By the Sydney monorail
Australian father Ryan Heffernan and his son Louis were a family living on the edge. They found solace in a most unique place…the Sydney monorail.
“Sit down son, we have to talk”
“What is it Dad?”
I said: “Son, they’re going to take the monorail down.”
Of course it wasn’t really the hardest thing. Bearing bad news could have been a lot worse. But that Sydney monorail meant a lot to Louis and I. The sometimes-packed and sometimes-empty carriages were a place of joy and harmony for us at a time when joy and harmony could be harder to come by then they are now.
◊♦◊
Louis was around 18-months-old when we moved to the hard-line inner-city suburb of Redfern in Sydney, and began our directionless day-long missions on the bus to Darling Harbour and Chinatown. I’d recently made a decision to leave a good job in television because I couldn’t be a dad and be a producer. I’m not a saver, so we were broke. I’d always keep an eye on a kid’s magazine calendar to see when the fireworks, circus events and other free and cheap things were on. When they were, we packed up our apparently bottomless bag with everything from jumpers and raincoats to lunch, wipes, nappies (diapers), whatever. I’d throw Louis on my shoulders and we’d go to Yum Cha to eat mango pancakes as a big time treat when we could afford it, and we’d always catch the trams, going back and forth to each ends of the line until we were too tired or it was dark and I needed to get Louis home to sleep. On other days we’d hang out at the once-humble Darling Harbour playground. He’d play with the other kids on a strange plank device with a sheep’s head as a feature. The kids would slide down, their bums bumping and shuddering on the timber all the way down, then they’d go back for more.
But the highlight was always the monorail. Round and round we’d go. Louis would suction himself against the windows taking in the harbour, the cityscape, Chinatown and Paddy’s Markets. He’d never be bored.
By the window…lots to see
Nor would I. Parents sometimes asked how I could handle hanging out on a monorail and doing the same things for so long. But for me it was soothing and somehow safe, at a time when everything always seemed to be hanging by a thread, with no give and no room for error. Inside the monorail, the doors shut and the ride started, circling predictably around again and again, humming gently through my body. Louis was contained, his mind-thirst quenched and his spirit alive with the quest and adventure.
And there was always a rainbow of tourists from all over with strange skin and stranger accents. As Louis grew older and more intellectual he’d start asking them his classic brand of direct questions which he still deploys whenever he is interested in someone to this day. Admittedly, the line of questioning has evolved.
“What your name?”
“How old you?”
“Where you from?”
“Why you here?”
“I like monorail.”
“You like monorail?”
I’d feed him his packed lunch of sandwiches, bananas and crackers on the monorail, or on one of the grassy spots nearby to the stations. Back on the monorail he’d stand up on the seats and I’d hang on to his rubbery legs so he could take in a better view.
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It was on the monorail that I met a man who raised a girl on his own. Louis had plaster on his leg after breaking his foot falling down a set of stairs. This man demanded I take a seat so Louis would be safe. I must have looked stressed because just before he left to go about his day, he turned, looked me in the eye and said to me: “Don’t worry mate, you’re doing a great job. He’s a happy little kid and that’s all you need to know.” It’s difficult to explain just how important that simple sentiment was at that time. I’d never thought of myself as having done a good job. No one else had ever said so and I was excellent at inflicting guilt upon myself. I didn’t give him enough attention, I didn’t teach him enough. I didn’t get him enough play dates. I didn’t have enough money. I wasn’t patient enough. But looking back, Louis and I did a bang-up job.
The monorail that was.
To this day, that monorail time remains ours. That’s where I was able to observe Louis and learn him and he was able to get to know who his dad really was. And we both liked what we saw. That was lucky. Because we were all we had. The closest thing we had to a support network was 1000km away and his mum lived out on the Northern Beaches, which was way out of the city where we lived and way out of easy reach.
Yet, to my quiet surprise, Louis took the news of the monorail’s demise pretty well.
“Why would they close the monorail dad?” he asked.
“Well some people don’t like it mate. They think it’s old and it doesn’t look very good.”
“I like the look of it Dad. I don’t think they should take it down.”
“Me either mate. But they are going to have a big last day. We’ll be able to ride the monorail on that very last day that it will be there. That’s a special thing you know. Would you like to do that and we can go get some of those Emperor’s cream puffs from Chinatown after?”
“Woah,” he said. “That will be cool. Let’s do that.”
And so we did. And so did thousands of other people. There were snaking queues at every station, hundreds of people long. The pictures you can see are all made up of images from that last day on the monorail. Just as we were leaving Louis said: “Why would they want to take the monorail down when all these people want the monorail to stay?”
“That’s an excellent question mate. They say it’s about something called progress, but we may never get a good answer.”
“Okay. Let’s go get cream puffs,” he said with a bright smile.
“You betcha.”
A day out with dad can be unforgettable. Promise.
Me and my boy
Photos courtesy of author
