Miss Pepper and I left mid Sunday morning and cruised down to Sydney. It’s about a 4-5 hour run from the mid-North Coast.

The Take Away shop

When Em’s life is almost at rock bottom, she flees the inner city, selecting a road with no consideration of where it will take her. She’s just driving with the traffic, like a fish swimming in a school. After more twists and turns than she can count, she sees something that nearly makes her heart stop.

It’s a take away shop. Not a fancy patisserie or a swish cafe with chalkboards and rattan string. It’s a good old aussie fish and chip shop, with a red and blue handpainted sign, a Coca Cola logo, and paper ads stuck in the glass window.

Outside, on the footpath, are people waiting, holding tickets. Em knows what that means. A ravenous nostalgia takes her so suddenly that she jams her foot on the brake and the car behind her honks in protest. She takes the next side street, and finds a park.

All similarities to any person or place blah blah blah. This is the type of shop that Em sees.

The store owner is out at the bins. He’s a middle aged asian man, wearing a yellow shirt and baggy jeans. He has straight, dark hair combed forward over his forehead and a lit cigarette dangling limply from the corner of his mouth. He’s emptying some scraps into a wheely bin. Em has seen that look on his face before. She knows exactly what it means. (?”Your deepfryer’s broken, isn’t it?”)

He stares at her… etc. Em convinces him to give her a job and negotiates a great cash rate.

The shop even has a plastic ribbon curtain, like their shop at home. The ceiling is different. It’s not coated in thick, glossy paint, dusted and greasy from the frier. It’s made of square tiles, and the grease has seeped into them… During the day, she works in the shop, frying fish and chips and making burgers, shakes, scooping icecream.

When she takes a break, she steps out onto the footpath and walks up and down the small suburb. Her feet are sore, and she feels green from the oily smoke of the fryer, but it’s something she’s gotta do. There’s a pigeon that roosts under the eaves of a building opposite. She thinks it can’t be too comfortable there, perched on a tiny, narrow ledge.

After her shift, she goes to her car and drives around for a while, until it’s safe, then she comes back and parks it quietly behind the dumpster and sleeps. Early in the morning, she drives to Maccas, gets a coffee and uses the bathroom.

* * *

We stopped off at Gordon on the way in, and found some food. This fish and chip shop was a great find, and although I won’t mention Gordon in the novel, the details we saw on the stop will make their way into the book.