ARTWORK: Milly Yates
Three Men, One Corroborree By Eammon Gumley
Smaller than the average share house, 23 Corroborree Park manages to be even more cramped on the inside than a cursory glance at the outside would suggest. I say cursory glance as a more sustained viewing of the house would make hardy stomachs churn. The lingering onlooker would start to notice features of the house that they would rather have missed. The remnants of slabs of the ‘Very Best’ lay scattered around the property, slightly hidden in case the real estate agent ever drove past. If Admiral Yamamoto had ever found himself at Corroborree, he would have found a crushed tin and a half smoked durry behind every blade of grass. One of the oldest cottages in the Inner North, the affectionately named ‘Corroborree’ has been a share house since the
historians, we knew of its age and purpose through careful historiographical work, but the scratched statement on the wall declaring ‘This has been a sharehouse since ‘71’ helped. An embassy of filth and depravity in Ainslie, I found myself fantasising of the remote possibility that it could be invaded by the Viet Cong, and myself and my housemates evacuated by U.S. marines from its tiled roof. For those blessed with livable share houses and struggling to imagine such a den of depravity, a quick floorplan is in order. Entering the front door, one is faced with a small corridor, branching off into three equally sized bedrooms and a bathroom. Taking five paces straight down the corridor from the door, one walks into a decently sized living room with a four-seater couch and a TV. Walk through the living room and one finds themselves in the kitchen, with a small laundry and second bathroom through a small door on the right. What’s wrong with that you may ask? With Corroborree, the devil is in the detail. On further inspection, one will see dollar-sized heaps of black mould distributed like stars across a soggy
Vietnam War. As house
23.
