Sydney's Song (2 page)

This is a work of fiction based on true stories and real events, woven using fictional characters.

The 1300500 calls have all been true. Every single one, unfortunately.

Names, times, locations have been altered (except names of the hospital staff, although I've changed the hospital's). Any resemblance is purely coincidental or used fictitiously.

The spelling used is Australian English, except when an American is speaking. God is referred to as “he” when the speaker is an atheist, as“ He” when the speaker is a theist.

I did not set out to write tortuous vernaculars. The choice of words and phrases flowed naturally. For non-Aussie readers, in case needed here are some regional terms:

arvo – afternoon,

barbie – barbeque

bloke – man

bogan – low-cultured person

brekkie – breakfast

bush – forest

coldie – beer

grog – alcohol

gum tree – eucalyptus tree

HSC – Higher School Certificate

idiot box – TV

journo – journalist

Pom – British

pressies – presents

schoolies – a week-long Australian school-leavers' party

slower than a wet week – boring

uni – university

woop-woop – far-flung

Feedback On Aussie Slang

My very best friend, author Allan Wilford Howerton, 89-year-old American WW2 veteran, retired federal civil servant, has proven Aussie slang isn't that difficult to digest. I showed him my Author's Notes and asked for his feedback. Allan, who had never heard of the above Aussie slang, promptly wrote:

“This non-journo bloke having read your Author's Notes this arvo without benefit of an idiot box or consultation with a brogan and sans the influence of neither coldie nor grog, do herewith pronounce it acceptable for perusal ‘neath gum tree or wherever no matter how woop-woop the setting whether a slower than a wet week uni or lively schoolie.”

For all my friends of a million yesterdays
You'll know who I am by the song that I sing

Early November 1999

“This is how you cheat using an Orange Travelpass,” an Irish voice penetrated my gloomy thoughts.

I was standing against the wall outside the Asquith Leagues Club at Waitara, where my training sessions for Sydney's public-transport inbound call centre were held. This was the second Monday of my training at work. I can hardly tell you about the first week. I don't remember much. My parents had abandoned me. The shock made me unaware of my surroundings. I had not noticed things.

Looking back, I would label this period “Life as a Zombie”. The walking dead. When my best friends Lucy and Brenna were in Queensland's Surfers Paradise for schoolies burning the floor dancing to “Walk Like An Egyptian”, I Walked Like A Zombie.

My dog Dimity was the love of my life. But she was at home. And I was stuck here, training. I couldn't form any opinion about this job yet. My mind was not here most of the time.

The company I signed with was a branch of an American call centre. They had just landed their first big contract in Australia. A government one. Our job would be to handle integrated transport-information systems within Greater Sydney—area bordered by Lithgow, Port Stephens, Goulburn and Nowra—which had two-million public-transport trips a day. We would feed requests into our computer and it would spit out the answers.

So far I had been rather oblivious of my colleagues. Vaguely I knew they were a bunch of boisterous young people. And numerous nice oldies. Those were my first impressions of them. I was totally unsuspecting of how great a role they would play in my life very soon after.

Today before the training some of us chatted outside. I stood silent, dark sunnies on, trying to hide my eyes just in case tears welled up, which after my recent issues was a common occurrence. But the backpacker kids were disgustingly cheerful on this bright, beautiful Australian morning.

Several male voices with Pommy accents responded to the Irish girl. About a third of the new recruits had non-Australian accents, many of them backpackers. I turned to look at them. Before today, I had barely noticed these kids. For whatever reason, perhaps because of that imposing Irish girl, I watched them now. The red-haired girl was in the middle of delivering a dissertation on how to cheat using an Orange Travelpass.

“You must make sure you board the bus
only
when there are other passengers with you,” she lectured. “You must hold your ticket up when you step onto the bus, so the driver will see it in your hand.Then you let other people put their tickets in the machine, while you continue to the back of the bus still holding your ticket up. The driver won't notice whether you put your ticket into the machine or not.”

They all hung on to her every word with mesmerized looks on their faces. Perhaps they were interested in what she was saying, trying to save a few cents of their hard-earned money, or perhaps they were interested in her.

“So one ticket gets you from Lane Cove to the City to Bondi Beach to Manly to Narrabeen,” she concluded. “By bus and ferry unlimited.”

“But an inspector may show up,” piped a Pom. “He'll check the trip prints at the back!”

“That's a Travelten,” the girl told him breezily. “With a Travelpass bought from a newsagent, you won't get into trouble because it doesn't print the date of first use.”

“Are you that desperate?” An American accent. Handsome black-haired guy. “Are you really using the same ticket week after week?”

“Sheesh,” the girl bristled. “I hate it when you're being goody-goody. Haven't you ever, ever been so broke? Now I also have to buy a weekly train ticket from St Leonards to Hornsby!” She turned to the other boys, “There are times we can't even afford grog, and that's worse, isn't it?”

There was a chorus of agreement.

I wondered what it felt like to be this girl. To be that confident and at ease. To have an interesting life that she apparently enjoyed.

Travelling. Drinking. Cheating. Not a care in the world. Perhaps I should get a life. Save some money and join Alex, one of my best friends, backpacking wherever he might be. No one would miss me anyway.

This thought depressed me again. Absentminded, I followed my co-workers into the training room.

“You smell very nice,” commented a girl to my left.

I turned to her with a start. It was the Irish girl. “Sorry? What did you say?”

“Woolgathering, are you?” she grinned. “So early in the morning?”

“Sorry. Yes. I guess. I was lost.”

Her smile broadened—an engaging smile that reached her eyes and produced a very deep dimple on her right cheek. She had very neat, not very white teeth. She had curly bright red hair tamed with a twist and a chopstick-like hair ornament at the back, and cute little freckles on her prettily-shaped uptilted nose. Blue eyes.

“I'm Sinead,” she introduced herself. “From Dooblin.”

“Yes. I noticed the accent.”

“I saw you outside. Dark sunglasses on. Trying your best to look aloof and unapproachable.”

I choked. If only she knew why! “Nothing like that. I—I'm Sydney.”

“Hi Sydney. You smell very nice.” She inhaled. “Very subtle. You're good at choosing a perfume.”

“Not me,” I became flustered. “Mum. She knows things like that.”

“Oh blessed!”

“So, you travelling? How do you find Australia?”

“Grand! I loov Australia,” she kissed her fingers, blowing a kiss. “Quite an education. We work and we travel.” She gestured towards her backpacking buddies, some of whom sat nearby. “That's Pete. He's from Boston. I met him while working at Mt Buller. We were ski instructors last winter. And that's Lindsay from London. I met him while Pete and I were planting baby pine trees for the Forestry Department around Tumut. Do you know where that is?”

I shook my head.

“Do you know Batlow's apples? Tumut is a small place near Batlow. Well, your Forestry people planted new pine trees in the mountains there near the end of winter. Gosh, it was so cold! But very good money. Shame about that job, the team moved to work on Kangaroo Island. Too remote for me to go along…” She sounded wistful. “Then we headed north. Hard to get a job though. We've been spending and spending. Until this job.”

“So you'll do 1300500 for the Sydney Olympics?”

“No no no. We backpackers are temps.
Casuals
. They took us on to support the opening of 1300500's Hornsby centre. They guesstimate we'll assist for the first three months. The plan is, when permanent employees get some experience and speed, we temps will be dismissed.”

“You'll have to find another job?”

“Not here. It'll be getting cold here. What's the use of being in Australia if we don't feel warm? I've had enough cold at Mt Buller and Tumut. And hell, I'm from Ireland! I'll go to the sunshine. Queensland.”

Next we had to be quiet because the trainer, humorous Matt, started speaking.

“Most inner streets of a suburb are designed to get a bus every half an hour. So that when they hit the main corridor on their way to the City their combined frequency is every five minutes. Think of it like small creeks flowing into a river.”

I had lunch with Sinead in the Leagues Club café. I had a turkey sandwich. She had hot chips—and nothing else.

“When you travel you have to be really careful with your spending,” she explained. Right. Seemed like if she bought something to go with her chips, she would have less funds for booze.

“Are you from around here?”

“Yes. Beecroft. Been there all my life.”

“Where's that?”

“Northern Line. Eight minutes' train-trip away.”

Our location was confidential, perhaps out of fear callers would bomb us for giving out wrong information. But since it was more than eleven years ago and they have since moved away, I guess it wouldn't matter anymore if you knew where we were, right? The training did take place at the Asquith Leagues Club, but my office was going to be on George Street, next door to Hornsby Library, several minutes' walk from Hornsby Mall's water clock—our emergency meeting point in case of fire.

The suburbs Waitara and Hornsby belong to the green and leafy Hornsby Shire, Sydney's northern gateway if you are travelling north to the Central Coast or Newcastle. Vast and sprawling with residential suburbs and eucalyptus forests, Hornsby Shire is located 25km from Sydney's city centre and 130km from Newcastle. It has a population of 160,000, roughly 22,000 among them in the suburb Hornsby and 11,000 in my suburb Beecroft.

“I'm staying at Lane Cove,” Sinead volunteered. “That's by bus from St Leonards. With the English boys. Lindsay and Mark and Gareth. Pete—you know, tall, black hair, green eyes? He used to travel with us, but he's so lucky he has relatives here in Roseville. He's staying with them rent-free. So he can afford to pay proper fares. Did you hear him this morning? He's the only American. I hate it when he starts to moralise.
‘Pay proper fares. Drink only when you can afford it',”
she did a poor imitation of his accent, “Where's the fun in that?”