The Sydney Harbour Bridge is seventy-five years old today! This picture shows the two sides inching toward each other in 1930, something apparently watched with bated breath by everyone on both sides until the unbelievable moment of union. (Source of the pic.)The Melbourne Age barely mentioned it in today's paper. There is an article, of course, but it's entitled "As Melbourne celebrates the big events, Sydney crosses a bridge." In the weekend review of arts and culture, the Age included an article by an ex-Melburnian living in Sydney who reported that the bridge is avoided by drivers and still marks divisions between parts of the city rather than uniting them. No complexes here!
Although nothing in Melbourne would ever make you think this, I'm starting to wonder if Sydney may not be worth a visit after all, just for the fun of it. While I'm assured there's nothing behind the surface, nobody doubts that its surface is very pretty. I would go prepared to see Sydneysiders prove their patent inferiority to Melburnians by spending no time at all comparing the two cities, if they even think about Melbourne at all!
Perhaps Sydney's calling to me because I just finished another marvelous book by our old friend Kate Grenville which takes place there, Lilian's Story. It is loosely based on a well-known Sydney eccentric, a bright and enormous woman who falls or is pushed out of "respectable" Sydney society into semi-lunacy and ends up homeless. "Lil" knows and doesn't know that she's not like other people. She knows that she's famous and half-knows that people think she's mad.
She thinks she understands people and while they would disagree she's usually right. It's a heart-breaking tale of great beauty and humanity.Here's a little taste. Lil's on a tram and refuses to pay the ticket, the conductor kicks up a fuss and stops the tram; a stranger offers to pay the fare since she needs to catch her ferry.
You are familiar with me, I told the woman as she waited for the cool air of her ferry, but who are you? I seized her wrist above the raffia bag, to make her sit down beside me, because I wanted to participate in the story she would tell about the two of us. Now that she was beside me, and we were nothing more alarming than two middle-aged ladies on a tram seat, she became calmer. I am Agnes Armstrong, she told me, and smiled, because close up she could see that I would not bite her, or embarrass her any more. And what else? I asked, and she peeked in to consult the spinach, then said, Well, I am a wife, and a mother of two. But I was still not satisfied. What else are you? I asked, but she was standing up now, the Quay in sight, smiling and glad that this was nearly over. That gave her courage, and she laughed recklessly and lifted her chin like a young beauty, and cried, Oh, what else I am would take a year to tell! And I had made her beautiful for that moment. She was off the tram then, springing away for her ferry, but I could see that her face still had the echo of that smile and would see her home, and be with her while she told her remarkable story.
A remarkable story, no? Sad and beautiful. And it rings true, an urban truth.
