Australian writer Hal Porter chose the above title for his autobiographical work, in which he recounts details of his early life spent first in the Melbourne suburb of Kensington and then in the Gippsland town of Bairnsdale. He constructs himself as the watcher: he watches other people, but he also watches his past self. Perhaps we all do this: I know my eldest son thinks I’m inclined to be obsessed with the past, and I certainly remember my childhood quite vividly, although some episodes are more technicolour than others.
I also observed quite closely what was going on around me: I was a quiet child with flapping ears. But in my country childhood, houses mostly had verandahs rather than balconies, and the verandahs were often quite distant from the street, making observation rather difficult. In mid-life, however, I moved to Greece, where balconies are the thing, and where houses are close to, if not actually on, the street.
Village Greeks have a compulsion to know what is happening every waking hour, and so my mother-in-law seldom sat on her balcony, as it was too far away, being on the top floor of her house. Her kitchen, though, was right on the street, and its window was always open. Many a conversation was conducted through that window and village life flowed past in a steady stream. There was really no necessity to leave the village, and many people seldom did.
The greengrocer came, and so did the fishmonger. The latter parked directly outside our house, and my youngest son claims that the stentorian cry of Fish! Fresh fish! Kalamata fish! is among his earliest memories. Way back then there were all sorts of services offered that are no longer available. Most were offered by itinerant workers. The tinker came in order to patch up and polish the copper-lined pots that most housewives had in various sizes. The knife-grinder fascinated the children, but my favourite was the chair-mender, who had various types of reeds being prepared by a soaking in water. He would choose a spot and mend the seats of old chairs, working with a flashing rhythm that was a pleasure to watch. Sometimes he would also weave baskets.
Gypsy women pushed handcarts along the street and sold things like towels and underwear. The vignette I remember best concerns a gypsy trying to sell an old village woman a pair of knickers. OXI, said the latter, firmly. No. They’re too expensive, and besides, summer’s coming, and who needs knickers, then? The vendor retired, defeated.
A few months ago, I moved into the town of Kalamata itself, to a suburban flat with, yes, a cast-iron balcony. My place is on the first floor, which means I have an excellent view of all the goings-on. The street looks very suburban, but the reality is that it is much like a village, in that everybody knows everybody else and the long-distance conversations, conducted from balcony to balcony, are much the same.
And the family constellations are very similar. There is a three-generation set-up immediately opposite, with Yiayia (Granny), Mum and Dad and their three children: a teenage daughter and two younger sons. There seems to be a bachelor uncle as well. There is a noisy budgie in a cage, and (to my bemusement) a black-and-white rabbit that lollops up and down the stairs. He is clearly a pet and never tries to escape. This is the first pet rabbit I have seen in all these years: most rabbits await their fricassee fate in cages in back gardens.
The family seems normal enough and quite contented, but Yiayia drives me mad with her constant watering of the road, anathema to one who spent the first half of her life on the driest continent on Earth. Next door to me is a retired couple who go to the nearby beach every day. Greeks count their swims, so I’ve been told that so far they have notched up more than 70 swims this summer. They tell me they will keep on swimming until they can’t bear the coldness of the water. So far autumnal weather is favouring them.
There is an Airbnb on the other side; if variety is the spice of life, this premises provides it: bike riders, hikers, swimmers, sun-worshippers all. But there are no services of the kind I remember, apart from the scrap-metal merchant who passes by in his ute, calling aloud for likely supplies. Still, I keep watching. This, Porter said, is what writers do.
Gillian Bouras is an expatriate Australian writer who has written several books, stories and articles, many of them dealing with her experiences as an Australian woman in Greece.