Zoë Norton Lodge - Almost Sincerely

First published in 2015

from the Writing & Society Research Centre

at the University of Western Sydney

by the Giramondo Publishing Company

PO Box 752

Artarmon NSW 1570 Australia

www.giramondopublishing.com

Zo Norton Lodge, 2015

Cover design and illustrations by

Georgia Norton Lodge

Page design by Harry Williamson

Typeset by Andrew Davies

in 11.25 / 14 pt Garamond 3

Printed and bound by Ligare Book Printers

Distributed in Australia by NewSouth Books

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Norton Lodge, Zo

Almost Sincerely

ISBN 9781922146854 (pbk)

A823.4

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

For Yioryia, Wally-Pavlo, Andonia and The Gabro

Contents

Zotrope: Annandale

A nnandale: its that skinny little suburb that fell asleep between good suburbs. Good suburbs where actual stuff happens like trips to the movies and catching the train.

If you were playing SimCity and you made Annandale, then you would need to get some bigger dreams and possibly some anti-depressants.

Lets take Annandale for a spin.

The long march of Johnston Street takes us from the Brothel and Guitar-Shop district of Parramatta Road all the way down to Rozelle Bay. Rozelle Bay where no ships come in. But before Johnston Street gets there it intersects the rumbling hubbub of Booth Street. And thats where the Annandale magic happens.

There you can buy tea bags and light bulbs and ham off the bone and peri-peri pizzas and cotton buds and beer and tulips and fancy fish and hot chips in newspaper. And nestled in amongst the practicalities are the diet supplement store and handicraft hell shops the handicraft hell shops are all rubber kitchen utensils and sequined cardigans signifying nothing. And threaded quietly through all that are the Annandale zombies, the ancient milk bar with the new sign and the old burgers, the old burgers that sag into frowns in your hand and the TAB and the Vacuum Fixer and the Grocer with the Toupee.

Right now, if youre a malamute and you have two mums, and your two mums are architects, and theyve tied you to the Trafalgar Street bus stop while they eat cultured butter on bread, bread too good for toasting, and drink coffee brewed for twelve hours served cold and revolting but nonetheless in a jar, then my friend, then you are an Annandale dog. If your lycra-pinched buttcrack bounces down Clovers new bike track as you whizz along-side Jubilee Park past a Pekaspaniel, a Jack-a-Poodle, a Labrakitty, then my friend, youre an Annandale dude.

But lets spin back, back just a little bit before in Annandale time

If youre a forty year-old woman with bright red nails and all ten fingers be-ringed and jingle-jangle bangled wrists then youre Mamma screaming a fish-and-chips order to Dad who hasnt yet walked in the door from work, but he has thrown his jacket on a fence post and Mammas stuffed his shirt pocket with a fist full of fivers and hes turned himself around to go and get the order and a half-bottle of Chardonnay. Little Georgia and I wave to him from the swing in the park across the street, and we swing to and fro until we get called inside which we know will be very soon for playtime is as sand through the egg-timer about three minutes.

But in all our spinning we missed a few Annandale things. We missed the house where Sir Henry Parkes lived and the schoolrooms of St Mary Mackillop, we missed the charge of Old George Johnston and his Rum Rebellion. We missed the Annandale Street Sisters (suffragette and biological), Anne and Kath and Belle. We missed the Great Fire at the Canister Factory. We missed all of the schools and all of the churches and the teachers and children and pastors and sinners. We missed the Grand Old Abbey and the Witches Houses, the aqueduct sewage system, the secession of the East Ward of Annandale, The Racophone and Kodak Factories and the Hunter Baillie Manse garden parties. We missed the Beale Piano Factory and in missing that, we missed that Annandale had pianos before it had electricity. Inside the factory we missed all the little fitters and joiners and turners, all the painters and pattern- and cabinet-makers, the veneer and brass and iron men, the timber yard and the mill, the rooms for drying and dusting and polishing and piano experiments. We missed the proudest most productive Piano Factory in the whole of the Empire and then we missed that it got turned into flats.

Here are some stories that might have happened to the people of Annandale, especially me. And some other stories that might have happened when me and my bumbag wished ourselves good luck and left the temperate climes of Annandale for a bit.

Nineteen-Eighty-Seven

S o its summer in 1987 and Annandale, a little suburb just tucked into the inner-western flap of mother Sydney, well Annandale see, it was changing.

From a snaggle-toothed, pock-marked, skid-marked man, passed out in a puddle of his own piss behind the wheel of a Mr Whippy van, to a beautiful gay man in his mid-twenties who works in a boutique advertising firm.

And me, well I was starting pre-school and goddamn it, I was going to be somebody.

I was going to rise out of the bog of Annandale like a lady in a swimming costume rises out of a cake, and I was gonna show em what I had. Cause I had something. That was for sure.

So its summer in Annandale in 1987 and I got my shit packed, Mammas making me a sandwich and cutting up a pear just how I like it. Im ready to blow the house and skip out down to pre-school. Maybe pet a sweet dog on the way or some shit.

So Mamma and me we rock on down to Hilda Booler Pre-School. Were standing at the gates and Im ready. Im gonna mince in there and shake that building down. And then Mamma decides to come in the fucking gate.

Mamma, seriously, Im two and a half, you dont have to come in with me, thats really excessive, I say. Because I could talk. I could talk real early, in a freakish fully-formed sentences kind of way. Id be in my pram, wiggling or something, and people would put their fingers in my zone and Id spit out my dummy and say:

Hey lady, great loafers.

So anyway, Mamma waits at the gates and I stroll on in and enrol myself in pre-school.

I have a sweet day. Eat some pears, make a picture with a potato cut in a star shape, make some new friends and shit my pants.

Now, when Mamma comes to pick me up at the end of the day she sees that Im wearing different pants. Kirsty, the pretty teacher, who almost called DOCS when I enrolled myself in pre-school, has a quiet word to Mamma, and I realise I gotta think quick. I gotta think real quick or Mammas gonna think Im a fool. So as we leave and walk to the car I do something shifty.

Mamma, I say, Mamma, youre not going to believe this. But somebody else actually pooed in my pants.