It is Melbourne Cup eve, 5.30am. Magpies chortle, querulous seagulls bicker on the beach, the first light of day flashes from the rising tide. Why am I up and about at this hour? Well, I'm simply going to the newsagent — which is also the post office — at dawn.
Let me explain. In this small coastal town, the combined newsagency and post office is run by Mac. Like rural postmasters and mistresses of story and legend, Mac is full of tales and theories, knows just about everyone and observes their comings and goings, likes and dislikes, eccentricities, qualities and faults.
'You're a writer,' he says to me one day, 'you should spend a day here some time, learn a bit about the passing parade.'
So, it's arranged for the day before the Melbourne Cup when, as well as locals, there will be long weekenders, day trippers and all kinds of other 'blow-ins', as Mac amiably calls them.
'I'll come down around eight,' I say.
'Six o'clock is when we get moving. See you then.'
And that's how I come to be admiring the beach in the half light of dawn on the day before the Melbourne Cup.
'This is a beautiful time of day,' Mac says as we manoeuvre various displays — hats, sunglasses, toys, paperbacks — to their positions outside the shop. 'And it's different every morning.'
By half past six most of the preparatory work is done. The computers are glowing, things are where they should be, papers are on their racks: 'We're out of gaol,' Mac says. Although neither the newsagency nor the post office is officially open, a bloke wanders in and buys an Age. A chap in bike rider's Lycra and a woman in running gear follow — so like it or not, the day has begun.
Within an hour or so the shop is humming with talk and movement. Mac is unfailingly courteous, but he has some iron rules. A woman at the counter who talks ceaselessly into her mobile phone receives a steely glare and silence. Someone with both ears plugged into his iPod finds Mac has also suddenly and inexplicably gone deaf.
He knows the locals, of course. Each new arrival is threaded into a sort of endless conversation which functions at two levels — greetings to the customer and side-of-the-mouth asides to me.
'This bloke coming in now,' he tells me quietly, 'is a retired supreme court judge. Argues the point