovered what legs were for, and she wanted to use them, which meant that the sort of morning expeditions we could go on would need to change. Playgrounds were in, suburbs were out. All up, it seemed that our month of Sundays was coming to an end. And what a perfect way to finish, with a journey that required the commitment of a full day, and a destination that had seemed right from the start to be one that promised much. And fittingly, although it was a weekend, the builders were there, building Ivan’s front fence and blasting radio music through our bedroom window—which meant our original motivation to leave home, to escape them, was still valid.
It took about three-quarters of an hour to drive south to Cronulla. We drove along the shores of Botany Bay, crossed it as it narrowed into the Georges River, turned left and headed out along the next headland towards Cronulla. Cronulla has a beachy, healthy feel. There were joggers and surf shops everywhere. The ferry station is on the south side of the headland and faces across Port Hacking to Bundeena and the Royal National Park. We parked just a hundred metres away by the water. When I say water, I assume that was what the boats were floating on. From the shore they were all we could see. There were hundreds of them, tied up waiting for their owners like loyal dogs. And if the owners weren’t going to take them out today when it was summer, Saturday and sunny, then would they ever? It seemed cruel. I had a good mind to call the RSPCB.
Our arrival was, accidentally, perfectly timed. Ferries go once an hour, and we walked onto the 11.30 a.m. exactly 45 seconds before it took off. It was more like an old floating tram than a ferry. It was smaller than other Sydney ferries with wooden slatted seats crowded close together. There was even a conductor who wandered about selling tickets. I’d always wondered with conductors whether, if you started off sitting at the back, and when he was halfway along got up, walked past him and went and sat down the front, you’d get caught. We didn’t try it.
Our fellow travellers were like us, all decked out for the beach and looking eager. There were caps, daypacks and t-shirts everywhere. The ferry chugged south through Gunnamatta Bay. Near the ferry wharf—which was just next to the railway station—blocks of flats crowded the shore, all unrendered red brick except, of course, for the new ones. As we moved further down the bay, they were replaced by waterfront houses. I tried to keep an open mind, but I was amazed how often it was the case that the older houses looked tasteful, functional and excellent while the newer ones looked horrible, overbuilt and ugly. There should be a law. Or at least a council that would impose some aesthetic standards on houses that have to be seen by everyone.
Of all the hundreds of boats tied up in the bay there was only one leaving at the same time as us, a big cruising sailboat. When I say sailboat it had a mast and sails and cleats and all that stuff, it even had one small sail up for show, but unless someone had a lawnmower running below decks—and frankly, why would you—it was running on an engine.
We were moving parallel to it just a few feet away and I watched one of the ‘sailors’ (really machine operators) tie a piece of string around the back of his cap and feed it down inside his shirt to tie the other end onto his shorts. He wouldn’t be losing that cap.
The sea air was crisp and clean and salty, and as we came out from the little bay into the big bay, Port Hacking, there was some gentle rocking and rolling (or, as they say in the nautical game, pitching and yawing). I’d learnt my lesson on Broken Bay, though, and didn’t try to climb up the outside of the ferry just to prove I could hack it up on the roof.
The trip only takes twenty minutes and soon we got a big view of Bundeena. There are houses hiding in among the bush, and a beach stretching wide. Near the shore a flock of kayakers paddled and—thank goodness—some boats had been set free; a sailing race was going on just to our east. Trying to wreck the peace for everyone were a couple of men—of course—riding jetskis, the motorbikes of the sea, creating a high-pitched roar ten times louder than the gentle chug of the ferry.
We pulled into an old wooden wharf and alighted. To our right was a beach, and in front of us a road led up a slight hill to a cluster of shops. We turned left to walk, also up hill, to Jibbon Beach, a few hundred metres further east towards the headland.
From what I had heard about Bundeena, I expected to see plain cottages on big blocks with chooks running free in the yard and a man wearing overalls sitting on the front step playing folksongs while the kids ran round playing with homemade toys and their mum wore a smock and painted designs on home-woven t-shirts. But no. A walk around Bundeena quickly answers the question of whether it is a part of Sydney or near Sydney. It is definitely a part of Sydney, and in Sydney, land near the water is land near the water. The houses are big, built close together and every third block is a building or renovation site. On most corners was an arrowed real estate sign pointing to ‘A Fantastic Lifestyle Alternative’ or a place that could ‘Make Your Dreams Reality’ (a slogan also popular in the sex and gambling industries).
A couple of old weatherboard places remain, I suspect for a limited time only. One had a caravan in the front yard. Well, if you lived somewhere as beautiful as Bundeena, why would you want to go anywhere else for your holidays. Just pack everything into the car, back down the driveway and there you are, at the caravan. Sure cuts down on travelling time.
Next to each other were two front yards, almost exactly the same size and shape but as different as could be. One was pure Aussie suburbia, 100 per cent lawn mowed to within a quarter inch of its life. The other was filled with native plants and bark mulch. Not as good for a game of cricket, but much better for blending in.
Further down the road was a huge, six-bedroom, two-storey mansion, built right to the fence, and next to it a tiny fibro shack with tatty curtains and long-neglected grass on a block the same size.
We came to a dirt track and followed it a hundred metres to the beach. No more houses now; the bush came right to the beach and we had entered the national park. We didn’t enter it very far, though, as Lucy started to get stomach cramps. We slumped down on the sand and as Bibi and I flirted with the waves she tried to ride them out. She wasn’t pregnant, they weren’t period related, they were a mystery.
Across the water we could see back to Sydney and make out the smokestacks of the Kurnell oil refinery. The beach faced land, not ocean, so the waves were tiny. A kid sprinted out of the water and dived face-down into the beach. He stood up looking like one of the Three Stooges with sand instead of cream pie smeared all over his face, then ran and jumped back into the water.
As Bibi wandered about and Lucy moaned I dived in too, then sat at the edge of the water. I had put my hand down as I sat, and it, too, was covered in sand. A wave, bigger than the rest, made by a boat or a jetski minutes ago, washed up beyond the others, and came just far enough for me to be able to reach out and wash the sand off my hand. It was as if a waiter had offered a finger bowl.
It was a perfect moment. And then it was gone, replaced by another.
Bibi sat on the sand, slapping it with delight with a smile as wide as a baby can have. Meanwhile Lucy lay crouched, trying to find a position where her cramps were only horrible rather than agonising. So we decided to walk, or in her case hobble, back to the wharf. As we made our way back up the path, a barrel- and bare-chested bloke was coming our way.
‘Excuse me,’ I said ‘are you a local?’
‘Yep.’
‘Do you know if there’s a doctor around?’
‘Yes. Up on Liverpool Road.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘You know the shops. You go past there heading out of town, then take the first right and the next one is Liverpool. There’s a sign.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’
‘No worries. Don’t like your chances, but.’
‘Sorry?’
‘He’s never there on a Saturday. You can knock on the door, but he won’t be there.’
‘Right.’
‘See ya,’ he said cheerfully, and with a wave was off to the beach. Such a friendly mixture of helpfulness and unhelpfulness.
We slowly made out way back to the shops where Lucy got a drink of dry ginger ale and collapsed on a seat in the park. Bibi investigated the playground while I rather uncertainly flitted between them, trying to work out who needed more attention. It was Bibi. All I could do for Lucy was stand about and say things like ‘Does it still hurt?’, which wasn’t really very helpful at all.
She managed to stagger back to the ferry and collapse, lying face-down on my rucksack. People were staring and I felt like making a public announcement to all my fellow passengers that I was a nice guy and we hadn’t just had an argument or a fight, but something told me that might just draw more attention.
Behind us two old ladies, once they realised they couldn’t talk about us because we were only a few inches away, complained about a woman smoking outside at the front of the ferry.
‘It’s blowing in all over me. You can hardly breathe,’ said one.
It wasn’t and you could. I knew, because I was between the smoker and her and couldn’t smell a whiff.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to the conductor, ‘that woman is smoking. You’re not allowed to smoke, are you?’
‘Well, I’m not sure. I’ll just check the regulations,’ he said and looked up and around at the very large and prominent sign stuck on the ferry’s front wall, 2 metres in front of the old lady and directly in her line of sight. ‘It says “Smoking is permitted on the front deck”,’ he said.
He smiled and moved on. Good on him. The woman looked pissed off.
‘Bundeena’s being ruined, you know,’ she went on to her companion. ‘Now there’s developers everywhere. Look!’ pointing to another huge house springing up on the hill. ‘There’s another one. Our neighbours are trying to build a McMansion. The plans are awful. Right to the fence. Looking in our bedroom window. Honestly. We’re not talking to them any more.’
‘In the old days people respected other people’s space,’ said her friend.
‘That’s right. We’re going to fight it, though. It’s wrong. I’ve a friend in Melbourne who fought and fought and she won in the end. Look at them all. All those huge houses with huge balconies and huge lawns, and there’s no one on any of them.’
I looked up at the cliff and she was right. Eight houses in a row, with views on offer of a spectacular Sydney Saturday, in a million-dollar location, and not an occupant to be seen.
‘And it’s not just now,’ she went on. ‘You never see anyone on them. I don’t know why they build them.’
I remembered how at council meetings people who were trying to add a balcony onto their house that would overlook another house often tried to justify it by saying, ‘But it won’t really affect them. We’ll hardly ever be on it.’ I always thought they were lying but perhaps they weren’t. Maybe they don’t use their balconies; they just want them, like a kid wants a shiny red toy.
I remembered also, how during that period of my life which I had wasted in anxiety, it didn’t matter where I was. When I was in the grip of permanent fear, it didn’t matter if I was overlooking the harbour or locked in a cupboard, because whatever location I went to, my head and its problems came with me.
I thought about our street, about how there was no correlation at all between how much money people seemed to have and how happy they appeared to be. The people in the big houses didn’t seem to be any happier than anyone else. In fact, they seemed less happy, more worried. The most cheerful bloke I knew in the street, Colin, was also the only person I knew who was renting in it. Someone once said that whoever dies with the most toys wins. Incorrect. Whoever dies having been the happiest for the longest wins.
I also thought about how Bundeena hadn’t been the alternative paradise we had imagined, and how, with Lucy in such pain, the day hadn’t been the perfect end to our adventures that we’d hoped for.
And about the fact that in my life there would probably be thousands of things that would go wrong in some way or other before I died, and that I couldn’t expect to have perfect moments like that one on Jibbon Beach all the time. But I also realised that a couple of years ago my thinking was so wrong that I couldn’t see a perfect moment anywhere, any time, and that in my time dominated by anxiety I might have wasted thousands of them because I wouldn’t let myself experience them.
The memory of one returned, of a walk along Bondi Beach with Lucy when the pleasure I might have gained from experiencing the moment had been undermined by the onset of another anxiety attack that had my mind running in ridiculous circles, far away from the moment. It was gone now, wasted, and never to return.
Now, at least, I was a bit more aware that it was up to me to determine how much of my life I made the most of, and how many moments, perfect or imperfect, I allowed myself to be ready for and to experience.
It’s all that life gives us, a series of moments, and it’s everything it gives us, too.
Moments like this one.
When we got home from Bundeena, Ivan’s front wall was built. On either side, running perpendicular to the street, it was nearly 2 metres high, separating him from us and his other neighbours. But out the front, the wall was low, just half a metre off the ground. I was amazed. I had been sure that he would lock himself away, but he’d built a low front fence. Well done, man. There’s hope for us all.