The boulangerie and patisserie on Nicholson Street is five minutes walk from our apartment at the leafy end of Rathdowne. The bike path that was once a train line isn’t far. A hip new café up there has good coffee and food but it’s busy. I prefer to walk the laneway. Skip the path, swing through the trees, I once read.
The walk takes me along a cobbled bluestone street cutting between Lygon and Nicholson. More lane than street, it is a backstage glimpse of inner city life. Thunderboxes lining the back fences have been converted into sheds and an old stable is now a loft apartment but they are a reminder of another time, a different city.
Rathdowne is busy in the morning. Office workers in flash cars looking to shortcut through the traffic sit bumper to bumper anyway. Fixed wheeled bikes zip along the inside lane carrying guys and gals with asymmetrical haircuts and the cuffs of their jeans folded up.
A catering company spans the entire laneway, a red brick warehouse on one side and the old barn opposite. Day and night people scurry from building to building loading food in and out of a white van.
A sixty-foot gum tree springs out of the cobbled ground between Ames and Canning. Neat cottages and terraces nestle beneath its leafy branches. It is cooler under there and the autumn sun filters down through a sea of green.
I think of the bush, then look down Canning Street and see a city full of possibilities. A wide boulevard dotted with palms and double storey terraces leads toward a city skyline reaching up to put its fingerprint on the big sky.
The lane gets its punk on at Station Street. Black, silver, reds and greens. Tags and pop references creeping across the walls and around windows guarded by metal bars. Tiny courtyards overflow with ashtrays, herbs and hard rubbish chairs. Late starters are still rising in the flats above the shops.
Step out on Nicholson Street and the Railway Hotel is on the left and the Empress on the right. They deal in pots, cheap grub and live music. Maria’s Deli is down the road a ways selling meats of all sorts as well as dips and cheese. There is a butcher, two souvlaki joints, a TAB, a bookshop and a green grocer. I could jump the 96 to St Kilda beach or East Brunswick but the coffee is there at the bakery on the corner. It costs $3.20. The service is shit but it is a strong brew. Life back in Melbourne is good.
