Christmas Shopping, 15 December 2014

I stepped out of St James Station onto Elizabeth Street to face a police barricade blocking off the street from just beyond the station down as far as I could see east of the station. My first thought as I wandered across the street was that a Christmas parade was about to take place. So, along with a few others, I found my way to the edge of the pavement and glanced into the distance, wondering where all the action was. Less than 30 seconds later, bored with the absence of anything apparent on the empty street, I decided to get on with my Christmas shopping.

Pulling out the scribbled list of items that I intended looking for, I checked the time. It was 10.45am. This meant that I would have about four hours before I would need to make my way back to the airport to meet Steve’s flight. He had flown down to Melbourne early in the morning for a meeting with a client and, unusually, I had decided to accompany him the night before on the trip from Wollongong to Sydney, or more precisely to a hotel across the road from Sydney Domestic Airport. He was particularly tired because he had been working long hours on a number of large projects and I was worried about him driving to Sydney alone.

It was also extremely unusual for me to shop in Sydney as an intended, planned action. Shopping for anything other than food, tends to occur for me almost accidentally or at least incidentally, and Sydney has been the location of this activity perhaps three or maybe four times in the last 28 years that we have lived in Wollongong.

David Jones was the first shop that I visited. Within a few seconds of having made my way to the Clinique counter to purchase cosmetics for my youngest daughter Tessa, the sweet sales assistant, perhaps in her early sixties, and all bonhomie, reached for two jars of moisturising creams, and midway through a comment about the benefits of Youth Dew for a young complexion, dropped her voice to a barely audible level and asked me whether I knew about the ‘hostage situation’.
‘No’, I said in surprise.
‘A Muslim is holding a group of people hostage at the Lindt Café in Martin Place’, the word Muslim expressing a you-know-what-I-mean sense of terrorist.
‘Oh’, I replied with a mixture of shock and surprise, ‘that must be why the police are manning a barricade across Elizabeth Street’.
‘Yes’, she said, ‘you need to be careful. That’s a lovely pendent you are wearing.’
‘Yes’, I said, ‘it’s a gift from my choir friends in the ‘Gong’. And on our conversation went until she wished me merry Christmas, and having given me instructions for getting to the nearest Sussan shop, encouraged me to be careful. Why, I wondered for a fleeting moment, before remembering that there was a hostage situation just a couple of streets away.

A few minutes later I found my way to the Pitt Street mall, stopping for a few seconds to take a photo of an enormous Father Xmas display made out of Lego. The photo I thought would make a good conversation piece with my four grandchildren who would be spending a few days with us over Christmas. ‘Wow, Lulu that’s huge. Is it really all made out of Lego? I reckon I could do that if we had enough pieces’, were some of the comments I imagined them making when I showed them the photo. I walked around the Lego display to take in whatever else was happening.

To one side a strange agglomeration of dogs sitting in a cart was attracting a fair bit of attention. They were there to raise awareness and money for Assisting Wellbeing Ability Recovery Empowerment (AWARE) Dogs. A metre or so away from them on another corner of the giant Father Christmas was an old man playing a Christmas carol on a violin, his tune struggling to compete with the piped music – another vaguely familiar Christmas tune – that pervaded the air, and frustrated me because I could not locate where it was coming from.
Glancing to the right I realised with a touch of surprise that King Street was closed, and I noticed a number of police officers purposefully striding along and across Pitt Street. And, all the time, I could sense the growing unease among other shoppers: the comments about the hostages.
‘Have you heard any more news?’
‘No, nothing more; just that there are 40 hostages. One has been forced to hold up a flag with Arabic script on it; others are standing with their hands up against the front window of the café. Well, I think he’s from ISIS.’

My thoughts returned to Christmas shopping. I checked my watch: it was 12.30. Yes, there was enough time before Steve’s return to Sydney airport to pick up some books from Abbeys in York St. Books are a standard favourite Christmas – and birthday – present for him, and I wanted to also get a few for the grand kids. Half an hour later I emerged onto York St. The load of Christmas presents in my little backpack had now been made considerably heavier by a couple of novels, and a couple of non-fiction books for Steve and a pile of young readers’ books and colourfully illustrated story books for our grandchildren.

Then it suddenly dawned on me. What if the trains are cancelled? Shit, how would I get back to the airport? What if the roads are closed and I can’t get a taxi? Picking up my pace, I made my way to the Queen Victoria building, navigated a path through the crowds of people shopping, drinking coffee, and eating lunch and headed down the stairs to the Town Hall Station. Ok, which train will get me to the airport? Should I just jump on any train and get to Central or find out which one goes directly to the airport? Pulling my phone out of my shoulder bag, I quickly searched for the city timetable, completed the Plan Your Trip details, and with 2 minutes to spare, tapped on and walked as briskly as I could down the stairs to Platform 2, conscious all the time of avoiding a fall.

Stepping onto the train, it was surprisingly easy to find a seat. I gazed around only to be met by a silent sea of down-turned heads, most of them nonchalantly focused on mobile phone screens, some reading the newspaper, a few quietly dozing. Twenty-two minutes later I made my way up the escalator to the arrivals area at Sydney airport.

Just as I downed the last mouthful of a coffee, Steve appeared. ‘Have you seen the news?’ he asked.
‘Yes’, I nodded. ‘Isn’t it awful’ I added, not sure what else to say.
‘I’ve been worried about you. I am so glad to see you. Let’s go home.’