The sulphur-crested cockatoo screeched above us, hurling himself against the sealed windows of a Pitt Street high-rise.
He didn't have a branch to sit on.
We Sydney-siders, jammed between tower blocks which cut out the sun, and pavements shutting off the earth, were in sympathy. Things were pretty desperate. A Danish town planner had given the old girl a once-over. She needed a refurb. Developers couldn't keep their mitts off, and graffiti artists were all over her Western Distributor, so she was a bit on the nose, and people didn't like to hang around. They might come back if she off-loaded some weight, and took on some clean, outdoor public space, among other things.
Central Station, Town hall and Circular Quay could just fit the bill, especially if called 'sustainable environments'. Cocky might even get his branch and Mr Curly (complete with trusty flagon) his bench.
I found my own bench inside McDonald's Strand, which lies in wait, half way up George Street. Alongside the public, outdoor space, I was thinking, Sydney also needs bountiful, unhassled indoor space that provides shelter from the stormy blasts, cheap fast food, and clean safe toilets. We should feel as if the space were ours.
An indoor space like McDonald's.
At the counter, an elderly woman was asking for an ice cream with a 'pensioner's coffee, and one of those cardboard things to keep them steady', because she shook. The lot came to 50c. I wondered if I had heard right because my long black came to $2.40. She reminded me of my long dead Aunty Olive, in from the bush for the day and without much money to spend. McDonald's would have suited Aunty Olive's purse.
Who else was there? A dad and his kids, a Down-and-Out, an RSL, four German Backpacks, three Hard Hats, two Big Issues and a Sari, all with cheap food and drink, in a give-and-take atmosphere which allowed them to congregate, or simply to enjoy the peace and quiet alone, at a large table.
I can vouch for the table space because I measured it — surreptitiously because McDonald's is a bit touchy about such peculiar behaviour these days.
'Thank God for McDonald's', I said to my retro aunty Olive.
'You bet,' she said. 'Last time I was in town, the Wynyard toilets were shut. I needed to pass an intelligence test to find one in a department store.'
We had common ground.
Perhaps