out and about

At Sloppy Tee’s, a woman sweeps one-handed with a fan-shaped broom.

A man on the bus has his laptop open, text on the left, columns of red and blue cells on the right. He’s looking out the window.

A swarthy man in his forties squats impossibly, studying his phone, the hem of his suit jacket scraping the platform. Beneath the jacket he wears trainers and a pair of shorts. He has a white baseball cap.

After the heat and glare of the open tracks we enter a tunnel near Central, and the walls close in. The windows are black. They show us what’s inside.

A man sits on the bottom step of Platform 5 at Wynyard, chin in hand, eyes unfocused. When the train pulls in he stands slowly, boards slowly, slowly descends to a seat on the bottom level. He takes a phone from his pocket and sags.

Two elderly walkers are about to board at the back of the bus when the door wheezes shut in their faces. Their hands fly up. They look surprised. They get back in line.

A woman sits down on the top deck of the B1 and immediately attacks the woman in front, giving a tug on her curly hair and waiting. She tugs again. And again. The woman in front turns slowly, with a look: irritation, apprehension, uncertainty. It morphs into a grin and both women squeal in delight. Friends.

At Redfern Station a temporary hoarding blocks part of the footway. A sign on the hoarding says: “Move along from the narrow platform. Thank you for keeping the trains moving.”

A young woman walks from George Street into Dymocks with her phone held rigidly in front, videoing everything her eyes can see. Between the central shelves she turns aside and zooms right in on the cover of Spare, by Prince Harry, lingers a moment, then resumes her fully-documented expedition.

A woman propels a stroller one-handed down the steps from McDonalds on George Street. Her other hand wrestles for control of a take-away cup, her opponent a small boy who is screaming “Nai! Nai!” over and over again. As the last wheel hits the footpath she stops and releases a string of loud, angry, fast-moving European sounds.

The end of a very long bus line at Wynyard stands in the blazing sun. A small, compact man waits nearby in the shade, his chest heaving slightly as if he’s under stress. He has a child-like face and bright eyes, set among the winkles of a middle-aged man.

The moment his claimed position has reached the shade, he steps back into the line.

A man on Spit Hill risks injury in the cause of anecdote, gesturing with so much energy that he’s on the point of falling over. He braces one foot behind, and lowers his centre of gravity.

A tiny dog-walker walks a tiny dog past a bus stop in Collaroy. The walker is a girl of perhaps three years, possibly less, in a pink dress and a bucket hat. The dog is a minuscule Sydney Silky in a mood of relaxed exploration. Each seems surprised, now and then, to discover their connection.

A blue Toyota Yaris stands in the shade with its engine running. Air-conditioned. The driver is horizontal with a grin, talking on the phone.

One of four men strolling together voices a question: “What benefit is it then to hoodwink the public?”

A big black standard poodle stands regally on the steps with its human. Small dogs passing by are transfixed. A little brown fluff ball drags on its lead, complies, turns back, sits down in protest, and finally has to be carried away.

A black Pomeranian puppy is exploring Dee Why with its human. Everything is new and wonderful. It stops and looks and sniffs. It gallops to catch up, front paws rising and falling together, like a tiny, fluffy rocking horse.

A woman slowly pedals down the pedestrian way in Dee Why and crosses Howard Avenue. The front half of her bicycle is a big rectangular box containing her daughter, who relaxes at the front and watches the world pass by.

At a table nearby sits a bony woman, with black makeup round her eyes and skin like leather. She has salon hair in chestnut with broad, arresting streaks of blonde; short on one side and parted there, swept across to follow the opposite cheek and taper in beneath the chin. Her face is narrow, her nose is long and pointy, her mouth is thin. Grim. Forbidding.

Her companion, easily her equal in bones and leather, has blonde hair in a costly concave bob.

A third woman joins them. Chestnut’s mouth lifts at the corner and she is utterly transformed. Warm. Welcoming. She props one hand against her cheek and listens, eyes moving, looking the newcomer up and down as she speaks. The new woman has frizzy, ratty hair and a smiling face not tortured by the sun, a shapeless dress and eyes that crinkle with laughter. She doesn’t stay long.

When the others depart, they pause to share a hug. Chestnut is so much shorter than her blonde friend and suddenly looks like a child. A lost child. She lifts her withered arms to the embrace and there’s a sense of long-held, deep affection, history shared, and sadness.

Woman in a cafe: I have to buy bleach this week. Right next to my shower, there’s a brown mark where something’s been standing.

Two men in their 50s take a table together. Each has a Daily Telegraph. One man looks at the other with a dubious expression, and the other looks down uncomfortably.

In a barber shop some distance away stand two plastic chairs and the end of a table. Something black is there, just inside the doorway. Maybe it’s a jacket or a hoody, but it can’t just be hanging there attached to nothing. At first glance, and at every subsequent glance, it is a medium sized black dog on its haunches, resting its front paws on the seat of a chair. But it doesn’t move. It’s as still as a statue made of felt.

Big voice of a little boy in the Dee Why Grand: “What?”

Mother, striding ahead: “We’ll go up here.”

Boy, following at a distance: “No we wo-on’t. Mummy! No!”

A slight and slender young woman is cleaning public surfaces in the Dee Why Grand. Her movements are brisk and confident, but her eyes are watchful.

A woman suddenly becomes visible as she stands beyond the cafe’s roped-off area. Lifting her handbag onto a table, she pushes one thing after another deep inside, takes up the handles and strides away.

Now she’s gone. Before, she just wasn’t there.