Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Courtyard- Daily writing Exercise- May 30

Thought we’d try a local pub one night in Fitzroy and wound up at the ‘Napier’. Inside it’s olde world mirrors and exposed polished timber, but to the side behind a locked set of gates is a courtyard. The air was pressing in with another humid Melbourne end of summer day as we set down with our number paddle and a glass of chilled Cascade premium beer. We felt a little old surrounded by mostly university age kids; fresh puppy faces engaging in serious discussions about entropy and engaging in outrageous drinking games. The beer tasted hoppy and sweet and in the heat was very sweet indeed.

In time the meals arrived, mine an island of brown on a sea of salad and shreds of chips, hers a ‘fish of the day’ don’t remember what type but I think it was salmon, crusted in sea salt. My knife ragged its way through the skin of the steak and a gamey smell rose to greet me making my tongue eager to see if the taste matched the smell, and it did. The juices and blood and charcoaled skin seemed to combine into an instant of total gratification, which I followed with a shovel of chips. The salad I worked over with disinterest and by the fifth mouthful of steak I was beginning to tire of the thrill of the taste. How does that happen?

The students were making the usual hubbub of noise and laughter and caterwaul as they do, while we talked about various things to make us feel young. I finally rested the knife and fork giving up on the salad about half way through – all that waste- all that effort to get it here on the plate and I just abandon it, as if life is so cheap!. Back in the bar I ordered another couple of beers. Drips of cool sweat run over my fingers as I deliver them back to the table. She comes up with the usual line about wouldn’t it be nice to have a garden and to be living down by the bay – but on our incomes this little inner city was about as far as we could stretch, for today at least- but it’s good to have a dream I keep saying, good to have a dream. So we left the students sorting out the problems of the universe and headed back to our own entropy