Degraves Beth Brown

DegravesBeth Brown

I follow the lines of lunchtime suits as we spill out of Collins Street’s Block Arcade and empty onto Degraves Street. Degraves is a burrow. It serves the anaemic office worms like me. We emerge from our holes—pale-faced and mouths damp with coffee and red wine rot—and charge into the laneway paved with cobblestones, lined with cafes. The art-deco lofts overhead block out Melbourne’s pewter sky and filter winter’s dying sun in thin fingers of light. At the laneway’s mouth, overflowing dumpsters spill refuse onto the bluestone. I take a few steps, and the smell of fetid trash is swallowed, replaced by the heady fumes of hot bread and coffee grinds.

I join a line. I go to the same hole-in-a-wall takeaway place every Monday to Friday. I like it because the line moves quickly, and the food is consistent. If someone asked me if it was the best food on Degraves, I would have to say no. Not the best. But the most consistent. Which, in my opinion, is better. My fragile, starved cerebrum could not handle anticipating the best, only to be disappointed when it is sold out or when menus change. A tall glass counter houses hundreds of baguettes ready for the lunchtime suits. The queue disperses like waves crashing on a sheer cliff face.

There are four people in front of me, and only one Chicken Waldorf baguette left. Fuck. This could be bad. What will I have if one of these jerks takes the Waldorf?

Three people. Perhaps Brie and Bacon? No, I get indigestion just thinking about all that soft cheese and animal fat. I’ll end up with lucid dreams again. Two … and that’s when I see her, sitting at a café across from me. It’s her hair that I recognise first. Her Afro is smoothed and tamed into six braids that run down her scalp and then explode into puffs at the nape of her neck. She wears gold rings pierced through the braids and lacquers her baby hairs in perfect coils that frame her heart-shaped face. After my eyes have studied her crown, I let them drop down to her breasts, where a baby is suckling. Her breasts are bigger now. All of her seems bigger. She takes up so much more space. She looks like a balloon that’s been inflated, stretched, then deflated.

One … fuck! The bastard has taken the Waldorf.

‘What will it be?’ the woman behind the counter is asking me.

I stutter. Not the Brie and Bacon. Fuck. The man behind me doesn’t hide his impatience, letting a long sigh escape with each exhale.

‘Roast beef, please.’ I immediately regret my choice. I’ll hate it. I hand over a five-dollar note, and the woman behind the counter hands me my baguette wrapped in a brown paper bag. Like a swaddled baby, I think. I walk across the lane to get a better look at her. I join another queue at Degraves Espresso to order coffee. This one moves more slowly.

Her name is Grace. She was a one-night stand. We met at the Gin Palace maybe four years ago. She came back to my apartment, and our drunken limbs were entangled in something hard and desperate. We had clawed at each other’s flesh, and when we kissed,\]] it felt as though the gristle in my nose was breaking. We didn’t exchange numbers. She left my apartment, and we parted like dandelion seeds spinning in a spring breeze.

And here she is now. Her seeds have found soil, grown roots, and flowered. The baby is a shade darker than her own caramel complexion. A fat milk-chocolate cherub with a wisp of black fleece dancing on its pulsating fontanelle.

‘Next,’ calls the waitress.

‘Latte.’

I stand and drink my coffee.

Now I see the child next to her, maybe three or four, maybe five? Christ, I don’t know how old kids are. I can’t remember the last time I even spoke to one. This one is a shade lighter. It’s holding out a maraschino cherry and whining: ‘Muuuuuum, Muuuuum, I don’t like it! Grace plucks the cherry from its sticky fingers and stuffs it into her own mouth. Smiling, she says, ‘All done.’ The baby has now released her breast and is slung over her shoulder.

I start to feel flushed and prickly as I stare at the older child. One shade lighter. Could it be mine? It has been four years since our gristle and sticky flesh collided. I stare intently at this child’s face, trying to see if it mirrors my own. The nose is too narrow to be mine. The brow too high. Eyes too wide-set. Without realising it, I have moved closer to where they are sitting. She looks up at me. ‘Grace?’

‘Yes?’ She looks confused. She doesn’t recognise me.

‘I’m Alec. We met a few years ago.’

The baby is crying. She scoops it into a bundle across her chest and starts rocking. The older child is pulling at her, nagging. ‘I’m thirsty!’

‘Sorry, I don’t remember.’

‘I guess it was a while ago now.’

‘Well, nice to see you.’ She dismisses me.

‘You have kids now!’ I feign a joyful laugh. She’s pouring the child a glass of water, not watching me. ‘That’s so great. How old are they?’

‘Ummm, four weeks and four years.’ She smiles now, proud of her seedlings.

‘It was about four years ago we met, at the Gin Palace—’ I start but am interrupted as the child calls out, ‘Dad!’

A man has stepped out of a nearby café carrying two plates of croissants, which he wobbles and pretends to juggle. He looks six foot five until he steps off the curb and drops the plates on the table in front of Grace. The child squeals with delight and claps their sticky hands. He plants a kiss on Grace’s forehead then sweeps the child up onto his hip. I stand there, staring at them. Studying their faces. Invading their space. He looks up at me quizzically and asks, ‘Are you alright?’

Grace is blushing. Has she remembered me? Or is she just embarrassed by a stranger’s intrusion?

‘Just looking for a light.’ I draw a cigarette out of my pocket. My eyes search over his face. High forehead. Narrow nose. Wide-set eyes. Thank God. The child must belong to him.

‘Sorry, mate. We don’t smoke,’ he says.

I shrug, before slinking into the underpass. Childless and euphoric, my dandelion seeds keep spinning in the breeze.