Short Story: Caple St North Melbourne
Caple St North Melbourne
In this story I work with themes of discomfort in the home and camaraderie. I’ve tried to use as much showing writing as I could, especially with the coal dust. The story is also about a time when housing was more affordable and there was a certain joy about living in a shared house, even if it had it’s problems.
We used to live in Caple Street. Number 6, right opposite the little park—if you could call it that. It was a small triangle of grass with a bench in the middle. Not big enough for a game of soccer. But, it was nice to have a bit of green opposite the house, some trees. I remember it well, that house. Two story, Victorian terrace, painted white with a cast-iron fence at the front, and the mechanic out the back with the huge, visible compressor that was run on what was, no doubt, three-phase-power. It made a racket when it was filling up: chug-a-chug-a-chug for half an hour or so. This happened all day, on and off, even on weekends. We never really got used to it. It wasn’t like living next to a train line. I’d done that, and, in the end, the trains going past were kind of comforting. But this bloody compressor, it was noise-pollution. We tried to counteract it with music but it never worked: chug-a-chug-chug went the compressor, overpowering any sound we could come up with. It was my brother and I living in that house. Him and me, and a couple of others: my bother’s girlfriend, Allie, and a guy we used to go to school with, called Tim. We were renting but I remember we painted the kitchen, just to liven things up a bit. In winter, we had fires with bits of wood we collected from the neighbourhood—old pallets that we’d break up, and we bought bags of coal that burned hot and orange and warm and left a dark yellow dust all over the hearth. It was a dusty job to clean up that yellow coal dust every winter’s morning, because when we swept the dust up it was so light and small that it would float up away from the hearth and settle all over everything.
But we loved living in North Melbourne. Allie was working as a junior lawyer and she’d catch the tram into the city. Or, on nice days, she’d walk. Tim was studying architecture and he’d catch the tram into RMIT with Allie. My brother was studying, too. He’d drive to La Trobe—learning how to be a business man. I was painting at the time and when everyone was gone for the day I’d set up on the kitchen table, painting on paper with mixed media: pastels, ink, water-colours. I was working towards an exhibition I’d been offered at a gallery in Richmond. I’d turn the stereo on, to combat the compressor and I’d paint all day until my housemates got home. Then, I’d pack my work away and we’d all cook together and drink beer and smoke. And even though we were smoking, me and Tim would go running up Queensbury Street, round the Carlton Gardens a couple of times then back home. Tim was competitive and would always run out in front of me. The cool evening air was nice. I never cared that much about winning. I was just nice to run. So, I let Tim go ahead. We’d listen to music when we got home and eat Napoli sauce with veggies and pasta. It was a good house that Caple Street house. You couldn’t touch it now. I’ve seen it’s been done up. The mechanic has gone along with his compressor. A wealthy family probably lives there now. I always like to think we warmed it up for them, living as we did. The chug-a-chug of the air-compressor doing battle with our music.