out and about

A tall, slender woman walks past the theatre. She has long blonde hair, a loose blue top and skinny black trousers. Her hands sway with the movement of her elbows, and each contains a white-topped something. She brings the left one to her mouth, and drinks.

Entering a driveway, she rests her cup on the roof of a blue car parked rear-on to the street. Lights flash and she opens the passenger door. She sits sideways in the vehicle, feet on the driveway, cup beside them, one elbow on a knee with the second white-topped object lifted so she can see inside. Fingers delve. Her hand goes up to her mouth. She chews.

Four Japanese women stand in the wind, sentinels at the four corners of a covered pram.

A four-year-old strides across the road with his mother, swinging his one free hand with enormous energy.

A woman crosses at the lights with her stroller, crests the footpath and engages two similar women with similar strollers. All three adopt matching grins of many teeth, and crinkly-cheeked gazes of sunshine and joy, accompanied by an array of high-pitched sounds that no one could possibly disentangle. The waiting two hone in on the just-arrived stroller, directing their eyes, teeth and noise in that direction.

Appalled, but aware of its obligations, the baby grins back at them.

Voices on a bus.

Girl 1 : ‘Know what I mean?’

Girl 2: ‘Not really. Like …’ (long, inaudible mumble)

Girl 1: ‘Exactly!’

At St Leonards a man lumbers down the stairs and sits facing me. He pulls his mask away from his mouth and drapes it under his chin. Why?

Two smokestacks tower above the turn-off from Victoria Road towards the Anzac Bridge. On top of one stack is a big white rabbit with pink, floppy ears.

A little girl climbs the steps behind her mother, clutching a purple lamb.

A young woman with purple hair slouches along the walkway, scanning the park for evidence of hostility. Finding no-one to challenge, she takes out her phone with a sneer.

A familiar man zips through the park again on his electric scooter, sitting on two big sacks of rice. This time his feet are tucked behind.

A tiny little boy dawdles behind his mother on the walkway. Skinny legs and sleeves too long. His mother waits, and he hands her a drink to carry. Further along he finds a metal plate set into the path and stops to examine it. He goes down on all fours, then rocks back into a squat and watches his mother, waiting for her to notice. She does, and she calls to him. He crab-walks to the other side of the metal plate and sits down comfortably with his back to her.

The bus is full of penitents, heads bowed, phones in their laps.

Before the IMAX Theatre is a lawyers' building, in two shades of purple.

As the bus flies down the Burnt Bridge Creek Bypass, a glimpse of the bike path flashes past. Two riders emerge from a tunnel and disappear beneath the road.

A little boy stands at a public phone in Dee Why, deeply engaged with his mother, who squats beside him. She passes him the phone receiver and he uses two hands to hold it to his ear. He listens. His face lights up.

At the end of the call he says: ‘I spoke to Daddy!’

A man is collecting prescriptions at the chemist. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘for Valerie and the dog, Bella.’

As we cross the Parramatta River, seven kayaks paddle towards the Iron Cove Bridge.

Two women clash on York Street, strolling in bright red and hot pink, side by side.

The Spit. A middle-aged man in slacks and shirt (no helmet) sits astride his motor scooter, arms folded, unimpressed, as a man in high-vis points to the scooter parking area.

A young woman walks round to the front of the Dee Why Grand, whose facade is concealed by scaffolding. She wears dark blue cargo pants and a pink, long-sleeved high-vis shirt, both with fluorescent strips. Her hair is long, dark and pony-tailed.

As she walks, she keeps looking up at the facade as if she’s waiting for something to happen, and each time she does this she checks her watch.

Across the road a baby travels in a pouch, legs swaying with its mother’s steps.

On Spit Road in Mosman, a service pit has collapsed into a sinkhole. This danger to pedestrians is flagged with a pair of fluorescent plastic posts, but as these have themselves fallen into the hole, three witch’s hats have been added to the perimeter.

The Spit Bridge must be up, because traffic is banked up almost to the top of the hill on Manly Road. The young woman in front of me just sits for ages, but finally begins to read ‘The Girl on the Train’.

‘The Girl on the Bus’ isn’t written yet.

In the cardboard polling booth, a tiny old man fusses with his vast Senate voting paper. He has Elvis sideburns, and lots of dark hair in a faithfully executed Elvis quiff. His suit trousers are black with pinstripes, and he wears a white shirt and braces. He departs slowly, stiffly, and doesn’t swivel his hips.

On George Street in the city, a woman waits to cross King Street with her dark-haired, school-dressed daughters.

One daughter, five or six years old, is dancing on the spot, alternating feet in a vigorous double-hopping motion. The other girl, head down, standing as still as a statue, gazes at her phone. She’s nine or ten.

Without looking up or losing focus, moving only her feet, the older girl suddenly joins in the double-hopping dance with her little sister. It lasts a couple of seconds, then she’s a statue again.

Their mother stands between them with a crooked mouth, staring into space.