He had the posture of a candy-cane. A curvature of the spine so aggressive his shoulders seemed to be crumbling under the force of an invisible weight resting upon them. With hands clasped behind his back, he ambled with the pace of a man who had all the time in the world. Despite the exercise, his attire was immaculate. A three-piece suit tailored to complement his sinewy frame; straw hat balanced atop snow-white hair so thick with gel it stuck to his scalp like PVA glue. Walking the length of the sidewalk, he appeared like a mirage from a bygone era, one in which chivalry punctuated every interaction and politeness was still considered sexy. Class seeped out of his pores so that the houses whose yards were streaked with junk seemed restored to a former glory.
It was always the same place. Just past the dog park where owners had about as much control over their animals as a parent does a child high on sugar. Past the traffic lights where cars grumbled with impatience. Past the school where a chorus of shrieks blared from the gated campus. There, his lonely figure crystallised into view.
The interaction was always the same, too. Right hand would rise to lift the hat off his head, then his bones cracked to allow for a bow so low his nose practically scraped the ground. After righting himself, he turned and faced the cars driving past. Then, he would extend his left arm to gesticulate with the sweeping action of an emperor addressing his loyal court.
“Make way! Make way!” he bellowed in a voice worn with age. “Make way! The Queen is coming through.”
It never mattered if I was running hard efforts or moving at a laboured pace, his actions never ceased to be a comedic routine. The ripples of laughter worked their way through my body and crashed through my chest as I continued past him and up the hill. A kilometre stretched between us as I swung my arms back forcefully, but still, I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. Cars drove past, their drivers hanging out of windows with bewildered expressions, unsure what to make of the maniacal runner laughing to no-one. By the time I doubled-back, he was gone. It was like that all the time, a fleeting interaction, a shared laugh, a routine that came to be shared with a stranger now familiar, even if only passing through.
Our paths first crossed in 2015, when I was a journalism student with a terrible attendance record, eschewing afternoon lectures and tutorials when the sun sat high and the sky appeared a lake of blue. Most have always championed the Morning Run, that which allows them to arrive to class or the office with the smug look of someone who has hit their step goal before the streetlights have even recognised the sun’s presence. But much like anyone who is loud and prone to draw attention to themselves, the Morning Run is overcompensating.
Personally, I’ve always preferred the Afternoon Run. It’s quiet, somewhat more reserved, and doesn’t feel the need to parade its merits to the public. The Afternoon Run knows it will find its audience, that the quality it delivers will see them remain fiercely devoted. It sees streets emptied. This is the time when the school bell has yet to toll. The air isn’t thick with particles of chicken salt and knock-off perfume as it will come to be when high schoolers flock to bus stops and train stations. The suits are still caged in their offices overlooking city streets, suburban driveways remain empty, the houses unoccupied. The odd pedestrian steps leisurely, with no pace to their stride. The day is momentarily suspended, and in that last inhale before dusk I always felt like the streets were opening up to me as though they were mine to explore alone. Until I saw Robert.
Immediately, I noticed his presence, thanks in large part to the cloud of cologne that enveloped him. It was woody, a little spicy, and lingered long after his departure. There was no inconspicuous head nod or quiet greeting, Robert skipped the small talk and went straight for the royal wave. I laughed, nearly doubling-over and launching myself headfirst into oncoming traffic as I veered from the pavement. But I kept running. For days, the interaction repeated and in the comfort of familiarity, Robert became even more theatrical. I had run out of excuses to keep motoring past. No training run, upcoming race, PB, or Strava segment victory could top finding out the particulars of this stranger who was becoming a permanent fixture in my daily routine.
Some days it was quick, just a few words exchanged on the sidewalk as I hopped from foot to foot. On others, we walked together or found the lone park bench to share before I eventually continued on along my route. He was the first to ask about my day. I was the first to seek advice. He had an uncanny ability to notice details, reading the lines of my face like a topographic map. He never once suggested he had all the answers, but he offered me stories and in them, I found lessons and guidance that I knew to file away and call upon later.
In 2016, I flew to Spain where I attempted to learn the language and improve my attendance record during the course of my exchange program. I thought of Robert often, wondering if he was taking the same path and if he’d encountered another who relished the Afternoon Run. When I finally arrived home in January of 2017, I imagined streets that were unrecognisable, the passing of twelve months resulting in so much change I would require GPS-navigation just to find my way home. Instead, everything was just as I remembered. Save from the odd ‘For Sale’ sign and the addition of bricks to the long-running building development, it was as if no time had passed at all. Just as he was when I had left, there was Robert, ambling along the pavement, hands clasped behind his back, straw hat balanced atop his hair, three-piece suit ironed and tailored to perfection.
But his movements were slower. They took a concentrated effort that his smile could no longer disguise. It was there in the knitted brow, the hollowed cheeks, and the breaths that came out ragged and drawn from a concave chest. If ever there was a reminder that yes, I had been gone a year, I found it in the valleys and troughs that lined Robert’s face. Though he couldn’t generate quite as much volume as before, he still called out: “The Queen! The Queen is coming through!”
In the months that followed, Robert’s presence on my daily runs could no longer be guaranteed. Days accumulated in which the streets were empty of his humour and the day’s colour muted. Cars passed with little to occupy their attention, while the most class you could hope to find was a high schooler with a jumper draped across their shoulders rather than stuffed into a backpack. On those days where I did see him, a man walked by his side, an arm wrapped around his waist as though Robert might shatter into pieces should he let go. Robert no longer gesticulated, but he made sure to stop. I could see the exhaustion crawling across his face, the struggle of his eyes to remain alert and focused. “You’re the girl Dad’s been telling me about,” said his son beside him.
The conversation was always interesting and never failed to make me laugh. But the interactions were brief, their conclusion prefaced with an imperceptible nod from his son and a light tug on Robert’s arm. I understood that it was a matter of preservation. Like a candle burning down to the wick, the light within Robert was fading. Soon, it would cut out entirely, leaving all of us in darkness.
After three months passed with no sighting of Robert, I knew to expect the worst. There was no number to call, no home address to visit, no email – we had never exchanged such details. Even if we had, what right would I have contacting them? I was just another person whose life had been touched by Robert, even if only fleetingly, and I had no doubt that his was a life that would be remembered by all those who were lucky to know him.
One afternoon, when the light was pale as it is in the beginnings of winter and the air carried a bite that necessitated the wearing of base layers, I took myself on a run much like I had done so many times before. He didn’t have quite the amble, or the three-piece suit, but I recognised him from the conversations we had shared in Robert’s presence and those eyes that shone just as blue as his father’s. He told me the news of Robert’s passing and the difficult weeks that preceded it and I told him about the royal wave and how the action came to inspire the most unlikely of friendships. “Classic Dad,” he said, wiping away tears with the back of his hand. It was the first laugh he’d had in weeks, the sheer need of it like coming up for air.
“After Mum passed, Dad was all alone in a little house far too big for one person. I’d come round, we’d all check in on him. But it’s like you reach the age of 80 and suddenly most of your friends are gone and your days become so narrow, just a string of habits repeated in succession,” he said.
“I don’t think you know what those conversations with Dad really meant to him, what it meant to have him be seen by someone that wasn’t his immediate family. It’s just, people forget about the old, you know? They live their life around them as though they don’t exist. You made him feel young again, I think…yeah. I think you made Dad feel young again.”
Earlier this year, Belle and I went to see Trent Dalton talk about his latest novel, Lola in the Mirror. At the end of the conversation, he fielded questions from the audience. I kicked myself the whole way home for hesitating when the microphone was first extended towards the seated crowd. The question was right on my lips and all I wanted was to put it towards this writer I admire most. Instead, I sat on my hands, eyes darting around the room, head lowered should Trent happen to make eye contact and see the dilated pupils that betray someone wrestling to overcome a fear of public speaking within the ten minutes of allocated time. All of this is to say: by the time I eventually put up my hand, another was chosen and that person happened to ask the last question “we have time for this evening.” You idiot, Jess.
What Trent was asked, though, was a question about how he renders such vivid imagery in all of his writing. He makes it seem so effortless, but the ability to firmly place a reader within a setting so that their nose twitches at the second-hand smoke wafting from a supporting character, that they can vividly recall the wallpaper or corroding ceiling, the soundtrack that is immediately heard when in close proximity of the park…it’s not easily done.
And yet Trent, in both his novels and journalism, somehow captures every detail and brings it to life yet again on the page. He’s too humble to praise such a skill, but what Trent did say was that before he had aspirations of ever becoming a writer, he was an observer first. He paid attention in class – not just to the subject material – but to his classmates and teachers. He listened to what they said, but also saw in facial expressions all that was left unsaid, too. A student grappling with sickness or the strain of arguments that sounded behind the closed door of their parents’ bedroom; a teacher burnt out and exhausted, merely trying to make it through a lesson unscathed.
I thought this was all guaranteed, that to exist in the world is to sign a contract in which your days are coloured by observing those around you. But as Trent explained – and as I have since learned in conversation with others – too many people are focused solely on themselves to notice anyone or much of anything at all. Theirs are memories that play in soft-focus, sepia tones distorting accuracy, the faces of people encountered blurred if recognisable at all.
And yet here is Trent, able to relay a memory to you with the utmost clarity, recalling last words and outfits worn, the books on the bedside table or the football trophies resting on the mantle. To recall this, to care so much about those existing around you that you make the concerted effort to remember, to really look, to see every detail – it’s an act of love. To say, you matter, I want to remember this moment and you in it, is a gift so rarely given yet it’s at the heart of every story Trent Dalton puts his name to.
Running is primed for observation. From your footfall to the breath that fans your face like mist in the early morning, every detail seems to be rendered in high definition. And yet, I also know that there are times when I put my head down, eschewing those fascinating acts taking shape in my periphery for a clear-cut, straight line that favours pace. There is every chance I would have simply run past Robert and continued to do so for months on end, barely glancing up in time to give a courteous head-nod before steamrolling past. But in the theatrics he was sure to perform with my passing, he yanked me into the present and extended the gift of committing one’s details to memory.
All around us are strangers whose lives map onto our own in the same routes crossed, the same train boarded, the same local coffee shop whose morning brew serves as life blood. But how many of their details do we commit to memory? How much of them do we allow ourselves to notice, so that we might offer up something in return? How many strangers will commit themselves to making you feel better, to seeing a laugh escape your lips, all before even knowing your name? I do not know the number, but I imagine it to be few.
Before he was anything to me, Robert felt familiar. I run that same route now and imagine him strolling the length of the sidewalk, calling out to anyone within earshot, “Make way! Make way! The Queen is coming through!” I can see him tipping his hat to reveal hair as white as snow, a laugh sneaking from his lips like a virus, infecting all those who encountered it with pure delight. I miss him terribly. But these details, these small gifts, I could live in them for a lifetime.
"Running is primed for observation" from a great runner, observer, writer, and running-writer. I want an entire book of this pieces, and I'm prepared to wait. Each with its own deep reflection on what truly unifies us, beneath the noise, arrived at in solitude. Your first two pieces? Two from two.